“ Earth , the one world where mankind was finally able to rise to the top. You should all have become Heretics from the very beginning. At least that way ,you wouldn’t have grown so weak and complacent .Honestly , you all stand as nothing more than a joke , the first class mages you hold with such high regard barely grasping what it means to wield true power. Look at this shard , the last viable part of Arengal’s body . All of the others dissipated into the bodies of your ancestors a long time ago, yet this one remained defiant .It must be from her heart , she was always a willful one.

If we had more time I’d have liked to know how you came to find it, Doctor Chester. Sadly that is not the case,” Naaman lifted the shard effortlessly in his left hand.

Everyone gasped , wondering how he was capable of such a feat.

“Naaman , what is the meaning of this?” Mrs Chester did not like being interrupted or worse , overlooked.

“I wanted to use an alias , but my name holds too much significance to be hidden for such a simple task. I’ll forgive you this once because you never knew , but your standing is too low for you to be addressing me by name.

Refer to me as enforcer from now on . The next time you fall out of line will be your last ,” he said , turning to the audience without ever sending a glance at the doctor.

“ What is the meaning of this bro? Come on Naaman , if someone has done anything to offend you just tell us and we will fix it,” one of the people present tried to de-escalate whatever was brewing.

He became the perfect example for Naaman to use as a demonstration .

“ Arctic Hold ,” Naaman emotionlessly chanted , wind rising through his white hair and his silver eyes glowing white at the round corners of his irises.

A buzz filled the room , followed by a bright white circle appearing on the floor beneath the man who had just spoken out.

It had multiple rotating polygon shapes layered upon one another, separated by fainter circles within the larger one.

“ What is this , I can’t feel my body !” the man panicked as those around him rushed out of the circle’s range.

Ice started crystallising on his clothes , going from up from his legs. The skin on his face discoloured into a bluish grey long before the ice even got to his torso. By the time his hair was caught up to , the man was already dead.

Naaman decided to maintain the Talent , letting it stay on the floor and act as a deterrence for any one trying to pull a smart one on him.

“Insubordination will never be forgiven , let this serve as warning to all of you here,” he projected his voice.

He then turned to Mrs Chester , “ What I hold in my hand is the body fragment of a great Titan of the past.

You have served your purpose well by locating wherever it had been buried, but I cannot allow you to produce more mages for this planet with it.

You were right in thinking that it could save your world. Perhaps , if we had delayed for a few more years as was the plan , then you may have succeeded .”

A similar circle with the spinning polygons appeared beneath her feet , “ Blame the one who stole the Arc , he is the reason the apocalypse came early.”

The ice encroached , just as it had with the other man , and the doctor barely had time to scream before her throat was frozen over.

“ And this shard shall follow you to the after life ,” Naaman turned to the crystal in his hand which had started accumulating the same ice formations.

Once its temperature was brought close to absolute zero , he slammed it on the ground . With how brittle the exposure had rendered it , it splashed instantly into millions of near grain particles.

Taking a step forward , Naaman then expanded the radius of the two circles he had created so that together they encompassed the entire office.

“ Natural Selection ,” he activated a second talent on top of his Arctic Hold.

The Arctic Hold talent was indiscriminate to its targets, just as Jack’s Constricted Surface talent was . But since Naaman wanted to preserve Cynthia and Lindsy’s lives , he used the selection-based talent he had in his own System.

Natural Selection would be able to mask off selected targets from the damage output of any of his talents, Arctic Hold included.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Protected from the chilling effects ,the two women watched in horror as the room slowly turned into a white ice age with human popsicles littering the space like statues.

Everyone died instantly , everyone but the two women, and one mage who had been in the congregation.

The mage had wanted to act ,but restrained himself after sensing the power disparity between Naaman and himself. Now he had been forced to come out and was using his fire elemental powers at their maximum just to keep the ice from rising above his knees.

“ You are exceptional , probably a first class mage am I right ?” Naaman smiled at him when he noticed the struggling mage. This was the first individual he was encountering in quite a while able to keep the effects of Arctic Hold at bay.

“ I will kill you for this !” the man started pushing beyond his limitations. Slowly but surely, the ice started receding off his legs.

“ What is the point of thawing them out ? The ice has probably killed off every single cell inside of them already,” Naaman started drawing closer.

“ You know nothing about me nor what I am capable of! I am ranked top thirty in the world ,and no mere ice will hold me ,” the man shouted as the last of the ice melted off.

He was , however , still struggling with restraining Arctic Hold from freezing him all over again so Naaman did him a favour and dismissed the talent all together.

It was time to play with his food.

“ I promise not to use that attack on you again , so come at me with everything you got,” he challenged the mage ,eager to see what he was capable of.

Linzy grabbed the spaced out Cynthia’s hand and made a dash for the door , knocking over one of the frozen bodies in her haste.

As the body shattered , Naaman turned and smiled . If he had wanted , they’d have died right where they stood.

He instead turned back to the mage , more eager to see what fight the man would put up.

“You mages think being classified as first class means you're at the pinnacle of all else right? How about you try selling that idea to me , depending on your performance, I’ll decide on whether or not your right,”

“For all these people you have killed without cause, I will burn you to ashes ten fold !” the mage literally breathed fire , aiming a streak of red flames at Naaman. His feet had been massively damaged as he’d been warned , but he burned through the pain , sustaining them purely with his elemental power.

Naaman easily dodged , but in the midst of the attack decided to bring his face back into the passing fire. It was a mockery of the mages ability , and also an avenue for Naaman to gauge the man’s damage potential.

“ I didn’t even get sunburn from that , do you want to try again?”

“Your arrogance will be your undoing !” the mage thundered.

He was not stupid though , from what he was seeing it was obvious that there’d be no way to win against Naaman. The power disparity was just too great .

Still , he had to try. Both for justice and his pride as a first class mage.

----------------------------------------

Linzy and Cynthia made it out of the administration block just as the entire building went up in flames that almost plucked it off its foundations.

The girls were thrown off the ground by the ensuing shockwave , Linzy landing so poorly on her shoulder that it dislocated. Cynthia was lucky , only getting a few scraps from the pebble stone littered ground.

She easily got up and rushed to her screaming friend . Dislocating a bone was no joke and Linzy was getting to learn this first hand.

“ Cynthia , you have to put it back !” she screamed , spluttering saliva through her speech.

“ How?”

“ ROTATE IT ! Fucking damn it hurry!”

As Cynthia went to try and fix Linzy’s arm , the roof of the administration block flew into the air .

The two men followed it ,Naaman’s grip tightly around the mage’s neck. The mage tried breathing fire on the arm but all that it accomplished was burning the sleeves off Naaman’s jacket.

“ You have lasted longer than expected , so you shall be rewarded with a swift death,” Naaman said, spinning the man head first into the ground many metres below them.

“ Arctic Hold ,” he chanted mid flight and another white circle formed at the spot on the ground that the mage’s trajectory was going to smash him into.

“ It's been a while since I have had to activate Arctic Hold twice in the same fight. Seems this world really does have potential ,” Naaman observed as he himself made a soft landing on the ground. The mage was already a human popsicle , so he never even bothered turning to him.

His eyes were now fully on Linzy.

“Here , let me ,” he asked Cynthia to step aside.

With one light touch of his hand a faint green glow spread through the blood vessels under Linzy’s skin then sank in. She felt her dislocated bone set itself back to place painlessly and all the internal flesh wounds close up.

“ Is the pain still there ?” he gave a concerned look.

“ You , what do you want with us? Why didn’t kill us like you did everyone else ,” Linzy managed a few words.

“ Your body , it appealed to me. Did you ever bother to find out why your mage powers expired so early in life ?” He took her hand and pulled her to a sitting position.

“ And please ,you no longer have to be afraid. I don’t plan on taking any more lives today ,” Naaman turned to Cynthia who was grappling with near certain hysteria at this point.

She wasn't able to say anything in reply.

“ Well , I asked you a question just now , didn’t I ?” He turned back to Linzy , causing cold shivers to shoot through the woman’s sanity.

“ No,” Linzy went on autopilot.

“ The two of you will come with me. But I can tell you this with certainty ,the both of you are destined for many great and glorious things to come,”