Silence spread across the battlefield.
Not because the fighting had ended—
But because it had been stopped.
Every gaze turned toward the center.
Step… step…
The sound was soft, almost too soft to belong in a place filled with destruction, yet it carried clearly through the frozen air.
Each step echoed across the ground, deliberate and unhurried, as the figure within the drifting frost began to take shape.
The mist parted slowly.
And with it—
The pressure deepened.
It wasn't just cold.
It was something heavier.
Something absolute.
The kind of presence that didn't need to announce itself, because everything around it already understood.
No one moved.
Not the knights.
Not the mages.
Not even the Frost Giants.
Their bodies had gone rigid, locked in place by something instinctive, something far older than reason.
It wasn't fear in the usual sense—it was closer to recognition, like prey realizing, far too late, that a predator had already stepped into its domain.
