The threat was not empty.

As Isaac finished speaking, the moisture in the air did not just freeze. It slammed into a solid state.

The turbine hall, already cold, became a tomb. The frost racing across the floor thickened into jagged sheets of blue-white ice. It wasn't a world-altering spell. It was a barricade.

Isaac raised his hand. The Authority of Pale Eternity surged outward. A semi-circular wall of ice erupted from the ground between the students and the beacon. It wasn't the size of a building. It was twelve feet high and three feet thick. It was dense, opaque, and radiated a cold that made the metal floorboards groan.

"Begin," Isaac whispered.

Ashe Razar moved first. She didn't care about the cold. She was a Warlord. She solved problems by applying force until they broke.

"Out of my way!" she roared.

She didn't use a fancy technique. She used momentum. She coated her greatsword in the black aura of her Killing Intent and swung it two-handed at the ice wall. It was a blow meant to shatter stone.

Clang.

The sound was sharp and ringing. It was the sound of a pickaxe hitting bedrock.

Ashe's sword chipped the ice. A spray of white shards flew into the air. But the blade didn't go through. It bounced off. The ice was too dense. Isaac had packed the mana so tightly that the water molecules were locked in a structure harder than iron.

Ashe snarled, vibrating from the recoil. "It is too thick."

"It is not just thickness," Anastasia corrected, stepping up beside her. Her breath plumed in white clouds. "He is reinforcing it actively. Look."

Where Ashe had chipped the wall, the ice was already growing back. Blue light pulsed from the ground, knitting the fracture shut in seconds.

Anastasia raised her rapier. "We go over."

She cast Wind Step. A cyclone of air wrapped around her boots, launching her upward. She vaulted high, intending to clear the twelve-foot wall and drop directly onto the beacon behind Isaac.

Isaac didn't look up. He simply flicked his wrist.

Three icicles, sharp as javelins, shot up from the top of the wall. They intercepted Anastasia's trajectory perfectly.

She was forced to twist in mid-air to dodge. One icicle tore through her sleeve. Another grazed her shin. The disruption broke her concentration, and her wind spell faltered. She dropped back down to the near side of the wall, landing in a crouch.

"He is turtling," Anastasia hissed, clutching her bleeding arm. "He has entrenched himself."

Vane watched from the shadows of the generator housing. He was shivering, but he forced his body to stay still. He reinforced his skin with a thin layer of mana to keep the frostbite away.

He analyzed the situation.

Isaac wasn't invincible. He was just efficient. He had built a strong wall, and he was sitting behind it, swatting down anyone who tried to climb over. It was a classic siege defense.

Valerica Sol stepped forward. The Titan looked annoyed.

"Move," she ordered the other two.

Valerica slammed her palms onto the floor. She didn't target the ice. She targeted the gravity around the ice.

"Crush."

The air pressure in the room spiked. Vane's ears popped. A cylinder of extreme gravity hammered down onto Isaac's wall.

The ice groaned. Cracks spiderwebbed across the surface. The sheer weight was trying to flatten the barricade into slush.

But Isaac held.

Blue veins of mana pulsed through the ice, fighting the gravity. The wall buckled, but it didn't shatter. Isaac was pouring his vast mana reserves into the structure, out-repairing the damage Valerica was dealing.

Vane looked at the floor.

The metal plating of the turbine hall was screaming.

It was supporting the weight of the massive ice wall. It was supporting the crushing force of Valerica's gravity. It was supporting Isaac himself.

The steel bolts fastening the floor panels were frosted over. They were brittle from the cold. And now, they were being subjected to immense stress.

'He is looking forward,' Vane realized. 'He is looking up. He is reinforcing his wall against the heavy hitters.'

Vane looked at Isole. The necromancer was huddled behind a pile of crates. She looked ready to pass out from the cold, but she still gripped her staff.

Vane caught her eye. He made a sharp gesture. He pointed to the ceiling pipes above Isaac, then mimed a loud noise.

'Distract him,' Vane mouthed.

Isole nodded. She understood. She dragged herself up and pointed her staff at the ceiling.

"Samsara: Decay," she croaked.

A bolt of green, rotting energy shot upward. It hit the rusted supports of a heavy ventilation duct hanging above Isaac's position.

The metal groaned. The duct slipped, hanging precariously by a single chain.

Isaac looked up. He frowned. He raised his hand to reinforce the ceiling with a dome of ice.

"Sloppy," Isaac muttered, focusing his mana upwards.

Vane moved.

He didn't use a movement skill. He scrambled across the frost like a rat, keeping his profile low. He reached the base of the floor panel that supported the ice wall.

He gripped his spear with both hands.

He activated the Silver Fang.

The mana around the spearhead condensed inward. It didn't explode outward like Ashe's fire. It folded in on itself, coating the metal in a layer of Silver Mana so dense it looked like mercury. The air around the tip distorted, bending away from the edge that was now sharp enough to cut the wind itself.

Vane twisted his wrists, initiating the Spiral Circulation.

He began to rotate the spear. He channeled his mana into the spin, turning the weapon into a silver blur.

He didn't attack the ice wall. He thrust the spear into the floor bolts.

The Silver Mana provided the cut. The rotation provided the drill.

The spear tip bit into the frozen steel. It didn't clang. It hissed. The rotating silver edge chewed through the brittle bolts, severing the heads clean off as if they were made of wax.

Snap. Snap. Snap.

Vane pulled the spear back and scrambled away.

The floor panel, disconnected from the frame, could no longer support the tonnage of Isaac's ice wall and Valerica's gravity.

Isaac looked down, his eyes widening slightly.

The floor gave way.

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