The light cracked—
and reality shivered.
The citadel warped under the sudden flare of force. Cracks raced along the marble pillars; ancient stone wept dust. Chalice's cloak flared behind him as the pressure slammed into him like a collapsing sky.
The Devil of Light blurred forward, his broken blade discarded mid-air. His fingers, pale and swift, reached into the very air—into light itself—and with a gesture, drew it into form.
A long, thin shape emerged, sizzling with radiance: a rapier, forged from pure light, weightless and deadly. It pulsed like a second sun in the shadows of the citadel.
Chalice's brow twitched.
"Oh great," he muttered, sword raised. "Now he's fencing with photons."
The devil struck.
No warning.
Just a hiss, a shimmer—a soundless scream of light cutting through air.
Chalice leaned back just in time, the rapier nicking a strand of his golden hair. He flipped backward and landed hard, skidding, boots dragging trenches through stone.
"That thing's cheating," Chalice grunted. "Swords are supposed to have edges. Not be made of solar flares."
The Devil was already on him. Rapier stabbing in flickers, faster than breath, faster than thought. Chalice caught the strikes, barely—his divine blade sparking against the light. Each impact scorched the metal and the air.
Shhh-TANG! Shhhh-TANG!
They blurred again into motion.
Chalice threw his sword in an arc—"War God's Wheel"—it spun like a disc of death. The Devil ducked, but Chalice was already behind him, having used the throw as misdirection. He slammed a heel toward the Devil's back.
But the Devil vanished—appeared above him this time, rapier slicing down in a thrust—Sunpierce Descent.
Chalice caught the blade with his bare hand.
Light scorched into his palm, smoking his flesh. He grinned through the pain. "Nice trick," he said through clenched teeth, "but I've held worse than the sun."
He punched the Devil in the chest.
The impact flung the Devil across the room, smashing through a cracked pillar and into the far wall. Light burst from the collision point like a flare.
Chalice retrieved his spinning blade mid-air. "You're flashy," he called out. "But you fight like you've never been hit in your life."
A shape emerged from the light and rubble—
still smiling.
Still calm.
"You know what they say," the Devil said, brushing dust from his haori. "Light never dies. It just… refracts."
He raised the rapier again. Its edge glowed brighter. The citadel around them began to melt from its heat—the floor blistering, the walls rippling, the throne behind them sagging from the distortion.
Chalice exhaled and stepped forward. Sword in one hand, blood-slicked palm glowing faintly.
"Well," he said, voice low. "Let's see how well light bleeds."
And with that—
they clashed again.
This time, the stone gave way.
The ceiling cracked.
Blades carved through the citadel as if it were paper, each strike demolishing parts of the throne room. A wall collapsed under a shockwave. Statues melted. The sky above darkened.
Outside, the army looked up as the Citadel flashed like lightning—again and again.
Inside, war incarnate met the embodiment of purity.
And the dance—no, the devouring—raged on.
The clash of steel echoed through the chamber like thunder ripping through a storm, each strike sending vibrations through the very stones beneath their feet. Chalice's golden hair whipped wildly as he launched a barrage of lightning-fast blows, his blade carving shimmering arcs of light through the stagnant air. The devil of light moved with impossible grace—dodging and weaving as if he was a living beam of sunlight, cold and merciless, but never quite touching the ground.
"Not bad for a mortal prince," the devil sneered, his voice smooth as silk but cutting like shattered glass. "But you're dancing on the edge of oblivion, and soon you'll fall."
Chalice's eyes blazed with fierce fire. He threw back his head and laughed, wild and defiant. "Oblivion's got nothing on me! I am the Golden Tempest! The Blazing Fury! The Storm Before the Calm!"
With a roar, he spun, executing a blinding flurry of strikes—Skycleave Arc, a horizontal slash that seemed to split the very air; Howling Fang, an upward slash that cut like a raging beast's bite; Golden Tempest, a whirlwind of spinning slashes that forced the devil back.
The devil's rapier—made of pure, radiant light—flashed with each parry, flickering like a dying star ready to collapse. Sparks showered like molten fire as steel clanged against energy.
"Your words are as bright as your blade, but just as hollow," the devil replied coldly, eyes burning with a strange melancholy. "I am no mere light. I am the False Sun, the harbinger of a dawn that never rises."
Chalice grinned, adrenaline roaring through his veins. "Then I'll be the Eternal Flame that burns through your shadow! The Warborn Prince who shatters false gods!"
Their blades met again and again—each clash echoing like a symphony of war. Chalice's strikes grew faster, more furious—each move a deadly dance honed by centuries. But the devil moved with the unnatural speed of pure light itself, a blur impossible to track with mortal eyes.
Then, with a sudden halt, the devil stepped back, raising a hand slowly, deliberately, his palm glowing with a sickly, radiant light.
The air around them warped.
The chamber's stale atmosphere bent and twisted as the devil's fingers spread wide.
From the palm of his hand blossomed a swirling vortex of darkness—black as the void between stars—its edges rippling like liquid shadow.
The swirling mass pulsed, growing larger and deeper, a silent maw of nothingness that swallowed all light, all hope, all sound.
"It is time you learn the true meaning of despair," the devil whispered, eyes cold as the void itself.
The black hole in his palm twisted and churned, a shadowy singularity ready to consume everything in its path—an unyielding abyss heralding annihilation.
Chalice's breath caught, but his gaze did not waver.
"Then I'll be the Lightbreaker! The Shadowbane! The Godslayer!" he roared, gripping his sword tighter as the void expanded, the final reckoning unfolding in the heart of the citadel