The battle did not slow after that last clash. If anything, it became purer.
Ludwig came in again with Nightbreaker raised, and the Demon King answered him with nothing but claw, horn, shoulder, and raw physical force. Neither of them cast a spell. Neither of them tried to layer the battlefield with traps or ranged arts or some grand display of sorcery. The fight had stripped itself down to something almost primitive, two beings meeting in open ground and trying to break the other through impact, timing, and the simple certainty that if one's body gave out before the other's, then that was all there was to it.
The frozen field around them suffered for it.
