Chapter 31: Fractured Victory
The city's ruins groaned beneath my feet as I sprinted through the crumbling landscape, dodging jagged ice spires that D.Y.L.A.N. had ripped from the earth. The air was thick with frost, and every breath I took burned in my throat, stinging with a bitter chill. My muscles ached, but I couldn't stop—couldn't slow down. Not with that walking glacier closing in.
I threw a glance over my shoulder.
Shit.
D.Y.L.A.N. was right on me. His footsteps were deliberate, but the icy terrain he created propelled him forward with unnatural speed. Ice claws slashed from the ground at random intervals, tearing through concrete and steel like paper. One claw nearly speared me through the leg, but I vaulted over it, my breath leaving in a sharp exhale.
"JLC! Duck!" Pixel's voice tore through the air, cutting through the chaos.
I barely had time to register the warning before a shard of ice the size of a lamppost ripped through the building beside me, collapsing it into a wall of debris. I dove forward, rolling into a crouch just as the structure came crashing down behind me. My vision blurred with dust and snow, but my eyes locked onto Pixel's silhouette emerging from the haze.
He was sprinting toward me, his hand still slick with D.Y.L.A.N.'s blood. Good. That meant he could use his power.
Without hesitation, I snapped my fingers, summoning a small cluster of magical bombs between my knuckles. They flickered with an ominous blue glow, crackling faintly. I pitched one toward D.Y.L.A.N.'s feet, aiming for the patch of frost just before his advance.
BOOM!
The ground ruptured in a jagged blast, the explosion sending chunks of ice and concrete skyward. For a moment, D.Y.L.A.N. was obscured by the burst of dust and snow. But when it cleared, my stomach twisted.
He stood there—unscathed—encased in an entire dome of solid ice that absorbed the impact. His defense was already impenetrable, but now it was adaptable. The second the blast hit, he had formed the barrier reflexively. His face remained emotionless, dispassionate. Only his eyes burned with a distant, unyielding focus.
"Is that all?" His voice was low, quiet, but it carried through the destruction with a cruel calmness. With a flick of his wrist, the dome shattered outward, sending a hundred needle-thin icicles flying like shrapnel.
"Shit—!" I yelped, twisting mid-air as I threw myself into a dive. The needles whizzed past me, slicing through the sleeve of my jacket. One clipped my cheek, drawing a thin line of blood.
Pixel wasn't as lucky. A few shards caught him across the arm and torso, leaving jagged red trails. He gritted his teeth, ignoring the pain, and immediately pressed his palm against the fresh wounds. The blood was his key.
I watched his eyes sharpen as D.Y.L.A.N.'s ability flooded into him. The temperature around Pixel plummeted instantly, and the air hissed as ice bloomed from his fingertips. Without a word, he threw out a hand, and a massive wall of jagged spikes erupted from the ground, racing toward D.Y.L.A.N. in a wave of frost.
But D.Y.L.A.N. didn't flinch.
Of course he didn't.
With a lazy motion, he extended his arm, and the entire battlefield shifted. The ice spikes Pixel had created slowed, then stopped altogether—suspended in mid-air. I blinked, realizing he was freezing the moisture within the wall, binding it in place. He then clenched his fist, and the entire structure shattered into a burst of white powder.
