The Ice Lotus: Belle Asterio

[TIME FREEZE!]

The System gave words to me to say.

And it changed everything.

In a spiral of undefined cold temperatures that would've put my efforts to shame, a circular, vortex of icicles, cold wind, and frozen vines shot over the battlefield all around me... and everything came to a stop.

Illya sat there with her mouth wide open as those strands I used against her crawled up her body to permanently stop her from moving.

I was locked inside a dome of ice where time itself was frozen... leaving only Illya and me in it. There was no way in, and there was no way out.

The Lotus Flower on my back was losing the petals on it and I was starting to feel cold again... however... that didn't stop me.

The cold I was feeling was nothing. It was like standing in a freezer. I can live like this... and I would.

I ran at Illya as she was frozen in time and rose my saber up to slash at her. I cut her skin like it was nothing, and with that momentum, I started to slash at her body more and more.

Spears of ice shot through her body as the cold temperature started to freeze my fingers and toes. I couldn't feel half of them anymore... but I didn't stop.

I cut deep into Illya's neck, attempting to decapitate her, but it couldn't go all the way through... so I settled for everything possible.

I slashed at her joints, taking out her heels, the back of her knees, her sides, her back, her arms, her eyes, her neck, her hands, her fingers, everything possible was cut into.

[0:06 Remaining]

I put one more slash on her as my fingers turned into solid ice cubes and fell off onto the ground.

I joined them, falling to the ground on the ice-coated floor... and the dome slowly subsided, leaving Illya at the normal pace of time.

And when she came to... she blew up in a blood bomb.

She fell to the floor panting heavily and having trouble healing her wounds... and I couldn't move either. The edges of the ice dome were still vanishing, meaning Boo, Alexia, and Mitra couldn't enter... I was in here alone... and Illya was weakened...

I tried to push myself up, and tried to heal my fingers... but neither of the two was working. Everything was... dead inside of me.

My muscles felt numb, my brain felt scrambled, and I felt like I couldn't see or hear anything... these were the repercussions of SIM... and I was feeling them at an intense scale.

"Damn you... DAMN YOU!" Illya shouted out to me. She tried to get up as well, but fell to the ground as the floor of ice underneath the both of us made her slip.

The dome was almost gone... come on... just stay still, Illya...

"You do that much damage to me, and you can't even kill me! You're PATHETIC!" Illya screamed out. She kicked me in the stomach and fell to the floor again.

That kick felt like a thousand needles shooting through me... everything hurt so bad...

"Are you afraid? I've never seen you react like that... I know we can't win a battle of attrition, yet you're still so afraid. Did I get close?" I asked Illya.

"Do you want me to be honest with you?" Illya asked me. Her tone was changing, and I was actually convinced she might say something worthwhile.

"My strands are being drained... something left in this world is using my power, that's why I'm losing to you," Illya told me.

"What does that mean? Somebody is using your strands? Why don't you just take us to the Real World?" I asked Illya. I felt a new motivation inside of my bones... but the exhaustion was still too much to do anything with it.

"You know why I can't do that... I underestimated your abilities, but that doesn't mean I don't also have them." Illya said.

Illya grappled the ice vines to my legs and pulled them until they were tight around my knees. Afterward, she pulled me to the ground again and I was stuck with the freezing cold vines.

The temperature was too cold! Was I going to freeze to death?

"Even if you're overwhelming my current abilities... I'm still The Deity." Illya muttered-

Before piercing my body with spears of ice.

With blood trickling down the frozen vines tightly wrapped around my body, I was starting to lose hope even more.

"By locking us in this dome of ice, you've effectively killed yourself, Belle. This fight has been going as planned this entire time... you're unknowingly playing into it, which is pretty surprising. I might be weakened, but that doesn't mean you're stronger than me. I'll always be better than you." She said.

The vines along my legs started to shrink and disappear, and I could tell it wasn't intentional while watching Illya's expression.

Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion and she continued to watch how I was suddenly being saved by some unknown force. I was able to stand up again, and somebody walked between Illya and me.

I almost wanted to say it was Alexia... but it didn't look like her.

Her hair was a pure orange color, with her eyes following right behind. There were triangles on her face, and her arms were completely consumed by Golden Strands.

"You're going all in as well? You're going to use your SIM against me? Fine, it looks like I'll have to beat you at your own game as well." Illya said to Alexia. Alexia didn't open her mouth and only pointed down... which somehow expanded Illya's arms to the point of combustion.

"You can try, but you won't succeed," Alexia muttered. She summoned two daggers in her hands that were sparking with golden strands as well... and a weird pattern was starting to appear on her face, also outlined in golden strands. Alexia was wielding those powerful strands better than anybody else!