CHAPTER 123: SSS-RANK FORBIDDEN MAGIC: ABSOLUTE ZERO

The snowstorm around the battlefield began to shift unnaturally. The once chaotic winds calmed, and the falling snow stopped midair as if refusing to touch the ground.

Frost spread outward from Lucien’s position in a perfect circle, freezing everything in its path. Even the fleeing monsters in the distance felt the temperature plummet and fled even faster, howling in terror.

Xalvureth’s two glowing eyes narrowed in recognition. "Forbidden Magic..."

The Demon King of Decay tightened his skeletal hand, making the Death Grip crush harder against the remaining layers of Lucien’s barriers.

Cracks rapidly spread across the barrier, but unlike before, the shattered fragments didn’t fall away. They instead reformed into thicker, denser ice layers that resisted the decay.

Varnak’s fiery body burned brighter, and hellfire erupted around him as he shouted in fury. "You dare try that trick against us, human?!"

But Lucien ignored their threats. His rapid chant trait allowed him to speak words that normally would take a minute to utter in less than a heartbeat, yet to his enemies, they resonated as if time had slowed down:

"Hear me, frozen silence of eternity.

Oh concept of stillness that even time cannot defy.

I call upon the forbidden essence of ice that halts all motion.

Return the world to a state of nothingness...

Absolute Zero."

The moment the final words left his lips, a deafening silence engulfed the battlefield.

The howling winds stopped, the blizzards ceased, and even the faint sound of cracking barriers vanished completely.

A white-blue aura exploded from Lucien’s staff, spreading like a tidal wave.

The land beneath him crystallized into perfect ice, extending for miles in every direction.

Xalvureth’s skeletal body stiffened mid-motion as frost crawled over his decayed limbs, locking them in place. Even the ever-burning hellfire surrounding Varnak flickered and froze solid, turning into black, brittle ice.

The Ancient Space Dragon, despite its spatial dominance, found its wings halted mid-beat as glacial chains of mana anchored it in stillness.

Everything was frozen—not just physically, but conceptually as well. Motion itself was denied. Magic, aura, even the decay of Xalvureth’s Death Grip halted as it shattered into sparkling frost.

Lucien stood alone in the eye of this frozen world, his breath misting in the dead silence. For the first time since the ambush began, his enemies could not move, could not resist.

"Now," Lucien muttered, gripping his staff as elemental mana surged toward him like a roaring river beneath the frozen stillness. "Let’s see who falls first."

He had used Forbidden Magic: Absolute Zero. It was a forbidden magic spell that could freeze everything and stop all motion. It was akin to time stop, but even those who were immune to time stop weren’t immune to this forbidden spell.

However, the price of using an SSS-rank Forbidden Magic Spell was something that Lucien couldn’t bear with his pitiful mana reserves.

Even now, his mana reserves were in the negatives. Fortunately, one of his skills allowed him to take the burden of a mana debt, but he’d have to pay the price for it later.

But this also posed a problem for him. With negative mana reserves, he couldn’t muster any mana inside his body and could only control the mana in the surroundings with lesser efficacy.

Simply put, his weakened form now could only gather elemental mana from the surroundings and launch basic attacks at SS-rank attack power. It was far too insufficient to damage an SSS-rank Demon King.

’Absolute Zero won’t last that long. I only have several seconds left. But this should be enough to use the SSS-rank forbidden magic scroll to kill Varnak.’

Prepared for such scenario where he’d use up all his mana just to bring someone down with him, Lucien took out a brown scroll inscribed with magic text.

It was none other than an SSS-rank forbidden magic scroll. Using it would release the sealed SSS-rank Forbidden Magic: Planet Buster Mana Cannon.

It literally could destroy an entire planet. However, even Lucien was well aware that it would only be enough to kill Varnak.

The Ancient Space Dragon’s durability would likely be higher than that, and it could still survive with its life hanging by a thread. As for Xalvureth, Lucien didn’t doubt that the Demon King of Decay possessed a failsafe resurrection magic that could resurrect itself.

Left with such options, he could only choose to kill the weakest Demon King of Hellfire Varnak.

"Sigh, to fall this low... If I had known, I would have killed Varnak long ago, regardless of injury. At least, if I had fought him in the past regardless of my life, I could kill him even if I would suffer major injuries."

Lucien knew that, unless faced with a life-threatening situation, most SSS-rank Awakeners or even SSS-rank Demon Kings were likely just fighting a stalemate battle.

In other words, that was the main reason why he was exasperated before and desperately asked the Earth Will for backup. He knew his colleagues, aside from a few who truly were going for the kill, were likely just sandbagging.

Each SSS-rank Being was a world-destroying nuke so no one truly wanted to push the other into a corner. The only exception would be a situation like this, where one SSS-rank being was ganged up on by more SSS-rank beings.

"Forget it, even if it’s a losing trade to exchange my life for Varnak, it’s still better than not bring one of them down with me."

Having resigned to his fate, Lucien was about to tear off the forbidden magic scroll and activate it.

But just as he was about to, a shadowy figure stepped out of the void and moved freely within the area covered by his Absolute Zero!

Lucien was astonished to see that an unexpected third party suddenly appeared and could move within Absolute Zero. After all, it was an SSS-rank Forbidden Magic that only allowed the caster’s motion, and anyone else within the area would be subjected to absolute frozen stillness!

In a flash, the shadowy figure moved faster than he could see, and he couldn’t even determine its appearance.

But when he saw the shadowy figure appear on top of the Ancient Space Dragon’s head and plunge its hand towards its brain, Lucien could only hope, ’He should be an ally, right?’