The ground between Alter and Val'zaruun split before the first blow even landed—cracks spiderwebbing out as their auras collided in the stale black air. The chamber walls groaned, voidsteel trembling like glass about to shatter.
Val'zaruun moved first.
He crossed the space in less than a heartbeat, one clawed gauntlet arcing down like a falling world. Alter's Starsever met it with a flash of gold so blinding it ripped the shadows from the walls. The impact was an earthquake—stone and bone pillars toppling, the air itself screaming.
Alter slid back a half-step, boots carving trenches in the floor. Golden blood still dripped from his side, but his eyes burned like twin suns."You're not the first to try."
"You'll be the last to resist," Val'zaruun answered, and his six chained wings unfurled.
Each wing lashed like a living weapon—chains snapping forward, each tipped with a burning shard of collapsed stars. Alter weaved between the strikes, every dodge a razor-thin escape as starfire scoured the ground. He answered with the Dance of Destruction, his form blurring into a dozen arcs of gold that rained cuts along the Emperor's armor. Sparks and shadowfire exploded with every hit, but Val'zaruun didn't slow.
He caught Alter's blade on the seventh strike and pulled.
Alter was yanked forward into a brutal knee strike to the ribs—his armor fracturing, breath leaving him in a rush. The chains closed in, binding around his limbs.
Above, in the Abyssal skies, the Celestial Host slammed into the Demon God vanguard.
The Abyssal chamber had no floor anymore—just a black chasm swallowing everything beneath. Alter and Val'zaruun fought suspended in midair, the shockwaves of each strike creating temporary platforms of compressed space before they shattered again.
Starsever met the Emperor's clawed gauntlet in a constant storm of detonations, each clash birthing rings of gold and black that split the air like shattering glass. Fragments of reality spun off the edges of their blows, dissolving into void-light before being consumed by the surrounding dark.
Val'zaruun drove him back with a sweep of his six chained wings, each strike collapsing whatever fragment of space Alter tried to stand on. "This is my throne, Sovereign. Every breath you take here is mine to grant."
Alter's boots scraped against nothingness, sparks flaring as he caught the last chain on Starsever's flat. "Then I'll take it," he snarled, twisting the blade. Lightning, fire, ice, wind—all seven Draconian Aspects flared at once, bursting outward in a storm that split the void into molten ribbons.
The chains recoiled, their tips molten from the elemental onslaught.
Far above, the Celestial Host was breaking the Abyssal capital.
Solien led the Spearpoint of Heaven formation, smashing through a fortress bridge with a single thrust that punched a hole in the demon front line. Seraphina's wings burned with molten-white light as she carved a spiral descent into the lower tiers, scattering an entire legion of lesser gods with a single arcing slash.
On the flanks, the War Gods fought in brutal corridors, every meter gained a trench of crushed blackstone and ichor. The Demon Gods countered with horrors born from the void itself—bone serpents that could swallow armies, wraith titans wielding storms of soul-fire, and shadow warlords whose blades could sever divine memory.
The city's geometry twisted as the fighting deepened, streets folding in on themselves, bridges turning into spirals of bone that led nowhere. The Abyssal capital was responding to the war, reshaping to defend its core.
Back in the chasm, Val'zaruun moved like a storm given form. His next strike broke the sound barrier twice over, the shockwave rippling through Alter's armor and sending blood streaming from his mouth.
Alter staggered, lungs burning. His right pauldron was gone, his ribs cracked. Golden blood dripped into the dark below. But the fire in his eyes didn't dim—if anything, it flared brighter.
"You think chains hold me?" he growled. "I was the chain-breaker before I became Sovereign."
The Dance of Destruction erupted at full force—eighteen motions in a single breath, weaving the Demon God Killing Martial Arts into every arc. Spatial seams split open around them, black wind screaming through cracks in the Abyss itself.
Val'zaruun caught the final blow bare-handed. Black ichor seeped between his claws, but his grin was hidden behind the helm. "Good," he rumbled. "I'll keep this one."
His wings flared—
And the entire Abyssal capital convulsed.
Above, the Celestial Host's forward breach collapsed into the city's core as a continent-sized shockwave tore through the lower levels. Dozens of Demon Gods screamed in fury, their power spiking as the capital's foundations began to fall inward.
On both fronts—Alter's duel and the Host's advance—the battlefield had become unstable. Every strike now threatened to bring the entire realm down around them.
The Sovereign Breaker moment had begun.
The void roared like a storm trapped inside a cathedral.Every time Starsever and Val'zaruun's gauntlets collided, the shockwave didn't just ripple — it sheared through the space around them, peeling the darkness into jagged shards before the Abyss closed again.
Alter was breathing hard now. Each breath scraped his lungs like molten glass. The gold sheen of his skin was split in more than a dozen places, and his draconic blood — burning like liquid sunlight — streamed down his chest and arms in slow rivulets, hissing as it struck the void below.
Val'zaruun's armor was cracked at the collar and ribs, black ichor dripping freely. His left wing hung at an angle, the chain wrapped around it fraying from repeated elemental detonations. Even his voice carried strain now, deeper and edged with a predator's thrill.
"Bleed more for me, Sovereign," the Abyss Emperor rumbled. "You fight better that way."
Alter spat blood into the black. "I'm not here to entertain you."
Then he moved.
One heartbeat — and the Sovereign was already behind Val'zaruun, bringing Starsever down in a golden arc wreathed with all seven Draconian Aspects. Lightning hissed across the blade's edge, ice crystals blooming in the heat of dragonflame, stone fractures rippling through the air itself.
Val'zaruun's counter was instant — his chains lashed from every angle, a hurricane of blacksteel tipped with abyssal fire. Each impact slammed into Alter's armor like siege hammers, denting plate, breaking straps, punching shallow gashes into flesh beneath.
Alter's right gauntlet split at the knuckles from blocking a direct wing strike, the gold underlayer ripping as bone cracked in his hand. But he didn't slow — he couldn't.
The duel spiraled into the heart of the Abyssal capital. Towers of bone and obsidian shattered under stray strikes, entire plazas cratering into the depths below.
Above, the Celestial Host's vanguard reached the inner sanctum. Solien's spear skewered a Demon God's chestplate, pinning it against a cathedral wall before detonating into a cone of pure white force. Seraphina, her armor gleaming with runes, cleaved through a line of abyssal warlords, her strikes sending cascades of molten light through their forms.
The War Gods crashed against the Demon God defenders in every street, bridges buckling under the weight of god-tier clashes. The Abyssal realm groaned from the strain, but it held — for now.
Back below, Alter and Val'zaruun locked in a grapple midair, each forcing the other down toward the capital's central abyss-core.
Val'zaruun's claws sank into Alter's pauldron, piercing through into muscle. Alter's knee slammed into the Emperor's ribs, the crack audible even over the storm around them. Both roared — not in pain alone, but in challenge.
"Your realm will bury you with me if you keep this up," Alter growled.
Val'zaruun's grin was all teeth. "I'm counting on it."
He flared all six wings at once, and the blast threw them apart — directly into the capital's core chamber. A hundred colossal chains anchored the Abyssal crown here, each one thrumming with power drawn from the realm's heart.
Their next clash broke three of those chains in a single sequence.
The Celestial Host felt it.
As the chains ruptured, black and gold light surged upward in a column that punched through the capital's spires. Demon Gods turned at once toward the source. So did the Divine Lords. The war's focus pivoted like a flock of predators scenting blood.
And somewhere deep in the capital, in a chamber shrouded in warding sigils, the clone opened its eyes.
It looked exactly like Alter — every detail perfect, from the draconic sigil burning on its brow to the weight of its presence. But its eyes glowed with the Abyss, the black depths of a starless night.
Val'zaruun sensed it. His smile deepened.
"Now, Sovereign," he said, voice low, "let's see how well you fight yourself."
Above, the Host breached the sanctum gates. Demon Gods and Divine Gods poured in together, the street below turning into a blinding storm of light and shadow. Seraphina dropped into the melee without hesitation, her blade finding the gaps in god-flesh, her strikes shattering enemy formations.
Solien roared orders. The War Gods formed wedges, cutting deep into the abyssal defenders, trying to force a corridor toward Alter's position.
But down below — the real storm was just beginning.
The Abyssal capital's throne hall was no longer a place.It was a crucible.Reality rippled under the strain of what stood within it.
The fractured crown — once the symbol of Val'zaruun's dominion — hung in the void above the dais, its broken arcs spearing down like jagged halos. Every fragment bled abyss-flame, licking across the ground in veins of black fire that warped the air.
From the far end of the hall stepped the clone.
Perfect.Unnatural.Every line of the jaw, every breath, every shift of the shoulders — it was Alter, exactly as he stood now. But the aura was wrong. Where Alter's essence surged like a tidal sun, the clone's radiance felt like a collapsing black hole — slow, inevitable, suffocating.
It spoke first, voice carrying his own cadence. "Sovereign Prime," it said, testing the weight of the words. "Let's see what the title means… when it faces itself."
Val'zaruun's claws curled, the faintest smile cutting across his monstrous visage. "Two crowns in one arena," he murmured, chains rattling as they slid from his pauldrons. "Let's see which one shatters first."
They moved.
The first clash was a meteor storm.Starsever — two of them — screamed through the air, their edges burning with twin halos of gold flame and abyss frost. The impact detonated like a supernova, the shockwave ripping cracks through the floor and collapsing two of the throne's support arches.
Alter flowed into Life Sprinkler, three golden afterimages exploding outward from his stance. The clones of the clone mirrored it exactly — each shimmering with abyssal distortion instead of light. Twelve blades now blurred into the fray, golden arcs slashing against black in a perfect mirror-match.
Val'zaruun waded straight through it, six chained fists crashing down like siege hammers. One chain punched through Alter's left pauldron, tearing molten metal from his armor. Alter spun with the impact, his lead afterimage striking in tandem with Heaven-Piercer Step, a knee-to-sky dash that speared into the Emperor's jaw. The hit staggered Val'zaruun — for exactly half a heartbeat.
The clone pressed, switching into Requiem Fang Barrage, a flood of high-speed thrusts that blurred the line between form and afterimage.Alter countered with Void Fang Rend, slamming his palm against the clone's thrusting wrist — reality tore with the impact, a flash of white-gold rupturing into the clone's arm.
The clone grinned. "Nice. My turn."
It answered with Abyss Fang Rend, the same movement, inverted — voidsteel claws raking across Alter's ribs. Gold blood splashed into the air, evaporating before it touched the ground. Alter staggered, breath ragged, but his feet didn't shift from stance.
Val'zaruun's shadow loomed behind him. The Emperor swung a triple-hook chain strike, forcing Alter to drop into Shadowbane Twister — spinning low, wind and lightning exploding outward in a disc that severed two of the incoming chains and flung the third into the clone's path.
The clone cut through it without slowing, now layering Sky Piercer: Zero Distance into its sequence. It planted a foot and drove its blade into Alter's chest at near point-blank range — the shockwave detonating inside the armor.
Alter coughed blood — and smiled. "Not bad."
He mirrored the stance and returned the technique. The clone's armor ruptured, abyss-mist jetting from the wound, the black vapor clawing at Alter's face before he batted it aside with a flare of fire aspect.
They circled, three predators in a shrinking cage.
Alter shifted into the high guard of Dimensional Slash – Omni Wave, aura condensing into a needlepoint so tight it warped the throne room's pillars. The clone recognized the tell — it matched him, charging the same technique.
Both struck.
The waves collided mid-air, shredding each other into thousands of five-millimeter rifts. Each rift carved through whatever it touched — floor, pillar, chain, wall — the throne hall now bleeding chunks of itself into the void.
Above, the Abyss Realm burned.
The Celestial Host had fully engaged — War Gods locked with Demon Gods in mid-air duels, their weapons clashing with enough force to turn city blocks into molten craters. Seraphina's wings flared with fire and light, her sword cutting down an abyssal colossus in a single downward arc. Solien drove the spear of dawn into another Demon God's chest, the impact hurling the creature across an entire avenue.
The push was working — but all of them could feel it. The real heart of the battle was below.
In the throne hall, Val'zaruun tired of the stalemate. His wings folded in, chains tightening, and his form blurred — reappearing behind Alter in a single step. The Emperor's claws came down in a crushing overhand, but Alter caught them on Starsever's spine, pivoted, and slammed the Emperor into the floor with Graviton Sever.
The clone seized the moment, vaulting high, then dropping into Sovereign Fang Collapse, a meteoric plunge aimed straight for Alter's skull. Alter rolled at the last instant, the clone's strike carving a smoking crater where he'd been — but the aftershock still clipped him, sending him skidding across the stone.
Armor cracked. Golden blood streamed freely now from his side and left arm. His breathing was heavier. But his eyes — those were sharper than ever.
"You think… this is the first time I've fought against myself?" Alter's voice was a low growl, aura beginning to coil into that same impossible density he'd once used in the Trial of Ascension. "You're about to learn something, impostor."
The clone tilted its head. "Show me."
Alter stepped in, no flourish, no wasted motion — and unleashed Shura's Eighteen Heavenly Slaughter Strikes, chaining the first seven in less than three seconds. Every blow landed — the clone took them, blocking or countering where it could, but still reeling under the sheer tempo.
Val'zaruun roared, diving back into the melee, chains spiraling. Now it was three-way chaos again — flame, lightning, void, and gold smashing together until the throne hall itself began to fracture, bits of reality peeling away at the edges.
Outside, Seraphina cut down another abyssal guard — and looked toward the throne hall with narrowed eyes. She could see flashes of gold and black tearing the air apart inside. She tightened her grip on her blade.
"I'm coming," she whispered.
The throne hall's ceiling finally gave way.
A rain of molten stone and warped abyssal steel cascaded down as the chamber's black vault ripped open to the blood-red sky. The sound was deafening — a grinding, tearing wail as reality buckled.
Through the rupture came Seraphina.
Wings ablaze with white-gold fire, she cut through the collapsing debris in a blur, her blade carving clean arcs of annihilation that vaporized falling stone before it could touch the floor. Her arrival hit like a lightning strike, the temperature surging, the shadows retreating from her radiance.
Alter turned just long enough for their eyes to meet.
He was a ruin — pauldrons shattered, vambraces split, half his draconic mask gone, golden blood streaking from half a dozen wounds. But the smirk was there."You're late."
Seraphina's voice was steel and flame. "You're alive."
She didn't wait for more words — she was already in motion. Heaven's Spiral Pulse erupted from her sword, the spinning arc of resonance slamming into Val'zaruun's flank. The Emperor staggered under the layered vibration, two of his chains snapping mid-air with a sound like cracking glaciers.
Above, the breach in the ceiling became a funnel.
The Celestial Host poured through — War Gods, shield phalanxes, spear regiments riding divine war-beasts. The sky outside boiled with combat as Demon Gods locked in mid-air struggles, hurling cities' worth of debris at one another. The streets of the Abyssal capital vanished under tides of soldiers and titans.
Solien landed first among the War Gods, his spear a comet of blue fire as it punched through an abyss giant's eye. Behind him, the Spearpoint of Heaven formation took shape — twenty spearmen interlocking shields and thrusting in perfect, spiraling cadence, driving back a Demon God into the chamber's far wall.
The capital's heart was no longer a throne room.It was the war.
Val'zaruun roared and surged forward, his shadow chains spiraling like sawblades. Alter caught three of them on Starsever's edge, twisted, and wrenched the Emperor toward him — straight into Seraphina's Thunderclap: Skybreaker, the downward strike exploding in a pillar of lightning that split the floor into a canyon.
The clone lunged through the smoke. Its blade came in low — Sky Piercer: Celestial Thrust — forcing Alter to block in a knee-to-ground guard. The impact hurled him backward, sliding through the fractured tiles, until Seraphina stepped into the path, her wings flaring as she batted the clone's follow-up with a one-handed deflection.
"Two of you?" she spat, eyes narrowing at the abyssal mockery. "Good. I was worried I'd run out of targets."
The clone smiled in Alter's voice — then it was on her, exchanging a blistering sequence of Life Sprinkler strikes against her Starfall Sword Style, gold and black blurring into a storm that shredded everything within reach.
The battlefield shifted in pulses — War Gods clashing with Demon Gods in every corner of the chamber, the ceiling breach flooding with reinforcements.
Solien locked blades with an obsidian-horned Demon Lord, the ground trembling under each of their strikes. A Celestial shield line pushed against a swarm of abyss wraiths, the warbeasts leaping over the shields to tear into the enemy rear.
From above, a Demon God fell like a meteor — his body half-severed by Garran Flamecoil's axe, the rest of him still fighting as he hit the floor. Garran followed, fire-wreathed and roaring, driving the kill home with a cleave that split armor, flesh, and stone alike.
In the center, Alter drew deep on the World Origin within him.The golden aura condensed until it was visible as a corona around his body, each breath distorting the space at his feet. His wounds burned, his muscles screamed, but he didn't care — every heartbeat was another chance to end this.
Val'zaruun felt it too. The Emperor's chains lashed the air, dragging chunks of the throne dais into a hovering shield of abyssal matter. His eyes locked on Alter — and on the clone still dueling Seraphina — and for the first time, the faintest flicker of uncertainty touched his expression.
Alter stepped forward.Seraphina broke the clone's guard for half a second.The Celestial Host surged in from every side.
The clash was inevitable.
The Abyss Crown — the massive suspended relic above the throne — began to fracture, hairline cracks racing through its abyss-forged mass. With each clash in the room, another splinter fell away, glowing with black fire.
Alter saw it. Val'zaruun saw it. The clone saw it.
Whoever struck the next decisive blow might not just win the fight — they might claim the Crown itself.
And everyone in the chamber moved at once.
The Abyssal capital's heart was collapsing inward.
Every crack in the chamber's blackstone floor pulsed with molten light, fissures vomiting streaks of pure void-energy into the air. Reality warped in jagged waves, bending towers into spirals, pulling chunks of the city's skyline into the rift that churned at the chamber's center. The shattering of the Crown had not only broken Val'zaruun's citadel—it had ruptured the gravitational core that anchored the Abyss Realm's capital in place.
In that chaos, no side could retreat.
The Celestial Host had pushed to the very threshold, divine banners scorched, armor battered, weapons wreathed in fading light. The Demon Gods were arrayed in a half-circle of defiance, their abyss-forged warbands pressing from every angle. In the center of it all, where the air bent like molten glass, Alter stood.
Golden blood streamed down his jaw, catching the flicker of collapsing light. Across from him, Val'zaruun's form was a moving black monolith of shadow-armored muscle, the air around him dripping like ink. Between them stalked Alter's clone—an exact reflection in form and technique, its aura sickeningly familiar, twisted by the Abyss.
The three moved at once.
Starsever roared to life in Alter's grip, arcs of lightning and flame coiling along its edge. The clone mirrored him perfectly, their twin slashes colliding in a blast that split the floor and sent entire slabs of blackstone tumbling into the rift below. Val'zaruun surged in from the flank, claws punching through the air with such force that shockwaves blew both of them apart.
To the west, Seraphina's arrival had detonated into her own warfront—light blooming in cascading waves as she carved into Azzorath's armored midsection. Every strike from her spear left ribbons of golden-white fire seared into the Demon God's hide, yet his retaliation was monstrous; chains of abyssal iron lashed around her, tearing open the floor beneath her feet.
On the eastern edge, Solien drove his glaive through the chest of Khyrrath, their duel spilling from one shattered bridge to the next. Divine Lords clashed in pairs and trios, each front a roaring storm—Lord Vaelthion and Lady Ryshara locking Shaltheris into a loop of counterstrikes, while behind them, the War Gods and celestial legions held the demon vanguard at bay in a grinding melee where corpses fell faster than they could be dragged away.
The noise was relentless.The heat blistering.The air so dense with divinity and abyssal miasma that breathing was like swallowing molten metal.
Alter ducked under a slash from his clone, pivoted into Void Fang Rend, his claws slicing spatial seams that tore jagged scars into the battlefield. The clone blurred away just before the edges collapsed in, reappearing above him with Thousand Cross Fang, descending in a storm of multi-angled strikes. Alter countered with Heaven's Dismantle, three precision impacts that froze the clone mid-strike just long enough for him to hurl it backward into a collapsing wall.
Val'zaruun didn't give him time to breathe. The Demon God's Abyss Wyrm Spiral exploded from his palm, a vortex of shadow-serpents that dragged Alter sideways into a crushing gravitational fold. Armor groaned under the pressure, ribs threatening to give—but Alter's roar cut through it, igniting Graviton Sever and forcing the vortex to implode around him.
From above, a meteor of light—Solien—descended, his glaive carving a path through three Demon Gods at once before he was driven back by a counter-flank. To the south, Seraphina's aura flared brighter, breaking her chains and pinning Azzorath against the chamber wall with a spear-thrust so forceful the stone bowed inward.
The chamber began to tilt.
The ruptured gravity core was failing, dragging combatants toward the central rift in sudden, violent pulls. Whole squads—divine and abyssal alike—were ripped screaming into the void. Alter skidded across the floor, boots sparking, as he jammed Starsever into the ground to anchor himself. Val'zaruun strode through the tilt unaffected, black tendrils gripping the air like handholds, while the clone simply mirrored Alter's stance, waiting for the next opportunity.
And then it came.
The pull intensified, the chamber's heart collapsing into a single blinding point. Both armies felt it. Every god—divine or demon—turned toward the epicenter, where Alter, Val'zaruun, and the clone now stood locked in a triangular formation.
The Crownfall Convergence had begun.
One heartbeat—silence.
The next—detonation.
Alter lunged first, chaining Soulbreaker Dive into Requiem Fang Barrage, fists and blade moving in blurs too fast to track. The clone matched speed for speed, countering with Abysswalker's Brand, its strikes laced with the same golden fury now tainted with abyssal corrosion. Val'zaruun's claws intercepted them both, detonating in a wave of black-gold energy that hurled Seraphina and Solien back across the field.
Every Divine Lord, every Demon God, was drawn inward, slamming together in a maelstrom of divinity and abyss that shattered the chamber's remaining structure. Blades, claws, spears, and spells erupted all at once, lighting the abyss with a brilliance and darkness so intense it was painful to look at.
The Abyssal capital shook like the bones of the world were splintering apart. The air was thick with the stench of scorched void and the metallic taste of divine blood. Above, titanic rifts swirled in the sky, leaking shards of collapsing reality. Every step shook the blackstone streets, each impact of god against god sending seismic waves through the shattered metropolis.
Seraphina fought like a storm given flesh — her wings of blazing aether cleaving through the dark, her blade lashing arcs of radiant flame that burned straight through abyssal armor. But the clone — Alter's mirror in every sense, forged in Val'zaruun's forge of corruption — met her blow for blow. It moved with his speed, his precision, and even his cadence, but with no restraint, no mercy. Every strike it delivered came wrapped in the cold malice of the Abyss.
One feint caught her off guard. The clone's left hand flared with compressed void-light, striking her side point-blank. The force tore through her armor and hurled her through a half-collapsed spire, sending her tumbling across the broken ground. She landed hard, sliding across fractured obsidian until she came to rest against the base of a shattered throne. Her breathing faltered, and her blade slipped from her fingers.
Alter's golden eyes flared in an instant. Starsever burned in his grip, the heat distorting the space around it. His gaze locked on the clone — his double — and without hesitation, he surged forward. Their clash met in the center of the chamber, steel on steel, a storm of sparks and a chorus of shattering air.
Every exchange was blistering. Each strike and counter-strike ripped gouges into the stone beneath them. Techniques bled into one another — Life Sprinkler's infinite layering, Dance of Destruction's spiraling cuts, Demon's Jaw Crush slammed at point-blank range, followed by the sudden blur of Void Fang Rend tearing the space between them. The clone mirrored him perfectly, forcing Alter to adapt mid-flow, altering rhythms and footwork to catch even the smallest fraction of advantage.
Elsewhere, the chamber's heart was a maelstrom of war. Solien dropped into the melee like a falling sun, intercepting Val'zaruun before he could strike Alter's back. His spear of pure starlight clashed against the Abyss King's warblade, the collision throwing shockwaves that tore apart nearby structures. Each swing was a contest of sheer force, the impact rattling the entire battlefield.
Around them, the war raged without pause. The Celestial Host and Demon Gods tore into one another across every tier of the capital — rooftops, streets, shattered balconies, and crumbling aerial bridges became killing grounds. Arcs of lightning the size of fortresses split the air. Entire warbeasts were hurled from the sky to crash into the earth, shaking the city's bones. Divine fortresses burned in the dark sky, their wreckage falling like meteors, crushing anything beneath.
The ground itself fractured under the weight of the conflict. Lava-like rivers of void energy surged through new chasms. Every explosion of force was deafening — the roar of gods colliding, the crash of collapsing towers, the thunder of the very realm groaning under their battle.
Seraphina, wounded but unwilling to fall, dragged herself upright in the distance. Her aura flared weakly, but her eyes remained locked on Alter. She would rejoin him — but for now, it was his fight.
He turned his stance, shifting Starsever into an oblique guard. The golden aura around him thickened, the air vibrating with killing intent. Across from him, the clone tilted its head, mimicking the stance, that same golden fire burning — but colder, sharper.
And then they vanished into motion again, the chamber's heart becoming a storm of mirrored devastation, while Solien and Val'zaruun's clash carved an entirely separate battlefield mere steps away. Around them, the war refused to slow. The Abyssal capital had become one endless, unbroken collision — and neither side had any intention of stopping.