Cold.
The kind of cold that seeped into the bones, clawing past flesh and skin as though it had been waiting for an invitation.
It was more than physical; it was a chill that froze thoughts, paralyzed instincts, and made even the boldest creatures forget how to breathe.
This wasn't natural.
It wasn't of this world.
The wind, once dancing freely through the forest, had vanished. The forest had become a graveyard of sound, a stillness so complete it felt as though the world itself had forgotten how to move.
Even the ground seemed to lose its warmth, as though life itself was retreating under Yorowin's suffocating bloodlust, leaving behind a frozen, metallic void.
The metallic scent of blood grew heavier, more oppressive, as if the bloodlust itself had condensed into droplets, hanging in the air, waiting to drown anyone foolish enough to inhale.
The world fell silent.
And yet, despite the overwhelming coldness, despite the bloodlust that threatened to swallow everything in its path, it did nothing.
Absolutely nothing to shake Atticus.
He stood as still as a mountain, unyielding, unmoved by the storm around him. His gaze remained locked on Yorowin, unwavering, as if the centuries of power pressing down upon him were nothing more than a passing breeze.
And while it felt to all as if time had slowed, stretching the moment into an eternity, the truth was far more unsettling:
No time had passed. Not a second, not even a fraction.
As soon as Yorowin spoke, Atticus responded, his voice cutting through the suffocating stillness like a blade.
"No need."
The world froze.
Atticus's katana trembled, the vibrations so intense they rippled into the earth, cracking and fracturing it under the weight of an unseen force.
With a calmness that betrayed the chaos about to unfold, his hand reached for the hilt.
Then, an explosion of wind erupted from his body, tearing the ground apart in a violent display of raw power. The very air recoiled, as if afraid to come too close.
He moved.
Not through the air. Not like a streak of light. No.
That would imply he could be followed, tracked, or even seen.
To the blood shadows, to Cadence, to every Resonara present, Atticus simply vanished.
But to Grand Elder Yorowin, the world slowed to a crawl. His centuries-old instincts barely managed to keep up as his gaze flickered, straining to follow the boy's movement.
Then came Atticus's voice, echoing like a divine decree:
"Vorpal Nova."
The third art of the katana was a technique blending an uncountable number of slashes into a single, devastating crescent arc.
Executing it required unimaginable speed, each slash merging seamlessly into the next before they could even be seen.
But Atticus had transcended even that.
In his movements, there were no afterimages, no traces. His katana ascended and descended in one seamless motion, birthing an arc that screamed toward Yorowin like the scythe of a vengeful god.
The forest trembled. The earth split. The sky seemed to darken as the crescent surged forward, its edges slicing through the very fabric of existence.
Trees were reduced to splinters before they could even fall. The ground beneath the arc parted as if cleaved by the hands of a deity.
Yorowin's eyes shot open, his entire being jolting in alarm. His centuries-honed instincts screamed one thing: danger.
The shock that surged through him was planetary in magnitude. A 17-year-old boy? Impossible.
But survival had been Yorowin's creed for centuries, and those instincts had never failed him. They wouldn't fail him now.
He raised his arm, summoning a blood shield that materialized in an instant.
This wasn't just any shield. It was a fortress of crimson energy, so dense it could have withstood the combined might of armies.
The air around it warped, trembling under its immense weight, as if reality itself struggled to accommodate its existence.
The world braced for impact, awaiting a blinding, earth-shaking collision that would obliterate everything in its path.
But it didn't come.
Atticus's gaze flickered. Then it happened.
As the arc reached the blood shield, the space around it twisted unnaturally. Reality folded in on itself, and the attack vanished, disappearing into the void as though consumed.
Yorowin's gaze wavered, disbelief creeping into his expression. Even his centuries of experience hadn't prepared him for this.
It teleported.
The arc reappeared in an instant, bypassing his impenetrable shield, now mere inches from his chest.
His eyes widened in utter shock, a profound disbelief that even a paragon would struggle to comprehend.
Time slowed for him, stretching each fraction of a second into an eternity.
Then it struck.
The arc phased through Yorowin's body, splitting him cleanly in two, as though the blade of a god had deemed him unworthy of existence.
But the arc did not stop.
It surged forward, carving through the forest and beyond. Mountains in the distance crumbled as if they were made of sand. The horizon itself split, and the earth trembled with aftershocks so fierce they rippled across the land like the heartbeat of a dying world.
For a moment, there was silence.
And then, the stillness shattered.
Time resumed.
Candence, the Resonara warriors, and the blood shadows felt it all at once, one overwhelming sensation after another, each more devastating than the last.
First, an explosion of raw force erupted from where Atticus had stood, a shockwave so violent it uprooted trees, tore the earth asunder, and sent the blood shadows hurtling through the air like ragdolls.
Their bodies slammed into the shattered ground, battered and broken, their groans of pain drowned out by the chaos.
Then came the sound.
The screech of the arc tearing through the air, a wail so piercing it seemed to resonate in their very souls, leaving behind a trail of despair and awe.
Finally, the aftershock hit.
The horizon, split as if a celestial blade had descended, sent rippling shockwaves back toward them. The ground heaved violently, cracking open with a deafening roar as the energy unleashed by the arc pulsed through the land like the relentless beat of a war drum.
And then, something unexpected happened.
Candence and the other Resonara felt it, the iron grip that had locked their blood and bodies in place suddenly weakened. The suffocating force that Yorowin had commanded was gone.
The arc had passed through them.
And yet… nothing had happened.
"Where are we?" Candence murmured, his gaze darting around. This wasn't where they had been before. The battlefield was gone, replaced by endless sky.
And then he realized, they were falling.
Panic gripped them for an instant before strong hands caught their plummeting forms, steadying their descent. Candence looked up, his breath catching in shock.
It wasn't just one Atticus holding them, it was hundreds.
Each Resonara had an Atticus gripping them, guiding them gently toward the earth below.
But even in his awe, Candence noticed something strange.
These weren't the real Atticus. They lacked his presence, his overwhelming aura. They shimmered faintly, translucent, like echoes of the man himself.
As their feet touched the ground, the clones dissolved, fading into nothingness.
Candence stood motionless, his heart pounding. He wasn't alone. Every single Resonara, bloodied and shaken, stared at the battlefield in disbelief.
"He saved us," Candence whispered.
But their attention was quickly drawn back to the center of the devastation.
The blood shadows, trembling and battered, also turned their gazes to the same point.
There, hovering in the air, was Atticus.
His figure was calm and silent, exuding an unnerving stillness.
Before him stood a massive blood shield, pulsing faintly, and inside it, Yorowin's form seemed to linger.
Yet, Atticus's icy gaze wasn't fixed on the shield. He was looking beyond it, as though he already understood its true nature.
Suddenly, the shield quivered.
It began to liquefy, collapsing into a torrent of crimson rain that fell from the sky, drenching the shattered ground in red.
Atticus's gaze remained locked on a single point far away. He didn't move, didn't speak. He didn't need to.
He knew.
Paragons didn't die that easily.
A heartbeat later, the blood pooling on the ground convulsed violently, drawn together by an invisible force. It gathered into a single point, swirling with terrifying speed, and then erupted outward in a crimson explosion.
From the explosion, Yorowin's body reformed.
The Grand Elder materialized, his form solidifying as the crimson glow around him pulsed with life.
His breathing was ragged, his gaze wide with the realization that he had come closer to death than ever before.
And yet, as his piercing crimson eyes locked onto Atticus's icy stare, the world seemed to freeze once more.
The tension was suffocating, the air so thick it felt like it might shatter under the weight of their gazes.
Yorowin's voice thundered, vibrating through the very ground beneath them, filled with fury and an intent so murderous the world shuddered.
"You're dead."