The world exploded in battle.
Zawish launched himself into the chaos, a streak of shadow and fury slicing through the madness that Vallamir had sculpted from his corrupted sorcery. The ground beneath him twisted with every step — but he no longer stepped on ground. It was memory. It was guilt. It was pain made solid. He didn't care. His fists tore through the first knight, shattering its skeletal armor like porcelain under a god's wrath.
Beside him, Arwaah screamed a word of power and unleashed a pulse of kinetic energy that flattened the second knight. The third — faster, meaner — dashed through the smoke and impaled Arwaah with a blade of warped steel.
But Arwaah didn't fall. He gritted his teeth, grabbed the hilt still buried in his stomach, and fired a blast from his gauntlet point-blank into the creature's face. It vanished into ash.
Zawish caught him before he hit the ground.
"Still with me?" he asked.
"I'd apologize for bleeding on you," Arwaah coughed, "but I'm more concerned about that tower trying to eat the moon."
Zawish looked up.
The citadel had grown taller — impossibly so. It now pierced the cloud layer, its spires splitting into thousands of claw-like branches. The sky was bleeding around it. Not rain. Blood. Real blood. The heavens wept, as if the cosmos itself rejected what Vallamir had become.
A sudden pulse knocked them both back. Not from force — from sound. Vallamir's voice again.
"You cannot stop what has begun. This world has already submitted. Look around, Zawish. The people are not resisting. They are bowing."
And it was true.
All across the city, civilians — the very ones Zawish had saved a thousand times over — now knelt in the streets, eyes glazed, whispering the name Vallamir like it was salvation. He had crawled into their minds, eaten their doubts, and replaced them with worship.
"I've had enough," Zawish muttered.
He turned to Arwaah. "Can you walk?"
"Can limp. Might need to vomit a lung later."
"Good. You stay on the lower levels. Take out whatever creeps he's summoned. I'll go up."
Arwaah didn't argue. He was in no shape to climb anything. "Just do me a favor."
"What?"
"Don't hold back. Not this time."
Zawish gave a slow nod. Then, without another word, he leapt — vanishing into the air, soaring upward like a spear hurled by an ancient god. Wind roared past him. Lightning crackled around the tower. And the citadel… responded.
Spikes erupted from its sides, aiming to impale him mid-flight. Acidic rain hissed from vents. But Zawish dodged, weaved, twisted. He wasn't just fast — he was precise. His body became a blur of motion and fury.
He slammed into a balcony near the tower's heart and landed with a shockwave that shattered the floor.
Waiting for him was something… not human.
A being of stitched flesh and ink, with three faces — one screaming, one laughing, one whispering secrets in a language that should not exist. It lunged.
Zawish didn't move.
He simply raised his hand and said, "No."
The air ignited.
The creature froze mid-strike, its body consumed by a black flame that made no light, only silence. Within seconds, it disintegrated.
Behind him, a whisper.
"Well done."
Zawish turned.
There stood Vallamir.
Fully present now — not an illusion. Not a projection. His feet touched the floor. His eyes glowed with a storm trapped in glass. His robes billowed as if underwater.
Zawish clenched his fists. "You've caused enough pain."
"I haven't even started," Vallamir said calmly. "I offered order. You refused. So now — I offer extinction."
He lifted his staff, and time stopped.
Literally.
Zawish felt it — the heartbeat of the world stalling, like a skipped breath in a dying patient. The tower around them hung in midair, dust suspended like stars. Even the blood in his veins slowed.
But not completely.
Zawish grinned.
"You're strong," he said. "But you're not Lore Zom."
And then he moved.
Even in paused time, Zawish surged forward, slamming his fist into Vallamir's chest so hard it shattered his staff. Time screamed as it resumed — in reverse. The entire citadel trembled as cracks raced up its obsidian walls.
Vallamir coughed blood. For the first time, he looked… surprised.
"You… you shouldn't be able to—"
"I'm not supposed to exist," Zawish interrupted. "That's kind of my thing."
Vallamir staggered, then shouted something — a curse, a spell, a command. The tower responded, reshaping itself around them. The balcony fell away, and they both plummeted into a chamber pulsing with veins of molten memory.
Thousands of faces lined the walls — people Vallamir had devoured, minds he had rewritten.
"You see?" Vallamir gasped. "They chose me. I showed them a way out. A way to escape the chaos."
"No," Zawish said. "You just replaced one chaos with another."
They collided again.
This time, there was no finesse. No magic. Just violence.
Fist against spell. Bone against fury. The chamber lit with flashes of impossible color. Zawish bled, but kept moving. Vallamir cracked ribs, but refused to fall. They were titans clashing not for dominance — but for the soul of a world that had already surrendered.
Then Zawish felt it.
The pain in his side.
A crack, deep and real.
He dropped to one knee.
Vallamir stood over him, face wild. "You're strong, but you're mortal. And mortals break."
Zawish looked up. Blood in his mouth. Vision doubled. "Yeah."
Then he smiled.
"But you forgot something."
Vallamir frowned.
"I'm never alone."
The walls behind him shattered.
Arwaah flew through them like a comet, gauntlet blazing. He smashed into Vallamir's back, knocking the sorcerer into a wall of screaming stone. The impact shook the tower.
"You still alive?" Arwaah panted.
"Barely."
"Then let's end this."
Together, they rose.
Zawish focused. Called upon the ancient force deep in his chest. The power given to him not by birthright — but by consequence. The Unseen flared into being — not just Zawish's name, but his truth.
He became invisible to all magic.
All fate.
All prophecy.
Vallamir struck out with a final spell — one meant to rewrite Zawish out of existence.
But it passed through nothing.
Because Zawish, in that moment, did not exist in any way Vallamir's power could touch.
And then he struck.
One punch.
Through flesh.
Through bone.
Through memory.
Through everything that Vallamir had built.
The sorcerer screamed as his body unraveled — not exploded, not disintegrated. Unraveled. Like a lie exposed to truth.
And then silence.
The tower trembled. Began to collapse.
Zawish grabbed Arwaah. "Hold on."
"To what?"
"To me."
They vanished in a blink, just as the tower imploded into ash, disappearing into the mist from which it came.
Down below, the people stirred.
The spell broken.
The worship silenced.
Zawish landed gently, setting Arwaah down.
All around them, silence. Not of fear. Of understanding.
A child walked up to Zawish. Eyes wide. Face dirty.
"Are you… him?"
Zawish knelt. "Who do you think I am?"
The child hesitated. Then smiled. "You're the one who came back."
Zawish smiled, too.
Then vanished into the smoke once more.
The world had not ended.
But it had changed.
And somewhere, far beyond the stars, something else had taken notice.
Zawish the Unseen had made his mark.