Granted

As if the very fabric of his spiritual realm had been waiting for that defiant roar, as if it acknowledged Duke had truly earned his stripes by painstakingly building an ice staircase to nowhere, this frigid, otherworldly domain finally began to buckle. The pristine white clouds beneath his feet, which had previously drifted with the serene grace of a summer breeze, now churned and roiled like a hurricane trapped in a teacup.

In the blink of an eye, a colossal hill of churning water vapor erupted from the cloudscape, a liquid mountain rising from thin air. Then, with a SPLASH that echoed through Duke's very soul, the gaseous clouds, which by all rights should have stayed gaseous, solidified into a vast, shimmering liquid. The sky itself seemed to invert, turning into a boundless, shimmering sea that stretched to the horizon. Duke just stood there, jaw on the floor, watching the impossible unfold. Talking about science or rationality in this place was like trying to teach a Murloc advanced calculus – utterly pointless.

This newly formed lake felt as vast as Lordamere itself, that sprawling body of water nestled beside Lordaeron's royal city. In a mere three heartbeats, every drop of water in this spiritual realm seemed to have coalesced into this single, terrifying expanse. Then, from the very heart of that monstrous water mound, a pair of impossibly huge arms, sculpted from pure liquid, stretched out, followed by eyes larger than a Gryphon's nest. It was a water elemental, alright, but one so gargantuan it made a Titan look like a garden gnome! They say "gentle as water," right? Well, this thing's temper was anything but. It was more volatile than a barrel of goblin explosives, angrier than a pissed-off fire dragon. It didn't even bother with a dramatic "Die!" It just swung one of its massive arms, tearing off a chunk of its own watery flesh, and hurled it at Duke like a flying axe.

From Duke's perspective, the colossal water elemental was still just a speck on the horizon, no bigger than his thumb. But as that right-angled water arm hurtled closer, growing exponentially with every passing moment, Duke's internal alarm bells went off like a thousand gnomish sirens. His blood ran cold. This wasn't just a chunk of water; it was a monstrous, boomerang-shaped weapon, each side easily fifty yards long. Duke couldn't even begin to wrap his mind around its sheer scale, but he was dead certain of one thing: even if the initial impact didn't turn him into a puddle, the subsequent splash would finish the job. He was an ant, and this was a reservoir being dumped on his head.

As a creature of pure water, this elemental was clearly going for the ultimate drowning experience. Some might ask, "Can a spiritual being even drown?" Duke didn't know, but his gut screamed that if that thing connected, he was toast! Dodge? Was dodging even an option? He couldn't even begin to count the number of water elementals that had sprung into existence when the clouds became a sea. In the periphery of his vision, he saw more of them, muscular, menacing, flexing their watery might on the surface of the lake, surrounding him on all sides. It felt like the gods themselves had emptied every reservoir in Azeroth into a single basin and were now pouring it directly over his head. The sheer momentum of that colossal water boomerang was more terrifying than a mountain collapsing.

At that moment, Duke snapped. He went full-tilt, utterly bonkers! He didn't know how many times his icy circuit had spun, but it was a blur, a white-hot (or rather, white-cold) streak that defied the very concept of speed. "Alright, Ice Crown," Duke snarled, his voice a low, dangerous growl that seemed to vibrate through the very air of his spiritual world. "Since this is my spiritual world, since you want to test me and show off your big, icy muscles, since you, a mere magic circuit, think you can lord it over someone as awesome as me… then show me what you've got! Prove your worth!"

EXTREMELY COLD ICE WAVE!

Duke slammed his fist onto the ice stairs beneath his feet, and a wave of unimaginable cold erupted, fanning out towards the monstrous Water Boomerang. In the split second before impact, the boomerang folded in on itself, transforming into a flat, razor-sharp, half-moon blade of pure water. But when that blade collided with Duke's arctic blast, the spiritual realm exploded. It was the ultimate clash of water and ice, a titanic struggle where the water, for all its volume, simply couldn't swallow or overwhelm the sheer, raw cold. Instead, the icy breath tore through the water, causing it to contort and buckle. The colossal water blade shattered in the middle, its bursting spray not even having time to fall like a waterfall before it was instantly frozen into a thousand razor-sharp ice cones, propelled outwards with incredible force. They shot straight for the water elemental giant that had thrown the arm, piercing its massive form, pinning it to the ground. Well, "pinning" wasn't quite right, because the frigid breath had instantly transformed the entire giant into a mountain-sized ice sculpture, a frozen monument to its own hubris.

A slow, knowing smile curved Duke's lips. "If that's how we're playing," he murmured, a dangerous glint in his eye, "then let's kick it up a notch..."

At that very instant, the surrounding water element giants went absolutely ape. They abandoned their individual attacks, plunging their massive arms directly into the lake. In a matter of heartbeats, Duke watched in horror as the water giants joined forces, unleashing a doomsday tsunami that stretched from the lake to the very edge of the world! It was a true, honest-to-goodness, end-of-days torrent. The overwhelming wall of water filled Duke's entire field of vision, blotting out everything else. An ordinary mortal would have simply given up, waiting for the inevitable, for this century of despair to crush their very spirit.

But Duke? Who was Duke? He was a time traveler! He'd binge-watched countless disaster movies, seen the White House get obliterated a dozen times, and the Statue of Liberty smashed to smithereens more times than he could count on his fingers and toes. Did they honestly think this level of intimidation was going to make him break a sweat?

Duke tilted his head slightly, a smirk playing on his lips, and uttered a single, chilling word: "Ice Age?"

Inside Duke's spiritual body, the ice circuit had transformed into an independent, self-sustaining universe. The ice energy within it was splitting, multiplying, replicating like atomic fission, going from one to two, from two to four, from four to infinity. Duke simply stomped his foot, and a cold breath, more terrifying than any doomsday wave, instantly swept across the entire world.

When the colossal waves hit, there should have been a deafening roar, the thunderous crash of a million tons of water. Instead, all that could be heard was a rapid, crackling snap-crackle-pop as the white waves slowed, then froze solid. The towering tsunamis, which should have engulfed everything like a black hole, were still advancing, but now they were topped with colossal ice blocks, mountains of frozen water churning on their crests. The ice blocks collided, exploded, but instead of water, they released only glittering ice crystals. The flowing water dwindled, then vanished. Finally, after twenty agonizing seconds, the roar of heaven and earth gradually subsided, leaving behind a world of absolute, chilling silence.

At that moment, everything vanished. The world dissolved into a pure, inky black void. And then, before Duke, a pure white, impossibly gorgeous crown materialized, shimmering with an ethereal glow. A magnetic, utterly neutral voice, devoid of emotion yet brimming with ancient power, spoke:

"Wear me, and I will grant you supreme power of ice."