NOVEL NEXT Chapter 111: Work Of Art!
Jean's double-ended sword spun around her, not wildly, but with perfect martial control, each rotation a precise, trained motion, like a master staff-user twirling a weapon at speeds meant to overwhelm the eye. The blade whistled sharply, slicing grooves into the air itself as it spun, carving a circle of killing intent around her.
Cold wind howled, not in gusts but in continuous streams, dragged into the rotational current of her technique. The ground whitened. Frost flakes danced. The air cracked with the abrupt drop in temperature.
A rotating field of freezing blades formed around her, each strip of spinning frost sharper than honed steel. Anything entering that radius would be shredded, flesh, bone, armor, even stone, but Bruce durability was far above all this...
From afar, she looked like the epicenter of a forming cyclone, an icy hurricane twisting around a still, lethal core.
And at that center stood Jean Frost, her eyes glowing like twin frozen stars.
The moment her spin reached full speed, the pressure changed. A violent pull rippled outward, a sucking force that warped the air, dragging loose debris, shredded leaves, and even cracked chunks of frozen earth into her rotation.
It dragged at Bruce!
His expression shifted instantly.
The effects hit him in a crushing wave before he even had the chance to breathe.
A sharp sting pricked his fingertips first. Then his knuckles. Then his wrists. The cold dug under his skin like needles of ice plunged into flesh.
Instant frostbite!
The numbness crawled fast, wrapping around his fingers, stiffening their movements. He flexed instinctively, but the reaction felt sluggish, distant, as if someone else moved his hands for him.
His boots resisted when he tried to shift his stance, the ground gripping him with invisible frost. His movement was slowed.
Cold slithered through his joints, coating them with a subtle crystalline layer. His joints was frozen!
His shoulders twitched under the sudden restriction, as though invisible chains had snapped around them. Even his lungs stuttered as he exhaled, the breath leaving him in a dim, white cloud that crystallized mid-air.
But what struck him most wasn't the pain, it was the delay.
That subtle, terrifying lag between intention and action.
His instincts fired first. His body followed one heartbeat too slow. His reaction time was diminishing!
His arms grew stiff, the skin tightening painfully. A faint, brittle sensation crawled across the surface of his forearms, warning him that the wrong angle, the wrong pressure, might crack something. His skin becoming fragile!
Every effect crashed over him in a single second, a ruthless, layered assault designed to cripple before he could adapt.
Bruce's eyes widened by a fraction.
"Ah…"
He felt it. Every creeping whisper of frost. Every needle of cold burrowing into him. Every subtle lock clicking shut inside his body. Every breath that froze halfway out of his throat.
'Jean is indeed a work of art...'
Jean's cyclone roared toward him, a spinning deity of winter fury, its howl carrying the promise of dismemberment and death. Frost spiraled along the ground, lifting in glittering sheets as her momentum pulled the world toward her.
One single heartbeat,
that was all Bruce had to respond.
His body snapped into motion instantly, dagger rising to intercept the spinning storm of steel and frost. A quiet command echoed through his mind while he moved to intercept...
'Heal.'
Golden warmth surged through his nerves, racing down his limbs like liquid fire. The frost clawing into his joints recoiled, pushed back by the burst of vitality filling every cell. His body accelerated toward immunity…
But then…
A sound tore the air apart.
SHRRRRK!!!
Jean's weapon didn't merely clash.
It cut.
Cleanly!
Shock rippled through Bruce's entire frame as her spinning double-ended sword sliced straight through his mana-imbued dagger, and then through flesh.
His eyes widened, not in fear, but in genuine disbelief.
His right forearm separated from his body, spinning away in a reddish spiral, droplets of blood scattering like crimson petals across the battlefield.
A violent burst of blood erupted from the stump. Pain flared, sharp, white-hot, but Bruce remained lucid, forcing his staggering body backward. His muscles obeyed instantly, but the frost in his system dragged at him, gripping his joints, slowing his retreat with invisible hooks.
'Damn... I didn't expect that', he thought, jaw clenching, 'She's a work of art indeed.'
He senses something through his neural Amplification but remained calm. He barely touched down when the earth behind him ruptured.
CRACK!!!
Two massive ice lances erupted upward, jagged and gleaming, two meters tall and sharp enough to impale steel. They shot out like the earth itself wanted him dead. Their timing was perfect, placed precisely where he would land, aimed directly for both legs.
Jean had predicted his retreat.
If he continued that motion, he would be skewered through both thighs. Pinned to the ground. Helpless.
He was mid-air. Slowed by frost. Momentum locked.
He should have been killed.
Yet Bruce felt no panic. No hesitation. Mot even a heartbeat's worth of fear.
His heart stayed eerily calm. He didn't even bother looking at the lances at all.
He was looking at his severed arm.
'Heal.'
Warmth erupted from his shoulder, racing into the open stump. Bone sprouted like fast-growing vines. Tendons wound together. Muscles intertwined, skin knitting seamlessly over the forming flesh. In the span of a blink…
his arm was whole.
Complete.
Fully restored.
The very next millisecond…
CRUNCH!!!
Bruce landed.
Directly on the razor-sharp tips of the ice lances.
And the lances, crafted with Jean's highest mana reinforcement, sharp enough to pierce enchanted armor, shattered under him like brittle glass.
Their upper halves snapped clean off.
The bases were driven back into the ground under the sheer durability of his freshly healed, frost-resistant legs.
Shards scattered, skittering across the frost-coated earth.
Bruce exhaled quietly, almost bored, as the last fragments crumbled around his boots. His new arm flexed, perfectly regenerated. His dagger shimmered into his hand from spatial storage, gleaming in the cold light.
The frost clinging to his skin melted away in steaming trails.
System messages chimed softly in his mind:
[You've healed!]
[You've adapted to Frosted Weapon Rotation with 15,000 tons of force!]
He lifted his gaze toward Jean, expression calm, almost disappointed.
"Your weapon can cut me," Bruce said softly, rolling his new wrist as if testing it. "But mere mana-forged ice lances… can't injure me."
His eyes sharpened, the predator returning.
"And you've lost your only chance to kill me."
...
A/N:
What do you guys think of Jean vs Bruce? Is it good? Did it live up to your expectations? Comment and let me know...