The arena was a vast circular field of shimmering marble. Aelith stepped inside, bringing with her the biting cold of an eternal winter. Her body exuded an icy aura, the ground beneath her feet freezing in an intricate pattern of ice crystals that spread out in waves.
On the other side, Ivor appeared in a flash, enveloped in a rippling distortion that made the space around him seem liquid. He casually raised his hand, and a small rift in the fabric of reality appeared beside him, sucking in the air like a vortex.
"So, Aelith, let us test whether you will pass to the next stage," he said, his voice reverberating as if echoing through several dimensions at once.
"A universe of ice will be your limit," she replied, her voice as calm as the first snowfall of winter.
Ivor struck first. She stretched out her arms, and folds of space opened around Aelith like glowing rifts. Blades of spatial energy emerged from these openings, shooting at impossible speeds from all directions.
