THE ABSOLUTE ZERO SYSTEM: VESTIGE OF THE FROZEN GOD

Chapter 4: The Frozen Armory

Vane Skadi stared at his hand. The cerulean glow of his veins cast skeletal shadows against the wall. He needed a weapon. Cryo-Silk was lethal, but it drained mana rapidly. His core sat at twelve percent. He needed something physical. Something permanent.

He knelt by the shattered carapace of the Frost-Weaver. Placing his palm flat against the bedrock, he reached deeper, tapping into the ancient, hyper-compressed ice buried beneath the stone.

He visualized his old blade—a Zenith combat knife, weighted for throwing, serrated at the base.

The System responded immediately.

[MANA EXPENDITURE: 2%. EXTRUDING BLACK ICE.]

A geyser of freezing mist erupted. Pitch-black material surged upward, wrapping around his forearm. It wasn't frozen water. It was a molecularly dense carbon-ice composite, forged in the crushing pressure of the deep earth. Vane gripped the mass and tore it free.

In his hand rested a brutal dagger. It was utterly black, absorbing the faint blue light rather than reflecting it. It felt impossibly heavy, yet perfectly balanced.

[ITEM CRAFTED: BLACK ICE DAGGER.] [DURABILITY: INDESTRUCTIBLE BENEATH 0°C. EFFECT: FROSTBITE ON STRIKE.]

Vane spun the blade. It hummed, cutting the air with a vicious hiss.

He moved. His boots made no sound on the frost. His modified anatomy absorbed the shock of his footsteps, making him a ghost in the dark. Keeping his thermal vision active, the world became a sprawling canvas of dark blues and absolute blacks.

The crevasse widened into a twisting lava tube, frozen over. Jagged stalactites hung like teeth. The air grew stale, carrying a foul odor that didn't belong in the sterile cold. It smelled of rancid grease, oxidized copper, and unwashed flesh.

Vane stopped. His thermal vision flared.

Ahead, hidden behind massive ice pillars, three dull orange smudges glowed. Heat signatures.

They were small, erratic, and burning incredibly low—barely above the temperature of the surrounding rock. But they were humanoid.

Zenith sent containment teams clad in thermal armor that blazed like miniature suns on his HUD. These signatures were different. They were clinging to the ice, waiting.

Vane tightened his grip on the dagger and stepped out.

"I see you," he said. His voice was a harsh rasp, stripped of humanity.

The heat signatures twitched. A wet hacking sound echoed. Figures detached from the shadows.

They were human once. Now, they were grotesque parodies of survival. Their Zenith-grade survival suits were shredded, patched with molted chitin and dried moss. Their skin was necrotic, marred by severe frostbite. They walked on all fours, their limbs elongated, fingers ending in broken nails perfect for digging through permafrost.

"A fresh fall," one hissed. The voice sounded like grinding stones. The creature stood on two legs, revealing a face devoid of lips or a nose—just exposed, blackened teeth and wild, milky eyes.

Scavengers. The forgotten ghosts of Sector Seven. Miners, scouts, the expendable labor the Syndicate threw into the dark and left to rot.

"You have a radio," Vane said, spotting a battered comm-link lashed to the leader's chest. "Give it to me."

The leader tilted its head. It didn't look at the dagger. It looked at Vane's glowing veins. It stared at his untouched flesh.

"He's warm," a second Scavenger muttered, crawling down the wall like an arachnid. "He still has the sweet blood."

"Give me the radio," Vane repeated. The cavern pressure dropped.

"We don't want words, sky-man," the leader spat, drawing a rusted vibro-shiv. "We want the meat. The meat keeps us moving."

The Scavenger on the wall launched itself. It dropped like a stone, aiming to crush Vane under its weight.

Vane didn't flinch. The heavy, sluggish feeling of his new body was gone, replaced by a terrifying, hyper-efficient combat geometry. He sidestepped. As the mutant crashed into the ice, Vane brought his heel down on the creature’s spine.

Bone shattered. The Scavenger shrieked, a wet, bubbling sound.

The leader and the third mutant charged simultaneously. They moved with the frantic desperation of starving animals. Vane met them head-on.

He ducked under the leader’s shiv, driving the Black Ice dagger upward into the creature's ribs. The blade met no resistance. As the carbon-ice pierced the lung, the weapon's innate frostbite effect triggered. The mutant's chest cavity flash-froze from the inside out. It collapsed, dead before hitting the floor, internal organs turned to solid blocks of ice.

The third Scavenger slammed into Vane's back. Filthy teeth bit down on his shoulder, trying to tear through the suit.

Vane reached over his shoulder, grabbed the mutant by the throat, and hurled it violently against the cavern wall. The creature slumped, stunned.

Vane walked over to the shivering mass. The Scavenger looked up, milky eyes wide with primal terror. It wasn't looking at a victim anymore. It was looking at the apex predator.

[TARGETS DETECTED. STATUS: HOSTILE.] [RECOMMENDATION: CONSUME AND ASSIMILATE.]

Vane stared at the pathetic thing. He had expected to find allies in the dark. Fellow victims of the Zenith Syndicate. Men and women wronged by Lyra and Mordred, ready to form a resistance against the gold-leafed towers above.

He was wrong. There was no resistance down here. There was only the food chain. The abyss had stripped these people of their humanity, leaving only a ravenous hunger. If he clung to his own morality, his past life as a scout, they would tear him apart and crack his bones for marrow.

"Please," the mutant gurgled. "Cold. So cold."

Vane knelt. He placed a glowing hand flat against the mutant's chest. He felt the faint flutter of the ruined heart. He felt the meager scraps of thermal energy keeping it alive.

"I know," Vane whispered, his voice a razor edge of cracking ice.

He drained it. The heat flowed into his palm, rushing up his arm to feed the Abyssal Pearl. The mutant stiffened, eyes glazing over as the last of its kinetic energy was violently stolen.

Vane stood up, the blue light in his veins burning brighter in the pitch dark. He looked down at the three frozen corpses. The System was absolutely right. To live in the graveyard of the world, he couldn't just survive the monsters.

He had to become them.