The afternoon heat inside the Grand Colosseum dropped forty degrees the moment the outside seal over Ring 3 engaged. A bank of thirty heavy-duty ice-cold injectors mounted around the outer edge barrier roared to life, spewing thick plumes of freezing liquid and crushed frost crystals into the air. Within two minutes, the golden sands of the arena were blanketed under six inches of packed ice-slow ice, the surrounding heat plummeting to minus thirty-five degrees.
Overhead, the massive light-projected banner flickered with crisp azure light: ROUND OF 16 // MATCH 03: IRONFANG VANGUARD ACADEMY VERSUS FROST-VEIN ACADEMY.
Arthur Vance stood in the southern combat nook, adjusting the heat seals on his Vanguard combat jacket. Breath plumed from his lips in dense white clouds. It condensed on the brass rims of his Monocle Taxonomy Loupe (Mk. IV). Next to him, Toby was wrapping insulating heat tape around the air-powered propellant lines of the ARC-7 Mag-Carbine. Meanwhile, Instructor Valerie checked the ice-cleats on their boots.
“Frost-Vein Academy hails from the deep ice-slow crevasses of Sector 2,” Valerie said, her voice muffled slightly behind her padded tactical balaclava. “Their squad captain, Kaelen Frost, fields twin young Frost Drakes. These beasts don’t engage in melee combat. Their internal cold-glands produce an aerosolized freezing mist that coats the lungs of opposing beasts, inducing rapid freezing bronchospasm. If Grimm breathes that vapor, his alveoli will crystallize in thirty seconds.”
