Zerach's blade rose, and the world snapped into focus. He didn't sprint or move in any conventional way. Instead, the air around him compressed into a dark dent that inverted, launching him directly in front of Reigen's father, his bone-white sword already mid-swing.
The overhand arc descended like an execution from above, dragging a wall of pressure behind it that shredded the fog into spiraling ribbons and cracked the basin floor in a perfect circle before the metal even reached its target. Reigen's father met it head-on.
One Bane was now firmly in his hand, not orbiting but held like a true sword, grip steady and blade perfectly aligned as if crafted to fit his wrist.
When steel clashed, the impact didn't ring like metal; it sounded like a mountain's spine breaking.
CLAAANG! BOOOOM!
The collision unleashed a shockwave that rolled outward in a visible ring, flattening fog, sending pulverized rock flying into the air, and gouging a trench around them that instantly widened into an expanding crater under their immense presence.
Zerach slid back, his boots carving twin scars through stone. Yet he maintained his balance and wrenched himself back into the fray with a second strike that came from the side like a guillotine.
Reigen's father pivoted with surgical precision; the Bane deflected just narrowly enough to let the redirected force carve a diagonal canyon through the mountainside behind him, a clean wound as if sliced by a ruler.
Azravel attempted to contain them immediately after the second impact. His segmented staff snapped forward, plates rotating until it transformed into a roaring machine of compression. The space around Reigen's father thickened into an oppressive domain trying to pin reality itself in place.
Dust froze midair; fog slowed like syrup; loose rocks hovered for just an instant before grinding to powder under invisible pressure. Zerach lunged through that compressed zone without losing speed, using the stabilized air as leverage while driving his sword forward in a thrust aimed straight for Reigen's father's heart.
Reigen's father shifted just one step, displacing depth itself, and slipped through the compression instead of resisting it. When Zerach's thrust missed its mark, forward momentum sent Exarch's blade crashing into the basin floor below, detonating a crater wide enough to swallow houses.
Reigen's father wasted no time capitalizing on this opening. He appeared inside Zerach's blind spot, no flare or dramatic arrival, just suddenly there where there shouldn't have been space, and slammed his elbow into Zerach's jaw.
BANG!
The hit detonated like cannon fire. Zerach's head snapped sideways as shockwaves shredded through the air around him, launching his body across the crater and blasting out through layers of stone and debris at the far wall of the basin.
Before he even landed, Reigen's father was already moving. His coat whipped around him as he strode forward, boots pounding the ground with such force that it felt like the mountain itself was caught in a struggle, whether to shatter or yield.
From above, Nyss dove in, his chain-blade unfurling into a whirlwind of segments that sliced through the air in spiraling arcs. Each segment struck with enough power to puncture the earth and send up columns of shattered rock.
Reigen's father executed a swift spin, clean and efficient, and the Bane cut through the chaos.
KRRRCH! KRAAAK!
The chain segments didn't just break; they were severed from existence. The arcs froze mid-flight before sliding apart at impossible angles, transforming into dust as if their very essence had been erased.
Nyss's eyes widened for just a moment, long enough for Reigen's father to close in and drive his knee into Nyss's ribs.
BOOM!
Nyss folded, his body hurtling through the fog like a ragdoll, crashing into a distant ridge and triggering a landslide that buried him in rock and dust.
Vaelor reacted immediately. His sigils flared to life, sending out dozens, then hundreds, of luminous trajectories crisscrossing the battlefield. Each line was more than just a path; it rewrote direction mid-flight, snapping into new vectors designed to intercept movement before it even occurred.
The basin transformed into a web of lethal geometry, beams slicing through rock and air, carving circular voids and tearing holes in mountain faces as if they were drilling chunks from the world itself. Reigen's father didn't retreat.
He stepped boldly into the net, allowing the Banes to operate like executioner moons, intercepting threats while letting the rest pass harmlessly by, sparing only terrain from their wrath.
A sigil-lance whizzed past his shoulder, erasing half of a nearby cliff into vapor. Another struck the crater's edge and detonated, sending molten stone soaring into the sky.
A third lance bent sharply toward his spine but split in two as his Bane flicked once; both halves spiraled away to obliterate a distant hilltop like twin meteors.
Keth advanced behind this chaos, his null field expanding like an ominous shadow. Wherever it passed, noise vanished. Sparks disappeared. Shockwaves collapsed mid-propagation as if choked by an unseen hand.
The ground turned brittle before disintegrating into drifting ash, as though the mountain was being erased layer by layer. Reigen's father glanced at Keth; for the first time in this fight, his sword hand relaxed, he wouldn't need to cut this one down.
In an instant, he vanished from Vaelor's net and reappeared directly in front of Keth. He thrust his fist forward, not striking flesh but hitting absence.
For one impossible heartbeat, silence enveloped them, then came the collision's roar.
WOOOOM!
The null field convulsed violently as if struck in its gut, swelling and compressing before rebounding outward in a hemispherical blast that scooped out a hollow large enough to engulf fortresses.
Keth was thrown back; his cloak shredded while blood misted from within his silhouette as his null zone fractured and collapsed.
That was precisely the opening Zerach needed. He returned from the far ridge like a falling blade.
Zerach descended with murderous intent, a straight line aimed at Reigen's father, with enough force to split clouds upon impact with Reigen's father's skull.
Reigen's father lifted his Bane to meet it.
CLAAAANG! BOOOOOM!