Struggling to maintain control over both clones' consciousness, Northern felt the vise of pressure tightening around his mind. He needed to act—now.
This was his first attempt at being two different people simultaneously, each acting differently while facing overwhelming odds. The strain clawed at his focus, threatening to snap it in two.
Only one option remained.
On the Enigmatic Paragon's side, Northern stretched forth his Void Force, letting it envelop him like a round wall.
The Molten Vein Northern stood surrounded by an invisible barrier that kept the thrashing monsters at bay. They lunged with demented frenzy, climbing and tearing at each other with no regard for their own kind. Their eyes burned with a single, furious resolve—kill the man standing in their midst.
The invisible wall only seemed to stoke their rage further, their howls rising to a fever pitch.
With his other consciousness now secured in a stationary position, Northern focused on Night Terror Northern. He couldn't still resort to Chaos or Void. So, he would push his talent further, raising the bar on what he could accomplish.
Northern exhaled, a whisper of breath escaping his lips as he battled the creatures. His blade sliced through the air, though the path before him remained so cluttered and confined that his style couldn't flow freely. The blade felt like an extension of his arm, singing its deadly melody despite the chaos surrounding him.
Beneath his feet, darkness pooled like spilled ink. This wasn't his shadow—it was the unique manifestation of [Eclipsing Dread]. A shadow divorced from nature, existing solely for itself and by itself, a lone sentinel of darkness.
The shadow thickened and rippled like liquid midnight, spreading outward beneath the rushing monsters, filling their shadows and reaching ever wider. As it expanded, Northern's spatial awareness deepened like roots growing into fertile soil. The Eclipsing Dread seemed to function as a carrier of perception, enhancing his natural senses beyond their limits.
This newfound awareness painted a clearer picture of the battlefield and the staggering odds stacked against him.
Since Eclipse Dread was only recently copied—and from a mere Master at that—Northern's options were limited. Even enriched with Void essence, the abilities still lacked the potency he desired.
The shadow's radius, for instance, could only stretch so far. Though he'd covered a significant number of raging monsters, less than half of those plaguing his side of the coliseum had been ensnared in his darkness.
The floor cracked and splintered beneath their monstrous strength, each thunderous stomp sending tremors through the ground. Every effort to contain them only seemed to fuel their resolve, like trying to douse a fire with oil.
Northern had always despised rifts teeming with overwhelming numbers. The tier nine rift they'd just completed had featured plenty of monsters, but compared to this chaos, that number suddenly seemed trivial.
Yet the tier nine rift had presented a different challenge—those monsters had been incredibly difficult to kill. Northern doubted any Drifter aside from himself and Paragon Raizel had managed to slay even one.
These creatures, despite being maelstrom ranks, were relatively easier to dispatch. Even so, "easier" was a dangerous word here. Others were clearly struggling, their faces etched with strain as they fought for survival in this arena of death.
If any group stood apart from the struggling masses, it was the Citadel representatives. Their coordination flowed like water—one fighter would engage a Maelstrom just long enough for another to join the fray, and when two proved insufficient, a third would seamlessly slide in to deliver the killing blow.
Their method cut through the chaos with surgical precision. They understood not only the urgency that pressed upon them but also the boundaries of their own strength—a rare and valuable quality in battle. Northern couldn't help but admire them, their discipline burning bright amid the mayhem.
Even Helena carved her own path through the monsters, a force of nature unto herself. With her black rod discharging shadowy sparks, she danced through the crowd of beasts, never still for more than a heartbeat.
The raw power behind her movements spoke volumes about the gulf between her and the others. Despite her small stature and seemingly fragile frame, each step she took cracked the ground beneath her feet, and her strikes sent monsters twice her size reeling backward as though hit by a battering ram.
The monsters' tendency to pool toward a single target worked to the fighters' advantage, allowing them to focus their efforts without becoming overwhelmed. Even so, concern for the Heroic Paragon caught in the middle flashed across their faces between strikes.
With their combined strength, they were making headway—the difference might be small, but Northern appreciated every monster that fell to their blades.
He whispered, his voice barely audible above the cacophony of battle.
"Okay now..."
From the pooling shadows beneath, Northern reached into the darkness as if dipping into a well and began to pull something forth.
Ice.
But this ice defied nature's design. Obsidian black and glassy, it glittered with a malevolent violet light that seemed to drink in the surrounding illumination rather than reflect it.
He drew the first shard from the embrace of darkness and, with a flick of his wrist, impaled the nearest monster through its jaw. The ice erupted from the top of its skull in a grotesque fountain of frozen cruelty.
The creature froze in place, its movements slowing to a crawl. Though the arena still thundered with the chaotic symphony of combat, this single monster stood out in Northern's field of vision, a canvas for what was to come.
The ice trembled, then transformed. Branches of black crystal snaked through the monster's throat with terrible speed, spreading not just through its gullet but throughout its entire body like a parasitic network. The frozen tendrils burst through scaled skin from within, lifting the beast into the air—a grotesque trophy announcing the dread about to unfold.
Behind the helm of his Night Terror armor, Northern's lips curled into a devilish grin, teeth gleaming in the violet light of his creation.
'It's a success.'
No sooner had the words echoed through his mind than a terrifying tremor ripped through the arena. The shadows erupted, birthing an explosion of obsidian ice that plunged into the surrounding monsters with merciless precision.
A lightning-fast network of crystalline spears spread like a plague, never pausing, never hesitating. From their origin point in the shadows, they branched outward, tearing through flesh and bone as if they were paper. Each jagged shard linked to another, creating a web of death that expanded with blistering speed.
In a single heartbeat, an eerie silence smothered the section of the arena where Night Terror Northern stood. The sounds from elsewhere still continued but seemed distant now, muffled by the sudden absence of monster shrieks and battle cries in his immediate vicinity.
The burning blue flames of his visor blazed like radiant stars for a moment as he slowly lifted his gaze to survey his handiwork.
Everything stood frozen in time. All movement had ceased, the monsters transfixed in their final moments—impaled wickedly in various contortions by the network of ice spikes that gleamed with malevolent beauty under the arena's harsh light.
The tableau before him was macabre enough to make the likes of Roma turn pale, retch, and empty the contents of her stomach. Northern himself had been in such position before... once.
But now, he merely stared, his gaze filled with a cold emptiness that matched the frozen wasteland he'd created.
The blood-chilling carnage surrounding him was his doing.
His creation.