The roar of Theron's fury was a physical wave, bouncing off the stone walls of the prison. The sound acted like a starting pistol. Alex didn't spare a second glance for Jax; he sprinted, his newly nourished body surging with borrowed strength, toward the North Cut.
The cut was a gash in the hillside—a twenty-foot stretch of dense, exposed granite and packed soil. It felt wrong. The air here was not still; it hummed with a low, vibrant Mana signature. Every root and rock felt alive, watched.
Alex reached the mouth of the cut, the blood pounding in his ears. He plunged his hand into the loose soil near the base of the wall.
Stillness Acquisition: 50% Full.
He had no time for gradual draw. He had to cheat the man who owned the road.
Alex committed a massive, catastrophic draw. He plunged deep into his core, commanding the Stillness to target not the Earth User, but the True User's power itself.
"Stillness. Consume the motion. Inertia to the foundation!"
The world screamed.
Alex's vision went black and white. Instead of the cold flow he expected, the Stillness slammed into a wall of hostile, vibrant energy. The Earth True User had already sensed the monstrous draw of Dark Mana and was fighting back, channeling Living Earth to seal the path.
The stones of the Cut shuddered. The granite walls began to shift, grinding against each other to collapse the road. The Mana that flowed into the stones was furious, protective, and overwhelmingly strong.
Alex's Stillness power, in its terrifying, pure form, was an anti-life weapon. It didn't break the stone; it targeted the will that moved the stone. The two opposing forces met in a silent, thunderous clash of fundamental elements.
The result was an instantaneous petrification. The collapsing walls—the moving, living Earth—froze mid-motion, turning into a terrifying, jagged statue of rock and dust. The Mana flow animating the stone was forced into absolute zero, leaving behind a silent, unmoving tomb.
Alex stumbled out the other side of the Cut, into the comparative safety of the open forest.
The drain was catastrophic. He ran a frantic audit: The tank was empty. Zero percent. The colossal, complex draw and clash had consumed every drop of Stillness acquired at the prison.
He didn't age. The rule held. The aging penalty only applied if he cast a spell while the tank was empty. But the nourishment immediately ceased.
The illusion of strength vanished. His limbs felt like lead, heavy, weak, and shaking. The profound, hollow exhaustion of Elian's starved body returned with a vengeance. He had spent his entire life support budget in one move.
He took three staggering steps into the black forest before a voice ripped through the silence of the Frozen Road.
"You! You did that!"
Theron burst through the prison gate, saw the impossible wall of frozen earth, and then spotted Alex—a small, trembling figure collapsing against a tree trunk.
Rage lent Theron a speed Alex couldn't match. The brute closed the distance in seconds, his hand reaching for the hilt of his belt knife. He saw the weak, sickly boy he knew, now utterly depleted.
"You're nothing without that cold trick, you little wretch," Theron snarled, grabbing a fistful of Alex's tunic, lifting the boy clean off the ground. "You spent your life for a few yards of freedom. Now, you pay for what you took."
Alex was helpless. His tank was at zero. He had no Vigor, no Stillness, and no reserves. He was back to being Elian, the expendable boy.
But as Theron raised his knife, the Stillness in the air around the Frozen Road—the massive, chaotic power residue from the clash—began to react to the imminent threat of death.