The executioner loomed, its chains dragging across the shattered floor, every link sparking with crimson lightning. It swung its colossal scythe, a blade as tall as the pillars of the Court, slicing through nobles, cultists, and soldiers alike in a single sweep.
Kaelen and Arcturus did not flinch.
Their duel folded seamlessly into the giant's assault—two Sovereigns battling not just each other, but over who would bend the abyss to their will.
Kaelen's laughter lanced through the chaos, echoing from wall to wall. He darted up the chains of the executioner as if they were stairs, his black-fire blade carving arcs of shadow that shredded the beast's molten flesh. With each strike he drew power from it, threads of void feeding back into his aura.
Arcturus would not allow it.
He launched after him, both swords glowing with golden flame, his strikes precise, hammering Kaelen back. Sparks became explosions. Every clash between them shook the executioner itself, as though even the abyss could not bear their combined fury.
"Your ambition ends here!" Arcturus roared, his swords crossing in a burning X. "You'll tear the Veil apart if this continues!"
Kaelen parried, his voice cutting sharper than his blade. "Then let it tear. What is a veil to a god?"
The executioner, enraged by being reduced to their battlefield, slammed its scythe downward. The impact fractured the entire dais of the Court. Hundreds were crushed beneath the collapse, screams swallowed by thunder.
But Kaelen rode the shockwave, vaulting high, his cloak whipping like black wings. He pointed his blade at Arcturus and unleashed an incantation forbidden since the Dawn War:
"Sable Descent."
A storm of black meteors erupted from the ceiling, void-stone fire screaming downward, obliterating everything they touched. The executioner was riddled with the impact, its chains snapping, molten blood raining across the chamber.
Arcturus answered with fury no less divine. His aura erupted into a halo, wings of flame unfurling from his back. He slashed upward, every stroke of his swords breaking apart Kaelen's meteors in mid-air, golden fire colliding with void.
The Court was a sunless battlefield of black and gold, Sovereigns fighting as if to unmake the world.
And still neither yielded.
Kaelen's smirk deepened as he pressed his assault. "You burn brighter, Arcturus… but even suns must die."
Arcturus's eyes flared, his reply low, steady, deadly: "Then I'll take you with me."