Chalice's foot skidded back across the fractured floor, blade humming low at his side. Wind howled through the gash he had carved up the spine of the Dark Tower, light spilling in from the skies like a stage's spotlight. Ash and fragments hovered in the dead air between them.
Dem Oche straightened his collar as if dusting off a mild annoyance.
"You're sloppy," he said calmly. "That slash up my tower — brute force. A tantrum with steel. And here I thought you were raised better."
Chalice dragged his thumb along the spine of his sword. His expression didn't shift — didn't need to. Just the smallest spark of a grin curled at the edge of his mouth.
"I like open space," he said simply. "This room was starting to smell like you."
Dem Oche didn't flinch. His body blurred, light bending from his skin as he vanished from sight. Chalice moved before the first flicker of motion completed, pivoting — parrying a photon-edge with a single step and a turn of the wrist.
Steel met light with surgical precision. Sparks danced off the collision, spiraling upward into the breach in the ceiling like fireworks from gods.
Dem Oche lashed out again, five strikes in a blinding flash — each aimed at a different joint.
But Chalice was already rotating through them, his blade intercepting with perfect timing — not wild, not chaotic — but mathematical.
He countered with an inward spin, redirecting one of the strikes and sending the light-laced palm sailing past his shoulder. Then—
clang—clack—slice—
Three more moves chained fluidly, each one narrowing the gap.
Dem Oche leaned back to dodge a throat-level slash — but a single strand of his hair was sliced mid-air.
That made him blink.
He exhaled through his nose. "All that precision for a sword that doesn't kill."
Chalice laughed — not mockingly. Genuinely.
"You sure?"
He stepped in — a feint. The real strike came from below, a diagonal flick upward with so little effort it looked like laziness. But it carved a clean edge through Dem Oche's aura — the light rippling away from the pressure.
Dem Oche barely deflected, his palm glowing, pressing forward.
But Chalice let the blade drop, caught it in a reverse grip, and launched a mid-spin kick that connected straight into the side of Dem Oche's ribs, sending him flying into the curved wall.
The dark stone cracked, webbing out behind him in a perfect spiral.
For a moment, the only sound was the whistle of high-altitude wind through the ruined tower.
Dem Oche pulled himself from the wall, coughing once — a thin line of light bleeding from his mouth like vapor.
His eyes narrowed.
Chalice just twirled his sword once and reset his stance, loose as ever.
"No light trick?" Chalice asked. "Come on. Blind me. Burn me. Give me that divine wrath."
Dem Oche didn't answer. His eyes didn't glow brighter.
They darkened.
And then they vanished toward each other again — no pause, no breath — just movement.
A pulse echoed out through the continent-sized ring. Pressure ruptured the atmosphere for miles.
..
…
….
Juno gritted his teeth, fingers scraping into the angled stone slit that split the tower's body like a divine wound. The path wasn't meant to be climbed. It wasn't meant to exist.
He didn't care.
Something primal was vibrating through the air. Something far above.
The wind whipped against his coat, but he didn't slow. The higher he got, the louder it became — the hum of Essence clashing with something ancient.
He paused on a ledge, just long enough to catch a glimpse up the tower's hollow.
Flashes of light.
And in the light — a silhouette.
No… two.
His pupils shrank.
"…What the hell is that?"
He launched again — legs coiled like springs, vanishing upward in a blur.
Faster now. No hesitation. Not a trace of fear.
Whatever was happening above —
He had to see it.