The chamber of the Sovereign Court rattled with every clash of Kaelen's staff against the Executioner's cursed blade. Sparks flared like stars being born and dying all at once, each strike echoing with the weight of centuries-old grudges. The once-orderly chamber was now fractured—pillars shattered, banners torn, marble floor cracking beneath the titans that fought upon it.
Kaelen's robes were torn, blood lining the edge of his lips, yet his eyes burned like a storm held barely in check. Opposite him, the Executioner's helm was cracked down the middle, revealing a hollow darkness beneath, as though no man remained—only will and malice.
Arcturus, battered but unbroken, staggered back into the fray, his spear blazing with celestial light. "This ends here!" he roared, planting his feet beside Kaelen.
For a heartbeat, the two stood shoulder to shoulder—heretic and knight, old enemies united not by loyalty, but by necessity.
The Executioner snarled, raising his sword high, dark energy swallowing the court in suffocating waves. "You think two broken relics can halt judgment?" His voice was neither human nor beast, but something between—a chain rattling in every syllable.
Kaelen grinned, crimson blood dripping down his chin. "Judgment is for the living, not the dead who pretend to wield it."
The clash that followed split the chamber wide. Arcturus's spear darted like lightning, Kaelen's staff struck with the precision of a hammer on anvil, and the Executioner's blade tore reality apart with every arc. The Sovereign lords and courtiers, once voyeurs to spectacle, now fled in terror, their gilded masks shattered, their whispers drowned beneath the violence unleashed in their hall.
But the fight was more than brute force—it was unraveling threads of fate. Every strike tore at truths buried beneath centuries, every parry scraped away lies woven into the Court's throne.
And as Kaelen drove his staff into the Executioner's chest, he felt it—chains not of steel but of will snapping apart.
The Court's chandeliers came crashing down.
The Sovereign banners fell into the dust.
And the old world's order cracked with them.