Part 1: The Creeping Death
"Engage!" Elian roared, his breath freezing into solid clouds of ice instantly.
Titan and Valen moved as one, twin pillars of defense charging the twenty-foot King.
Glacius didn't bother dodging. He swung the Greatsword of Black Ice in a massive, lazy arc.
CLANG.
Titan raised his Gorgon Shield. The impact was terrifying. It wasn't just heavy; it felt like a mountain had fallen on him. Titan's boots gouged trenches into the solid ice floor as he was shoved backward ten feet, his entire metal frame vibrating from the blow.
"He hits... harder than the ship!" Titan grunted, shaking his numb shield arm.
But the physical impact wasn't the real threat.
"Warning," Caelum's voice cut through the comms, urgent and sharp. "Environmental hazard detected. It is not an attack. It is his presence."
A status icon appeared in the corner of everyone's vision: a blue snowflake that was slowly filling up with white.
[Debuff: Glacial Aura]
[Effect: Absolute Zero. If you remain stationary for 3 seconds, you freeze solid. Permanent Death.]
"Keep moving!" Elian shouted, realizing the trap. "Don't stop! Not even for a second! The cold is alive!"
The battlefield turned into a frantic dance. Roger had to run-and-gun, firing wildly while strafing. Lyra had to keep dancing while she played. Even Seraphina had to constantly shuffle her feet while casting heals, her stamina draining rapidly just to stay warm.
Part 2: The Indestructible
While the tanks held the King's attention, the damage dealers struck.
"Hammer team, strike!" Caelum ordered.
Jax blinked out of stealth behind Glacius's massive knee joint. He drove his daggers in with full force.
TINK.
The daggers bounced off. No damage number appeared. It was like stabbing a diamond.
"Roger, eye shot!" Elian commanded.
BANG. A high-caliber round struck the King directly in his glowing blue eye.
It flattened against the surface without even leaving a scratch. [Damage: 0].
"His armor," Elian realized with horror, dodging another freezing shockwave. "It's Permafrost. He's invulnerable."
The walkthrough had said Glacius had high defense, but this was different. This was god-mode.
"Caelum! Analyze!" Elian yelled. "Find the crack!"
Caelum narrowed his eyes, pushing his sensory perception to the limit, filtering out the blinding white noise of the blizzard raging in the room. He scanned the colossal body of the King.
Underneath thick layers of translucent, unmelting ice, he saw them. Three points of concentrated mana, pulsing like blue hearts.
"The armor is magically sustained," Caelum reported rapidly. "There are three mana conduits fueling the invulnerability. Right shoulder. Left knee. Center chest."
"We have to hit them," Elian said.
"Simultaneously," Caelum corrected. "If one breaks, the others will reinforce the shield instantly. We need a coordinated strike."
Part 3: The Shattering
Elian's mind raced, formulating a split-second plan while constantly moving to avoid freezing.
"Okay. Jax, Isara, you take the knee. Roger, you take the shoulder. I'll take the chest. On Caelum's mark, we—"
Glacius stopped swinging.
He stood up straight, towering over the battlefield. His glowing blue eyes swept across the scattered, frantic players.
"You scurry like rats," the King's voice rumbled, shaking the icicles from the ceiling. "Let us remove the floor."
He lifted the massive black greatsword high above his head with both hands. The air in the cavern sucked inward toward the blade.
"Caelum, what is he doing?" Luna cried out.
"Massive mana surge directed downward!" Caelum screamed. "BRACE!"
Glacius drove the sword into the ice floor with apocalyptic force.
[Boss Skill: World Freeze]
CRACK-BOOM.
The sound was deafening. It wasn't just a crack; the entire arena exploded upward. The solid sheet of ice they were standing on splintered into dozens of massive, jagged chunks.
Gravity seemed to fail for a moment as the debris hung in the air. Below them, the dark, freezing abyss of the mountain's hollow core opened up.
"Jump!" Elian yelled, leaping toward the nearest stable chunk of ice.
Part 4: Divided We Fall
The dust and ice crystals cleared.
The eclipse team was no longer on a battlefield. They were stranded on an archipelago of unstable, floating ice islands, drifting over a bottomless drop.
The team was hopelessly split.
On one large chunk to the left: Valen, Lyra, and Roger.
On a precarious, tilting shard in the center: Elian, Luna, Isara, and Caelum.
And isolated on a small, flat platform to the right, cut off from everyone else: Titan, Jax, and Seraphina.
Glacius had landed on the largest central platform. He looked around at the divided team and smiled a cold, cracked smile.
He turned his massive body toward the weakest group—the one with the healer.
He leaped.
The colossal figure of the King soared through the air and landed with a thunderous crash on the small platform holding Titan, Jax, and Seraphina. The impact nearly tilted the ice chunk into the void.
Glacius raised his sword, looming over the terrified Priestess.
"No more healing, little light."
"Titan!" Elian screamed across the gap, helpless to reach them. "Hold him!"