Marcus's heart felt as though it had been gripped by a cold, gigantic hand. Never before had the shadow of death hung so clearly over him.
The force he had painstakingly built vanished in an instant, and the subordinates he had carefully trained became cold corpses in the valley pass within the blink of an eye. The immense blow nearly suffocated him.
Yet his instinct to survive and his bone-deep hatred instantly overwhelmed his fear, igniting his final madness.
Marcus let out a beastlike roar, his voice filled with desperate fury and endless venom.
He held nothing back, pouring every last bit of awakened energy within him outward.
Centered on Marcus, a terrifying chill far stronger than before erupted with a thunderous burst, as though it had risen from an abyss at the pole.
The nearly tangible deep-blue coldness surged like a rushing glacier, instantly sweeping across the area where Duke stood.
The once gentle, flowing yellow sand beneath Duke's feet began to congeal at a visible rate under the extreme cold.
A thick layer of ice crystals, hard as iron, rapidly spread, attempting to freeze Duke and the sand under his control in place.
The chill even tried to creep upward along the yellow sand protecting Duke, covering the surface of the flowing sand shield with a layer of frost and producing faint cracking sounds.
Duke was somewhat surprised. He had not expected Marcus to erupt with such powerful energy, enough to temporarily freeze his yellow sand.
But the freezing only remained on the surface. This frost-attributed energy could not penetrate the yellow sand at all. In essence, it had merely frozen the moisture in the air around the sand's surface, making it appear as though the yellow sand itself had frozen.
At the same time, the giant warhammer