The void didn't shatter all at once.
It peeled.
Like layers of something old being torn away.
Every movement they made ripped more of it open. The fractures widened, stretched, and began to overlap, turning empty space into something jagged and unstable. Light bent in strange directions. Distance stopped making sense.
Rhyx moved first.
He stepped forward, and the space under his foot split into branching cracks that spread outward like roots. Heat followed, pouring into the breaks, filling them with unstable glow.
Vael didn't retreat.
He raised his hand.
"Halt."
The command dropped again.
Harder.
Deeper.
This time, it didn't just target movement.
It targeted the fractures themselves.
The spreading lines slowed, their glow dimming as if something was forcing them back into place. The peeling layers of reality tried to settle, to smooth over, to become whole again.
For a moment, it worked.
Then Rhyx punched straight through it.
The cracks burst open wider than before.
"Stop trying to fix it!" Rhyx shouted. "This is what happens when things move!"
Vael stepped in.
Their arms collided again, but now the fight had changed.
Every clash warped the battlefield.
A punch didn't just hit.
It bent space inward.
A block didn't just stop force.
It redirected distance itself.
They moved through collapsing gaps and shifting lines, their bodies slipping between pieces of reality that didn't fully connect anymore.
Vael struck low.
Rhyx twisted, his body shifting mid-motion, ribs tightening, muscle reforming just enough to avoid the worst of it.
Vael's eyes narrowed.
"You distort yourself."
Rhyx grinned.
"I improve."
He grabbed Vael's arm again and pulled.
But this time, instead of pulling Vael closer, the space between them stretched.
For a second, Vael's arm looked impossibly long, dragged through a warped distance that didn't match reality.
Then it snapped back.
Vael didn't flinch.
He stepped forward.
And everything around them stopped again.
Not just movement.
Connection.
The fractured pieces of space froze in place, no longer shifting, no longer linking properly.
Rhyx felt it instantly.
His grin faded.
Vael spoke quietly.
"You cannot grow in what does not change."
Rhyx pushed against it.
Nothing responded.
No spread.
No evolution.
Just stillness.
Then he laughed.
Soft at first.
Then louder.
"You still don't get it."
His body heated again.
Not outward.
Inward.
The cracks across his skin glowed brighter, deeper, like something inside him was forcing change even without space to move through.
Vael watched closely.
For the first time, something felt… off.
Rhyx clenched his fist.
"Then I'll just change myself."
He swung.
And the stillness shattered from the inside.