The blood in Zeph's veins roared louder than the chaos in his mind.
"Let's go then, bastard," Zeph snarled, his voice like flint striking steel.
Without a whisper more, he dashed—vanishing in a flicker of motion. His sword gleamed like a falling star, slicing through the air toward Noct. And before the wind could even settle, his body spiraled, delivering a ruthless 1080-degree kick that cracked through the silence.
But Noct was there—like a phantom drawn from shadows, moving not with effort but inevitability. He dodged with unnatural calm, as though time itself slowed to watch him work.
Zeph's blade came again, wild, righteous, burning with grief and wrath.
Noct's eyes gleamed. He reached down, almost casually, and tore a metal pole from the wreckage beneath them, parrying the blow with a ringing clang that echoed like a bell tolling for the dead.
"Show me your true power, Prince of Agony!" Zeph roared, sweat and blood mixing across his brow, his heart pounding like war drums.
Noct responded not with words, but with violence. The pole struck Zeph's gut with such force that it folded him inward. Blood leapt from his lips like shattered wine. He staggered but did not fall.
"Yes… yes…" Zeph whispered, coughing crimson onto the dirt. "That's what I want to see… Prince of Agony."
His eyes, though blurred with pain, glowed with something wild—admiration, hatred, perhaps even reverence.
"I am not a child," Noct muttered, his voice low as fog, sliding between the bones of silence.
But to Zeph, it was nothing more than a whisper against the roar of his soul.
"To me… you are," Zeph spat with venom, flame beginning to gather at his palms. Not ordinary fire, no—the flame was twisted, sacred, stitched with pain and hope. Orange at the base, blue at the crown, it shimmered like a sunrise through broken glass.
With a furious breath, he cast the fire forward, not just as an attack, but as a challenge to the heavens themselves. It roared through the corridor, setting shadows alight.
But Noct moved before the blaze could taste him—vanishing with a smoothness that made the world feel heavier in his absence.
From behind Zeph, his voice slithered through the smoke:
"You think your petty sparks can wound me?" Noct asked, his tone carrying no mockery—only certainty.
Zeph turned, sweat trailing down his face, not from fear, but from anticipation.
"Then stop holding back. Show me what you are," Zeph demanded, voice cracking like dried leaves. "Show me the Agony."
Noct's smirk flickered like a flame resisting wind.
And then he vanished again.
The world paused. Time folded. Space tightened.
Then—
"Eminence… Destroyer."
Reality screamed.
BAAaaaAAMMM!
The impact wasn't just sound—it was feeling. The ground buckled. Walls groaned in protest. Dust swirled as if it were trying to flee. The very air was punched into silence.
Zeph was thrown against the wall like a puppet dropped mid-play.
Blood spilled from his mouth—but his smile widened, mad and gleaming.
"Yes," he wheezed, laughter dancing on pain. "Yes, that's what I want… Prince of Agony."
Noct emerged from the settling dust like a figure chiseled from a forgotten war. His cloak billowed, untouched by the laws of wind. He looked at Zeph—not with contempt, but with something far more dangerous: interest.
"You still stand…" Noct whispered. "Curious. You are not as fragile as the others."
And then he raised his hand—not to attack, but to summon.
The temperature dropped. The light dimmed. Even the silence seemed to retreat in fear.
From a tear in the unseen, a weapon emerged.
Not forged—born.
Agony.
A sword that looked less like a blade and more like a curse. Its edge was rusted with the screams of the damned. Its form swallowed light. The very presence of it made the ground beneath crackle like burnt paper.
It was a sword that should not exist. But it did.
"I will show you Agony," Noct said, his eyes glinting with divine malice, "because for once… someone is worth it."
Zeph rose, wiping blood from his lips, his own blade igniting again.
"Oh?" he said, the fire crackling behind his words. "Then let's carve our names into suffering itself."
And with that, their clash resumed—two forces in defiance of fate.