**The Dance of Bdes**
Guan Lan inhaled sharply, the frigid air burning his lungs as he willed the moisture gathering in his eyes to dissipate. When his gaze refocused, it carried the weight of irrevocable resolution.
"Seems I'll have to get serious," he murmured, lips curling into a grim smile. "Wouldn't want to disappoint you, *brother*."
Apo barely registered the words before a boot wreathed in crackling lightning smmed into his back—**Thunder Step Kick**—sending him skidding across the ice. Yet even mid-tumble, his fingers nocked three frost arrows, releasing them in a single fluid motion toward Guan Lan's vitals.
**Cng! Cng! Cng!**
Guan Lan's right hand blurred. The **Lightning Draconic Sword** materialized in a burst of blue-white energy, its oscilting bde intercepting each projectile with surgical precision. Ice shards rained down as he pivoted—**Thunder Fsh Advance**—closing the distance in the space between heartbeats.
Apo's **Riftgcier Bde**, forged from permafrost deeper than human history, cshed against the lightning construct. Purple-tinged mist coiled from its edge, each parry sending tendrils of soul-numbing cold creeping up Guan Lan's arms.
---
### **The Feint and the Trap**
For ten furious exchanges, neither gained ground—until Guan Lan deliberately overextended a low sweep.
*He's baiting a jump strike.*
Apo took the gambit, unching skyward with both hands gripping his sword's hilt for a devastating overhead ssh. Guan Lan twisted his wrist, rotating the Lightning Sword horizontally to block—
—and Apo's chest exploded in searing pain.
He hit the ice hard, blood pooling beneath him. Through the haze, he reconstructed the move:
*The Lightning Sword phased through my bde at the moment of impact... then rematerialized mid-swing while extending its length. A dimensional feint.*
"Mercy is a self-dug grave, Guan Lan," Apo rasped, pressing a palm to the wound. White mist erupted from his fingertips, fsh-freezing torn flesh and staunching the bleeding. "Since when do you forget that?"
Guan Lan's grin held no mirth. "Rare to find a worthy opponent. You've reached Stage Three, haven't you? Show me."
---
### **The Frozen Tomb**
Apo responded with three arrows fired skyward. The first Guan Lan bisected; the second nded harmlessly behind him; the third he obliterated with a web of lightning.
"Your aim's gotten—"
Instinct screamed. Guan Lan whirled—
—too te.
Apo's palm connected with his spine.
"**Absolute Zero.**"
The world turned white.
Gciers shattered. A thousand jagged ice fragments hurtled toward Guan Lan like shrapnel to a magnet, encasing him in a rapidly growing monolith. The cold wasn't merely physical—it *drank* his energy, siphoned his lightning, left him weaker with each passing second.
"Stop struggling," Apo said softly as the ice climbed past Guan Lan's neck. "Rest now, as my brother beneath this throne I built for you."
Only his face remained exposed. Guan Lan met Apo's gaze, eyes unbearably sad.
"Will you visit me?" he whispered.
Apo turned away before his tears could fall.
---
### **The Breaking Point**
The iceberg's first crack sounded like a gunshot.
Apo spun as fissures spiderwebbed across its surface—then **Pilr of Creation** erupted skyward, its annihiting light vaporizing everything in its path.
"Still using children's tricks?!" Apo ughed through tears, smming both palms onto the ice. "**Cryospheric Bastion!**"
Meters-thick walls of hypercompacted ice rose around the light pilr, absorbing its energy even as it shrank. When the st photon faded, Guan Lan stood atop a colossal ice cylinder—and the **Thunder Dragon** coiling around it dwarfed any Apo had ever seen.
*This... is your true power.*
The dragon struck.
Light swallowed the world.
---
### **The Last Words**
Apo woke on a floating ice sb, lungs burning. Guan Lan crouched beside him, uncorking a healing elixir.
"Drink."
"No." Apo coughed blood. "Even if... Sisi takes my Frostheart... I'll still fight you."
The ice pins crumbled around them. Guan Lan y down beside his dying friend.
"Who'll run your restaurant?"
Apo's smile was faint. "Thought we'd... bring our families there. Celebrate together..."
Guan Lan stared at the false sky.
"Liyas..." Apo gasped. "Don't... bme her. Revolution... requires blood."
"*Come back with me!*" Guan Lan wrenched upright, voice raw. "*I'll spare her! I swear!*"
Apo shook his head.
The dam broke. Guan Lan grabbed his shoulders, shaking him. "*WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?! WHY DOES IT ALWAYS END LIKE THIS?!*"
Sobs wracked his body. Apo pced Guan Lan's hand over his fading heartbeat.
"Remember me."
The light left his eyes.
