Time didn't bend.
It broke.
When their blades clashed, reality forgot how to breathe.
Matt and Nimistran stood alone in a suspended battlefield—a shattered timestream locked by divine will. Around them, everything paused: clouds hung like painted oil, arrows froze mid-flight, screams became silence. Even fire halted in mid-burn.
Only two moved.
Matt Salurga—the Flame Reborn.
Nimistran—the Blade of Oblivion.
---
"I've erased kings stronger than you," Nimistran whispered. His blade dragged through air, leaving fractures in existence. "But you… you're a virus. One that rewrites itself."
Matt's eyes flared with emberlight.
"I'm not a virus. I'm the firewall you forgot existed."
They clashed again.
And the world blinked.
---
Voidwalk Duel: Engaged
Nimistran moved like broken logic—teleporting mid-slash, sidestepping time, fracturing cause and consequence.
Matt didn't counter. He adapted.
He became chaos with purpose.
Fire without logic. Void without map.
He didn't think.
He remembered.
He burned.
Letting instinct guide him, Matt matched ghost-strikes from futures that hadn't happened yet. His Shadowsidian Blade left arcs of flaming memory through space-time—blades that blocked attacks from timelines Nimistran hadn't finished crafting.
---
A whisper of steel behind him.
Nimistran struck for the heart.
Matt didn't turn.
"You aim for my back," he said quietly, "because you know my eyes will end you."
He spun.
CLANG.
Blades met. Sparks froze mid-air.
Matt's flame detonated.
Soulflare Sync: Activated
Burning wings unfurled behind him. Sigils etched themselves across his arms. Flames shaped like people—memories of the fallen—spiraled around him in mourning and fury.
Nimistran faltered. "What… is this?"
Matt's golden eyes burned brighter.
"Every life you erased. I carry them now."
---
Time snapped back.
The battlefield exploded into motion.
From the comm-crystal, Grey shouted, "MATT! The gate's collapsing!"
Sam added, "We're losing the west flank!"
Matt held Nimistran aloft by the collar.
The assassin bled black essence, his form flickering between timelines—half-existence, half-lie.
"Kill me," Nimistran hissed. "I'll return. I exist in every version of your failure."
Matt didn't flinch.
This wasn't vengeance.
This was finality.
He leaned in.
"No. You only exist in one."
Shhck.
He drove the Shadowsidian Blade through Nimistran's heart.
Shhck.
And then through his shadow.
The death was absolute.
---
Time healed.
Sound returned.
The battle still raged—but the gate held. The west wall stood.
Mailane reached him—arms around him before he collapsed into her.
"Did we win?" she asked.
Matt stared into the burning dusk.
"No," he whispered. "Not yet."
On the horizon, a storm spiraled.
Not rising.
Screaming.
Thermuz was coming.