The emergency winch whirred, its magnetic cable descending into the frosty darkness of the ventilation shaft.
Ryu stood over the opening, his hands outstretched, his eyes closed in concentration. He could feel the intense, biting cold radiating from the shaft, a void of thermal energy.
Kiera's command echoed in his mind: *keep him frozen*. He took a deep breath, and for the first time, he tried to consciously replicate the effect he had produced on the molten rock wall, but in reverse.
He didn't try to absorb the cold.
Instead, he used his own ChainForce as a barrier, a resonant field designed to contain it, to keep the absolute zero temperatures from dissipating.
The winch mechanism groaned as it took the weight of the frozen spymaster. Slowly, agonizingly, the ice-encased form of Charon was lifted from the shaft.
He was a perfect, horrifying sculpture of a man in his last moment of surprise, his face a mask of frozen disbelief, his advanced combat suit glittering with a thick layer of hoarfrost.
The moment he was clear of the shaft, the temperature in the corridor began to plummet. The air grew thick with a freezing fog as the moisture condensed and flash-froze.
"I can't hold it for long!" Ryu grunted, the effort of maintaining the cold-containment field a massive strain.
Sweat beaded on his forehead, instantly freezing in the frigid air.
"You don't have to," Joric said, already moving.
He attached a series of devices to Charon's frozen body—portable stasis cuffs and a larger, spider-like device that clamped onto the assassin's chest.
"These are medical-grade cryogenic restraints. They'll maintain his core temperature at just below freezing. It won't be as effective as the liquid nitrogen, but it will keep him unconscious and immobilized." Joric activated the restraints with a click, and they began to hum with a low, steady energy, taking over the strain from Ryu.
Ryu collapsed to his knees, gasping, the world swimming before his eyes. He had held a piece of absolute zero at bay with nothing but his will.
He was growing stronger, but every new feat of power brought him closer to a razor's edge he didn't fully understand.
Just as they secured their frozen prisoner, Kiera's comm-link, a hardened military device that had survived the EMP's initial blast, crackled to life.
It was Jin. His voice was a frantic, panicked whisper.
"Kiera! You have to get out! Valerius confessed! He confessed everything! The council is in chaos. They've sealed the spire. No one in, no one out. They're hunting for accomplices. They're hunting for *you*!" The news was a hammer blow.
Their unholy alliance with Valerius had worked, but it had also sprung their own trap.
They were sealed inside the stronghold with their frozen prisoner, with the entire Azure Dragon clan now aware of a conspiracy, and with Kiera's name directly linked to the now-confessed traitor.
Before they could even begin to process this, a new alert flashed on Joric's datapad.
"Proximity alert," he hissed.
"Heavy armor. Multiple targets. Moving to our position, fast." Through the corridor walls, they could hear the heavy, rhythmic tramp of mag-boots.
It was the Elder's Guard, the clan's most elite, most powerful warriors.
They were no longer just fugitives. They were the primary targets of a fortress on high alert.
The thaw had begun, and the entire world was coming down on top of them.