Astaria Linnovan made no unnecessary movements, didn't seek a comfortable stance, and didn't glance around. For him, the battlefield had already been read, analyzed, and accepted as fact, and he himself stood exactly where a man accustomed to facing the end of eras should stand. His voice cut through the air without a rise in pitch or emphasis, but every letter conveyed a discipline honed by years of war, where it wasn't the strongest who survived, but those who knew how not to waver when the world began to crumble.
"I am Astaria Linnovan," he said, not looking away, "Commander-in-Chief of the Empire's Immortal Legion. State your name, child of Chaos."
Those two words – child of Chaos – didn't hit Zario directly, but something deep in his mind responded with a dull jolt, as if the world had momentarily accepted the wording as acceptable, and that was enough for him to understand who he was dealing with, because such people don't throw around names without a reason.
Before him stood not a symbol of power or a political figure, but a nexus of power, toward which the orders, fears, and hopes of an entire army converged, and Zario clearly saw that it was this man who maintained order here not with words, but with his personal presence.
He answered calmly, without shouting or rushing, letting each word settle in the air like heavy dust that couldn't be brushed away.
— I am the Primal Sin of All That Exists.
A nightmare that chokes the fear of the entire universe. The first and only Bearer of the Apocalypse. The Primordial Nightmare Villain – Zario.
The words sounded neither like bravado nor like a threat, but like a formula read out before an inevitable disaster, and Zario noted this even to himself, realizing that such a tone does not require confirmation, because it does not ask for faith - it states a fact.
At that moment, nothing outwardly spectacular happened around, but something in the people changed, because the pause that followed his speech was too dense, too heavy, to be filled with a whisper or movement.
Silence had replaced the battle, replaced the fear, replaced even the hatred, leaving only a tense anticipation in which every sound seemed superfluous, and against this backdrop, Astaria slowly drew his sword from its sheath, not with a jerk or a show, but as one draws a tool intended for work, and his other hand lay on the blade, feeding the metal with something that had no form, but felt on the skin like a cold pressure, alien, heavy, and deadly precise.
Zario couldn't see the color of this power or feel the familiar vibration of mana, but he understood that it was a Hallow brought to a state of absolute obedience, and there was nothing beautiful about it, only functionality, designed to kill what should not die.
At that very moment, the Sheet of Paper unfolded before his eyes again, unhurriedly and without hiding its intentions, as if what was happening around was just a backdrop for the main thing.
[Mysterious Role - "Primordial Nightmare Villain" - bestows you with a special Hallow!]
[Special Hallow: "Taste of Spells" + "Your Will"]
Will.
This word needed no explanation, because Zario felt it not as an effect, but as the opening of an already existing state, as if something inside him had ceased to be restrained and had unfolded to its full depth, without asking permission from the world.
He realized that they weren't expecting him to save them, they weren't expecting him to be cunning, and they weren't expecting any detours, because they wanted only one thing from him – to go through this moment the way he was used to living, without retreating or adapting.
He clearly realized that whoever stood behind the Paper, be it a god, a system, or an echo of the body's previous owner, was not going to lead him by the hand, because victory achieved by someone else's will was meaningless to Nightmare, and only his own desire to go to the end was capable of turning this world into a field where the outcome of the Apocalypse was decided.
Zario looked up at Astaria, and there was no excitement or doubt in his eyes, only a calm, cold understanding that the next step would be the point of no return, and if he took it now, this war would cease to be someone else's history and become part of his own will.
The people retreated without orders, without shouts and without fuss, spreading out in wide arcs, freeing up space that ceased to be just a patch of scorched earth and turned into a place where the world allowed two beings to decide the outcome of an entire era.
The air froze, the ashes settled vertically, as if gravity on this patch of reality had suddenly remembered its discipline, and even the fire around no longer rushed forward, but smoldered, listening.
Zario felt it in his skin, in his bones and in the depths of his consciousness, where the tension was compressed into a tight knot, because the very presence of Astaria Linnovan was oppressive not with an aura or fear, but with the fact of its existence.
The Immortal Legion wasn't here for battle or a show of force – it was a witness, a seal, a confirmation that the Commander-in-Chief had come to finish the job personally, and if it took bringing half the Empire here, then the threat was significant.
The thought of the scale of Astaria's power did not have time to fully take shape, because the answer came before the question had time to be completed.
He moved from his place.
Not a jerk or a throw - the space in front of him simply lost its previous shape, and the next moment Astaria was already in front of Zario, so close that there was no air or time for reaction between them.
This was a movement on the level of those who have long since stopped competing with speed and began dictating its rules, and if anyone around tried to describe what they saw, only the result would remain in their memory, and not the process itself.
Zario saw.
His vision did not fixate on the path, did not try to keep up with the body, because it captured the very moment of intention, that short, dangerous state of the world when the attack had not yet occurred, but had already become inevitable.
At that moment, Zario's eyes widened to their limits, and there was no panic in them, only a dry, emotionless processing of the incoming threat, because this body, this essence, this status of the Nightmare Villain were created to perceive such things as the norm.
Astaria's sword moved diagonally downwards, leaving no trace of light or energy behind, but the pressure of the blow could be felt even before contact, as if reality itself was agreeing with the blade's trajectory and preparing to part.
The ground beneath Zario's feet cracked in advance, unable to withstand the weight of the coming collision, and he took a step, not back or to the side, but into the attack, where wills converged.
There was no blow.
The blade froze a few centimeters from his neck, stopped not by a block or a grab, but by something far more alarming – the absolute resistance of a world that suddenly refused to allow Astaria to complete her move.
The Commander-in-Chief's hand trembled for the first time in the entire battle, and it was noticed by everyone, because such things cannot be hidden when the tension reaches its limit.
Zario looked him straight in the eyes, and there was no challenge in that look, only interest, cold, probing, almost scientific.
"So that's how it is," he said quietly, as if speaking not to a person but to a mechanism. "This is the limit of the Empire."
Astaria didn't answer immediately. His breathing remained even, his grip on his sword unwavering, but something in his expression changed, because he realized that this wasn't the Zario he'd studied from reports, not the Nightmare the Empire had been waging war against until now.
It was something new, something that didn't fit into the calculations, something that had no history, but it already had enough mass to stop the blade of the Immortal Legion.
The space around them began to react.
The grass turned to grey ash, the stones cracked under the pressure not of blows but of presence, and the soldiers standing at the edge of the field felt something invisible pass through their bodies, leaving behind a chill and the feeling that they had witnessed an event that would later be rewritten in the chronicles, with the wording smoothed out and the details removed.
Zario slowly raised his hand and touched the blade with his fingers.
But of course he didn't cut himself.
The metal trembled, and in that moment he felt a taste – not figurative, not metaphorical, but real, clear, leaving a trace in his consciousness. The taste of Astaria's power was dry, dense, imbued with discipline, war, and the determination to see any task through to completion, and Zario realized that for the first time since his awakening, his Hallow had responded.
The Taste of Spells has been recorded.
Zario smiled faintly, not out of mockery or joy, but out of satisfaction, because now this battle was no longer blind.
"Thank you," he said almost politely. "Now I know how you work."
Astaria jerked his sword back and retreated a couple of steps, the first time he'd broken his distance against his will, and a heavy, suppressed tension rippled through the ranks of the Immortal Legion as everyone present realized the same thing: this perfectly orchestrated fight had only just begun, and the Empire no longer had any control over its outcome.