Chapter 2103 - 2103: Absolute Zero

The frozen peaks stretched white against a pale blue sky. Maria led her Valkyries down the mountain path, the dragon's heart secured in a container of enchanted ice. The women moved in loose formation, their steps light despite the morning's battle. They were tired but proud. They had earned their rest.

The attack came without warning.

A shadow passed over them, vast and sudden. The wind changed, growing hot and thick. Maria looked up.

The dragon descended from behind the peak like a falling mountain. It was enormous—far larger than the young dragon they had slain. Its scales were black as volcanic glass, veined with lines of pulsing orange light. Its wings blotted out the sun. Its eyes burned like twin furnaces, and lightning crackled along its horns, leaping from tip to tip in bright, angry arcs.

"Scatter!" Maria commanded.

Her Valkyries obeyed without hesitation, diving behind rocks, into crevices, away from the open path. They were fast, but the dragon was faster. It breathed once, and a column of lightning erupted from its maw, striking the ground where they had stood. Stone exploded. Ice vaporized. The shockwave threw the women in all directions.

Maria did not scatter. She stood in the open, facing the dragon alone.

The beast landed on the path before her. Its weight cracked the frozen ground. It lowered its head until its burning eyes were level with her, and it spoke. Its voice was like grinding stone and rolling thunder.

"You killed my offspring. I felt its death. I have come to return the gift."

Maria did not flinch. Her voice was flat and cold. "Your offspring attacked first. It died in battle. That is the way of things."

The dragon's eyes narrowed. Lightning danced along its horns. "Then you will die the same way."

It lunged.

Maria was ready.

She summoned her gift. Ice exploded from her hands, forming not daggers but something new. A sword. The blade was crystal, clear as frozen water, longer than any blade she had wielded before. It hummed with power, its edge so thin it seemed to disappear when she turned it.

And from her back, wings of crystal unfurled. They were beautiful—great, jagged wings of ice that caught the sunlight and scattered it into rainbows. They were not for flight. Maria could fly without them. But she liked the way they looked. She liked the way they felt. They were armor and weapon and statement all at once.

She met the dragon's charge.

The clash was thunder. Crystal blade against lightning horn. Ice against fire. The shockwave blew snow from the peaks for a mile in every direction. Maria's feet dug into the stone, holding her ground against a beast ten times her size.

The dragon reared back, surprised. Then it roared and struck again.

They fought on the ground first.

The dragon was a maelstrom of claws and teeth and lightning. Each strike shattered stone. Each breath left craters of molten rock. It moved with the speed of something far smaller, its massive body twisting and turning with deadly grace.

Maria met it blow for blow.

Her crystal sword cut deep into the dragon's scales. Where it struck, black scales turned white, then cracked, then fell away in frozen chunks. Her wings acted as shields, deflecting claws and teeth, their jagged edges slicing into the dragon's limbs whenever it struck.

But the dragon was powerful. Its tail caught her across the chest, and she flew backward, crashing through a pillar of ice. She was up before the dust settled, but blood ran from a gash on her side. Her ribs ached. One wing was cracked, the crystal webbed with fractures.

The dragon pressed its advantage. Lightning poured from its mouth in a continuous stream, carving a trench in the mountain. Maria dodged, but the lightning caught her arm. Pain seared through her. Her sleeve burned away, revealing pale skin blackened and blistered.

She gritted her teeth and kept fighting.

Her sword found the dragon's leg, cutting deep. Ice spread from the wound, creeping up the limb. The dragon roared and shook it off, but the cold remained, slowing it.

"You are strong for a mortal," the dragon snarled. "But strength without power is nothing."

It spread its wings and launched into the sky.

Maria followed.

The sky battle was different. Faster. Wilder. There were no rocks to hide behind, no ground to brace against. Just open air and wind and the endless white peaks below.

The dragon flew like a storm. It dove and climbed, twisted and turned, its lightning shooting in all directions. Maria matched it. Her wings, cracked but still strong, carried her through the air with impossible grace. She was ice made flesh, and the sky was her domain.

They clashed above the clouds. Sword against claw. Lightning against ice. Each strike sent shockwaves rippling across the sky. Below, the Valkyries watched from their hiding places, their faces pale with fear and awe.

Maria drove her sword into the dragon's shoulder. The beast screamed and grabbed her with its claw. Its talons closed around her, squeezing. She felt ribs crack. Blood filled her mouth.

She did not scream. She drove her sword deeper.

The dragon threw her toward the mountain.

She hit the slope hard, tumbling down the ice, leaving a trail of blood. Her wings shattered, scattering crystal across the snow. She came to rest at the bottom of a ravine, broken and bleeding.

The dragon landed before her. Its shoulder was frozen solid, the ice spreading across its chest. But its eyes still burned. Its lightning still crackled.

"It is over," it rumbled. "You fought well. You will die well."

Maria pushed herself to her feet. Her arm hung limp at her side. Her ribs screamed with every breath. Blood ran from her mouth, her nose, a dozen cuts across her body. Her sword was gone, lost somewhere in the snow.

She did not run. She did not call for help. She simply stood, swaying, and looked at the dragon with eyes that held no fear.

"You are strong," she said quietly. "But you are not cold enough."

The dragon's eyes widened. It tried to launch into the air, tried to summon its lightning.

Maria raised her hand.

"Frozen World."

The words were not loud. They did not need to be.

Absolute Zero.

The world stopped.

It did not stop in the way of time freezing. It stopped in the way of heat dying. All heat. Every vibration, every movement, every spark of energy that had ever existed within a mile of Maria simply ceased.

The air turned solid. The snow turned to diamond dust. The very light seemed to freeze, hanging in the air like paintings of itself.

The dragon's lightning vanished. The fire in its eyes went out. Its scales, once black and veined with orange, turned gray, then white, then blue-white as the cold ate through them. Its wings shattered like glass. Its limbs locked, then cracked, then fell away.

The dragon tried to roar. No sound came. The cold had stolen its voice, its breath, its life.

It fell.

When it hit the ground, it did not bounce or break. It simply stopped. A statue of ice in the shape of a dragon, frozen so completely that even its molecules had ceased to move.

The cold spread. The ravine became a glacier. The mountain became a pillar of ice. For a mile in every direction, the world was not winter. Winter had warmth, had life, had cycles. This was death. This was the end of all motion, all energy, all time.

Maria stood at the center of it. Her hand was still raised. Her breath was a cloud of frozen crystals that did not move. Her blood, which had been running down her side, had stopped. Not frozen. Stopped. Time itself had paused around her wounds.

She lowered her arm slowly. The movement was agony. Everything was agony.

Around her, the frozen world began to thaw. Not quickly. Not completely. But the absolute stillness faded, replaced by the slow, grinding cold of a deep winter. The air began to move. Light began to flow. Time, once stopped, remembered how to walk.

Maria's knees buckled. She fell into the snow, too weak to catch herself.