Chapter 115: Absolute Zero, Glacial Aura
Lucifer stepped out of the Primary Conduit antechamber and left the bloody execution of the Warlock to the Oracle.
Elara followed silently behind him. The Valkyrie’s Twilight wings were folded tight. Her Void-Weave armor absorbed the faint light of the corridor.
"The assassination attempt failed," Lucifer stated smoothly and checked his system interface. "But Vorian didn’t come alone.
He brought twenty Royal Protectors. But the King has over a hundred elite guards assigned to his personal detail."
"If Vorian bypassed the perimeter using a high-tier teleportation scroll, he could have brought more," Elara reasoned. Her golden eyes scanned the dark vaulted hallway leading back to the grand hall.
"He did," Lucifer confirmed.
His void-swirling eyes narrowed. He felt the subtle shift in ambient mana!
[System Warning: Hostile Entities Detected.]
[Location: Zephyria - Upper Corridor.]
[Quantity: 80x Royal Protectors (Level 45 - Elite Guards)]
The corridor ahead was long and narrow. It was made entirely of polished black stone.
Eighty heavily armored men poured out of the side passages and completely blocked the path to the grand hall! They wore the same pearlescent anti-magic armor as the squad Lucifer had slaughtered in the antechamber.
Their long halberds were tipped with glowing blue aether-crystals and lowered. They formed an impenetrable wall of steel and magic!
"Assassins!" the lead Protector roared. His voice echoed loudly in the enclosed space. "The King’s Vanguard secures this fortress! Surrender the Warlord or die!"
Elara gripped her violet-flaming spear. She took a step forward and prepared to activate her Absolute Spatial Phasing to tear through their lines.
"Hold," Lucifer commanded softly.
He did not draw his longsword. He did not want to use True Damage. Swinging a massive blade was inefficient in a narrow corridor.
He did not use Gravity Crush either! The Royal Protectors were spaced perfectly and avoided clustering to minimize area-of-effect damage.
They were trained to fight mages in tight spaces.
But they were not trained to fight a Void Monarch who had devoured the heart of a Royal Dragon!
Lucifer raised his right hand. He did not activate the Gauntlet of the Void King.
He accessed the deepest and coldest part of his Archmage-level mana core. It was the power he had permanently absorbed during his Sovereign’s Duel with Isolde in the pocket dimension.
"I am not an assassin," Lucifer said coldly. His voice was a low terrifying rumble that carried down the hallway.
He did not cast a projectile. He triggered a localized environmental shift!
"Glacial Aura," Lucifer whispered.
[Skill Active: Glacial Aura (Passive/Active Toggle)]
[Source: 10% Stat Absorption (The Winter Sovereign)]
[Effect: Projects absolute zero cryogenic magic in a radius. Bypasses standard thermal resistance.]
The temperature in the black-stone corridor plummeted instantly!
It was not a gradual chill. It was a catastrophic and violent drop to absolute zero. The moisture in the air flash-froze and turned the hallway into a blinding white-out blizzard of dense magical frost.
The Royal Protectors gasped!
Their pearlescent armor was enchanted to deflect fireballs, lightning, and spatial tearing. It was completely useless against a sudden and absolute drop in ambient temperature!
The heavy steel plates flash-froze. The joints locked solid. The moisture in the Protectors’ eyes, lungs, and blood began to crystallize.
The eighty elite guards tried to charge but their bodies simply stopped moving. They froze mid-stride with their glowing blue halberds suspended in the air!
"What... what is this magic?" the lead Protector choked and his breath turned to solid ice on his lips. His eyes widened in sheer unadulterated terror as he realized he could not move a single muscle!
Lucifer did not answer.
He lowered his hand and began to walk down the corridor.
Elara followed a few paces behind. Her celestial fire kept the intense cold from seeping into her Void-Weave armor. She watched in awe as the Warlord strode casually toward the wall of paralyzed heavily armored men.
Lucifer did not break his stride.
He reached the front line of the frozen Royal Protectors. He did not draw a weapon. He simply walked past them!
The moment Lucifer’s dark leather shoulder brushed against the frozen pauldron of the lead Protector, the magic reacted.
SHATTER!
The Level 45 Elite guard did not just fall over. The absolute zero curse had made his armor, flesh, and bones as brittle as cheap glass. The slight physical contact caused the entire man to shatter instantly!
The Protector exploded into a million tiny and harmless pieces of blue ice and frozen blood. They rained down onto the black-stone floor.
Lucifer kept walking.
He moved through the dense formation of eighty men like a ghost walking through a field of dry leaves! Every time his armor, his boots, or the hilt of his sword brushed against a frozen guard, they shattered.
CRASH! SHATTER! CRACK!
The sound of shattering ice echoed continuously down the corridor. It was a methodical and terrifying execution entirely devoid of effort.
The Protectors in the back rows watched their comrades explode into blue dust! They tried to scream and they tried to beg, but their vocal cords were frozen solid. They could only stand perfectly still and were locked in their icy tombs. They waited for the Warlord to brush past them.
[Hostile Eliminated: Royal Protector]
[Hostile Eliminated: Royal Protector]
[Hostile Eliminated: Royal Protector] ...
In less than a minute, Lucifer emerged from the other side of the formation.
He did not look back. The corridor behind him was completely empty save for a thick layer of shimmering blue ice dust covering the black stone floor. Eighty of the King’s finest elite guards had been erased simply because they were in his way!
"The corridor is clear," Lucifer announced smoothly.
He deactivated the Glacial Aura. The temperature in the hallway rapidly returned to normal and turned the blue ice dust into small puddles of cold water.
Elara stepped over the puddles and her golden eyes tracked the Warlord. She had fought by his side through the Abyss.
However, the effortless and terrifying dominance he exerted over mortal armies still managed to stun her.
"They were the last line of defense," Elara noted quietly. "The King has nothing left."
"He has his throne room," Lucifer corrected her. "And the anti-magic dome."
They reached the heavy oak doors at the end of the corridor leading out to the main courtyard of Zephyria.
Lucifer pushed the doors open.
The evening air was crisp. The massive floating city drifted silently over the burning capital of the Sanctum of Solaris.
The Titans stood in their rigid defensive perimeter. The fifty thousand Glacial Wyrms roosted on the high battlements and their icy blue eyes glowed in the twilight.
Vexia, the Sanguine Princess, was waiting for them near the center of the courtyard. She hovered a few inches off the ground and her red bat wings beat lazily.
"The blood grid is fully integrated, Warlord," Vexia reported. A satisfied predatory smile was on her pale face. "The reactor is stable. The city is officially a living weapon."
"Good," Lucifer said. He walked past her and headed toward the edge of the courtyard overlooking the capital below.
Lucifer stopped at the edge of the massive black-stone platform. He looked down at the sprawling white marble city thousands of feet below.
The Royal Palace sat in the center of the capital. It was entirely encased in a massive glowing blue dome of concentrated anti-magic energy! It was a desperate and ultimate defense measure.
The shield was designed to deflect orbital bombardments and completely nullify teleportation.
"The dome is fully powered," Vexia observed and floated up beside Lucifer. She crossed her pale arms. "It is drawing mana directly from the city’s deep leylines. Even your Star-Shatter Cannon would struggle to breach that without a million-fold glitch."
"I am not going to blast it," Lucifer said smoothly.
He tapped his comms rune.
"Sarah," Lucifer called out.
"I have the codes, Lucifer," the Oracle’s voice replied instantly from the Spire above. She sounded exhausted but fiercely triumphant.
"Xoroth’s mind was heavily warded, but the Starlight Purge broke his resistance. I have the exact frequency matrix for the Royal Palace defense grid."
"Sync it to the Spire," Lucifer commanded. "I don’t want to break the dome. I want you to turn it off."
"Understood," Sarah confirmed.
High above them, the massive violet crystal at the center of the Spire of Celestial Convergence flared with intense silver light! Sarah channeled her cosmic magic and used the extracted codes to perfectly mimic the Royal magical frequency.
She broadcasted the override signal directly into the glowing blue dome below.
The effect was instantaneous.
The massive impenetrable anti-magic shield covering the Royal Palace flickered rapidly!
The bright blue light sputtered, turned a sickly gray, and then completely dissolved into harmless mist.
The palace was completely exposed!
"The shield is down," Sarah reported.
Lucifer did not smile. He did not celebrate. He was a Monarch executing a flawless siege.
He turned to Elara and Vexia.
"The King is alone in his throne room," Lucifer stated coldly. "The guards are dead. The wards are down. I am going down to claim the crown."
He looked at the Sanguine Princess.
"Vexia. Take command of the Wyrms. Secure the airspace over the capital. If any Royal mages attempt to flee on griffons or enchanted ships, shoot them down. Nobody leaves the city."
"With pleasure, Warlord," Vexia grinned and her fangs fully extended. She shot into the air and screamed a high-pitched command to the fifty thousand dragons roosting on the walls.
Lucifer looked at Elara.
"Valkyrie," Lucifer ordered. "You are with me. We are going to empty the Royal Vaults."
"I am ready," Elara vowed. Her violet-flaming spear hummed in anticipation.
Lucifer turned back to the edge of the courtyard.
Let’s finish with Xoroth first, then we head to the throne room.