CHAPTER 440: FROZEN OATH. ABSOLUTE DOMINION!

Leon didn’t let that moment linger.

Wings snapped wide. His aura surged to a violent crescendo. The glacier-like feathers glinted with destructive elegance as his power gathered in a single direction: Ethan.

A trail of runes spiraled across Leon’s arms like chains reacting to a furious master.

"Frozen Oath. Absolute Dominion!"

Ice-concept severed the world once more.

The sky went rigid. Space itself crackled like porcelain starting to split. Ethan felt gravity give way to something worse: inevitability. His movements thickened, slowed to a predator caught mid-pounce and forced into a painting.

Leon blurred forward, sword swinging in a two-handed diagonal cut that should have parted Ethan in half.

But instinct and will are stubborn things.

Ethan tilted just enough. The blade carved into his armor, ripping plates and drawing silver-gold blood, but missing the kill.

Pain burned hot through Ethan’s ribs. He didn’t flinch.

He slammed his palm against Leon’s face.

Psychic terror detonated point-blank, a pulse of pure thought so dense it warped the air. Sound followed, an invisible roar that tore loose every shard of ice around them. Earth responded as well, hurling jagged stone upward like fangs.

Leon careened back, wings flaring to regain momentum, armor cracked along his cheeks where Ethan’s claws had grazed.

He wiped blood from his lip and looked at it as though insulted by the very idea of bleeding.

"You... still don’t understand." His voice shook. Not with fear. With murderous conviction. "If you live... I lose everything."

Ethan panted, ice forming on the edges of his fur. His hammer dragged against the ground as he lifted it back into stance. He felt his strength draining faster than it was recovering. Leon’s conceptual power tore at him with every breath.

"You keep saying everything," Ethan replied, voice low and strained. "But what you mean is hope. And you killed your own long before I ever entered your life."

Leon’s face contorted.

"You speak her name and I’ll rip your tongue out." His wings snapped, blasting a cyclone of frost. "I buried her!"

Ethan’s tone softened.

"She didn’t need burying. She needed saving."

Two hearts broke in the space between them.

Leon attacked first.

His sword swept upward, carrying a wave of ice so dense it crushed stone into flour. Ethan met the strike with his hammer. Metal shrieked. Sparks and frost exploded outward.

The shockwave hurled them apart, but they slammed back into one another instantly, exchanging blows faster than distant onlookers could comprehend.

Ethan used everything. Psychic ricochet strikes. Earth-powered leaps that cracked the battlefield. Sound vibrations collapsing Leon’s defensive aura in bursts.

Leon stayed ahead. Barely. His wings folded and extended with ruthless precision, momentum always in his favor. His concept wrapped tightly around him like a second skin, rewriting the rules every time Ethan found a thread of advantage.

Ethan’s footing slipped. The ice beneath him tilted sharply, an entire field of frozen runes triggering at once. He fell downward as Leon dove from above.

A descending meteor of wings, steel, and hatred.

"You don’t deserve another miracle!"

The sword gleamed with the cold before birth.

But Ethan roared. His hammer rose. Order flickered through his arms as psychic force stabilized his stance mid-fall. His tail whipped, controlling the drop.

Two weapons met like planets colliding.

Ice shattered.

Armor cracked.

Blood sprayed.

The world screamed under their force.

Ethan was driven into the ground so violently his bones rattled, but he still had his hammer locked against Leon’s blade, refusing to yield a single inch.

Leon leaned close, breath like winter drowning a candle.

"Stay down."

Ethan’s answer came with a strained, defiant grin.

"I don’t know how."

There was terror now. Not in Ethan. Never in Ethan.

In Leon.

Because nothing, ice, hatred, power, or pain, could make Ethan stay buried.

The air trembled.

The next escalation was inevitable.

The air itself froze as Leon unleashed his concept of Ice. Every particle of moisture in the atmosphere crystallized instantly, forming sharp shards and jagged spires that erupted around Ethan like the teeth of a colossal predator. The ground beneath him cracked and heaved, splitting into towering columns of frost that seemed to reach for the sky, slicing the horizon into jagged peaks. Each movement Leon made was precise and deliberate, bending the frozen landscape to his will with terrifying ease.

Ethan lunged, his flight propelling him through the ice shards like a missile. He summoned his Stagnation Field, the subtle distortion of time around him slowing the deadly shards for a brief instant. It allowed him to dodge and weave, his body bending impossibly through the crystalline spikes. The Mark of Serenity flared faintly on his forehead, grounding his senses even as Leon’s overwhelming aura pressed against his mind, cold and consuming.

Leon smirked, his dark fairy form fully revealed now, wings unfurling and stretching wide. The metallic sheen of his cyborg enhancements reflected the pale light of the frozen wasteland, each joint and plate moving with deadly grace. He swung his greatsword with a force that shattered the frozen spires Ethan had used as cover. The impact generated a shockwave that knocked Ethan several meters back, yet he landed gracefully, his claws digging into the snow to stabilize.

Ethan countered with a flurry of elemental strikes. Earth erupted beneath him, jagged spikes thrusting toward Leon, while his alchemy energy reshaped fragments of ice into battering constructs aimed at his opponent. Psychic waves radiated from him, subtly twisting Leon’s trajectory and testing his defenses. Necromantic energy seeped into the snow, briefly animating frozen corpses around the outskirts as distractions. Even sound vibrated through the ice, rattling the structures with sharp, concussive force.

Leon laughed, the sound cold and echoing.

"Is that all, Ethan? I’ve been holding back. You’ve regressed, yet still manage to challenge me. Fascinating."

His wings flared, beating the icy air with a force that shattered nearby spires. Ice bent and twisted around him, forming a living armor that seemed to grow with his rage. Each swing of his sword reshaped the landscape, carving trenches into the snow and raising walls of jagged ice that rose and fell like the lungs of a beast.

Ethan’s body moved with primal precision, his partial Primord form giving him unnatural agility. White fur bristled along his arms and face as he slashed and dodged, claws flashing like silver streaks. His tail lashed behind him, counterbalancing spins and flips, while his sharp fangs glinted as he opened his mouth in a roar that reverberated across the ice plains. The three interlocking gold rings on his forehead glowed faintly as a subtle manifestation of his Primord authority, weaving faint threads of Order and Mysticism to guide his movements.

Still, Leon’s control over the ice was absolute. Every strike Ethan made was met with a reshaping of the battlefield. Columns erupted beneath his feet to throw him off balance, jagged shards grew mid-flight to cut off paths, and the air itself congealed into icy tendrils that lashed at him, forcing him to use flight purely to evade. It was a display of power that reminded Ethan of the disparity between them. Leon’s Second Epiphany mastery of the Saint Realm allowed him to manipulate the environment and energy far beyond Ethan’s current state.

Ethan gritted his teeth, feeling the pressure mounting, yet refusing to yield. He focused on the fusion of his elements. Earth and psychic energy intertwined, shaping armored spikes that absorbed blows and deflected shards. Alchemy and necromancy combined to create semi-solid constructs that moved unpredictably, forcing Leon to shift constantly. Even subtle vibrations of sound created resonant feedback in the ice, cracking its surface and opening gaps for Ethan to maneuver.

Leon’s blue eye, mechanical and icy, scanned him with deadly precision.

"Interesting. You are strong, Ethan, stronger than I expected for someone in your state. But strength alone will not be enough."

With a sweep of his blade, the ice constructs he had allowed to stand twisted violently, reshaping into a massive, multi-limbed frost monstrosity that lunged at Ethan. The attack was fast and precise, forcing Ethan to weave between columns and dive toward the ground, barely avoiding the strike that could have torn him apart.

Ethan roared, claws slashing through ice and constructs alike, pushing his body to the edge. His hammer glowed faintly with the colors of his armor, a beacon of stability and brute force amid the chaos. Each swing shattered ice and energy constructs, yet Leon anticipated and redirected nearly every strike with uncanny precision, the greatsword moving in sweeping arcs that carved massive scars into the frozen landscape.

Despite the disparity, Ethan refused to retreat. He launched himself upward, claws extended, hammer swinging in a wide arc, manipulating psychic threads to curve his trajectory and slow some of the ice tendrils. Leon met him mid-air, greatsword striking downward in a clash that sent a shockwave rippling for hundreds of meters. The air tore, the snow erupted, and both fighters were thrown apart, yet neither fell. The intensity of their battle warped reality in the immediate vicinity, creating a zone of distorted time and shifting ice.

Ethan’s breathing was harsh, his golden-silver eyes narrowed into slits like a predator, yet his expression remained focused, controlled. Leon descended with wings flaring, eyes cold and merciless, the aura around him freezing the very air. The battle had only just begun, and each knew the other would push limits neither had dared test before. The frozen plains groaned under the weight of their power, the ice bending, cracking, and reforming as if the world itself were a canvas for their clash.

Ethan tightened his grip on the hammer, preparing for the next wave of assaults, knowing that while Leon was far stronger, the fight was far from over. Every element he controlled, every subtle manipulation of Order and Mysticism, every ounce of his Stagnation Field and Mark of Serenity was now crucial. He would not yield, not here, not now.

The snow screamed around them as the two powers collided again, a clash of fury and precision, and the frozen wasteland became the stage for an epic duel that would echo across Anbord for all who dared witness it.