The street burned with sound. The roar of a hundred throats rolled like thunder between the narrow ferrocrete walls, rattling shutters and shaking loose dust from broken eaves.
Jade stood still in the doorway of the shop, the thin planks and frost-sealed windows behind him barely holding back the trembling weight of the crowd. The air around him was cold—unnatural, biting, a creeping chill that gnawed at the heat of torches and breath alike.
The Ash Rats hesitated. For a heartbeat.
Then the leader screamed again. His arms, burned long ago in some fire or punishment, stretched wide as if to swallow the whole street. His eyes were wild, pupils blown, lips cracked with powder.
"Kill him! Take the shop!"
The front ranks surged.
Jade raised his hand.
The world answered.
Frost uncoiled like serpents from his palm, blue-white tendrils spiraling outward. The torches nearest guttered into steam, their bearers crying out as frost kissed their skin.
But still they came.
"Demonnnnn!" one howled, swinging a broken chain at him.
Jade stepped aside. The chain whistled through empty air. The boy's hand flicked once, and the chain-bearer froze mid-stride, eyes wide as ice crept up his arm, through his chest, locking his scream in his throat. A statue of desperation, left trembling for a moment before silence swallowed him whole.
The others stumbled back—but powder and mob fury pressed them forward again.
Inside, Niamh's hand tightened on her dagger hilt until her knuckles whitened. She could hardly breathe.
"That's—"
"—power," Gorvoth finished for her, his voice flat, unreadable. His pipe had gone out, clenched forgotten between his teeth. His eyes—weathered, sharp—never left the boy. "That's not just talent. That's bloodline."
Niamh said nothing. She had known this day would come. Just not so soon.
---
The mob howled. The second wave crashed toward the doorway.
Jade walked forward to meet them. Each step cracked frost across the ground, the street itself crystallizing beneath his boots. His blindfold glimmered faintly, as though starlight leaked through the fabric.
The first swung a rusted cleaver. Jade lifted his hand, catching the blade between fingers wrapped in ice. The metal shrieked as frost raced along its edge, freezing solid before snapping like brittle glass.
The second lunged with a torch. Jade exhaled. His breath spilled white, a cone of freezing mist that devoured flame and flesh alike. The man screamed, his arm sheathed in ice up to the elbow, torch clattering dead to the ground.
The third tried to flank him. But Jade's dual irises pulsed faintly beneath the blindfold, and Void Sense whispered before the attack landed. He sidestepped, spinning once, frost trailing from his sleeve like silk. A jagged spike of ice erupted from the street, catching the attacker in the gut and throwing him backward into the mob.
---
The Ash Rats faltered. Fear tore at frenzy.
"It's— it's a monster!" one shouted, voice breaking.
"Not a child—look at him!" another shrieked, shoving back against the press of bodies.
The burned-armed leader shoved them forward again, spittle flying. "Cowards! The inner city will never let us live if we stop now! Take him! TAKE HIM!"
Their voices cracked the night. Fear and hunger and anger swirled into one unstoppable howl.
Jade's fingers curled. Frost gathered.
DING!
[System Alert]
Sub-Quest Triggered: Break the Mob
Objective: Subdue or disperse the Ash Rats before dawn.
Reward: +500 EXP | Skill Upgrade Token [C]
Penalty: Shop Reputation –10
Jade exhaled once more. His breath was calm, steady. Then he lifted both arms.
The street answered with ice.
Walls of frost burst upward along the alley's edges, cutting off retreat, trapping the mob in a corridor of shimmering cold. Torches sputtered and died as the temperature plummeted. Frost webbed across steel and wood alike, crawling into the seams of their weapons, cracking them to shards.
The mob surged once more, desperation drowning fear. Powder drove them like whips.
Jade whispered, voice soft but carrying in the silence that fell.
"Sleep."
Frozen Aura rippled outward in a wave, a shimmering tide of silver-blue. It slammed into the mob like a gale, chilling bone, numbing muscle. One by one, they stumbled, collapsing in heaps, frost climbing over their limbs like chains. Their screams weakened into whimpers, then into silence.
Within minutes, half the Ash Rats lay frozen— dead, locked in icy prisons, too cold and strong to rise again.
Bodies lay sprawled in the frost, groaning, shivering, breath fogging the cold air. Some still clutched weapons; others had dropped them, fingers too frozen to hold on.
The mob staggered, breathless, broken—but not finished.
A third wave surged, powder's grip too tight to let go.
Jade lifted his hand, frost rising sharper, taller, hungrier. His voice was low, almost tender.
"You should have left when you had the chance."
And then the street vanished into white.
.....
The street was silent.
Only frost remained.
Hundreds of bodies lay frozen in place. The air still bit with unnatural cold, but the mob was gone. The Ash Rats had tasted something worse than hunger tonight.
Inside the shop, Niamh's dagger slipped from her fingers, clattering to the ground.
Her voice was small, almost breaking. "Jade…"
Gorvoth exhaled at last, pipe smoke curling as he lit it again with steady hands. His gaze, though, was still locked on the boy in the doorway.
"That one," he muttered, "is not meant for this city. He's meant for something greater. Or something far worse."
---
[System Alert]
Sub-Quest Completed: Break the Mob
Reward Granted: +500 EXP | Skill Upgrade Token [C]
Total EXP: 600/2500
Jade lowered his hands. Frost slowly faded from the air, though the street would remain scarred with ice for weeks. His heartbeat had not quickened once. His breathing was still calm, steady, the way it always was when he did what had to be done.
But inside, beneath that calm, something shifted.
He knew this was only the beginning.
Inside, Niamh's hands folded into tight fists, her knuckles white. Her chest rose and fell too quickly, her breath clouding in the unnatural cold.
"Jade…" she whispered, horror and disbelief twisting her voice.
She had seen him wield ice before. She had seen his strange talents and thought—believed—that they were just tricks, gifts of an awakening too young. She had told herself he was still her baby, still the child she had raised with her own hands.
But this—this was something else.
The way the frost moved, answering him like a living thing. The way the mob faltered before a boy half their size. The way his voice cut like a knife.
Her heart thudded painfully. He's only seven.
Yet he stood like a warlord.
Her heart pounded as the boy she thought of as her baby carved through the mob with precision, with skill, with cold calculation. He did not hesitate. He did not falter. His power wrapped him like a mantle, turning him into something terrible, something otherworldly.
She clutched the helm of her cloak, torn between pride and terror. Between awe and grief.
What are you, Jade?
And yet—when she looked closer, past the frost and fury—she saw his face. Calm. Determined. But not empty. Not cold. His lips tightened when blades came from children's hands. His breath caught faintly when a cry of pain was too young, too sharp.
He was not untouched. He was simply… enduring.