However… ding!
The expected sound of a body shattering never came. Zeus felt as though he had struck the heart of a mountain. Steve merely swayed, his obsidian skin remaining flawless, without so much as a scratch. The stray arcs of lightning from the impact lashed out, vaporizing several Totems of Undying held by the surrounding undead legion.
"This… how is this possible?!"
Zeus' pupils quaked. His entire worldview was crumbling. His power hadn't diminished, so why was he unable to leave a mark? He didn't realize that the Iron Golem was now a masterpiece of fusion—an alloy of Source Crystals, Obsidian, and Magma Blocks. Its physical and energy resistances had reached the absolute ceiling of the Fifth-Order.
"Is that all you've got? I've seen more fire from a candle," Steve's mocking voice rang out. He was already nose-to-nose with Zeus.
Whoosh!
A heavy, pitch-black fist howled through the air, aimed directly at Zeus' face.
Not good! Zeus' instincts screamed. He twisted aside with everything he had. At the same time, Burning Void reacted, condensing a flaming saber to strike Steve's flank and relieve the pressure on his comrade.
But Steve seemed to have eyes in the back of his head. His left hand was already waiting.
Bzzt!
His left palm snapped open, and a stream of absolute cold erupted into a thick beam of primordial ice that blasted toward the ambushing Burning Void.
"Damn it!" Sensing the soul-freezing chill, Burning Void abandoned his attack. He shifted to a full defensive stance, pouring his energy into blocking the frozen blast.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
A savage scene unfolded. Steve fought like a possessed god of war, striking in both directions simultaneously. His right hand pummeled Zeus with molten fists while his left hand's ice ray kept Burning Void pinned down. Zeus' lightning merely polished the obsidian; Burning Void's flames did nothing but singe the surface.
It was useless. Completely useless. This was an absolute-defense juggernaut that shrugged off energy damage while wielding twin domains of ice and fire.
Watching the two still struggling, Steve's patience finally reached its limit.
"Boring. I'm done playing games."
With a thought, the Source Crystal in his chest flared with a blinding white light.
Source Crystal: Energy Phase Shift.
Bzzt!
A cold many times more terrifying than before swept the field. The drifting snowflakes transformed into fist-sized, lethal icicles. Even the ambient lightning slowed, as if frozen in mid-air.
"What… what the hell is this?!" Zeus watched as his proud Thunder Domain visibly withered. He could accept being suppressed by Burning Void—their elements naturally clashed—but this? This wasn't a counter. It was a sheer gap in raw power.
Meanwhile, Steve's inky obsidian body began an astonishing transformation. The hard black shell faded, turning into a translucent, pure-white form that looked as if it were carved from ten-thousand-year-old mystic ice.
This was the second form unlocked by the Golem after consuming compressed ice and snow blocks: The Snowfiend.
In this mode, Steve deactivated the Lava Domain, converting all his energy into absolute cryo-control. He was now the sole sovereign of the frost.
Whoosh!
Within a twenty-kilometer radius, the temperature plunged to a hundred degrees below zero. Everyone on the battlefield felt a soul-piercing chill. The Fourth-Order Awakened from the Divine Judgment Base turned blue, their teeth chattering as their abilities became sluggish.
"So this is a perfected Fifth-Order Frost Domain…" a captain whispered in despair. Resistance had become a joke. When the power gap grew this wide, tactics and courage were meaningless.
Steve lifted his crystalline white arm and clenched his hand toward the sky.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Several sky-piercing ice tornadoes erupted, swirling countless razor shards like giant blenders toward the two men.
"We can't hold!" Burning Void's eyes were bloodshot. In a final act of desperation, he ignited his very life force.
"Burn!"
A last-flare of crimson blaze burst around him, forcing a hundred-meter flame shield through the snow to protect both him and Zeus.
"Zeus—go! I'll hold the domain!" Burning Void roared, blood streaming from his eyes, ears, and nose. "This is our only chance!"
Zeus met his comrade's desperate gaze and steeled himself. Without hesitation, he transformed into a purple spear of lightning and, using the brief opening, shot straight at Steve.
Lightning and blizzard collided with a deafening roar. Yet under the Snowfiend Form's absolute suppression, Zeus was just a hair too slow. Steve watched coldly and flicked a finger.
An unremarkable ice spike flickered through a gap in the lightning—then curved aside. It didn't hit Zeus. Instead, it drilled into Burning Void, who was barely holding the barrier together behind him.
Thud.
Already at his limit, Burning Void's flames shattered. He stared at the frozen hole in his chest and collapsed. Before he even hit the ground, the dreadful cold invaded every vein. He became a lifelike ice statue mid-air and crashed into the permafrost below.
"Burning Void!!!" Zeus let out a roar of despair.
With his partner fallen, the lone flame barrier vanished. Endless frost surged in like a tsunami, swallowing Zeus whole.
"It ends here," Steve's voice sounded beside his ear.
By now, Zeus was encased in thick ice, his movements slowed to a crawl. Steve's pure-white fist, gathering the bitter cold of the entire domain, seemed to move slowly, yet it struck like lightning, pressing firmly against Zeus' chest.