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"Fuck!"
The curse came from Officer Marcus Hayes as he scrambled behind the burned-out husk of a patrol car. His uniform was singed, his face covered in soot and ash. Around him, the industrial district burned.
Half the city was on fire.
The volcanic gate had shattered completely an hour ago, spilling monsters directly into the streets. Magma Hounds prowled through the flames, their bodies made of molten rock and hellfire. Ember Wraiths drifted through the smoke, incorporeal and deadly.
"We're going to die if reinforcements don't get here soon!" another officer shouted from across the street. His voice cracked with panic.
Commander Derek Hale stood at the center of the defensive line, his silver armor scorched black from repeated fire attacks. He was a B-rank hunter, warrior class, specialized in defensive combat. His class title was Silver Knight, and it had served him well for fifteen years of law enforcement work.
But this was beyond anything he'd trained for.
Derek's shield, emblazoned with the law enforcement emblem, was held steady in his left hand. His sword was drawn in his right. Around him, twenty officers held a perimeter around the evacuation point. Behind them, civilians huddled in the basement of a reinforced building, praying the flames wouldn't reach them.
"Hold the line!" Derek's voice carried across the burning street. "The military is coming! We just need to buy more time!"
A Magma Hound burst from a burning storefront to his left. The creature was the size of a bear, its body flowing with liquid fire. Its eyes glowed like coals, fixed on Derek with predatory focus.
And then it lunged.
Not at Derek.
At Captain Williams, one of Derek's best officers. The C-rank hunter had been focused on an Ember Wraith, his attention divided.
"Williams, behind you!" Derek shouted.
Too late.
The Magma Hound's jaws closed around Williams' torso. There was a brief, terrible scream. Then the sound of flesh burning, of bones cracking under molten teeth.
"You fucking bastard!" Derek roared. "Spit him out!"
He charged forward, shield raised. His boots pounded against the superheated asphalt, each step leaving smoking prints. The Magma Hound turned toward him, Williams' body still in its jaws.
Derek slammed his shield into the creature's head with all his strength. The impact rang out like a gong. The Magma Hound stumbled backward several steps, dropping Williams' charred body.
But it recovered quickly. Its mouth opened, and a stream of liquid fire shot toward Derek.
He raised his shield just in time. The flames washed over the metal surface, the heat so intense Derek felt it through his armor. He gritted his teeth against the pain, holding position.
When the fire stopped, Derek lowered his shield and saw the damage. Half of it had melted, the metal warped and dripping. The law enforcement emblem was gone, reduced to slag.
"Fuck!" The flames continued to burn on his arm, eating through his armor. The heat was unbearable. Derek dropped to his knees, trying to beat out the fire with his sword hand.
And then the ground shook.
BOOM.
The explosion of sound wasn't an explosion at all. It was a footstep. Something massive, something impossibly heavy, had just taken a step somewhere close by.
BOOM.
Another step. Closer. The ground cracked under Derek's knees. Buildings swayed. Car alarms that hadn't already been triggered started blaring.
BOOM.
The temperature rose substantially. The kind of heat that made breathing painful, that made the air shimmer and distort.
The sky started to turn red.
Not the orange-red of reflected flames, but true crimson. The smoke-choked air began to glow with an internal light.
And then it appeared.
The being was ninety meters tall.
Its form was a nightmare fusion of charred black stone and molten fire. The torso was broad and powerful, covered in thick plates of volcanic rock that cracked and shifted with each movement. Through every crack, brilliant orange magma flowed like blood, pulsing with internal heat.
The arms were massive and disproportionate, ending in clawed hands that dripped molten rock. Each finger was as thick as a tree trunk, tipped with talons of pure flame.
But it was the head that truly inspired terror.
The skull was demonic, with a crown of curved horns that swept backward. The horns themselves were wreathed in eternal flame, fire that burned white at the core. The face had no flesh, just cracked black stone, and through the cracks, magma dripped like tears of fire.
Where eyes should be, there were only two pits of absolute heat. White-orange light blazed from those sockets with an intensity that hurt to look at directly.
The chest cavity had a massive crack running from throat to stomach, and through that fissure, Derek could see what looked like a heart made of concentrated flame. It pulsed with each breath the titan took.
Flames wreathed the entire body. The titan didn't walk through fire, it created fire with every movement, every breath.
Where it stepped, the ground liquified. Asphalt turned to tar. Concrete cracked and melted. Steel beams sagged and collapsed.
"Fuck," Derek whispered. "It's a Fire Titan."
But not just any Fire Titan. This one was a Destruction-rank monster, thirty meters taller than a standard Titan. Close to evolving into Calamity rank.
The Titan took another step forward. A warehouse collapsed under the heat. The air distorted so badly that looking at it made Derek's eyes water.
And then it spoke.
"Oh, race of ash and ember, thou who dost meddle with the sacred law of flame." Its voice was like an avalanche of burning stone.
"Thy folly hath summoned judgement upon thee. Behold, for the eternal fire cometh to consume thy works, thy homes, thy very essence. All shall return to cinder and dust, as is ordained by the ancient pact of destruction."
The Titan began to walk. Each step created earthquakes. Buildings collapsed. Vehicles exploded as their fuel tanks ignited from the ambient heat alone.
The scene looked like hell on earth.
Derek felt all hope drain from his body. His shield was half-melted. His sword felt useless. Around him, the other officers were frozen in terror.
We're all going to die here.
The Magma Hound, which had been frozen by the Titan's appearance, suddenly started moving again. It turned back toward Derek, its molten body rippling with satisfaction. It took slow, confident steps toward the kneeling commander.
"We're so dead," Derek muttered.
The Magma Hound opened its jaws.
Splat.
The creature's head burst open. Magma splashed everywhere. The headless body stumbled forward before collapsing.
Derek blinked. Then he saw the man standing behind where the Magma Hound had been. Military uniform. B-rank hunter badge. A hunting Bow.
"Major Daniel?"
Daniel Kleiner lowered his weapon and jogged over. "Are you all right, buddy?"
The words hit Derek with a wave of nostalgia. Childhood friends who'd chosen different paths.
"You're late as fuck," Derek said, trying to push himself up.
"Easy there." Daniel grabbed his arm, helping him to his feet. "Save your strength."
"How many arrived?" Derek asked, looking past Daniel toward the street.
Daniel's expression turned grim. "Twenty."
Derek stared at him. "Twenty soldiers?"
"Twenty soldiers."
"Against that?" Derek pointed at the Fire Titan. "Against a Destruction rank boss?"
"Yeah."
Derek's expression shifted through disbelief, confusion, anger. "Are you guys some kind of suicide squad?"
"No, it's not like that," Daniel started.
The sound of helicopter rotors cut through the air.
A military transport helicopter flew in from the east, moving fast and low. It maneuvered through the burning air, heading straight toward the Fire Titan.
And then it stopped. Hovering at eye level with the ninety-meter-tall monster.
"It seems the Colonel arrived," Daniel said.
"Which one?"
"Steven."
"Oh. That crazy old man."
"Yep. That one."
"Does he have a death wish?"
The side door of the helicopter slid open.
Three heads poked out. Kai, Ash, and Jack. One of them was holding a megaphone.
"BEHOLD!" Kai's voice boomed.
"Citizens of this fair metropolis! Witness the arrival of the greatest warrior the Azareth Empire has ever produced!"
"The slayer of a thousand monsters!" Ash continued.
"The shield of the innocent! The sword of justice!"
"The one! The only!" Jack took the megaphone.
"The absolutely, positively, definitely invincible, super amazing, ultra cool, mega powerful, hyper strong, giga legendary, boss destroying, monsterkilling, city saving COLONEL STEVEN BRIGHT!"
Smack! Smack! Smack!
Colonel Steven Bright appeared and hit all three of them on the back of their heads.
"What the fuck are you saying?" Steven snatched the megaphone. "Are you trying to cringe me to death?"
He raised the megaphone.
"Hey! You oversized campfire! Today is your death day!!"
He threw the megaphone aside.
Then Colonel Steven Bright reached up and removed his eyepatch.
His left eye glowed bright blue. Not a soft glow, but a piercing, intense light that cut through the smoke and flames. The color was the blue of deep ice, of absolute zero.
Within that blue iris was the outline of a skull. The mark of the Skinless King. The skull pattern seemed to rotate slowly, giving the impression of something alive.
Blue aura began to gather around Steven's body. Thin threads of frost-colored energy curled off his skin. The threads multiplied, wrapped around his arms and torso.
The Fire Titan stopped walking. Its burning eyes focused on the tiny figure in the helicopter. When it spoke, its voice carried across the entire district.
"Dost thou dare to stand before me, mortal? Thou art but a candle's flicker before the sun's eternal blaze. A drop of frost upon the face of inferno everlasting. Knowest thou not thy place in the order of elements? Knowest thou not that I am the embodiment of—"
Colonel Steven Bright stepped out of the helicopter.
He didn't jump. Didn't fall. He simply stepped into empty air, and the air held him.
He began to float.
The blue aura intensified. It looked like he was standing in the center of a small blizzard, frost and ice particles swirling around his body.
And then blue particles began to fall from the sky.
Not just around the Colonel. Across the entire burning city.
Derek looked up and saw them. Small crystalline flakes, hexagonal and perfect. They drifted down through the smoke and ash like snow. They landed on his burned armor, on the melted remains of his shield, on the scorched ground.
And where they touched, the heat faded.
"Is that snow?" one of the officers whispered.
"In the middle of a fire."
"It's impossible."
But it was happening. The blue particles fell faster, thicker. The temperature began to drop. Not slowly, but rapidly, plummeting from furnace-heat to summer warmth to autumn chill to winter cold.
The sky began to darken. The crimson glow faded. Clouds formed overhead, dark and heavy. They rolled in from nowhere, covering the burning district in shadow.
Derek felt goosebumps rise on his arms. The fire on his armor hissed and went out. Ice crystals formed on the melted portions of his shield.
"What is he?" Derek whispered.
Behind Colonel Steven Bright, something began to manifest.
A massive figure. As large as the Fire Titan itself. Skeletal and powerful, with exposed muscle tissue dried and hardened. Its body had no skin, just layer upon layer of dense fiber.
The Skinless King.
The phantom of the Skinless King. The echo of its power, channeled through the eye in the Colonel's skull.
The apparition stood behind Steven, towering and terrible. Frost formed on its surface, spreading across the dried muscle in geometric patterns. Ice crystals grew from its shoulders, its arms, its chest.
Its presence pressed down on everything below. Where the Fire Titan radiated heat, the Skinless King's phantom radiated cold. Absolute, merciless cold.
The Fire Titan stopped speaking. Its burning eyes widened. The flames wreathing its body flickered, dimmed.
Colonel Steven Bright raised his right hand. The blue aura gathered there, condensing into a sphere of pure cold. Frost formed on his fingers. The air around his hand crystallized.
His voice, when he spoke, was quiet.
But it carried across the entire city.
"Eternal Polar Sovereign."
The sphere exploded outward.
Blue light consumed everything.
The world simply changed from fire to ice in a heartbeat.
The flames covering half the city froze mid-burn. Orange and red turned to blue and white. Each flame became a statue of ice shaped like fire. Buildings that had been collapsing stopped mid-fall.
The Magma Hounds throughout the district froze solid. Their molten bodies became statues of volcanic glass.
The Ember Wraiths simply ceased to exist. Their essence froze into particles that fell like snow.
The Fire Titan itself froze where it stood.
The molten magma flowing through its cracks cooled first, turning from bright orange to dull red to black in seconds. Then the stone itself froze. Ice formed in the cracks, sealing the fissures, entombing the creature.
The flames that made up its crown crystallized. The white-hot center cooled to nothing.
Its eyes, those pits of absolute heat, dimmed. The white-orange glow faded to yellow, then red, then nothing.
Its mouth was still open, frozen in eternal speech it would never finish.
The heart of flame visible through the crack in its chest froze last. The pulsing stopped. What had been the core of an inferno became nothing more than a sculpture.
The temperature plummeted. Steam rose in massive clouds where ice met superheated metal. The sound of cracking and settling filled the air as thousands of tons of ice formed simultaneously.
And through it all, the blue snow continued to fall.
Derek stood in the middle of the frozen battlefield, his mouth open. Around him, twenty law enforcement officers stared upward. Behind them, civilians emerged from their shelter.
The entire city block had been transformed. What had been hell on earth was now a winter wonderland of frozen destruction.
Colonel Steven Bright floated in the center of it all. The phantom of the Skinless King slowly faded behind him. The blue aura around the Colonel's body diminished.
He looked down at the frozen Fire Titan. His expression was calm, almost bored.
"Too slow," Steven said quietly.
Then he descended, landing on top of the Fire Titan's frozen head. He stood there for a moment, then reached up and put his eyepatch back on.
Daniel stared upward, his bow hanging forgotten. "Holy shit."
"Yeah," Derek agreed. "Holy shit."
Derek looked at his childhood friend. "Daniel?"
"Yeah?"
"What the fuck happened to Colonel Bright in that frozen gate break battlefield?"
Daniel shook his head slowly. "I have no idea. But I'm really glad he's on our side."
The blue snow continued to fall, covering everything in white. The fires were out. The monsters were dead or frozen. The gate itself had stopped spewing creatures.
In the distance, emergency sirens began to sound.
But they were unnecessary.
Colonel Steven Bright had ended the battle in a single move.
Derek looked up at the small figure standing on the frozen titan's head.
"Eternal Polar Sovereign. What kind of skill is that?"
"The kind that makes you glad you're not his enemy," Daniel replied.
The helicopter descended, landing on frozen ground. The trio tumbled out, staring at the frozen landscape with expressions of awe and terror.
Kai looked at the frozen Fire Titan, then at Jack and Ash. "We rode in a helicopter with that guy."
"We made fun of him," Ash added quietly.
"We're so lucky to be alive," Jack finished.
The blue snow settled on everything, turning the industrial district into a strange frozen graveyard where fire and ice had met and ice had won.
And somewhere in the frozen wasteland, Colonel Steven Bright climbed down from his perch, ready to file the paperwork for yet another successful gate suppression.
Just another day's work.
Then he collapsed face first in the ice from mana exhaustion.
"Guess…..the…S…ra..k ..is.t..much"