I stepped out of the car with calm, deliberate movements. My hands didn't shake, my heart didn't race—at least not visibly. But internally, my focus was razor-sharp. No time for panic. No time for fear. Not when lives were at stake.
I turned back to the others—Yejun, Seongha, and Aera. My voice came out low and clipped, no room for negotiation.
"Yejun. Seongha. Aera," I said, voice flat and cold like the air before a blizzard. "The second I step out, get to cover. Get somewhere safe and do not look back. Understood?"
Aera's eyes were already glassy, tears threatening to fall. She nodded, lips trembling. Damn it. She didn't deserve this. None of them did.
I shifted my eyes to Yejun and Seongha.
They nodded too—serious, but I could see it, plain as day. Fear. And not the kind that freezes you. The kind that makes you realize the world is bigger, colder, more brutal than you ever imagined. We'd all grown up with the word Awakened carved into our lives, but this... this was a taste of what it really meant.
I turned away before they could see the guilt creeping into my eyes.
Focus, Rheon.
I turned my gaze to the battlefield—and let my senses do the rest.
Through my enhanced perception, the world stretched out in frightening detail. The clash of awakened powers hummed in the air. Elemental energy distorted the space around us. The park—normally a quiet, open place—had become a war zone.
Union agents had smartly lured Ye Han deeper into the park, trying to keep the destruction contained. Smart. But dangerous. Meanwhile, Hyuk—who had been driving us only minutes ago—was locked in brutal combat near the car against Wuyin Han.
The worst part? This fight was happening without the veil of spatial isolation. If any non-awakened had been nearby, they'd have witnessed the impossible. Thankfully, I knew intervention teams were already at work, evacuating civilians and wiping memories. A necessary evil in our line of work.
Then it happened.
Hyuk's legs suddenly locked into the ground—geokinesis. Damn it.
Before I could react, Wuyin surged forward, his right arm encased in jagged stone, while his broken left arm hung limply. He was grinning like a wolf before the kill. Hyuk raised his arms, coating them with ice in a last-ditch defense.
The impact was brutal.
The ice shattered like brittle glass and Hyuk was launched backward, his body slamming hard against the curb. He didn't move.
And just like that, Wuyin wasn't finished. I saw it—a spike erupting from the ground beneath Hyuk, aiming to finish him.
No.
I stepped forward and raised one hand. Midnight-blue frost crackled into existence as my cryokinesis surged, freezing the earth spike mid-attack. The temperature dropped instantly—sharp, biting cold swallowing the air.
Wuyin's eyes snapped to me, surprised.
I met his gaze without flinching. "You made a mistake," I said, voice quiet, even.
Then I cast it—Spatial Isolation.
A dark rift split the air, colored like the deepest shadowed ice, matching the unique hue of my cryokinesis. The environment distorted as reality itself shifted, enclosing us and also the other union agents who are fighting Ye Han within a silent, sealed space detached from the outside world.
Temperature dropped further. My breath came out in visible puffs. The grass beneath my feet crackled with frost.
Wuyin staggered slightly, caught off guard.
"You… You cast spatial isolation?" he said, stunned, eyes wide. "A kid? How?"
I didn't respond. I didn't need to.
But then his expression hardened again. The brief flicker of awe disappeared beneath a sneer.
"At the end of the day," he growled, "you're still just a brat. So be smart. Come with us now, and I won't have to tear off an arm or two."
I laughed.
Not the polite kind. Not the casual kind. This was the full, spine-tingling, sharp-edged kind of laughter that made Wuyin Han's eye twitch.
"Do you still not realize how unbelievably fucked you are?" I said, voice sharp and cutting. "Here's a counter-offer: you and your idiot brother turn around and leave. Now. No pursuit. No blood. You two can go slithering back to whatever hole Labyrinth sent you from, tails tucked between your legs."
I tilted my head, just slightly.
"Or," I continued, "you can come at me. I've been itching for a fight anyway."
The insult did its job. His whole posture changed.
"You've got a big mouth, kid," he growled, voice tight with anger. "Let's see if all that hype about you is real."
He reached into his coat and uncorked a vial—downed the contents in one go. In seconds, the bruises on his face faded and the grotesque bend of his left arm straightened with a sickening crunch.
"Now that's better," he said, flexing both arms.
Healing potion?
That… wasn't something I'd expected. My brows furrowed. So they exist here too. That changes things. But he didn't give me time to dwell on it.
He charged.
A straight punch from his right—reinforced by geokinesis, quick and heavy. Fast, but not fast enough. My eyes tracked every twitch of his muscles.
Too predictable.
I sidestepped cleanly and activated Cryo-Adaptive Muscles, letting my body temperature drop. The cold spread through my limbs, slowing metabolic fatigue. Then came Hydraulic Ice Compression—a more advanced form, compressing ice within my muscle fibers to amplify strength.
My fist slammed into his gut.
He grunted, breath caught in his throat. His eyes widened for a split second. Surprise. Pain. He hadn't expected a kid without super strength awakening to hit like that.
Good.
I didn't let up. He wanted a fight? He'd get one.
We traded blows—punches, kicks, parries. I kept it close-quarters. Elbows, knees, controlled bursts of cryokinesis to augment each movement. I didn't waste energy. I calculated every motion. I didn't let him breathe.
But he was no slouch either. A seasoned brawler, probably with years of dirty fights under his belt. He tried to create space, retreating step by step, attempting to bring his long-range geokinesis into play.
That's when it happened—his leg swept up in a wide arc, and I barely caught it in time.
The kick came toward my head, brutal and fast. I reacted instantly, coating my forearm in Ice Skin. The moment his foot collided, the barrier shattered like fragile crystal, the force rattling my bones. My arm ached. That one almost got me.
He's strong… as expected
I leapt back, giving us both distance, letting my body reset.
He thought I'd press forward again. But instead, I waited—and that's when he noticed it.
Frost creeping up his foot.
His face twisted in confusion, then panic. He tried shaking it off, stomping the ground, but it was already spreading—up his ankle, now his shin.
I smirked. "How about a cryokinetic technique I developed myself—Frostbite. Once it latches on, it spreads. Slow. Silent. Unrelenting. From your toes to your neck, until you're frozen solid."
Panic sparked in his eyes. He tried to cover his leg in a stone sheath—rock skin, like my Ice Skin—to contain or maybe smother the frost.
I chuckled.
"That won't help. You'd need precise control over your awakened energy to counteract mine—and judging by what I've seen, your control is garbage."
He snarled in frustration, then stomped with his other foot. The earth beneath me trembled violently, terrain fracturing, my footing compromised.
Spikes shot up, earth manipulated by his power—each one aimed to impale me.
But they froze mid-air.
One by one, they turned to midnight shimmering ice, fractals spreading across their jagged forms until they cracked and fell apart harmlessly.
I lifted into the air atop a conjured Ice Disc, gliding upward. From this angle, I studied him—his movements, his breathing, the panic settling behind his eyes.
My assessment was clear: Close-quarters? I was equal. If not better. But there was still room for improvement.
The Frostbite had already reached his waist. His legs were locked in frozen armor, unmoving. He was desperate now.
"Remove this, you little shit!" he shouted, trying to blast the frost off with a focused burst of earth energy.
But it was too late.
Then I saw it—the flick of his gaze. A quick glance toward the direction where my friends were hiding.
No.
You don't get to make that choice.
I raised my right hand, conjuring a swirling mass of cold energy—Frost Blast.
It moved almost silently. A chilling ripple in the air. No bright flash. No dramatic roar.
Just a pulse of deathly cold.
The moment it touched him, frost surged over his body. Like paint spilling across a canvas, ice bloomed rapidly, sealing him in a crystalline tomb. Head to toe. Frozen in place, his face locked in a final expression of disbelief.
The fight was over.
I descended back to the ground and rushed to Hyuk. He was barely conscious, blood on his lips, but he managed to crack a weak smile. He'd seen everything.
He tried to speak. I raised a hand.
"Save your strength."
I placed both hands gently on his chest, casting Cold's Embrace, encasing his body in a layer of therapeutic ice. A healing cryokinetic ability that slowed bleeding, eased internal trauma, and accelerated recovery.
"You'll be fine," I told him quietly.
Then I turned my eyes toward the others.
I summoned another ice disc and lifted off, gliding above the park trees toward where Ye Han was still locked in combat with the Union agents. It was a grind—a stalemate held only by sheer numbers. They were barely keeping him at bay.
Let's change that.
I conjured a condensed Ice Ball in my right hand, condensed to the size of a baseball but packed with volatile frost. I hurled it at Ye Han with full force.
The second it struck, it detonated into a surge of flash-freeze—encasing him instantly in dense, reinforced ice. He didn't even have time to react. Just a sudden silence as he was sealed in place. However, he will not die, unlike his brother. Answers are needed from him.
I hovered above them all, staring down.
Two brothers. Two threats. Neutralized.
And I was just getting warmed up.