The world turned white.

It wasn't the blinding white of holy light, but the stark, terrifying white of a sudden, deep freeze. Alvian didn't cast a blizzard. He cast a concentrated beam of [Frost Descent +2] directly at Kincaid's chest plate as the warlord descended.

"FWOOOSH!"

The sound of the spell was a high-pitched whistle of freezing air. The beam hit Kincaid mid-air.

Kincaid screamed. It wasn't a scream of pain from a wound, but of shock. The cold bit through the magical insulation of his armor instantly. The gold, glowing yellow a moment ago, turned a dull, lifeless grey. Frost crystals bloomed across the surface of the metal, spreading like wildfire.

The [Aurum-Adamantite] alloy, prized for its ability to flex and absorb impact, underwent a catastrophic state change. The extreme cold stole the kinetic energy of the molecules. The metal contracted violently. It lost its flexibility. It became brittle.

Kincaid crashed to the ground, but he didn't land with a shockwave. He landed with a heavy, clumsy thud. He tried to stand, but his joints were frozen solid.

[Status Effect: [Deep Freeze] - Armor Durability Compromised.]

[Status Effect: [Brittle] - Physical Resistance reduced by 100%.]

"C-cold..." Kincaid chattered, his teeth clicking together. "Can't... move..."

Alvian walked toward him. The frost crunched beneath his boots. The mercenaries watching from the walls were silent, their breath misting in the sudden chill.

"Gold is a soft metal," Alvian lectured, his voice echoing in the silence. "You alloyed it to make it tough. Flexible. But flexibility requires heat. Energy."

He stopped in front of the kneeling, frozen tyrant. Kincaid looked up, fear dawning in his eyes for the first time. The invincible armor that had protected him for years now felt like a coffin.

"What... what are you?" Kincaid whispered.

"I told you," Alvian said. "I'm the one opening the can."

Alvian drew the [Lance of the Void Winter]. He didn't use a skill. He didn't need to spend the mana. He just swung the spear horizontally, the black metal shaft striking the side of Kincaid's chest plate.

"PING."

It started as a small sound. A hairline fracture appeared on the frozen gold.

Then, "CRACK."

The crack spread. It spiderwebbed across the chest, down the legs, up to the helmet. The tension in the frozen metal released all at once.

"SHATTER!"

The invincible golden armor exploded. It didn't just break; it disintegrated into thousands of shards of frozen shrapnel. Kincaid was thrown backward, stripped of his protection, shivering and exposed in his under-tunic.

He scrambled backward in the dirt, looking at the pile of gold dust that used to be his power. "My armor... my beautiful armor..."

Alvian stepped on Kincaid's chest, pinning him to the ground. He brought the tip of the lance to the warlord's throat.

"Yield," Alvian said.

Kincaid looked at the cold, violet eyes of the student. He looked at his silent, terrified army. He slumped.

"I yield," Kincaid wheezed. "Take it. Take the city. Just... don't freeze me again."

[Target Defeated: Kincaid.]

[Objective Complete: Secure the Water Supply.]

[Reputation Gained: The Void Sanctum +500.]

Alvian withdrew his lance. He turned to the watching mercenaries.

"Kincaid works for me now," Alvian announced, his voice amplified. "Which means you work for me. The water flows to the Void Sanctum. Anyone who has a problem with that can step into the ring."

Silence. Then, one by one, the mercenaries dropped to one knee. They were bandits, loyal only to strength. And they had just seen strength that defied logic.

Valeria walked into the arena. She didn't look at the crowd. She walked straight to Alvian. The adrenaline of the fight was fading, leaving her flushed and breathing hard. She looked at him, really looked at him—the frost on his eyelashes, the calm, terrifying set of his jaw.

"You knew," she said quietly. "You knew the cold would shatter the metal."

"Physics," Alvian said, wiping his lance on a piece of cloth.

"It was risky," Valeria said, stepping closer. She reached out, her hand resting on his arm. The touch was grounding, warm against the lingering chill of his aura. "If the armor hadn't broken..."

"Then I would have hit it harder," Alvian said, looking down at her.

For a moment, the war, the Syndicate, the apocalypse—it all faded. There was just the two of them in the dust of a conquered fortress. Alvian felt a strange warmth in his chest that had nothing to do with mana regeneration. He didn't pull away.

"You did good, Shield," he murmured.

Valeria smiled, a tired, genuine expression that lit up her face. "You weren't so bad yourself, Spear."

Seraphina materialized beside them, ruining the moment with characteristic timing. She was holding a ledger she had swiped from the throne room.

"Hate to break up the victory lap," Seraphina said, flipping a page. "But I found something interesting in Kincaid's logs. He was paying tribute."

Alvian's demeanor shifted instantly back to business. "To whom?"

"The Vicar," Seraphina said, pointing to a name on the ledger. "The False Prophet. He controls the food production in the valley. And apparently... he's demanding live subjects for 'baptisms'."

Alvian's eyes narrowed. Live subjects. Baptisms. It sounded like a cult. It sounded like necromancy.

"Looks like we're not done cleaning up the neighborhood," Alvian said, turning to look east, where black smoke rose from the distant hills.

"Gather the supplies," Alvian ordered. "We move out at dawn. The Prophet is about to meet his god."

The journey from Kincaid's fortress to the eastern valley was a study in contrasts. The Chaos Zone, true to its name, was a landscape of violent upheaval. Mana storms twisted the sky into bruises of purple and green, and the ground was littered with the scorched remains of those who had failed to adapt. But as Alvian, Valeria, and Seraphina crossed the ridge separating the Warlord territories, the howling wind died down.

The air here was still. Too still.

Below them lay a lush, green valley that seemed untouched by the apocalypse. Neat rows of crops lined the riverbanks. Smoke rose lazily from chimneys in small, clustered villages. At the far end of the valley, nestled against the sheer cliff face, stood a massive cathedral of white stone, its stained-glass windows glowing with a warm, inviting light.

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