THE FROZEN RUINS

  It was late at night. The moon hung low and pale over the Academy, casting silver light through Ethan’s window.

  Inside, Ethan sat on his bed, his new chain-pins glinting faintly in the dark. Solis perched nearby, staring at him with those ever-knowing silver eyes.

  “You’ve been growing stronger,” Solis said quietly. “You should be ready now.”

  Ethan looked up, knowing what was coming. “The next fragment?”

  Solis’s twin tails flicked once. “Yes. This one is farther, deeper… and colder.”

  Ethan frowned. “Colder?”

  “The Ruins of Atheron. Frozen wastelands lost to time, buried under ice and snow. The fragment’s power distorts the region—it won’t be an easy task.”

  Ethan stood, adjusting his coat. “I’m ready.”

  With a lazy stretch, Solis flicked his tail—and the portal opened, swirling blue and white like a vortex of ice and wind.

  Ethan took a deep breath—and stepped through.

  On the other side, a blast of icy wind hit Ethan like a wall.

  Snow swirled fiercely around him, howling through jagged peaks of ice and stone. The Ruins of Atheron stretched out before him—shattered towers of frozen crystal, walls half-buried under snowdrifts, long lost to time.

  Solis leapt onto a nearby rock, unfazed by the cold.

  “It’s somewhere deep inside,” the cat said, his voice carried by the wind. “But beware. This place… is alive.”

  Ethan squinted, activating his Lion’s Sight.

  Faint trails of golden energy shimmered in the snow—the fragment’s call, pulsing from deep within the ruins.

  He pulled his cloak tighter and began walking.

  The wind howled, screaming through jagged peaks of ice as Ethan trudged forward, his breath a cloud in the freezing air.

  Suddenly—the blizzard shifted, swirling unnaturally as if something within it was alive.

  From the thick white veil, shapes began to emerge—towering humanoid forms, their bodies jagged and cracked, as if carved from blackened ice. Dark tendrils pulsed within their translucent forms, like veins of moving shadow, glowing with a faint, sickly blue.

  Ice Golems, fused and corrupted by the darkness.

  Ethan stopped in his tracks as three of them stepped forward—massive, their arms ending in icicle-like blades, spiked shoulders hunched, and deep, hollow eyes glowing malevolently.

  This is what Solis meant by “alive,” Ethan thought grimly.

  Then they charged—their heavy, ice-shard feet crunching and cracking the frozen ground, but with surprising speed for their size.

  “Crap—!” Ethan jumped back, barely avoiding a massive ice fist that slammed into the ground where he had been standing, shattering the ice floor like glass and sending shards flying.

  The second Golem swung a razor-sharp arm, slicing through the air. Ethan ducked under it, rolling to the side.

  Fast. Too fast for something this big.

  He flicked his fingers, his twin atomic chains bursting forth in golden, glowing spirals, slashing toward the closest Golem.

  The chains wrapped around its arm, beginning to constrict and reshape—

  But suddenly, the ice began to crawl up his chains, freezing them solid, and before Ethan could react, the Golem yanked violently, flinging him across the frozen courtyard like a ragdoll.

  Ethan hit the ground hard, pain blooming in his shoulder as he skidded along the ice.

  From a nearby ledge, Solis sat watching, tail flicking in irritation.

  “You’ll need more than that.”

  Ethan pushed himself up, panting, his coat already starting to freeze where shards had lodged into the fabric.

  Alright… if force doesn’t work, I need to think—

  The first Golem lunged again—massive arms raised to slam Ethan flat.

  With a grunt, Ethan jumped sideways, but the third Golem was waiting for him, slashing horizontally. Ethan barely twisted out of the way, but one icy blade scraped across his side, cutting deep enough to make him wince in pain.

  “Damn it!” he cursed under his breath. His coat had hardened partially from his earlier enchantment, but even then—their power was overwhelming.

  They weren’t just walking ice—they were living weapons.

  Ethan’s golden eyes narrowed, activating his Lion Sight fully—the world around him turned into glowing threads of code and particles. He focused on the Golems’ composition.

  Darkness fused with dense ice… but there are fractures inside—weak points, where the shadow hasn’t fully merged with the ice.

  There! Joints, right under their arms and behind the knees.

  But to hit those spots… he’d have to get dangerously close.

  Still panting, Ethan stood straight, golden engravings along his veins beginning to pulse stronger. He reached into the frozen air itself, pulling and reshaping the atoms, forming thin double-helix chains, burning bright and coiling like living metal serpents.

  He attached one to each wrist, their tips sharp and glowing. Then he lowered his stance.

  “Alright, let’s see how you handle this.”

  As one Golem lunged, Ethan sidestepped smoothly, sending a chain whipping under its arm—but instead of pulling, he sent an intense burst of aura through it, rapidly heating the inner structure of the corrupted ice.

  Crack.

  The arm exploded at the joint, shards of black ice spiraling outward.

  Ethan rolled forward, avoiding the falling arm, and lunged upward, slamming the double helix chain into the creature’s chest, and rewriting the atoms—turning that point brittle.

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  With a snap, the chest collapsed inward, and the creature groaned like twisting metal before falling apart into shards.

  One down.

  The second Golem charged again. Ethan threw one chain like a spear, impaling the creature’s shoulder—and pulled himself forward using the chain’s elasticity, flipping over its body like an acrobat, avoiding its attempts to swat him down.

  As he landed behind it, he lashed out with the chain, slicing behind its knee joint, then hardened his cloak around his fist and punched the weak point.

  Crack!

  The leg shattered, sending the Golem collapsing to one knee.

  Before it could recover, Ethan twisted the air around it, pulling particles together into sharp spikes, and launched them directly into its core—splintering it from within.

  Two down.

  The last Golem was larger—and it seemed to adapt to Ethan’s tactics.

  As Ethan lunged forward, the Golem exhaled a chilling wind, coating the entire floor in slick ice—forcing Ethan to slip and slide uncontrollably.

  “Smart,” Ethan muttered, trying to balance. But he was learning too.

  Drawing from his coat, Ethan pulled one of his chain pins, throwing it forward—but rewrote its structure mid-flight, softening it into a whip that wrapped around the Golem’s arm.

  It tried to yank him—but Ethan slid forward with the momentum, using the ice to his advantage, racing toward its chest.

  At the last second, he jumped, activating his threads to anchor himself on its shoulder—and drove his chain downward, injecting powerful bursts of aura directly into the weak points he could see in its chest.

  The Golem roared, ice cracking and fracturing around the point of impact. Ethan gritted his teeth and pushed more aura, until the core exploded in a pulse of shadow and mist.

  Panting, Ethan collapsed to one knee as the last Golem fell to pieces.

  Shards of black ice scattered across the floor, slowly dissolving into mist.

  Solis finally leapt down, landing gracefully beside him.

  “About time.”

  Ethan shot him a look, still catching his breath. “You could… help once in a while.”

  Solis just gave a faint smirk. “Where would the fun be in that?”

  Ethan laughed, though it hurt to do so. “Fair enough.”

  As Ethan stood, brushing frost from his coat, he looked ahead deeper into the ruins, where a faint golden glow pulsed in the darkness—the next stage of his trial.

  With a deep breath, he pushed forward.

  Ethan moved cautiously through the ruin’s open expanse—broken columns rising like jagged teeth from the snow, shards of shattered statues half-buried beneath the frost.

  The wind was softer here, but an eerie stillness clung to the ruins.

  Then—he saw it.

  Standing alone amidst the broken temple, half-shadowed beneath a collapsed archway, was a single Golem.

  But unlike the others, it didn’t move.

  Its body shimmered, ice and shadow fused so perfectly that it looked like glass molded around living smoke, pulsing faintly with dark blue veins.

  Ethan tightened his grip on his chain pins, eyes narrowed.

  Why is this one not attacking?

  He circled slowly, watching for any sudden movement—but the Golem only stood there, its head tilted as if watching him back.

  Then, as Ethan took another cautious step forward—

  The Golem moved.

  Not to attack.

  To copy.

  It raised a hand at the same angle, mirrored his stance, and when Ethan tilted his head slightly in confusion—so did it.

  “What…?” Ethan whispered under his breath, unease prickling his skin.

  And then—

  Its form began to melt.

  The ice warped, shifting unnaturally. Darkness laced through as the Golem’s icy form reshaped itself into something terrifyingly familiar.

  It was him.

  A perfect mirror—an ice-forged doppelg?nger of Ethan himself, with his stance, his chains—except all formed from darkened, jagged ice.

  The reflection smirked—a cold, twisted echo of Ethan’s own smile.

  Then it lunged.

  Ethan barely dodged as a whip of frozen chain lashed out toward him, cutting through the air with razor edges. The ground where it struck exploded into shards of ice, sending shards flying.

  “Okay,” Ethan muttered, sliding back. “You wanna play it that way?”

  He snapped his fingers—his double-helix chains unfurling from the pins on his coat, gleaming golden against the blue-white of the ruins. They spiraled around him, pulsing with light.

  The Ice Doppelg?nger mirrored him—jagged, frost-bitten chains coiling and hissing like living serpents.

  They clashed.

  Chains met chains—sparks of golden light flashing as metal struck frozen darkness. Ethan’s whip lashed for the Golem’s chest, but the icy twin mirrored perfectly, blocking the strike with its own chain.

  Every move Ethan made—it matched.

  When Ethan leaped sideways to flank it—it moved in the opposite direction.

  Like fighting my own reflection, Ethan realized, heart pounding.

  The chains lashed again—Ethan ducked and rolled, using a nearby broken pillar as cover, rewriting his coat to harden just in time to absorb a glancing strike from the ice whip.

  “Alright,” he muttered, panting, “you want to copy me? Let’s see if you can keep up.”

  Ethan took a deep breath—and split his chains into dozens of tiny threads, sending them outward like a net, darting around broken columns and ruins.

  The Doppelg?nger did the same—ice threads zipping through the air like crystalline spiderwebs.

  Both of them locked in a deadly dance, circling each other through the ruins, chains flicking between obstacles, constantly adjusting angles.

  Ethan twisted one chain to loop around a column, using it to slingshot himself forward, aiming a flying kick straight at the doppelg?nger’s head.

  But the ice copy had anticipated it—because Ethan would have.

  It countered, catching Ethan’s leg in an icy chain mid-spin and throwing him hard into a pillar, sending cracks rippling up the ancient stone.

  Ethan groaned, coughing. His coat had softened the blow—but barely.

  It’s not just copying me. It’s thinking like me. It learns.

  Ethan wiped blood from his lip, his heart pounding in his chest.

  “You think you know me?” he growled, standing.

  His hands trembled—but not from fear. From building energy.

  “Then let me show you the part of me you can’t copy.”

  He took a slow breath—focusing deep into his chest, where the fragments pulsed near his heart.

  Golden light bloomed from his veins, filling his limbs. His eyes turned sharp, glowing like burning suns.

  Lion’s Heart. Fully awakened.

  The snow around him began to swirl in golden wind, and as he opened his hands, threads of gold wove through the air, dancing between atoms, rewriting them faster than before.

  Chains formed midair, but this time not of metal—not even of shaped atoms— but living streams of pure coded light, double-helix strands humming with raw power, engraving glowing runes along their lengths.

  Ethan grinned, his voice calm but fierce.

  “Copy this.”

  Ethan lunged—his golden chains zipping forward faster than ever before, striking out in impossible angles, moving faster than the ice twin could react.

  The doppelg?nger mirrored—but slower, unsure, trying to keep up as Ethan’s chains became a blur of motion.

  Instead of aiming directly, Ethan wrapped his chains around pieces of broken stone, spinning them into whirling projectiles, slamming them into his opponent from unexpected directions.

  One stone shattered against the ice copy’s chest, cracking its armor.

  It flinched—the first time it reacted less than perfect.

  “Not so perfect now, huh?”

  Then Ethan shifted the terrain, but not by brute force—he focused on the snow beneath their feet, subtly rewriting its friction.

  The ice doppelg?nger lunged—and slipped, faltering for a brief moment.

  Ethan didn’t hesitate—he surged forward, golden chains slicing in an X-pattern, embedding themselves into the cracks in its armor.

  The creature snarled, trying to retaliate—but Ethan poured his Lion’s Heart aura into the chains, and rewrote the Golem’s core itself—forcing the ice to fracture from within.

  With a thunderous crack, the icy mirror shattered—collapsing into shards of blue crystal and black smoke, evaporating into the wind.

  Ethan stood there, breathing heavily, his glowing chains dissolving into golden dust.

  His coat was torn, blood marked his side—but his eyes still burned like the sun.

  From a high ledge, Solis watched in silence—then with a small, approving flick of his tail, leapt down beside him.

  “Finally learning to think beyond your limits.”

  Ethan gave a tired but victorious grin.

  “Guess so.”

  As the wind settled, a faint glow appeared in the distance—the fourth fragment, hovering between two ruined pillars, waiting for him.

  “Time to finish this,” Ethan whispered, stepping toward it.

  As the last shards of the ice doppelg?nger vanished into smoke, the ruins fell silent once more, save for the howling wind that swept over the frozen stones.

  Ethan’s steps crunched against the snow as he made his way to the center of the clearing, his breath still heavy but eyes locked on the shimmering glow ahead.

  There it was—the Fourth Fragment.

  Suspended in the air, a swirling orb of golden and silver light, pulsing like a beating heart caught in a prism of ice.

  Even from a distance, Ethan could feel its pull, calling to the essence within him.

  Solis followed a few steps behind, unusually quiet, watching Ethan with his sharp silver eyes.

  “You’ve earned this one,” Solis finally said, his voice softer, but carrying a hint of pride. “But be ready. Each one changes you—and this one may do so more than the others.”

  Ethan wiped a bead of sweat from his brow, his body aching from the battle but his heart steady.

  “I’m ready.”

  He reached out slowly, fingers outstretched as the light drew closer to his hand, swirling with power.

  The moment his fingertips touched the fragment—a shockwave of golden light burst outward, blowing back the snow in a wide circle around him.

  The fragment dissolved into threads of light, swirling around Ethan’s body like a living storm of symbols—golden runes weaving through the air, rushing into his veins.

  Ethan gasped—his back arching as the energy surged into his chest, colliding with the other fragments already inside him.

  The world blurred—his heartbeat pounding in his ears like a drum. His hands trembled, his aura roaring to life as the fourth piece found its place, sliding perfectly into the growing puzzle in his heart.

  Golden marks flared across his arms and chest, brief flashes of ancient script glowing under his skin before settling deep within.

  Solis watched intently as Ethan struggled to keep his footing, his breath shallow but steady.

  The last of the energy settled, and Ethan dropped to one knee, exhaling shakily.

  But he was still standing.

  And in that moment—his aura burned brighter than ever, golden and fierce, flickering like a sun ready to rise.

  Ethan looked up at Solis, a small but determined smile tugging at his lips.

  With a final sweep of his tails, the familiar portal opened once more, swirling golden and silver light coalescing into a gate home.

  Ethan stood, rolling his shoulders, his exhaustion replaced by a steady strength.

  “Let’s go.”

  And together, they stepped through the light, leaving the frozen ruins and the shattered reflection behind.