The black creature was getting closer. Darian’s back was pressed to the cliff’s edge, his legs shaking like they had never done before, the still ocean churning far below. His breathing grew sharp and quick. He could hear the steady, deliberate steps of the monster closing in, its blade-like arm glinting in the pale light.

  The black creature’s steps sounded like steel driving into stone, each one making the cliff tremble beneath Darian’s feet. The air felt heavier, colder, as if the monster carried a storm with it. His fingers twitched toward the knife he no longer trusted. Beside him, Snowy’s fur stood on end, its nine tails lashing as if sensing the only way out.

  The little fox stood at his feet, fur bristling, letting out a sharp, urgent cry before turning its gaze up at him.

  Darian’s eyes widened both in surprise and in fear. He recognized that look, it was the same as the day Snowy had fused with his arm, He didn’t know if he could control it, but right now, it was their only hope.

  “I… I don’t know if this will work…" said Darian while looking directly at his shaking hand, then he breathed heavely and calmed himself down, "but we have no other choice!” said with him decisive eyes.

  Darian freed his right arm, and the fox immediately leapt into it.

  The magic began again. Right after Snowy jumped into his arm, it was as if Snowy’s entire body disappeared... once again fusing inside Darian’s right arm. This was the first time it had happened in six years.

  The moment Snowy’s body vanished into his arm, Darian felt a crushing weight in his chest, like winter itself had taken root in his lungs. His heartbeat slowed, each thud echoing through ice-filled veins. For a split second, he swore he heard Snowy’s voice, not words, but a sharp, urging thought. The cold didn’t just crawl under his skin; it became him.

  The whiteness didn't stop at his shoulder this time. It raced across his chest like a flash-freeze on a windshield, turning his tan skin into a beautiful white porcelain pale. Darian gasped, but the air didn't reach his lungs, it hit a wall of frost in his throat. He was a biological paradox, extremely similiar to a living snowman. He could feel his core temperature plummeting, his internal thermometer screaming as it bottomed out at -28°C. By all laws of medicine, his proteins should have denatured and his heart should have stopped, but, probably because of Snowy, he was alive without any problem, his whole body was still intact, keeping his consciousness tethered to a body that was rapidly becoming colder than an iceberg.

  The transition wasn't just a flash of light, it was a violent metabolic sudden change. Darian gasped, but the oxygen felt like liquid nitrogen hitting his lungs. 'What's happening?' thought Darian, his biologist's mind was trying to understand what was happening to his body, but it didn't have any sense. By every rule of human anatomy, his cells should have been undergoing cryolysis, the water inside them expanding into jagged crystals and shredding his membranes from the inside out.

  His veins turned blue, but there was no blood in them anymore. There wasn’t even snow, instead, solid ice flowed through his veins. Darian’s hair had turned white as well, but it wasn’t like any normal hair. It was harder than ice.

  “Woah… it looks so different from last time…” whispered Darian as he looked over his body surprised by the numbers of changes his body had now, not sure if they happened before too, not able to remember.

  'I can't focus on this right now...' realized him, especially because the monster now just seven feet away. Darian couldn’t think, he just had to act. He raised his right arm, like he had done involontary six years ago, and it felt as if he could cast some kind of powerful spell.

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  “GO, ICE SHARDDD!!!,” Darian felt the recoil of something coming out of his arm and took a small step behind, the ground under him started to destroy into different pieces, soon he would fall down.

  After shouting, an ice shard shot out from his right arm. It wasn’t huge, about 1.6 feet long, but it was fired at an incredible speed. But it was usless, the monster was able to parry it.

  Darian noticed how its blade-arm didn't just parry his shard, it vibrated with a strong frequency that made the leafes around the enemy shake because of the impact. This wasn't a predator from Earth’s fossil record. This as something built for the vacuum of the void, a biological weapon that saw his warmth as a target.

  The shard shattered into glittering pieces, scattering across the frozen ground. The creature tilted its head, emitting a grinding, metallic hiss that scraped against Darian’s ears. The air around him swirled with frost, his every breath a white plume.

  Darian didn’t even have time to speak before the enemy, realizing the danger, swung again to strike him. But Darian’s transformed body was faster now. He managed to dodge by rolling on the ground.

  His muscles moved faster than his mind could follow, one second he was rolling to the side, the next he was upright again, firing another shard. The cliffside groaned under the sudden burst of cold.

  The monster, after the second shard, didn’t have enough time to react, this spell was much stronger now, and the impact pushed the creature to the cliff’s edge.

  Darian had another idea, 'Let's see if you're used to walk to ice!' thought him before he pointed his arm at the ground.

  “RADIAL FREEZEEE!!!”

  The ground beneath him instantly froze. The monster didn’t seem to know what to do, it was as if it had never encountered anything like this before. It lost its balance and fell from the cliff.

  A thunderous crack echoed through the canyon as the creature’s mass met the rocks below, the sound of the monster splatting on the rock under the cliff was strong, Darian looked below and noticed the dead corpose of the enemy, his whole blood was black and it's living organs were all in the sea.

  Darian was relieved because he was still alive, 'I don't get what happened...' thought Darian while looking on his arm, the place where the magic came out, 'I can't lose any time, I need to be fast' with that Darian began to run away, searching for something.

  He began walking stealthily, aware that there were many more monsters like the one he had just defeated. They all had different forms, some shaped like snails, others like spiders with an horn on top of their head, but all of them were at least half his height, extremely tall, and probably very dangerous, but they were all black, it was their only similiarity.

  Darian avoided them as best as he could… until he heard something that froze him in place.

  It was like an earthquake, but not from the ground. It was more like the sound of footsteps… enormous ones.

  The ground shook in long, heavy pulses, each one rattling his teeth. At first, he thought it was an earthquake, but then a shadow began to stretch across the ruined land. It moved with purpose. When the thing came into view, Darian’s knees nearly buckled... it was like a mountain tearing itself free from the earth. Plates of black armor shifted and cracked, revealing glimpses of writhing mouths within. Every step sent a deep vibration through his bones, a rhythm that seemed to echo in his chest like a second heartbeat.

  He turned around, fear gripping him. What he saw made him scream.

  “WHAT IS THATTT?!?!”

  Before him stood something massive. It was all black like the other creatures, but unlike them, it was completely different. Darian had never imagined a monster this huge, it had to be at least 164 feet tall.

  It was like an alive mountain, he thought. Its body was bizarre, dense and muscular, covered in twisted plates and lined with teeth everywhere. Its main mouth never stopped moving, opening and closing constantly. Inside it, Darian could see even more mouths, claws, and writhing tongues.

  He noticed that the creature had two completely different arms. One was enormously strong, muscular, and tipped with massive claws. The other was a chaotic mess of tentacles, twisting and wriggling like maddened serpents.

  Then he saw something glowing faintly in its chest. He didn’t know what it was, but the giant was getting closer.

  The giant took another step, the ground shaking so hard that Darian nearly lost his balance. His heartbeat thundered in his ears, breath coming in sharp bursts.

  Snowy stirred inside his arm, the cold in his body spiking without warning. Before he could think, his arm lashed out on its own. A wave of frost exploded from his hand, racing across the ground toward the monster’s legs.

  The ice struck, then shattered instantly, like fragile glass against stone. The giant didn’t even flinch.

  Darian’s stomah dropped. If that couldn’t hurt it, there was only one option left. He turned and ran.