The first clash was silent.
Not because there was no sound—because the abyss itself refused to carry it.
Vemy's shard-forged spear struck against the entity's spiral limb, Prismarine screaming as it sheared through black-glass geometry. Fragments exploded outward, curving back into existence before they could fade.
And then everything moved at once.
The entity unfolded. Its spiral split into a dozen jagged arms, each bending at impossible angles. Every motion birthed fractures in space, tearing rifts that sucked in debris and spat out distorted echoes of the battlefield. Lightning that was Akiar's—but not Akiar's. Shards of Prismarine—but not his. The echoes of a war that had never been fought.
Vemy didn't flinch.
The shards orbiting him ignited, wings splitting into a storm of meteors. They didn't fly in arcs—they darted, swarming the entity like predators. Each collision shattered one of its arms into crystalline dust, but just as quickly, the geometry rewove itself, reforming stronger, sharper, hungrier.
[Prismarine Overdrive: 124%.]
[Stability: Critical.]
Pain flared through his chest, veins glowing too bright, his breath hitching with every swing. He didn't care. He drove forward, spear carving jagged arcs through the void.
The entity answered.
A spiral limb unfolded into a gate, and from its depths poured a rain of weapons—swords of black glass, spears of inverted light, chains of fractured halos. They fell like meteors, each carrying the weight of annihilation.
Vemy roared, shards surging to meet them. Each blade that struck him was intercepted by his orbiting storm, splintering into nothingness. The clash was endless—storm against storm, shards against geometry.
And then—
The entity's voice cut through the chaos, layered and cold.
"You are not a warrior.
You are a wound."
The words weren't sound—they were impact. His ribs cracked under them, his mind reeled, his grip faltered. Shards spun out of control, spiraling too wide.
The entity surged, all its arms collapsing inward, spiral jaws opening to devour him whole.
For a heartbeat, it seemed the abyss itself had chosen to erase him.
And yet—
A spark answered.
Not from the shards. Not from the spear. From within.
His laugh—hoarse, blood-soaked, defiant—split the void.
"If I'm a wound… then I'll be the one scar you can't erase."
He hurled his spear, not as a weapon, but as a command. The shards screamed in unison, orbit collapsing into a single stream of fractured light. They converged on the spear mid-flight, fusing into a jagged comet that tore straight through the entity's spiral core.
For the first time—
It staggered.
The abyss howled, space rupturing outward like a torn veil. The entity's form convulsed, geometry unraveling into fractured shards of its own.
And Vemy—barely standing, blood dripping from every crack in his skin—grinned with teeth red as flame.
"This fight isn't over," he whispered. "Not until you break with me."
The abyss screamed.
The storm answered.
And the shard war raged on.