The two spoke as though they were old acquaintances exchanging idle pleasantries after a long separation. But their clash had begun long before either caught sight of the other's form.

First came a soft crack. From the sheath at his waist, the white-haired youth drew a dagger identical in shape to the one he once handed to Damian of the Lightless Order, save that this one was noticeably larger. Its blade was etched with far more intricate markings, each containing a mind sealed within. The number of minds imprisoned here was exponentially greater.

"Why not save yourself the trouble of trying to stop me? After all the precautions you've taken against me, wouldn't it be a shame if you didn't even let me make the attempt?"

A faint smile tugged at the youth's lips. His tone was light, almost teasing. His aim was simple: to drive this god-slaying dagger into the being known as the God of Light, and complete what he had come here to do.

"That won't do. As the Pope of the Church of the God of Light, I cannot allow a heretic like you to defile this great existence."

The Pope shook his head and slipped off his white robe, revealing beneath it a body of corded muscle wholly at odds with his office—and with the gentle, venerable face he normally presented to the world.

"Hearing you say that is almost funny. You of all people know exactly what He truly is, and yet you still guard this so-called deity? And now I know why all your archbishops are knights. Turns out they all learned it from you."

The white-haired youth, too, shifted into a fighting stance. He spoke casually, even as the scene before them grew increasingly absurd. Neither man was quite a knight, and yet here on the eve of battle they both stood poised like seasoned knights preparing for a duel. It was almost baffling.

But such was the truth of combat in the void. In the material world, wizards fought by distorting reality with void spells.

In the void, however, all wizardry was stripped to its essence: raw, unfiltered void energy. Combat was nothing but a collision of wills and power, and for such beings, the most efficient way to rouse that energy was through the movements of a physical fight.

"I chose this path precisely because of His identity. The God of Light entrusted this mission to me personally. How could I betray that trust?"

The Pope narrowed his eyes slightly as he answered.

"He entrusted you with it personally? That makes sense. Being what people call the God of Light... aside from His essence, He differs so drastically from the other gods He might as well be a different species altogether."

The youth muttered this under his breath, unsurprised. The Pope of the Church of Light carried a burden laid upon him by the deity Itself.

"No more talking. We may once have been friends, but now we must give everything we have to destroy the other."

The Pope charged forward without hesitation. He held no weapon, yet the void around him surged like a rising tsunami of power.

"Come, then. One of us will die here today."

The white-haired youth's chatter ceased. Dagger in hand, he met the Pope's charge head-on. Like the Pope, he made no conscious effort to guide the energies around him, but their mere movements sent waves of void rippling outward.

The youth's dagger met the Pope's bare fist, metal screeching against metal. Both were blasted backward. Despite appearances, flesh and steel were only the outward signs of impact—the true collision was between the vast reserves of void energy that each commanded.

Around them, two immense spheres of void energy ground the other down. When wizards clashed, the loser's void energy would be seized and assimilated by the victor. But the scale of power here was so immense that what manifested was not domination, but rather annihilation.

Each sphere of power shattered parts of the other. Void energy broke free from their control, dissolving into the void, returning to the one true owner of all such power—the void itself.

The Pope staggered back only a single step before hurling himself forward again, driving a brutal elbow strike toward the youth. The youth remained rooted where he stood, dagger poised. Only when the Pope drew close did he thrust it forward in a sudden blur. Steel met flesh again with a clang of iron.

The void energy they controlled met once more, colliding after the brief lull. Power snarled and writhed, tearing at itself. With each exchange, great swaths of void energy broke apart and dispersed.

Neither attempted to seize the fragments of their opponent's dissipated power: not because they didn't want to, but because they couldn't. All that power belonged to the void now.

Beneath the vast radiance of the God of Light, a colossal sphere blazing in the void, the two figures fought in the most primal manner imaginable. Fists and feet struck each other in crude and unadorned blows. Neither employed anything that could truly be called technique; their movements were riddled with openings. In truth, it was not their bodies that clashed, but the two immense spheres of void energy that each commanded.

In the material world, the citizens of the theocracy of the God of Light continued along their daily routine, wholly unaware of the struggle unfolding in the void. There were exceptions, of course.

"May Your radiance shine upon us eternally. We thank You for Your mercy and benevol—"

A priest praying devoutly before the statue in a small chapel lifted his head. The words of his prayer stalled on his lips; a strange sensation had brushed across his awareness, too fleeting and nebulous to name.

"What... was that? Why do I feel so strange?"

He pressed a palm to his chest, puzzled, then looked again at the muscular, heroic form of the God of Light. His unease faded almost instantly.

A warm brightness flared at his fingertips: a simple divine spell, a gift from the God of Light. The familiar glow soothed the last of his doubts, and he returned to his prayer in earnest.

Beside the altar lay a longsword freshly polished by a blacksmith. The priest had just settled his family safely at home; soon he would obey the Church's doctrine and journey to a neighboring kingdom to aid in resisting possible incursions from the Utopia's agents. Those mental assaults required the protection granted only by true divinity.

Meanwhile, high above in Skyborne City, the instruments engineered to detect disturbances in the void registered nothing. The clashing void energy generated no ripples; whatever broke free in the collision dissolved seamlessly back into the void itself without causing any shockwaves or even ripples. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

The war waged in the void was as vast as a storm-torn sea yet silent as a held breath. Even when the energy collided in unimaginable quantities, the aftermath of that collision was all but imperceptible.

The only reason the priest sensed anything at all was because the opposing tides of void energy happened to sweep across the thread of faith that connected him to his deity, severing it for the briefest instant.

The pressure continued to swell. And the battle between the white-haired youth and the Pope of the God of Light grew ever stranger. The Pope, broad-shouldered and powerfully built, had the youth pinned beneath him, slamming fist after fist into his face.

The youth made no attempt to dodge; he simply accepted each blow head-on and, in the narrow spans between the Pope's punches, drove his dagger toward the man's chest. The scene was absurdly like a brawl between two street thugs.

No blood spilled. No flesh tore. Their bodies showed not the slightest trace of wounds. One could hardly be blamed for wondering whether this struggle held any meaning at all.

"Kiran... it seems you truly have reclaimed much of your power. Your affinity with the void has always surpassed mine. I'm no match for you."

Pinned beneath the Pope, the youth spoke with a faint, almost cheerful smile. He named his opponent and acknowledged the disparity between them.

That much was true. Their power was being shredded with each collision; every fragment of scattered void energy returned to the void itself. What remained under their control was dwindling to nothing. Of what had once been oceans, not even a hundredth remained. And the youth's share had diminished faster than Kiran's; with each impact the gap was growing wider.

"Heh. Save your breath. I haven't reclaimed all of it yet."

The Pope did not pause in his relentless barrage of punches. He responded offhandedly, almost as if he were bored.

"My apologies," the youth answered softly, "but I must strip those people of their divine protection. It is the only path to what I seek. And I am not the only one who walks it."

In the instant before the last of his void energy was crushed beneath the Pope's, a chain erupted upward from the depths of the void, locking itself around the youth's waist. A torrent of void energy surged through it and into him, replenishing his failing reserves.

This was unmistakably aid from the Utopia's agents. Yet what had been a deluge in the material world arrived here as a mere trickle—slow, meager, barely enough to fill what the Pope had depleted.

But even a trickle could be a big difference. Kiran had no source of replenishment at all. Gradually, inexorably, the energy at their command equalized. And once that happened, the balance shifted: the white-haired youth tore free from beneath him, drove his shoulder into Kiran's chest, and sent the Pope crashing backward. In a heartbeat he straddled him, pressing the dagger against his throat.

"You stand alone... but behind me stands everyone who shares my goal and my ideal. Farewell, Kiran."

He pushed downward. As the void energy under his command tore apart what remained of Kiran's, the dagger pierced flesh for the first time, sinking into the Pope's neck.

"Who said I was alone?"

A hand shot up, clamping around the dagger's blade—the Pope's hand. Bloodless fingers clenched tight. An inexplicable smile stretched across his face as he spoke.

"..."

The youth did not answer. His gaze simply shifted toward a point in the void. There, a fortress erupted into view, hurling itself toward the entwined pair with unstoppable momentum, a tidal force incarnate, bearing down upon them like the wrath of heaven itself.