Another, behind him. He felt its heat signature like a blot on his soul. He did not turn. Ice erupted from his back in a wave of instant frost.It caught the demon mid-strike, froze it in a sculpture of eternal lunge. A crystal monument to its own aggression. A pulse of will, and it became dust.
Three more charged together. Coordination. Strategy.
The ground beneath them ceased to be stone. It became a garden of frozen spikes. Stalagmites of ice erupted upward, impaling them in a single, bloody gasp. Their molten blood hit the ice and died with a hiss. Winter announced, once again, that fire existed only because the cold allowed it.
This was not war. War had rules.
This was extermination. The removal of a stain. The emotional investment of a man crushing a scorpion beneath his boot.
