It was widely believed that the Astiel's Winter Lord lay upon her deathbed, hidden away in seclusion. Among the Nephilim, her decline had long been quietly accepted by all.
That was why her presence here was surprising.
Her soul had been preserved within the sealing pagoda, reshaped into a
towering serpent-hybrid form, sustained by divine ice and countless sacrificial beasts.
And now, Ery stood before her.
Not alone either.
Caelthar Astiel hovered nearby in his own soul form, icy sword condensed along his arm.
Two of Astiel's strongest figures had cornered him within the heart of the pagoda.
Yet Ery felt no fear.
His heart burned with fury at the thought of Klea, and his soul surged with newfound power, strengthened by the violent synergy between his Dao, and the awakening force within him.
Ery raised his blade, void and fla twisting together along its edge, and t their gazes without flinching.
"Co at , then."
Caelthar instinctively stepped forward, preparing to strike, but the Winter Lord lifted her spear and halted him with a single motion.
"You have already faced him... and lost," she said, eyes narrowing as they fixed upon Ery. Her gaze sharpened.
"He is mine."
With a re flick of her fingers, the remaining Azure Tyrant Serpents recoiled, dissolving back into frozen mist as they withdrew into the formation walls. The battlefield cleared in an instant.
Understanding her intent, Ery summoned Killgragah to his rear, the crimson dragon unfurling its wings as a living shield while flas licked along its scales.
The Winter Lord's lips curved into a faint, confident smirk.
Then her soul ignited.
The power of three cosmos roared to life as she propelled forward, icy divinity exploding beneath her movent. Her spear descended like a falling glacier, and Ery surged to et it, his void blade wreathed in infernal fla.
BANG!
The first collision warped space itself. Shockwaves tore through the chamber as frost and fire detonated outward, rattling the pagoda's ancient formations. Without pause, spear and sword clashed again and again, their exchanges so rapid they left afterimages burning into the air.
The Winter Lord pressed relentlessly, her strikes heavy and absolute, each thrust carrying the crushing weight of an ice mountain. Ery dodged, twisted, and countered, his blade carving arcs of fla and void as he slipped through gaps. Sparks of soul energy burst with every impact, frost fracturing under searing heat.
He found an opening.
Ery stepped inside her guard and slashed upward, his blade biting deep into her azure scales. The Winter Lord hissed, her soul wounded, but in the sa. instant, her massive serpent tail whipped around and slamd into Ery's side.
The impact hurled him across the chamber.
Ery crashed hard, soul force rippling violently as he skidded to a stop.
Pain flared-but he rose imdiately, refusing to yield an inch.
Each of her attacks was overwhelming, brutal in its simplicity.
In a soul battle, raw soul force eclipsed technique, and by all standards, her three-cosmos realm should have crushed him completely.
That was her confidence.
As the battle dragged on, sothing began to change.
With every exchange, Ery did not weaken-he evolved. His soul expanded subtly with each clash, growing denser, sharper, more refined. His movents beca faster, his strikes heavier, his presence increasingly oppressive.
The Winter Lord felt it.
After a dozen brutal exchanges, disbelief flickered through her composure as Ery landed another cut, the wound etched deeply into her soul. Frost cracked outward from the injury, her aura destabilizing for the first ti.
"Impossible..." she hissed.
Rage overtook caution.
She surged forward recklessly, pouring even more power into her spear, and that was the mont Ery had been waiting for. His Dao Edge ignited fully, void and fla collapsing into a singular killing intent as he raised his blade for a decisive strike.
But,
The killing blow never landed.
A flash of cold light tore in from the side, and Ery's blade was knocked aside by a precise, rciless strike. The impact rang like shattering crystal, the force of it twisting his arm mid-swing and dispersing the energy blade before it could descend.
Caelthar Astiel had entered the fray.
His soul-form stabilized beside the Winter Lord, frost spiraling around his arm as an icicle blade fully manifest. The intervention calculated down to the final
instant.
The Winter Lord recoiled half a step, fury blazing across her face, humiliation flashing beneath her composure. She had been wounded. Worse-she had
nearly been finished.
Before she could speak, Caelthar inclined his head slightly, his voice carrying just enough respect to soothe her pride.
"Third Elder... this was never a fair encounter to begin with," he said evenly.
"You are not in your pri. If you were, he would not have lasted ten
exchanges. Allow to assist you this once."
The words were a lifeline, and they struck their mark. The Winter Lord's expression hardened, her dignity restored by the implication rather than
challenged by it.
Caelthar did not wait for permission.
He moved.
His soul power surged-not as vast as the Winter Lord's, but honed into sothing sharper. Sword aura blood around his icicle blade, compressing his intent into a cutting edge. His first strike ca fast, precise.
Ery barely managed to block.
Void scraping against sword aura as sparks of soul force burst between them. Ery retaliated imdiately, forcing Caelthar back a step-but before he could press the advantage, the Winter Lord struck again.
Her spear swept in from the side, grazing Ery's shoulder with devastating force. The impact tore through his soul defenses, nearly ripping his arm free as freezing pain detonated through his form.
"Kill him," the Winter Lord commanded, her voice absolute.
The pagoda answered.
Azure Tyrant Serpents surged back into existence, tearing free from the frozen walls as the chamber plunged into deeper cold. Frost spread like a living thing,
suffocating fla and gnawing at Ery's movents.
Killgragah roared.
Crimson fire erupted outward as the dragon exhaled a torrent of infernal fla, carving a burning corridor through the serpents and montarily pushing back the freezing domain. Several beasts screeched, but the pressure did not relent. With Caelthar now attacking in concert with the Winter Lord, Ery found himself stretched thin.
Both of them cultivated the sa Eternal Winter Sutra. Resonating with the sa glacial doctrine-causing their power to multiply rather than rely combine. The freezing blasts of the Tyrant Serpents synchronized with their cultivation, weaving together into a unified storm so dense that even Killgragah's Khaos flas were unable to push it back.
The battlefield domain ignited, the pagoda's interior transford into a frozen abyss. Space crystallized, thought slowed, and even Ery's soul form began to
stiffen.
Within the blizzard, Caelthar moved.
Dozens of icicle blades condensed around him, humming with razor-sharp intent. They shot forward in staggered waves. Ery blocked several with his
void blade, sparks of soul power exploding on impact-but not all of them had
been ant for him.
Several slipped past, arcing outward.
They pierced into Killgragah's flank.
The crimson dragon roared in agony, flas faltering as frost rapidly spread across its scales. Its wings beat violently, struggling to remain airborne as its fire dimd under the accumulating ice.
"Killgragah!"
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