As the centisnake gathered power, a pervasive, suffocating heat began to fill the room, which caused the walls and even the obsidian islets to become molten like the lava they were submerged in. If just the residual heat could melt the surrounding stone, one could only imagine how hot the fire itself was.
Granted, the only people in the area who would've been affected by the heat, were currently dealing with some unseasonably cold weather.
The reason for this chill?
A certain viking kaijin that was also building up power in his own way.
Fwooooo...
The moment the centisnake began condensing power for what was probably it's most powerful attack, Frosttusk began to release a low humming sound that seemed to be growing louder and louder with each second.
"What's that sound?," Sullivan asked, "And wait...shouldn't we be affected by the-Oh. What the hell?"
'Well that's new,' Zhen Liu commented in his head.
[Charging...up...]
As Frosttusk continued to hum, Zhen Liu and Sullivan could observe that the lava surrounding him was rapidly cooling into ice covered stone and that this cooling effect was spreading outward. It didn't take Zhen Liu long to connect the weird humming sound that was growing louder, to the sudden frost that was growing at the same pace.
'Huh...that explains the humming,' Zhen Liu thought to himself, 'thermoacoustic refrigeration...guess that means things are about to get very very loud.'
FWOOOOOoooo.
Hissssssssssss.
Evidently, it was a rather harrowing sight, seeing two monstrous beings with diametrically opposed powers getting ready to attack, each of them waiting on the other to either screw up or finish charging.
At this moment, Sullivan was reminded of the duels he would occasionally see around town, especially among travelers, and how they would always settle their differences in a single strike. Now Sullivan never thought much on these types of battles, he himself was more used to drawn out brawls and found duels to be rather boring, but now that he was in the middle of this particular bout...he understood now that participants of the duels he watched were just...too weak. After this thought had crossed his mind, one of the participants had finished preparing.
"ROAR!"
Having finished powering up, the centisnake fired off a massive ball of fire the size of a mini-van directly at Frosttusk, who was still charging up his own attack.
As the fireball made it's way to Frosttusk, the lava in the wake of it's path became superheated to the point of exploding, while the islets melted down completely. This ball of fire took a lot out of the centisnake, but it's destructive power was well worth the cost.
Sullivan was about to call out to Zhen Liu, telling him to get out of the way because there was no way in hell he'd survive the splash damage from an attack like that, but stopped when he saw that the latter looked unusually calm and confident about the whole situation. Sullivan wasn't sure what Zhen Liu had planned, but he felt that it must've been good.
In reality, Zhen Liu was mentally panicking like no tomorrow. He was just putting on a brave face.
[Shitshitshitshit! Frosttusk, that attack just melted those stone islets! Are you sure you can handle it?!]
[No...worries..,] Frosttusk replied calmly, [I was...waiting...for this...]
[...wait, what?]
As the fireball got closer and closer, Frosttusk made an unexpected gesture: he clasped his hands together in prayer.
[What the fu-]
"Thanks for...the gift!,"Frosttusk suddenly proclaimed.
Once the fireball was close enough, Frosttusk flung out his arms and hugged the encroaching ball of burning death.
"Oh shit!," Sullivan exclaimed as he threw up his guard. Based on his own experience, whenever a warrior or a beast made use of condensed Ignati aether, it would usually end in explosions. Zhen Liu on the other hand, just stood there.
[Well shit. No wonder you were so confident,] Zhen Liu commented.
Sullivan kept his guard up for a few moments, fully expecting for shrapnel and heat to impact him at any moment, only for absolutely none of that to occur at all. Instead, he got hit in the face with an unexpected burst of cold air while the humming sound in his ear began to change tone.
"What in the-HOLY SHIT!"
FWOOOO, FEEEEOOO, FWOOOOOMMM!
When Sullivan finally let his guard down to see as to why he wasn't battered by an explosion, he was greeted by the sight of Frosttusk hugging and absorbing the gigantic fireball.
"Hahahahaha! Finally! This actually feels like...something!"
Little by little, second by second, the fireball shrank bit by bit, literal jets of flames that composed it getting sucked into Frosttusk's internals and being expelled as super chilled air that cooled the room even faster than before. Eventually, the fireball was extinguished completely.
With the fireball no longer in his arms, Frosttusk's arms briefly crossed one another before the mammoth kaijin resettled them to his sides.
[Not enough...,] Frosttusk rumbled, [Apologies min jarl, but I'll have to borrow some aether from you to finish.]
[You are talking a lot faster now,] Zhen Liu commented, [ and yeah sure go a-oop...!]
Zhen Liu suddenly felt queasy as Frosttusk began to absorb his aether at a pace much quicker than how Nepherage would absorb aether. When the deed was done, Zhen Liu had only about twenty percent left of his total aether in reserve.
"Only enough for the first line...but that is plenty for this tinker toy."
Once Frosttusk had fully absorbed the aether he needed, his body began to glow with a dark blue light as the energetic silhouette of a huge mammoth-like monster began to form around him. The strange humming that Frosttusk's body was emitting had now changed to sounding like a chorus of low growling sounds.
Both Sullivan and Zhen Liu were shocked at the appearance of this silhouette, because there was only one possible way for such a sight to show up: a World Class Aether art.
"My song heralds the end of times," Frosttusk began to say as he entered into a horse stance,"Now hear it, [Echoing Frost - Declaration]!"
At that moment, Frosttusk and the mammoth silhouette released an overlapping roar.
All the world went white as a single sound could be heard.
PAAAAOOOOOOOOO!