The sword trembled in his hands.
Zero's knees buckled, frost spreading across the shattered marble floor beneath him. His vision wavered in and out of focus, and for a fleeting instant, he could no longer tell whether the tremors in his limbs came from pain—or from the weight of the world pressing down upon him.
Aamon's shadow loomed over him, vast and endless, like the sky itself had bent to his will. The Devil King's wings unfurled, each beat sending ripples through the unstable air. The throne room was barely standing—walls cracked open to the void beyond, the ceiling torn away, the ground below fracturing like fragile glass.
"You've reached your limit," Aamon said, his tone calm, almost gentle. "And yet you cling to that blade as if defiance could rewrite fate."
Zero's head drooped. The frost that had spread to stabilize the world now quivered, thinning, fading. His mana reserves had long since run dry—what held him upright now wasn't power, but sheer will.
