FROST
Chapter 127: Frostbitten

Chapter 127: Frostbitten

Silvermist choked on her breath, each inhale sharp and ragged like broken glass tearing through her throat. Her body trembled violently—her limbs no longer obeyed her, her muscles burning, overdrawn and splintering beneath the weight of overused magic.

She knelt in the rubble, her knees scraping against the jagged floor as if in worship to the pain. Her left hand clawed into the ground, stabilizing her body as she leaned forward, spitting blood into the cracked stone beneath her.

Her right hand sparked with a pathetic sputter of magic—a flicker of blue light that fizzled out almost instantly like a dying firefly.

Her palms were flayed raw, lined with blisters from explosive feedback. Magic recoiled now when she summoned it, as though even her own power had turned against her.

"Just a few more... a few more and she’ll break," she hissed through clenched teeth, her voice raspy, throat raw from screaming. She raised her head, eyes bloodshot, looking across the chamber.

Across from her, Silvershadow stood—or rather, staggered—swaying on her feet like a puppet whose strings had begun to fray. Her breaths came shallow and sharp, like a beast on its last legs, chest rising and falling too quickly.

Her fingers, once graceful and confident in battle, now trembled uncontrollably at her sides, blood trickling down from both palms. The magic had burned through skin, melted through her clothes, left angry black veins that pulsed and crawled like rot beneath her flesh.

One of the blasts had already scorched a deep gash across Silvermist’s left shoulder, the flesh melted through her uniform and into the muscle beneath. The scent of burned skin and ozone hung thick in the air.

Silvermist coughed again, blood dribbling down her chin. Her lips were split. One of her eyes was swollen nearly shut. But her stare—gods, her stare—remained unbroken. A storm still raged behind her gaze, fierce and relentless, focused solely on the trembling silhouette of Silvershadow.

"A little more! A little more," she whispered hoarsely. "She’ll break... soon."

Her voice, though faint, was threaded with grim satisfaction—like someone who knew she’d already lost too much but was determined to win on sheer spite.

Silvershadow took a step forward, and her knee buckled. She caught herself before she fell, but barely. Her breath hitched. Her cloak was torn to ribbons, barely clinging to her form. One side of her face had been burned, the skin raw and peeling, revealing slivers of the bone beneath. She looked less like a person and more like a hollow shell that refused to fall.

Magic still writhed at her fingertips, but it too was unstable. The once-fluid darkness she wielded now crackled like a volatile storm trapped in glass, lashing out with no control. Every surge sent another burst of energy scattering around the room, carving new scars into the walls and themselves.

"Just give it up, poor thing," Silvershadow cooed, her voice drenched in cruel pity. Though it rasped slightly from her burned throat, not a flicker of weakness marred her expression.

Her steps were heavy and dragging, yet each one still rang with cold purpose as she approached the kneeling Silvermist.

"You are not needed outside of this prison," she sneered, tossing a splatter of blood from her fingers like water. "You cling to a world that never wanted you even from the very beginning," her grins went wider. "You were abandoned by your own parents, sent in a church to be adopted, and sent away to a couple who were only forced to accept you for their own gain."

Silvermist raised her head, blinking past the blood and sweat that blurred her vision. Her body screamed for her to stay down, to yield to the inevitable. Her bones felt fractured, her veins scorched with mana backlash. But her grip on the ground only tightened.

Silvershadow kept speaking, circling now. Like a predator. Her tone dripped with conviction—fanatic and dangerously seductive.

"I, a god’s apprentice, could do more. I could fix what your people are too afraid to break. This world, fractured by petty rulers and decaying thrones, poisoned by magics no one fully understands... they will all vanish. They are meant to vanish. And I—" she raised a hand, mana blooming violently in her palm "—will be the storm that clears the rot. Isn’t that what you wanted?"

A low hum pulsed through the chamber. Her mana coiled and hissed, a serpentine shadow writhing up her arm, feeding off her fury and madness. The room vibrated, dust raining from the crumbling ceiling. Another crack split across the chamber wall like a bolt of lightning, etching through ancient stone.

Silvershadow’s voice lowered, almost tender. "Everything will end soon. Pain and suffering... gone in an instant. So why—" her eyes narrowed, glowing like molten obsidian "—why are you stopping me now?"

She came to a halt in front of Silvermist, towering over her, her shadow long and writhing. "I know all your pain. The betrayal. The loss. Don’t you want that to end?"

For a moment, there was silence. Silvermist didn’t talk. She couldn’t even think straight as Silvershadow’s voice melted into her ears.

She looked up, meeting Silvershadow’s gaze head-on, her one uninjured eye burning with stubborn defiance. Her lips twitched into a grim smile, her teeth stained red.

"You might know my pain," she whispered hoarsely, "but you’ll never understand what it meant to me. I thought of running—I almost did—but that pain led me to the Academy, to the people I now call family... to him. That’s why I’m standing here. That’s why I won’t let you win." She lifted her eyes, fierce despite the blood and trembling. "You break things because they’re flawed. I choose them because they are."

Before Silvershadow could respond, Silvermist’s hand slammed into the ground.

An explosion of unstable mana burst outward—black and crimson arcs of light surged in a chaotic spiral, throwing both women apart. Silvershadow was hurled back against the far wall with a crunch, the stone behind her spiderwebbing. She growled, forced to roll out of the way as a jagged arc of energy split the ground where she’d landed.

Silvermist staggered to her feet, swaying. Her legs shook violently, silver hair, spiraling behind her, but she was up.

Alive.

Still Fighting.

Her hands trembled, barely able to contain the erratic sparks that licked and danced along her bloodied fingertips. Her body was screaming to collapse, but she forced herself upright, fire burning in her eyes. "I’m getting out of here," she hissed through gritted teeth, "and you—" her gaze sharpened like a blade, "you stay the hell out of the way."

Silvershadow let out a sharp, hollow laugh, her pale lips curling with something cruel. "Why?" she mocked, stepping forward with eerie calm. "Do you honestly believe your precious master is still out there waiting for you? Haven’t you felt it? That gnawing hollowness at the edges of your bond? He’s gone, little spark. Already claimed by the true him."

Silvermist’s breath caught in her throat. "T-The true him?" she echoed, voice shaking, as if the words alone might crack the fragile hope she clung to.

Silvershadow’s grin widened, malicious and unrepentant. "Why do you think I’m even here, standing before you? Why do you think I could slip through the seal that was supposed to hold me for eternity?" She laughed bitterly. "You were right to be afraid. He’s given up. He surrendered the part of him that resisted... and left you behind."

Silvermist’s lips parted, but no words came. The denial was there, forming at the tip of her tongue—but so was the dread. "N-No..." she whispered, "he wouldn’t. He fought. I felt it. He’s still fighting, he has to be—"

"And yet," Silvershadow murmured, leaning in until her breath ghosted across Silvermist’s face, low and venomous, "you know he’s no longer there... Otherwise, we wouldn’t be seeing each other at all. That’s right—" her voice rose with bitter triumph, "hahaha—Frost, the Winter Guardian, is already dead—"

The words died in her throat.

Silvershadow gasped, her eyes going wide in disbelief. Her smirk faltered. Her breath hitched.

She looked down.

A black obsidian spear jutted clean through her torso, dark and gleaming with a sickly shimmer. The tip had pierced her from stomach to spine, humming with restrained fury. Silvermist stood inches away, her arm still extended, her eyes locked forward—calm, unflinching, not even sparing her enemy a glance.

Silvershadow’s lips parted in a sharp exhale. Then came the blood—thick and dark, spilling over her chin as a violent cough racked her body.

Her trembling hands clutched at the spear. "Y-You..."

But Silvermist finally looked at her, eyes gleaming in blue hues as though they are starting to turn back to normal, and her voice cut sharper than any blade.

"Don’t you ever say his name like it means nothing. Frost is not just a Guardian—he is one of the Lunar King’s sons and my master. However you meant it... I know he’s not gone. He doesn’t just die like that."

Her voice trembled, not from fear, but conviction.

Silvershadow choked as the obsidian spear twisted deeper. Her body jerked, a broken gasp slipping past her bloodied lips. She dropped to her knees with a ragged groan, black ichor spilling freely onto the shattered floor, hissing where it touched the stone.

"You can’t—" she rasped, clawing weakly at the shaft embedded in her gut.

But Silvermist didn’t waver. With a flash of strength, she drove the spear further and slammed Silvershadow flat onto the ruined ground. Cracked marble shattered beneath her weight. The chamber around them quaked, as if it, too, felt the finality of the moment.

Silvershadow’s fingers twitched once. Then twice.

And then—she began to unravel.

It started at her wound. Black mist hissed from the gash, crawling outward like smoke devouring flesh. Her body convulsed as the darkness overtook her, limbs dissolving into tendrils of ink and ash. Her scream, once defiant, broke into a desperate wail—cut short as her face was the last to fade.

In seconds, there was nothing left of her but a scorch mark on the stone, and the lingering stench of burnt obsidian and despair.

Silvermist stood in silence, her breath ragged, the broken chamber around her unnervingly still. The obsidian spear in her grasp pulsed once—then began to shift.

Cracks shimmered across its dark surface like veins of light pushing through stone. Slowly, silently, the blackness peeled away, flaking into the air like burned paper. Beneath it emerged something luminous and pure—a spear now forged of crystal so clear it caught the dying light of the chamber and split it into rainbows across her bloodstained fingers.

It pulsed softly in her grip, warm, alive.

And then, without warning, it crumbled—dissolving into glittering fragments that vanished before they touched the ground. Like it had never been a weapon of destruction, but something borrowed—meant only for that moment.

"I’ll be back..." Silvershadows voice echoed through the ruined chamber.

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