New avatar unlocked! The sadistic queen Esdeath arrives
[Mass shock detected. New god-tier avatar unlocked!]
The system's electronic voice exploded in his mind.
At the crisp sound, Su Chen pressed his tongue against a back molar.
A faint sweetness spread through his mouth.
What a jackpot.
He grinned, revealing two rows of tiny white teeth.
The atmosphere in Fort Qlipoth's hall was as taut as a fully drawn bowstring.
Dozens of armored boots struck the marble floor with a dull thunder.
Silvermane Guards closed in from every direction, fine steel spears at the ready.
Cold light flashed blindingly off their spearheads.
The guards' palms were slick with sweat, their fingers clamped tightly around the shafts.
Facing the white-haired little girl who had just erased half the starry sky with a single move, no one dared let their guard down.
Bronya raised her rifle.
Its muzzle pointed straight at Su Chen.
She bit her lower lip, breathing rapidly.
Cocolia stood atop the high steps, her fingers locked around the scepter that symbolized her authority.
Her knuckles protruded, a deathly, bloodless white.
Su Chen had no intention of blowing everything up here.
If Little Satoru Gojo unleashed a major attack now, one shot of "Blue" could suck the Supreme Guardian and the entire castle into a heap of scrap.
Then Jarilo-VI's storyline would be ruined beyond repair.
He raised his chubby right hand.
His thumb and middle finger pressed together.
Little Satoru Gojo snapped her fingers.
Snap.
It wasn't loud; the sound was almost delicate.
Yet the air in the center of the hall abruptly contracted.
It was as though an enormous, invisible syringe had sucked all the air pressure out of that spot in an instant.
Dazzling azure light erupted out of nowhere.
It drowned out every crystal lamp on the walls.
The glare stabbed into everyone's eyes like knives.
Several guards at the front screamed, their spears clattering to the floor.
Metal struck marble in a shower of sparks.
They clapped their hands over their eyes, tears streaming uncontrollably from the stinging pain.
Cocolia squeezed her eyes shut and slammed her scepter against the floor.
Its base shattered a floor tile, scattering fragments as she used it to force her retreating body to a halt.
In that instant of blindness.
Space was forcibly wrung into a tight twist.
Himeko had only just drawn her Mechanical Saw; white smoke had yet to escape its exhaust ports.
Then she felt the stone floor beneath her feet vanish.
The tiles hadn't cracked—the spatial coordinates of that entire section had been erased outright.
Gravity seized everyone instantly.
"Aah—!"
March 7th's scream twisted in midair, torn to shreds by the wind.
Her legs kicked wildly as her hands scrabbled at nothing.
The strap of the camera at her waist pulled taut in the wind.
The heavy metal camera smacked her chin hard enough to make her see stars.
A large red patch immediately bloomed across her chin.
Weightlessness clamped around everyone's stomach like a cold, brutal hand.
Acid kept surging up their throats.
Their hearts seemed to leap into their mouths, suspended with nothing to hold them steady.
Dan Heng reacted first.
The moment he fell, he forcibly twisted at the waist.
His right hand shot out and caught March 7th by the collar.
The thick fabric of her winter coat choked her until her eyes rolled back.
Dan Heng summoned his Cloud-Piercing Spear into his left hand.
The spear whistled through the air as he drove its tip into the rock wall beside them, trying to slow their descent.
The metal spearhead scraped a dazzling trail of sparks across the rock.
The piercing screech echoed through the dark vertical shaft.
But their downward momentum was too great; the wall split like tofu, loose stones raining down.
Xingbao dropped straight down like a lump of iron.
Her mouth hung open, cold wind filling her stomach until she couldn't make a sound.
Both hands clutched her head.
The hem of her coat flipped up and covered her face.
Welt braced himself on his cane with one hand and grabbed Xingbao's ankle with the other.
His black suit snapped in the gale.
Welt gritted his teeth so hard that blood seeped from his gums.
He forcibly harnessed the gravity of his Pseudo Black Hole to counter the tremendous force of their fall.
The wind distorted his facial muscles.
Sweat froze into ice crystals in the cold wind the instant it appeared on his forehead.
Everything spun wildly.
Swept up in violent spatial turbulence, they tumbled like dumplings dropped into a pot.
They plunged through the long, pitch-black passage, hurtling straight toward the Underworld sealed off by iron plates.
The wind shrieked in their ears.
Meanwhile.
Little Satoru Gojo's body dissolved into a stream of blue light amid the glare.
Like a bubble in sunlight, she evaporated into thin air.
Su Chen's core consciousness was pulled free.
His vision went black as the system dragged him into a dark space of absolute nothingness.
There was no gravity here, no temperature; even time stood still.
Endless darkness stretched beneath his feet.
A card glowing ice-blue hovered before Su Chen.
A layer of real frost coated its edges.
In the picture, a woman in a white military uniform looked down imperiously.
Her eyes held the arrogance of someone who regarded all creation as worthless.
"Merge."
Su Chen issued the command in his mind.
The ice-blue card shattered instantly.
With a sharp crack, it burst into countless razor-edged ice crystals.
The crystals swept in like a blizzard, completely enveloping Su Chen's soul.
Cold.
An ultimate, unspeakable cold.
It wasn't blowing in from outside; it erupted from deep within his marrow.
Su Chen shuddered violently.
His teeth chattered uncontrollably, rattling in rapid succession.
He felt his blood freezing inch by inch.
What flowed through his veins was no longer warm liquid, but jagged shards of ice.
Every heartbeat brought the agony of muscles tearing apart.
His viewpoint began to rise.
The short limbs that had belonged to a little girl were forcibly stretched within the ice and snow.
His bones cracked with a teeth-grating crunch.
His shoulders broadened, his waist drawing sharply inward.
A heavy, swollen weight settled over his chest.
His formerly ear-length white hair rapidly grew and changed color.
It became a waterfall of ice-blue hair cascading to his waist.
Countless tiny ice crystals condensed on his newly formed pale skin.
It resembled some kind of high-tech 3D printing.
The crystals formed a fitted white military uniform.
A black leather belt cinched tightly around his waist, outlining an outrageously exaggerated waist-to-hip ratio.
His legs were sheathed in snug, tall white military boots.
Black metal trim lined the edges of the boots.
A weight settled on his head.
A white military cap fitted snugly into place, its brim pinning down a strand of ice-blue hair.
Su Chen kept his eyes closed.
He bit hard into the tip of his tongue.
The taste of rust filled his mouth.
Using that pain, he forcibly suppressed the savage urges churning through his mind.
Those were the instincts of the Demon's Extract.
A bloodthirsty impulse that craved his enemies' screams, that longed to trample every living thing beneath his feet.
The impulse burned like a cold flame, making his heart pound.
His fingers unconsciously curled into claws, itching to tear something apart.
He drew a deep breath of air from the void.
When he exhaled, it emerged as a white cloud of freezing vapor.
Su Chen opened his eyes.
The empty space before him seemed to freeze beneath those ice-blue eyes, a ring of white mist rippling outward.
The power to command ice and snow surged through every part of his body.
With a single thought, he could turn a planet into a silent ice coffin.
Belobog, the outskirts of the Underworld.
Sunlight never reached this place.
Massive metal supports loomed overhead like the lid of an iron coffin, pressing down on everyone below.
Rusty pipes crisscrossed in a tangled maze, occasionally venting clouds of murky, acrid steam.
The air reeked of machine oil mixed with rust.
Barren wasteland and solid ice surrounded the area.
Cold wind swept gray-black snow from the ground, swirling it over abandoned minecart tracks.
The wind passed through the iron framework with a ghostly wail.
It was extraordinarily cold.
Even the few Fragmentum Monsters wandering in the shadows huddled in corners, unwilling to move.
The ice spikes on the back of Ice Out of Space had dimmed considerably.
Suddenly.
The wind and snow in midair abruptly stalled.
Black snowflakes that had been whirling through the air froze in place.
It was as though someone had pressed pause.
Then came a crisp crack.
Space in midair resembled a mirror struck hard by a hammer.
It shattered open into a two-meter-tall rift.
Fine black cracks spread wildly in every direction like a spiderweb.
White freezing vapor gushed from the rift.
In an instant, it turned the filthy black snow on the ground a dazzling pure white.
The temperature dropped a full twenty degrees in three seconds.
Before the Fragmentum Monsters could even roar, the ice coating their bodies burst apart.
A long, slender leg stepped out.
She wore tall white military boots with sharp metal spurs at the heels.
Her boots struck the hard, frozen ground.
A dull thud sounded.
Ice spread wildly from where her foot had landed.
Wearing white military boots and a military cap, with a devilish figure and the commanding air of a queen of ice, Esdeath slowly descended onto the wasteland, bringing an absolute cold that could freeze even the air.