Absolute cold swallowed everything. The anchored spire domain of the Frostbone Cult pressed down with the crushing weight of a cosmic beast's frozen heart upon all who were trapped within. Time lost its flowing measure here, transforming into solidified crystalline slices. A three-dimensional geometric grid formed by law-energy of ice blue locked the summit core, forcibly pressing that writhing, turbid dark-red energy into a surface as smooth as a mirror; even the chaotic will pulsing beneath it seemed forcibly pressed into silence.
Yet for the Old Welder, this frozen world was not a realm of dead silence, but a boiling purgatory where burning and freezing alternately strangled each other inside his body.
His frame leaned heavily against a starship engine component gripped by bitter cold and covered in a thick layer of frosty white ice. The freezing touch penetrated the protective layers of his exoskeleton, like countless tiny ice needles constantly piercing his skin and muscles. Every labored breath added another layer of solid frost crystals to the inner wall of his mask, leaving his vision filled with a blurred, distorted halo of ice-blue light.
Chapter 65