The impact didn't explode.
It disappeared.
Vael's fist sank into Rhyx's chest, and for a single instant, everything went quiet again.
Not frozen.
Worse.
Absent.
Like the hit had erased the space it passed through.
Then it returned all at once.
Rhyx's body bent around the strike. Fire burst out from his back in a violent arc, spilling into the void like blood made of light. The force sent him flying, spinning through empty space, crashing through drifting fragments of rock and dead stars left from something long forgotten.
Vael didn't chase.
He lowered his hand slowly.
The stillness around him held.
Unmoving. Controlled. Perfect.
Far ahead, Rhyx's body finally stopped.
He hung there for a second, head lowered, flames flickering weakly around him.
Then he coughed.
A spray of golden blood scattered into space, each drop burning like a tiny sun before fading out.
Silence stretched.
Then Rhyx started laughing.
Low at first.
Then louder.
Then louder.
He straightened up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. The burn marks across his chest were already shifting, the damage crawling and reshaping itself like it refused to stay the same.
"You always go for the chest," Rhyx said, voice rough but amused. "You never change."
Vael's eyes didn't soften.
"You always survive," he replied.
Rhyx grinned.
"Yeah."
The fire around him flared again.
Stronger.
Hotter.
His wounds twisted shut, not cleanly, but violently, like his body was forcing itself into something better than before. The cracks across his skin widened, glowing brighter, spreading across his arms and neck like new lines being written.
He rolled his shoulders once.
The space around him warped from the heat alone.
"Alright," Rhyx said. "My turn."
He stepped forward.
And space broke under his foot.
Not cracked.
Not bent.
Broken.
A sharp, jagged fracture spread outward from where he moved, slicing through the darkness like shattered glass. Light leaked through the edges, unstable and wrong.
Vael saw it.
For the first time, his expression shifted.
Slightly.
Rhyx launched forward.
Faster than before.
Not just speed.
Something more.
He didn't move through space.
He tore through it.
The distance between them collapsed instantly.
His fist came next.
Vael raised his arm to block.
But the moment Rhyx's punch landed, the fracture spread.
Through Vael.
Through the space around them.
Through everything.
And the stillness… broke.