Snow’s strongest strike hit home ..
and within moments the Baharat Knight’s body erupted and began to crumble beneath the weight of Snow’s light. The murderous cut bored through him at a terrifying rate; to take the blow in full would mean certain death.
Instinct screamed it at the Baharat Knight—triggering the danger mechanism deep in his mind.
At that final instant, with death a hair’s breadth away, the space around the Baharat Knight shuddered ..
and the knight’s eyes blazed.
From within the broken knight’s body, a strange cold pulsed outward in a ring—
a wave that toyed with the void itself and sank everything around him into darkness.
For a moment, the world seemed drowned in a deep, murky blue.
And as it spread, everything froze.
Snow Lionheart’s magnificent strike halted mid-arc after carving through half the knight’s torso. Snow himself stood on the far side ..locked in place, unable to move a muscle.
Even far away...
Geppetto froze as well, along with the hooded giant behind him. That figure’s eyes glimmered faintly .. unlike the others—yet he, too, remained fixed where he stood.
Thus space itself congealed, and time ceased to advance for all who stood upon that battlefield and near it.
The only one able to move within that frozen domain was the broken knight—and no one else.
This was the ancient Baharat Knight’s trump card .. his ultimate art.
The Firefolk were singular, capable of wielding a peculiar frost that warped the fabric of space; some among their strongest became infamous for powers that seemed to meddle with time itself. The trick, however, was not truly time, for time still crept forward. The knight’s uncanny frost froze reality and the senses of all present, making it feel as though time had stopped.
It was the very gambit that had nearly ended Geppetto’s life in the distant past—he had barely escaped it.
Now Snow Lionheart faced the same snare.
The Baharat Knight gripped his sword—his shattered body dragging itself through the congealed void ... closing on his helpless foe to end it while Snow could do nothing.
Snow stood there, frozen, sword in hand, shield lowered ..his whole body bared. However great his strength, a direct hit like this would be catastrophic.
In only a few heartbeats, the knight reached him and raised his blade high to finish it.
This was...the end ..
SLAAAASH!!!
At the fight’s conclusion, everyone heard steel sing ..flesh and bone crushed.
Time lurched forward again, and Geppetto finally saw the result ..
one that blew his eyes wide in shock.
Far off, Vermithor was buried deep inside the knight, obliterating him with a final, overwhelming thrust.
At the very last instant, Snow had moved before the broken knight .. slipping past the halted flow, cleaving the Baharat Knight who never imagined his prey could strike inside the "stopped" world.
"Freezing time, is it?"
Shoving the ruined body away, Snow unleashed a roaring beam of light that devoured the knight’s remains, reducing them to dust.
"Your art works by freezing everything .. dragging the temperature of all things down, even your opponent’s body. But I don’t carry an ordinary body to begin with. The Light Soul dwells within me."
Within Snow, the Soul of Light flared .. pouring warmth through him that banished the frost’s chill. That made him immune to the faux time-freeze; he merely pretended to be caught, waiting for the perfect moment to end his foe.
And so he won.
Snow turned his gaze to a distant rise, golden light igniting in his eyes.
"Perhaps you think you can lay your hands on this planet however you please, with no one to oppose you... Let me tell you something important."
He struck his chest with his left hand and shouted, thunder-loud:
"This earth is under our protection!"
Vermithor hummed in his grip as Snow’s body blazed, a tidal wave of aura surging across the wastes.
"And we’ll guard it .. to the death!"
He vanished.
At the very same instant ..while Geppetto was still reeling ..
Vermithor’s edge whispered at the demon’s throat at the speed of light.
Above him, Snow Lionheart descended in that terrifying war form, intent on cutting down not just the puppet ..but its master as well.
The strike was blindingly fast; clearly Snow had hoarded power for this moment. Geppetto tried to react, but he was a heartbeat too late ..
Snow’s blade came down, detonating the ridge, leveling the hill and sending a tidal roar of aura across the land.
Snow was certain he’d landed the kill ..
but before he could take the demon’s head, the impossible happened.
Snow’s eyes flew wide as a hand clamped around Vermithor.
The hooded figure who’d stood quietly behind Geppetto had intervened faster than even Snow could perceive .. catching the blade effortlessly.
"With his bare hand?!"
With one palm he stopped Vermithor. With the other, he shaped a sword of condensed aura .. pure, honed lightless edge. The masked giant swung.
Snow snapped his great golden shield up to meet it.
The moment blade met shield, Snow watched that mighty bulwark split in two ..
and the aura-sword drive clean through his body.
SLAAAAASH!!!!!!
With a single blow, blood burst from Snow’s chest, and a large portion of his shield arm was carved away. The same golden shield that had shrugged off the Baharat Knight’s strikes was hewn neatly in half.
The hooded man followed with a short, brutal punch that launched Snow, slamming him into the ground with crushing force. The blow flung him back, tumbling until he smashed into a colossal boulder that pinned him in place.
There he lay amid his blood, fighting to steady himself.
The hooded figure dropped from the air as well, a sword of pure aura in his hand.
Seeing him draw near, Snow rose at once.
"That aura... the Star Aura..."
He recognized it clearly .. but its intensity was terrifying.
He hadn’t expected another warrior at the demon’s side, much less one this strong.
This was no joke. He had sensed Geppetto earlier, but he had never felt this man at all.
Snow’s eyes flared as he readied himself.
"I’ve got no choice but to use the Light Soul to deal with him... If I push myself to the limit, I should be able to manage..."
The hooded figure advanced in heavy steps.
Studying him, Snow tried to read the man’s make-up .. and what he saw stunned him. No matter how he looked, there were no organs, no flesh ..only aura flowing freely everywhere, running his body in place of vital systems.
What shocked Snow even more was that this wasn’t ordinary aura.
"This... is ignited aura."
He rejected the thought on instinct.
"Impossible. Igniting one’s aura grants a massive surge of power, but it dooms the user to certain death. Yet this man..."
The more he analyzed, the deeper his disbelief.
"He’s burning constantly .. and controlling that power absolutely without any backlash..."
That shouldn’t be possible. Even in the Pure Vessel’s memories, he had never seen anything like it.
Realizing the calamity standing before him, Snow braced to fight ..only to learn how naïve that was. The man’s blade lashed out from nowhere with speed beyond imagining.
The masked giant unleashed a torrential flurry of Star Slashes ..so many, so fast, they shredded the battlefield itself, tearing it to pieces.
And with them, Snow was ripped open as hundreds of bloody fissures crawled across his armored body. He hadn’t even seen the strike.
One brutal blow knocked him out of his war state and hurled him away.
The hooded figure kept walking through the ruins, intent on ending him ..until Geppetto intervened at the last instant.
"That’s enough. Don’t kill him. We’re here to stop him, not to end him."
Geppetto stood in his path, one forearm trembling. Even facing a thing he commanded, the Thirteenth Seat felt nothing but fear before that monster.
"Weskar doesn’t want him dead. His death would trigger interferences we do not want. And I’m not bold enough to defy the Fourth-Ranked Demon, so stand down."
The hooded man held still a beat, then the sword in his hand dimmed away. He turned and walked back to his post.
Geppetto exhaled in relief, his gaze falling to where Snow had collapsed.
"We’ll meet again, Light-bearer. And then, the battle will be to the death."
He turned to go.
"Count on it," Snow answered.
Thus the fight ended .. in a harsh defeat for the White Knight of Earth.