The instant the red beam fired, the temperature across the entire ice field plummeted once more.
This was no ordinary drop in temperature.
The thermometer in Grey Wolf's hand instantly maxed out. The numbers on its display jumped wildly before finally freezing at a value that made his scalp tingle.
"Minus... minus 273.15 degrees?!"
Even Grey Wolf's voice had changed pitch.
"That's absolute zero, Boss! The theoretical limit of temperature!"
Qin Feng said nothing. He merely stared at Snow Empress ahead.
At that moment, Snow Empress radiated a brilliant icy-blue glow. Her domain had expanded to its limit. Within a radius of a thousand meters, all molecular motion was coming to a halt.
The air had solidified.
The light had distorted.
Even the transmission of sound had slowed.
"Within my domain, everything will stop," Snow Empress's voice came from all directions. "Including your lives, your thoughts, your..."
Her words suddenly caught in her throat.
Because she saw that the mechanical units that should have been frozen were slowly beginning to float.
The spacecraft.
The excavators.
Those steel robots.
Even the ground beneath Grey Wolf's feet had begun to glow with a faint blue light.
"Th-this is impossible!" Panic appeared in Snow Empress's voice for the first time. "At absolute zero, all matter should stop moving!"
"Correct." Qin Feng finally spoke. "All thermal motion in matter has stopped."
"But you forgot one thing."
He pointed at the floating machines.
"When the temperature approaches absolute zero, certain materials enter a superconducting state."
"Zero electrical resistance."
"Magnetic flux expulsion."
"A perfect Meissner effect."
Snow Empress froze.
She did not understand those terms, but she could see the scene before her.
Countless tiny magnetic field lines flowed over the surfaces of those mechanical units. It was as though they had lost all weight, moving