Pho opened his mouth and released a sound that wasn't quite a roar, but wasn't quite a scream either.

It was something that bypassed the ears and struck directly at the soul itself.

The sound rippled through the air, shaking the foundations of the castle.

[Continuous Damage: Glacial Roar]

[Damage Received: 127 per second]

[HP: 2,401/3,375]

Jack felt the damage immediately, his body taking punishment from sound alone.

It was ice magic given voice, the concept of freezing transformed into a sonic assault.

[HP: 2,274/3,375]

He raised both hands, crossing them in front of his body.

Stormkeeper's Rebuke!

Blue lightning exploded outward from Jack's position in a sphere of pure electrical force.

Divine energy mixed with arcane power, faith and magic combining into an attack that carried weight beyond mere damage.

The blast washed over everything within eight meters, striking Pho with divine wrath.

[-7,140 HP]

[Stun Applied: 1.5 seconds]

[Enemy HP: 117,091/227,000]

Pho's roar cut off abruptly as the stun took effect.

His blank white eyes widened, his body locked in place, unable to move or defend. The continuous damage stopped, giving Jack a precious moment to recover.

But 1.5 seconds wasn't long enough.

Pho broke the stun through sheer force of will, ice exploding around him as he shattered the magical effect.

His blank white eyes blazed with fury, his chest heaving, frost-blue blood still seeping from multiple wounds.

"Enough games," Pho declared.

He raised the frost axe high and brought it down with devastating force. Not aimed at Jack but at the floor itself.

The weapon struck the frozen stone with an impact that shook the entire castle.

"Avalanche."

The ceiling cracked instantly. Massive fissures spreading across the entire surface like a spiderweb.

Then it collapsed. Tons of ice and stone fell, an avalanche of frozen material that filled the throne room with deadly debris.

Jack activated Abyssal Steps, teleporting away from his position as a chunk of ceiling the size of a house crashed down where he'd been standing.

He reappeared twenty feet away, but more debris was already falling.

The entire throne room was collapsing, burying everything under a mountain of ice.

Another Abyssal Steps. Then another. Jack teleported rapidly, staying ahead of the avalanche, but his mana was depleting with each jump. He couldn't maintain this forever.

Through the falling debris, Pho continued to walk forward. Massive chunks of ice struck him and shattered, unable to harm something that commanded ice itself.

He walked through the avalanche like it didn't exist, his blank white eyes tracking Jack's teleporting form with inhuman precision.

Jack emerged from an Abyssal Step and immediately thrust forward with Oscar. The spear drove toward Pho's throat, aiming to end this before the mana drain became critical.

Pho caught the spear.

His hand closed around Oscar's shaft, ice forming instantly to reinforce his grip. Blue lightning discharged from the weapon, burning his palm, but Pho's expression didn't change. He yanked the spear sideways, using Jack's own momentum against him.

Jack's grip on Oscar held, but the force of Pho's pull sent him flying. He crashed through falling debris, his armor taking impacts from multiple directions, each hit draining his health further.

[HP: 1,847/3,375]

He hit the ground and rolled, he lifted his head up to see Pho already charging.

[HP:2,657/3,375]

The frost axe came down in an overhead chop that Jack barely dodged, the blade striking the floor and creating another explosion of ice shards.

They separated again, both breathing hard now.

Pho thought Jack was slowly dying, that his mana and health had to be low by this point.

Thunder Mantle still had over six minutes remaining, but he could feel exhaustion creeping in at the edges.

Pho looked worse, half his health gone, bleeding from multiple wounds, his ice armor cracked and failing to regenerate properly.

But his stance remained confident, his grip on the frost axe steady, his blank white eyes showing no doubt about the outcome.

"You fight well for a human," Pho admitted, frost crystallizing on his breath. "But there's a reason I own so many demons. A reason demons fear my name across multiple floors."

The throne room had transformed. The avalanche had buried half the space, creating mountains of frozen debris.

Ice pillars jutted at odd angles, some shattered, others intact.

The floor was cracked and uneven, pools of frost-blue blood marking where they'd clashed.

It looked like a war zone.

And Pho wasn't done.

"Let me show you the difference," he said quietly, his voice carrying absolute certainty. "Between someone strong and someone transcendent."

His skin began to change. The pale blue color that had defined him darkened, shifting from ice-blue to something far more ominous.

The transformation spread from his chest outward, covering his arms, his legs, and his face in a wave of color that looked like midnight.

Within seconds, his entire body had turned pitch black.

The frost axe in his hand underwent the same transformation, pale blue metal becoming black as the void.

Every piece of ice in the throne room, the pillars, the debris, the armor coating his body, all of it turned black simultaneously.

The temperature plummeted. Not gradually but instantly, dropping so far that Jack's breath froze solid before it left his mouth. Frost formed on his armor despite Thunder Mantle's heat.

Pho's blank white eyes stood out starkly against his now-black skin, twin points of light in an abyss of frozen darkness.

When he spoke, his voice carried the sound of glaciers calving, of frozen wastelands where nothing lived.

[Enemy HP: 227,000/227,000]

"Black Ice Soul."

{Move. MOVE. MOVE NOW!}

Jack activated Abyssal Steps on pure instinct, teleporting backward as far as he could.

Thirty feet.

Putting maximum distance between himself and whatever Pho had just become.

But it wasn't enough.

Pho moved, and the world blurred.

His black form covered the distance in less time than Jack's eyes could track, moving with speed that made his previous attacks look sluggish.

The black frost axe came around in a horizontal slash. Jack brought Oscar up to block, blue lightning flaring desperately against the encroaching darkness.

And Jack understood, in that moment of contact, the difference between them.

The black axe smashed through his defense like it wasn't there.

The force behind the blow was magnitude beyond anything Pho had shown before, beyond anything Jack's enhanced strength could hope to counter.

Oscar was driven aside, his grip broken, the spear spinning away to clatter against debris.

The axe continued its arc, the black blade striking Jack's chest.

Pain exploded through his body as the weapon tore through his armor's outer layer, sheared through the padding beneath, and bit into flesh with devastating efficiency.

[Black Ice Soul - True Damage Applied]

[-1,519 HP]

[HP: 1,138/3,375]

Jack crashed backward, his vision blurring, his body screaming at him because of the damage he was taking.

He hit the ground and slid, leaving a trail of red blood across black ice.

Everything hurt.

As if the attack had damaged him at a level deeper than flesh and bone.

{Get up. GET UP! One more hit and we're dead!}

Jack struggled to his knees, reaching desperately for Oscar. His fingers closed around the spear's shaft just as Pho's shadow fell across him.

The Deathfrost Demon stood there, black form radiating cold that made the air itself solid.

His blank white eyes stared down without mercy, the black frost axe raised for a finishing blow.

"This is the difference," Pho said softly. "Between us."

The axe began its descent.

Jack smiled again from ear to ear.

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