When the armored man and the burned woman died, a sense of aggressiveness towards the young man appeared in the snake's mind. For some reason, it felt like the only way to get out alive from that place would be to kill that man, so its survival instinct kicked in as it began to swim through the swamp to reposition itself.

Even if it knew that it should kill the man, the beast also knew it would lose in a frontal confrontation, so planning an ambush would be its best opportunity.

Sadly, before the snake could get away, the man summoned a light screen again. This time, after tapping it, he disappeared from where he was before appearing in front of the beast.

"It is rude of you to leave me alone when we should be fighting." the man said before tilting his head." Are you smart enough to understand me? Or do you act just by instinct?"

Seeing that it wouldn't be able to escape, the snake stood still while trying to find a weak spot in its enemy's position.

Realizing that, the young man couldn't help but laugh.

"I don't know if you can understand me, but you certainly are somewhat intelligent," he said." You know, your God and mine are allies. If we had met in any other situation, I would have let you go without any problem, but sadly, if I want to return to my world, I'm the only one that can remain alive, so I will try to make this as fast as possible."

As it knew the battle was about to start, the snake decided to go all out and try to end the fight before his enemy could do anything. Using all its remaining energy, the snake began to amass the water around it to cover its body.

Soon after, a thick layer of water covered the beast as if it were armor.

"It seems like fighting in a swamp gives you some advantages. Sadly, I'm too powerful for that trick to work on me." the man said before another light screen appeared in front of him."I think an ice spell would be the best match for you right now."

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After tapping again on the screen, an ice ball appeared on his left hand. The ball grew in size for a few seconds before he sent it flying toward the snake.

The beast tried to dodge the projectile but failed in the end, becoming frozen with all the water surrounding it becoming ice.

"I guess this is over." the man said with a smile while turning his back on the snake.

The battle was about to reach its end. With the snake trapped in a cage of ice, it would take a few moments before it lost its life.

But then something happened.

The snake, still conscious inside the ice, began to manipulate all the water-energy on its body and around it. At first, it tried to use the water to break the ice and escape, but after a few seconds of trying, it realized it was useless.

But it also realized a strange phenomenon around it. For some reason, the water-energy it was trying to use to break free was mutating and changing its properties.

At first, the amount of this mutated energy was imperceptible, but as time passed, the amount and its purity began to skyrocket.

Seeing it as its last try, the snake tried to control that energy to use it.

Absorbing most of the energy from its surroundings, the snake modified the ice that was covering it so it wouldn't restrict its movements while at the same time working as armor.

This new energy wasn't only useful in that situation, but because of its purity, it also helped the snake's body to become stronger than before with little effort.

"What the hell is happening?" said the young man as he watched everything develop with curiosity on his face.

The process didn't end there.

The purest of the energy began to fuse with the snake's body, changing its structure to adapt to it. Its internal organs suffered the most from the changes, as they lost their capacity to control and generate other types of energy as they mutated to match the new kind.

The color of its scales began to change as they became light blue permanently, losing their capacity to change colors.

At last, the snake began to release a new powerful aura that showed its power.

At that moment, three world-changing events for Axel's world happened at once: the creation of the ice-element, the birth of the first ice-magical-beast, and the first complete breakthrough of a creature towards the second rank.