The earth beneath them could no longer bear the weight of their clash.
Cracks spiderwebbed outward, each one bleeding light or shadow. The very air warped, bending like glass about to shatter.
Link was the first to move. He ripped his blade free, and the runes upon it erupted in molten light, branding the world with a furious glare. Every swing tore burning scars into the ground, the heat so intense that stone turned to molten rivers in his wake.
Zane vanished into the rift between moments—Voidwalk.
One heartbeat, he was behind Link. The next, above him. The next, inside his guard—blades thrusting for the heart.
But Link’s fire did not just burn—it anticipated. Crimson arcs erupted from his body, slashing the air itself, forcing Zane to abandon the strike and retreat into a veil of shadows.
The vortex above grew wider.
From it, chunks of dead stars began to fall, wreathed in shadow and flame, slamming into the battlefield with enough force to create craters the size of towers. Each impact sent shockwaves through the combatants, yet neither faltered.
Zane’s voice was no longer purely his own. It was layered with something older, something ancient.
"You and I are the same. But I am the void between stars. You—"
He stepped forward, each movement tearing strips from reality.
"—are just the fire that dies when the air runs out."
Link’s eyes flared. "Then let’s see which lasts longer."
The ground dropped away. Literally.
A yawning abyss swallowed the battlefield, leaving them suspended on floating shards of rock, held aloft by the raw force of their opposing powers. Around them, what remained of the world fractured into drifting islands—some consumed in crimson fire, others drowning in absolute darkness.
Zane thrust his twin blades forward, and the shadows stretched, splitting into countless spears that shot through the air like a rain of black lightning.
Link spun his greatsword in an arc, a halo of molten light exploding outward. Each spear that met it dissolved into sparks—but enough punched through to tear burning lines across his armor.
Link roared, leaping across the gap, greatsword raised.
Zane raised his arms, shadows condensing into a single titanic scythe.
The sound wasn’t sound—it was an absence of it. A dead silence so complete it made the bones ache. And then—
A shockwave, so vast it blasted the floating islands outward like leaves in a hurricane.
Time itself stuttered. The red lightning froze mid-strike. Flames paused mid-flicker.
Only Zane and Link moved.
They stared at each other, faces inches apart, weapons locked.
Both smiled—identical and wrong.
And then the pause broke, and reality screamed back into motion.
The next strike would decide everything.