The moment Kaelith's halberd met Leon's blade, the world cracked.
It wasn't the sound of metal—it was the rupture of two entire tempos colliding, each refusing to yield.
Fracture Requiem tried to seize the moment, to split it into jagged shards where one strike became ten, where parry and counterattack blurred into paradox. But Kaelith's anchored rhythm fought back—each beat of his halberd's pulse welding the broken seconds back together just long enough for him to exist in them.
Sparks didn't just fly—they hung in the air like glowing snow, refusing to fall until Leon let them. The pressure was so intense that the fortress walls warped, their stone twisting into spirals before snapping back.
Leon's eyes narrowed.The Fifth Pulse writhed through him, unstable, ravenous—it wanted to devour Kaelith's rhythm entirely, erase it from the battlefield. But Leon chose restraint, redirecting the pulse into calculated slashes that forced Kaelith into narrower footing.
