The storm of ice soldiers finally paused, as if they too felt the shift that cut through the air. The ground beneath Ethan rumbled, deeper, heavier, more deliberate than anything before.
Not random.
A process.
Something was being constructed.
The snow bulged outward, then split apart in a violent burst. Frozen dirt and shattered crystals spiraled into the air as a new figure rose from below, a towering thing of seamless melding. Corrupted ice fused with metal plating, wires intertwining like black veins beneath its frozen skin. Its core pulsed with a blue, glitching light, and circuitry crawled across its chest like mechanical runes.
Ten feet tall. Humanoid. But wrong.
The head was a sleek visor of cracked glass, cracked enough to show one glaring eye, the same icy blue that marked Leon's corruption, flickering like a computer screen on its deathbed.
