Kholodny sighs as the man in front of him drops off of the pillar. "Really? I had hoped it wouldn't come to this." Of course, Kholodny can't actually see what Khazna does after he drops and the few seconds in between hitting his pillar, but with a sudden motion like that, from a man like that, it has to be an attack. That's fine, Kholodny feels like he can handle pretty much anything thrown at him right now. Of course, that's before he felt his pillar being severed.
As he felt the strands of his ice being cleaved in two by Khazna's sword, he gasped! "Oh no! Whatever will I do!" His hands go up in mock horror on the side of his face as the pillar of ice reforms behind the sword as it passes through. There was no falling here. When Khazna takes his swing at the magic threads binding the pillar together, it cuts them, no debating about that. However, Khold knows when his ice is broken, after all, he has control over it and a literal God of Ice and Wind pulling his strings. He knows everything about the ice that he makes. And Kholodny has been doing ice for as long as he has been alive. For almost 30 years Kholodny Zima has been forming, reforming, and destroying ice. By this point, it comes as naturally to him as breathing or blinking. For something like this, fixing that what has been destroyed? It's more of an instinct than a thought. So to say that reforming the pillar took little time would be an understatement. As Khazna sliced through the threads of the pillar, Kholodny was already reweaving them behind the blade. By the time the blade made it out of the other side, the pillar was close to sealing itself behind. It was finished long before Khazna hit the ground.
To add to it, remember, Stribog is a god of Ice andWind. Kholodny can also manipulate the air, to a degree not too much less than that of his ice. Had he decided to not repair the pillar, the wind would have carried him down far slower than a normal human could even think of falling. Of course, there's absolutely no way that Khazna could know this, considering Kholodny has not showcased anything even close to wind based thus far.
"This guy is trying to kill me. Sweet." Kholodny begins to think as the pillar reforms. "I could run or fight. This guy is military, which means he'll chase me. Can't let an objective go once you get a hold on it. Fight it is." And there we have it. It's that simple. Kholodny Zima is a coward. Stribog, the God of Ice and the Four Winds, is not. Khold is still at 50 percent assimilation with his god, and at that level, there is hardly even a question between flight or fight. Its either kill or be killed out in the Russian Winters, and it is no different on the battlefield. At least, that's what Stribog tells Kholodny, and Kholodny trusts Stribog more than life itself. At this point, Khazna is about to hit the ground.
As Khazna lands, Kholodny begins to edit his pillar's makeup. Cut through magic? That's fine, we'll nix the magic. Khold's 'magic' so to speak, normally serves two functions. It spreads ice, and it makes ice permanent. Well, permanent as far as melting goes. It can still succumb to breaking and damage, but it is incredibly strong. Stronger than steel for sure. Taking out the magic makes it normal ice. Well, normal ice at 420 degrees below. Which means this ice is made out of few key components. Oxygen, Nitrogen, Hydrogen, and everything else in the air. His ice is far more than just normal water vapor and Kholodny would honestly be offended if you suggested as such. He's honestly not sure if this plan will work, but by the time Khazna's landed and thrown the sword, the outside of the front of the pillar has become a barely steaming, slowly melting sheer surface, as the more gaseous components of the ice begin to rapidly heat back up, though in the incredibly short time frame since removing the magic, barely any of it has had a chance to seperate back out.
This change was to accomplish one thing. Protect the magic inside the pillar by getting rid of the magic outside. As the blade pierces the outside of the pillar, it begins to sever the magic in front of it. Kholodny, not being able to reform the magic in front of a blade like that, instead shaping the ice crystals above the blade. What shape? A wedge pointing down. The ice crystals immediately change into a wedge, pushing the blade part of the sword down, following it as it passes through the pillar, the threads and ice reforming behind the hilt. As the sword travels farther through the thick pillar, the wedge forces it to go at more and more of an angle, until the blade is forced into the ground, before it exits the pillar, below the bottom of the ice. This was accomplished by the time Khazna had managed to reach the pillar.
Kholodny stays where he is, not looking over the edge. Oh no, that seems like just waiting to get a sword in the face. Instead he just calls out. "I'll warn you once, and only once Khazna! If you've ever read a history book you should know. Don't EVER underestimate the Russian Winter!"