Ragnar heard the dull boom of his projectile and snorted in satisfaction, already expecting to see Natalia's body slam into the building wall - or at the very least crumple to the ground with shattered bones.
But when he turned his head, he saw something completely different.
In front of the girl stood a thick, several-meter-tall wall of ice - so dense and massive it looked like a fragment of a glacier torn straight out of the Arctic and forced into the middle of the campus. Its surface was cracked and mangled from the impact of the compressed air blast, yet it still stood - heavy, cold, and utterly unbroken at its base.
Behind it, Natalia stood upright. She hadn't even taken a step back.
And her eyes were colder than before.
"What the fu…" slipped out of Ragnar when he realized she hadn't just survived - she was already forming new ice constructs above her head.
This time not thin spikes.
Thicker, heavier and blade-like.
