Online Game: Starting With SSS-Ranked Summons

He recognised that their stunning abilities had to be on cooldown; it was impossible to spam such powerful control effects without significant recovery periods. This gave him the window he needed to employ his most desperate and dangerous technique.

The Winter Beast's domain began changing in ways that defied the enclosed space's previous stability.

Massive ice spikes started erupting from every surface, wall, floor, and ceiling. Creating a three-dimensional maze of deadly protrusions that filled the available space with lethal obstacles.

Ice spears began materialising and falling from every direction, transforming the organised arena into a chaotic battlefield once again, where survival required constant movement and perfect awareness. The Winter Beast began channelling power for what was clearly his ultimate technique.

His massive body began decreasing in size, condensing from giant proportions to something approaching Arthur and Aether's scale. The size reduction wasn't weakness—it was concentration, compressing his legendary power into a more manageable form for his final gambit.

[Ice Coffin]

The ice formations throughout the domain began sublimating rapidly, creating a thick mist that obscured visibility. Arthur immediately recognised this as an extremely dangerous development.

"Aether! We need to attack now!" Arthur commanded with urgency.

Before they could locate and engage their target, the ice spikes that had formed throughout the domain began moving towards them rapidly. The walls themselves were closing inward, and the Winter Beast seemed to have merged with one of the spike formations, using them as cover while maintaining offensive pressure.

The entire structure was collapsing toward the centre, where Arthur and Aether remained trapped. In seconds, the coffin of interlocking spikes would close completely, turning them into paste regardless of their durability.

"Attack the spike he's hiding in! Let's kill him." Arthur shouted through the obscuring mist.

They focused their assault on the formation where they detected the Winter Beast's presence, but discovered he was no longer there. He was changing positions within the moving wall system, relocating to avoid their counterattacks while maintaining the inexorable closing pattern.

Arthur realized they couldn't teleport beyond the domain's boundaries and lacked the raw power to destroy the entire Ice Coffin technique. The Winter Beast had poured all his remaining mana into this ultimate attack, and it was closing rapidly—in two seconds, they would be crushed regardless of their defensive capabilities.

Immediately, Arthur unsummoned the Cackle Queen to prevent her unnecessary death and ensure her availability for future battles. Aether appeared on Arthur's shoulder, ready for their final desperate gambit.

"Aether, use Quantum Existence at the last possible second, okay?" Arthur instructed with calm certainty.

Aether nodded, understanding the plan completely. "Yes, Master!"

<Quantum Existence>

<Rank: Legendary>

<Active>

<Description: The dragon wraps itself (or an ally) in layered spatial folds, causing attacks to phase through them 100% of the time as they briefly exist in an adjacent dimension. Lasts 10 seconds.>

<Cooldown: 5 minutes.>

BOOM!

The ice spears closed inward with devastating force, the Winter Beast's ultimate technique achieving perfect execution. From his position hidden within the collapsing formation, the Winter Beast was certain of victory. They couldn't escape the domain, and they lacked the power to stop his final attack.

Let them think they had won earlier. Let them believe their stunning combination had secured victory. He had lost both eyes and was dying from blood loss, but the only reason he had concealed himself was to ensure they experienced complete despair before death claimed them.

He wanted to feel their bodies being crushed within his domain, to know that his enemies had died before his own wounds could finish him. Only then would he allow himself to die peacefully, satisfied that his territorial sanctity had been preserved through mutual destruction.

The Winter Beast waited in the crushing silence that followed his technique's completion, expecting to sense the satisfaction of victory through his domain's connection to everything within its boundaries.

...

After the Ice Coffin shut together with devastating finality, creating an intertwining death trap of ice spikes that should have reduced any occupants to unrecognisable paste, the massive structure held its compressed form for several tense seconds. The silence within the domain was absolute, broken only by the Winter Beast's laboured breathing as he awaited confirmation of his enemies' destruction.

Slowly, the coffin began to move apart, returning to its normal configuration as the technique's energy dissipated. The ice spikes retracted, revealing the arena's original dimensions while leaving behind crystalline evidence of the devastating force that had just been unleashed.

The Winter Beast, hidden within one of the spike formations, slowly began emerging as his mana reserves finally gave out entirely. The combination of his grievous injuries and the enormous energy expenditure required for his ultimate technique had depleted him beyond his ability to maintain the domain any longer.

His massive form stumbled as he materialised from his hiding place, blood still flowing freely from his ruined eye sockets and the gaping wounds across his half-severed neck. He didn't have any more mana to create ice and close his wounds.

Each movement sent waves of agony through his legendary constitution, but he endured the pain with grim satisfaction, believing his sacrifice had achieved the desired result.

Arthur and Aether watched this entire sequence unfold from their position within the adjacent dimensional space that Quantum Existence had created for their protection.

The sensation of existing in the dimensional fold was unlike anything Arthur had ever experienced. He was simultaneously present and absent, occupying the same physical coordinates as the normal world while being completely separated from it by layers of spatial manipulation that defied conventional physics.

It was like being there but not being there at the same time—a paradox made manifest through the element of space. Arthur could see everything happening in the normal dimension with perfect clarity, observing the Winter Beast's movements and the domain's collapse without any visual obstruction.

But he couldn't interact with anything in the physical world. His attempts to touch surfaces resulted in his hand passing through matter as if it were composed of nothing more substantial than light.