The Sovereign-V2: C52: Feel the Cold, Veyne

The Sovereign-V2: C52: Feel the Cold, Veyne

That shared, silent scream of despair between Shiro and Kuro was a spark cast into a different kind of tinder. A dozen paces away, separated by weeping pillars and the Plaza's pulsing, organic geography, another reckoning, forged over decades of brotherhood and betrayal, reached its own brutal crescendo. The void's gravitational pull might have been suffocating their hope, but it did nothing to dampen the thunder of a different conflict, one fuelled not by cosmic dread, but by the very human, very personal poison of a shattered bond.
In tandem to the psychological warfare Haruto was embroiled in something else stirred…
The thunderous clash of Ryota Veyne’s Polaris etched blade against Volrag’s frost forged monstrosity wasn’t just sound; it was the physical manifestation of decades of festering betrayal. Each impact echoed like a war drum across the Plaza, a brutal counterpoint to the silent annihilation unfolding nearby. They carved a savage circle amidst the weeping pillars and pulsing, diseased runes, their battle a grim waltz of mutual destruction fuelled by shared history curdled into purest venom.
Volrag wasn’t just fighting. He was
exhaling
hatred. Every movement, every shift of his glacier like frame, radiated a loathing so profound it felt like a physical pressure, a second layer of frost coating the Plaza’s fleshy floor. His massive sword, sheathed in rime that crackled with malevolent energy, moved with deceptive, terrifying speed. He wielded Ryota’s own brutal efficiency, the very techniques drilled into him on frozen training grounds, but twisted, corrupted. The economy of motion was there, the lethal angles, the precise footwork, but overlaid with a frenzied, void touched malice that made each strike feel like a personal violation. His scarred face remained a mask of glacial indifference, but his eyes… his glacial eyes burned. Not with the cold fury of the Frostguard, but with a focused,
personal
hatred that radiated colder than his blade, colder than the mountain’s heart. It was the hatred of stolen destiny, of loyalty repaid with perceived scorn, a poison distilled over many bitter years.
Ryota met him blow for bone jarring blow. His Star breaker, the Polaris sigils along its fuller flickering faintly like dying stars, rang like a cracked bell with each parry. He fought with the raw, controlled fury of a cornered beast, each block and counter fuelled by the kaleidoscope of loss: Kaya’s smile extinguished, the echoing screams of Warrens swallowed by relentless frost, the visceral memory of Volrag turning his blade on brothers in arms during the Frostguard Purge. Grief was the forge; righteous anger the hammer beating his resolve into lethal edge.
"You fight like an old man dragging his fucking grave behind him, Veyne!" Volrag snarled, deflecting a powerful overhead chop that sent shockwaves through the yielding floor. Frost exploded from the impact point, jagged spears of ice lancing towards Ryota’s boots like frozen serpents. Ryota pivoted, a move ingrained deeper than bone, the frost spears shattering against the pillar behind where he’d stood a heartbeat before. His riposte was a lightning fast thrust aimed not at centre mass, but at the vulnerable gap in Volrag’s fur lined gorget. Volrag jerked his head back with viper speed, the frost blade sweeping down in a blur of rime to intercept.
KRACKKKKK!
Sparks, white hot and defiant, flew, freezing instantly in the air like cursed fireflies. "Slow! Predictable! Like your rusted fucking
ideals
! Honor? Duty? Chains you forged to shackle those stronger than you!"
Ryota conserved his breath, channelling the fury into his movements. He saw the patterns in Volrag’s attacks, the subtle telegraphing shift of weight onto the back foot before a devastating cleave a habit Ryota had tried to break him of for
years
, the fractional dip of the left shoulder preceding a lunging thrust a flaw exploited ruthlessly during their final spar before the betrayal. He exploited them with the cold precision of a surgeon excising cancer. A high feint, drawing Volrag’s guard up, the frost blade whistling through empty air. Then, a crushing, low sweep aimed not just at the knees, but at the tendons behind them, a disabling blow perfected on Volrag himself during advanced training. Volrag leaped back, a feral snarl tearing from his throat, frost swirling around him like a protective shroud of spite. "Still using the tricks you
dribbled
into me? Fucking pathetic!" Spittle froze on his lips. "That Polaris title should have been
MINE
! I
bled
for the North! I carved my loyalty in ice and bone on a hundred battlefields! I froze my
soul
for the Frostguard’s glory!" His voice rose, cracking with the raw, unhealed wound of betrayal. "And she gave it to you! You a fucking disgrace! A ghost who couldn’t even hold onto his own fucking light!"
The raw venom, the depth of the betrayal
Volrag
felt, struck Ryota like a physical blow, momentarily staggering his spirit. It wasn't just envy; it was the howl of a disciple who believed his devotion had been spat upon, his sacrifice rendered meaningless. This personal agony fuelled Volrag’s next attack, a blinding, furious flurry of strikes. Void cold radiated from his blade in visible waves, each blow aimed not just to break Ryota’s guard, but to shatter his legacy, his beliefs, his very reason for being.
CLANG! CLANG! SCREEE!
Ryota blocked, parried, gave ground, the frost blade grazing his bicep. Not deep, but the invasive cold instantly numbed the muscle to lead, slowing his riposte. He felt the years, the crushing weight of command, the ocean of grief for Kaya and the lost Frostguard, pressing down, sapping his strength. The Plaza’s cold seeped deeper, matching Volrag’s hatred.
"I
earned
it with my last fucking
breath
!" Ryota roared, the sound raw, scraping his frozen throat. He found a reservoir of fury deeper than fatigue. He stopped retreating. Planted his feet in the yielding, resistant flesh of the Plaza, grounding himself against the tide of hatred. "I held the line at Starfall Pass when
you
faltered! I shielded the retreat with MY own light while you counted the cost!" He met Volrag’s next devastating overhead chop, a move meant to split him crown to groin, not with a dodge, but with Starbreaker held crosswise in a two handed block, channelling every ounce of his remaining strength and Polaris forged will.
KRACKKK!
The impact was seismic. A shockwave of force and displaced frost exploded outwards, rattling the weeping pillars. Both men strained, blades locked, faces inches apart, breath pluming in ragged gasps that mingled and froze. Ryota stared into the abyss of Volrag’s hatred, seeing the bottomless pit of resentment, the envy curdled into something monstrous and void touched. He saw the young boy he’d pulled from a frozen ditch, the promising lieutenant he’d trusted with his flank, the man who’d stood beside him at Kaya’s pyre… and the rot that had festered beneath. "You want the title?" Ryota bellowed, the sound shaking frozen dust from the vaulted ceiling. "The honour you think I
stole
?
TAKE IT FROM MY FUCKING CORPSE!
"
With a surge of desperate Polaris energy channelled not into light, but into pure, explosive physical force, a technique Kaya had mastered, not taught, Ryota
shoved
. It was the strength of final defiance, of a man pushing back the glacier of his own doom.
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Volrag, unprepared for the sudden, overwhelming power born of righteous fury and sacrificial energy, stumbled back. Genuinely off balance. His guard, usually impregnable, faltered for a crucial, vulnerable instant. His frost blade dipped, exposing his upper chest and neck.
Ryota didn't hesitate. Decades of battle instinct, honed alongside the man now trying to kill him, took over. He pivoted on his lead foot, a move of brutal, almost beautiful efficiency,
The Dawn’s Pivot
, a disengage thrust combination Kaya had favoured. Star breaker, the Polaris edge flaring with a final gasp of desperate light, whipped around in a blinding horizontal arc, aimed not at Volrag’s armoured torso, but at the exposed junction of neck and shoulder where fur met hardened leather.
THUNKKKKKSSSSS!
It connected. Not a clean kill, but a deep, brutal trench carved across Volrag’s shoulder and collarbone. The Polaris edge sheared through fur, leather, and muscle with a sound like tearing frozen canvas. Ichor, not blood, but something darker, colder, smelling of cosmic decay and deep permafrost,
jetted
out in an arcing spray. It steamed violently where it hit the Plaza’s warmer floor, hissing like acid. Volrag bellowed, a sound of pure, shocked agony and incandescent fury that dwarfed the Plaza’s ambient groan. It wasn't just pain; it was the outrage of the usurped, the shock of vulnerability exposed by the very master he despised. He staggered back, clutching the horrific wound, his glacial eyes wide with disbelief and a fresh wave of soul deep loathing. The void cold swirling around him intensified, frost crawling rapidly over the wound, attempting to seal it with jagged black ice.
Ryota pressed, the metallic taste of vindication sharp and fleeting on his tongue. He saw an opening, a chance to end the rot spawned from his own mentorship. "For Kaya!" he roared, the name a battle cry against the void. "For the North you betrayed! For every soul you froze in the fucking dark!" He raised his blade, the Polaris light guttering but focused, aiming for the killing thrust to Volrag’s heart.
But triumph in the face of such hatred was a fragile illusion. Volrag’s pain didn't weaken him; it
transmuted
into terrifying, void fuelled focus. As Ryota’s blade descended, Volrag, moving with the speed of cornered desperation amplified by the void cold saturating his being,
didn't
retreat. He
dropped
. Not away.
Down and forward
, beneath the lethal arc of Ryota’s swing, a move of pure, reckless contempt for his own safety. His frost blade, held low in a reverse grip, became a frozen viper striking upwards. As Ryota’s strike whistled harmlessly over his ducking form, Volrag
thrust
upwards with every ounce of his remaining strength, his void touched hatred, and the momentum of his fall. The blade aimed not for the gut, but lower, crueller, the soft junction below Ryota’s ribcage, angled upwards towards vitals.
Ryota saw the movement, the blur of frost and fur, too late. He tried to twist, to pull back, but momentum, exhaustion, and the chilling numbness spreading from his grazed arm betrayed him. The laws of physics and hatred conspired against him.
PUNCHHH SQUELCHHHH FZZZZZT.
The sound was sickeningly multi layered. The wet punch of hardened steel piercing flesh and muscle. The horrific squelch as it tore through internal layers. The chilling
fzzt
as the void cold radiating from the blade instantly flash frozen the tissues it touched, crystallizing blood vessels and nerve endings. Agony, white and absolute, obliterated all thought, all strategy, all memory. It wasn't just pain; it was the violation of his own body by the corrupted echo of his own teachings. Ryota’s eyes flew impossibly wide, a choked, frozen gasp exploding from his lips. He looked down, disbelief warring with the overwhelming tide of agony. He saw the rime coated blade buried deep within him, saw the frost already spiderwebbing outwards from the wound across his abdomen, freezing his tunic stiff. Cold, deeper than any mountain chill, radiated inwards, freezing his blood in its veins, locking his muscles in rigor. Volrag, still crouched low, looked up from beneath Ryota’s guard. His scarred face was inches away, twisted in a rictus of hate, agony, and savage,
guttural
triumph. Void ichor and frozen spittle mingled on his lips.
"You talk... of stolen lives... Veyne," Volrag rasped, each word a puff of frozen vapor carrying the stench of decay and bottomless resentment. His glacial eyes burned into Ryota’s, not with victory, but with the culmination of a lifetime’s poisoned devotion. "You stole... my
destiny
. My
rightful
place."
He twisted the embedded blade with deliberate, sadistic slowness.
CRUNCHHHHHH.
Ryota screamed. The sound was raw, animal, tearing from a throat already constricting with cold. It wasn't just the physical agony of the twisting steel and spreading frost; it was the shattering of the mentor’s mantle, the horrific confirmation of his deepest failure. The world dissolved into blinding, freezing pain and the overwhelming, hate filled gaze of the protégé he had forged into a monster. The Polaris light in his eyes flickered violently, guttering like a dying star caught in the event horizon of Volrag’s all consuming hatred. He collapsed to his knees, the movement driving the blade deeper, a fresh wave of icy fire tearing through him. Volrag rose above him, not just an enemy, but the vengeful glacier of Ryota’s own failings, the frost blade a frozen stake pinning him to the Plaza of his demise. The battle was far from over, but the tide had turned on a river of frozen ichor and the absolute, suffocating weight of a hatred years in the making. Volrag’s breath, cold enough to burn, washed over Ryota’s face as he leaned in, his voice a frozen whisper of purest loathing: "Feel the cold,
Veyne
. It’s the only fucking embrace you’ll ever fucking feel."
The whisper was the final nail. The cold wasn't just the void's touch anymore; it was the glacier of his own failure finally settling into his bones. Agony was no longer a sensation but a state of being. The world narrowed to the frozen fire radiating from his gut, a sun of pure, crystallizing torment. Every frantic beat of his heart wasn't a pump but a mallet, hammering the embedded frost blade against the frozen ruins of his nerves, sending shards of white hot ice through his entire system. He tried to draw breath, to fuel a final curse, but his diaphragm was a slab of meat locked in permafrost. The air that scraped in was thin, useless, tasting of iron and the profound decay of Volrag's void chilled breath.
His vision, clouded by pain, fixed on Volrag's face looming over him. He didn't see the triumphant warrior in that scarred visage, nor the loyal lieutenant he'd once toasted in warm halls. He saw the ghost of the boy from the ditch, but the hope in those eyes had been replaced by a static filled, yawning emptiness. The rot he'd failed to excise had not just festered; it had hollowed out the man and built a monument to hatred from the bones. This was his legacy. Not the Polaris title. Not the defended passes. This. A protégé turned into a weapon of absolute desolation, kneeling in the filth of a living Plaza, slain by the very techniques he’d imparted. The weight of it was heavier than the mountain, colder than the void now claiming his flesh.
Starbreaker felt like a continent in his numb hand. The Polaris light along its edge, which had flared with his defiance moments before, was gone. Not dimmed. Extinguished. As if the blade itself had acknowledged its master's end. The familiar hum that had been a constant in his grip for decades was silent, leaving only the high pitched, metallic ringing of his own failing biology and the wet, ragged sound of Volrag's breathing. He felt the Plaza's fleshy floor beneath his knees, not as solid ground, but as a yielding, hungry maw, beginning to pull at him, eager to absorb another fallen warrior into its bloody, pulsating tapestry. This was the unmaking. Not with a grand, cosmic bang, but with the slow, intimate cruelty of a twisted blade and the glacial press of a hatred he himself had helped to forge. The battle for the North, for Aki, for their very souls, was being lost right here, in the silence after a whisper, in the freezing of a mentor's heart.

.
!
V2: C52: Feel the Cold, Veyne