The air itself began to crystallize, turning the falling ash of the battlefield into a glittering, lethal snow.
Supreme Admiral Claudy did not merely radiate cold; he became a localized singularity of absolute zero. The scorched earth beneath his boots frosted over in an expanding ring of white ice, extinguishing the fires left by the artillery barrage. His scarred, crystalline face illuminated with a blinding, ethereal glow, transforming him into a terrifying avatar of a dying moon.
Akira moved first. He was a blur of dark motion against the blinding white, his twin curved swords leaving trails of ionized air in their wake. He struck from three different angles in the span of a single heartbeat, aiming for the vulnerable joints in Claudy's heavy armor.
