Ludwig did not feel pain.
There was no impact, no force pressing against his body, no sensation of something cutting through flesh or bone. His hand remained where it was, close to the hilt of Durandal, his stance unchanged, his eyes still fixed on the golden figure before him.
For a brief moment, it almost looked like the domain itself had blinked and regretted it, like reality had hesitated, then decided to pretend nothing happened.
Then something… stopped.
It wasn't his heart in the conventional sense, nor his breath in a way he could consciously grasp. It was deeper than that. A fundamental process, something that had been continuing without his awareness until now, simply failed to proceed. His body did not weaken or falter, it just lost the justification to continue existing. The way a sentence can end mid-word when the speaker decides the conversation never mattered.
