章 16: Beyond Zero
The alleyway was suddenly filled with an ominous chill, as a thick frost spread from where my palm had slammed into the ground. Crystals of ice sprouted in jagged patterns, coating the walls and the road. The air around me turned cold, my breath visible as I stood up, watching Amelia Voght disappear into vapor.
A sly smirk tugged at the corner of my lips. This would be fun.
"You think you can just fly away from me?" Amelia's voice echoed in the dense fog, her words dripping with malice.
I stretched my senses through the moisture in the air, tracking her presence. Sure, she could turn to vapor, but vapor is still moisture, and I had absolute control over it. With a flick of my wrist, I commanded the vapor in the air to condense and harden. A sudden gust of icy wind swirled around the alley, and Amelia's form struggled against the freezing grip I was tightening around her vaporized body.
"Come on, now," I taunted. "Let's see how well you do against a little cold."
Amelia hissed, her vapor body shifting and dissipating in an attempt to escape, but I wasn't about to let her go that easily. I focused harder, freezing the moisture in the air at an even faster rate, causing her vapor to crystallize.
While I was busy with Amelia, the ground beneath me trembled violently. Senyaka's whip-like tendrils, crackling with deadly life energy, shot from the darkness, aiming straight for my legs. I narrowly dodged one of the glowing whips but felt the heat of it as it grazed my side.
"Not bad," I muttered, rolling to the side and throwing up a wall of ice between me and Senyaka. "But you're not fast enough."
Senyaka growled in frustration, the energy from his tendrils blasting through the ice wall like it was nothing. His eyes glinted with something dark and predatory as he charged me, his whips lashing out with blinding speed. I ducked under one, then parried another with a shield of ice that shattered on impact. The guy was a walking battery of deadly energy, and I wasn't keen on letting him drain me dry.
I slid backward, using the slick ice I'd laid down earlier to my advantage, creating more distance between us. "You're going to have to try harder than that," I called out, extending my arm and firing off a volley of sharp icicles straight toward him.
He smirked, using his energy whips to bat most of them away. But I wasn't aiming for him directly. The ice shards struck the surrounding area, embedding into the ground and walls, creating a domain of sharp spikes and cold traps. With every step Senyaka took, the ice seemed to grow thicker, making it harder for him to maneuver.
Meanwhile, Amelia was still struggling to fully reform. She'd lost her initial advantage, but I knew she wasn't done yet. Just as I expected, her vapor began swirling rapidly again, and I could feel the temperature around me changing. She was trying to vaporize the air around us, cutting off the oxygen.
But two can play that game.
I concentrated, controlling the moisture to thicken into an icy mist, lowering the temperature drastically. The vapor Amelia had created started to freeze again, crystallizing in mid-air as I drained the heat from it. Her form struggled to take shape, a frustrated shriek escaping her lips as I forced her vaporized body to solidify.
"You like messing with the air, huh? Let's see how you like being frozen solid," I muttered, raising my hand as more ice formed around her, encasing her in a jagged prison of frost.
"Not bad," came a voice from behind me. I spun around to see the third mutant, a tall man with dark, unreadable eyes. He hadn't attacked yet, but there was something eerie about the way he just stood there, his gaze locked onto mine.
"And who the hell are you supposed to be?" I asked, not letting my guard down for a second.
The man smirked. "Let's just say… you'll find out soon enough."
Suddenly, everything went black. But this time, it wasn't just my sight—my hearing faded, too. The sounds of the city, the faint wind, the hum of distant traffic... All of it vanished, leaving me in a world of oppressive silence. My sense of smell, taste, even touch—it was like someone had flipped a switch, plunging me into complete sensory deprivation.
He wasn't just blinding me anymore; he was stripping away everything. My connection to the world felt severed, leaving me floating in a void. Yet, a large grin formed on my face. I want this power. It's time to wrap things up. Taking a deep breath, I unleashed my final move that came with ice mutation.
"Beyond ZERO!"
The pinnacle of my ice mutation, something I hadn't fully unleashed until now.
Taking a deep breath, I allowed myself to dissolve into the frost. My body became mist—an ethereal snowstorm, invisible yet everywhere. The alleyway erupted with a sudden burst of cold, colder than the Arctic, colder than anything that had ever existed on Earth. The air itself cracked under the pressure of the extreme chill, turning every breath the three mutants took into a frozen gasp.
The snowstorm raged, filling the space around us, and within it, I was everywhere at once, a ghost in the freezing wind. I sensed Senyaka, his tendrils flailing wildly, unable to latch onto anything solid. His life-force-draining abilities were useless now—there was no living thing to grab hold of. He swung his whips in panic, but they hit nothing but swirling ice and snow.
Amelia, trapped in her vapor form, struggled to hold herself together. Her vapor was freezing faster than she could dissipate it. I saw her try to reform, her body flickering in and out of visibility, but it was too late. The cold seeped into her, turning her vapor into solid ice, and locking her movement in a frozen crystal.
And the third guy—the one who had stripped away my senses? I felt him too. His power was impressive, I had to give him that. But in this storm, it was useless. I could feel his fear as the icy winds whipped around him, his mind faltering as the oppressive cold gnawed at his body. His abilities flickered, and my senses started to return. Bit by bit, I reclaimed my sight, my hearing, and my connection to the world around me.
The blizzard swirled tighter, focusing on my three enemies. I reformed slowly from the snow, emerging out of the storm, my breath visible in the icy air. My hand stretched out toward Senyaka first. His whips fell to the ground as the life energy in them dissipated. He tried to run away, but where would he run? I froze him solid.
"Not so immortal now, huh?" I whispered.
His body stiffened, frost creeping up his skin. But I didn't kill him. I wasn't here for that. With a tight grip on his throat, I absorbed his power, feeling the life-draining energy flow into me. Unlike the time when I just copied others' power or absorbed a tiny amount, making it mine, I decided to strip him of his mutation. His body went limp, his immortality stripped from him. He was just a man now.
I don't know if it would have a permanent effect, but he ain't be walking again anytime soon. Now, time to focus on the lady...
I turned to Amelia next. Encased in the ice, her eyes were wide with terror. I touched the frozen surface of her crystal prison, absorbing her ability to vaporize matter and teleportation.
Lastly, the third mutant, the one who had taken away my senses. He was backing away, his power flickering as the cold gnawed at his focus. His eyes were wide with panic as I approached, the storm raging around me.
"Your turn," I said calmly, gripping his shoulder. "You see, I'm more curious about your mutation. How did you get out from my ice cage and how the fuck are you still walking in this temperature... You, my friend." I turned into icy dust and appeared behind him before grabbing his neck. "Are one heck of a mystery. What other power are you hiding in that body of yours? Wait! Don't tell me because I want to find it out myself."
He tried to resist, his power flaring one last time, plunging the world into silence for a brief moment. But it was futile. The cold swallowed it whole, and his power became mine. I felt the strange, sensory-warping ability flow into me, making me grin wider. His control over the senses—something so unique, so OP—was now mine to wield. But there was something else... Something like body temperature control or similar power to that. Well, I'll find out eventually.
The storm began to subside as I drew the last of his power into myself. The alley was eerily silent now, the three mutants lying unconscious at my feet, barely alive. Stripped of their abilities, they were nothing more than regular humans—weak, helpless, and unaware of how close they had come to death.
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