Eva's figure silently shattered like a reflection in water scattered by the wind just before the dark purple energy blade could touch her back.
In its place, a silver halo abruptly spread outward.
Like a gigantic silver flower blooming in the twilight, the silver halo spread rapidly in every direction, delicate radiance flowing along the edges of its petals.
The light was not dazzling, yet it carried a cool, moonlit quality. The instant it touched the surrounding space, it began to seep into, saturate, and cover every corner.
The instant the silver halo touched Bibi Dong, she sensed something was wrong.
The dark purple energy blade she had thrust out still hovered in midair, only three inches from where Eva had vanished, but the force driving it forward seemed to crash into an invisible wall and silently stalled in the void.
Then, bone-piercing cold surged in from every direction at once.
That cold was entirely different from ordinary low temperatures.
It seemed to seep out from the underlying structure of space itself, carrying a chill that struck directly at the soul, as though invisible hands were slowly freezing the surrounding air layer by layer.
Bibi Dong felt her movements being slowed by that cold.
Her arm, her fingertips, and the dark purple Divine Power coursing through her meridians all seemed to have been filled with a viscous slowing agent. Every exertion required several times more effort than usual.
Then, she saw snow.
Fine ice crystals drifted down soundlessly from the sky like stardust scattered by the wind, each one glimmering with a faint blue light in the twilight.
Those ice crystals did not fall from the clouds. They condensed directly from the air, as though the temperature of the entire space had been pulled below freezing at the same instant.