Jack couldn't help but laugh, standing in the ashes of Callahan's private quarters.
It was a cruel and gruesome state of mind that the Heir of Embers stood upon, slowly experiencing his own thoughts be overtaken by the mark of grief.
His eyes burned a grim and dangerous glow, fitting in with the almost frozen charred ashes filling the air like stars.
"GET OUT OF THE WAY!" Rayan screamed, shattering Jack's heightened perception.
That moment, a sphere of indigo energy blasted through the smoke, meeting Rayan's steadied blade only a foot in front of Jack.
"Callahan's regathering his connection. Kill him!" Rayan barked, clenching his teeth as he held back the full might of Natalia's affinity.
With a vicious slash, Rayan cut straight through the sphere of energy, dispersing the energy into the air and instantly being devoured by his corruption.
Natalia stood motionless beyond the smoke, her eyes glowing a saddened blue as her armor slowly formed on her body... The well known blade swiftly pulled from the rubble below by her damaged hand.
'I thought we were supposed to be allies, damnit..." Rayan took a deep breath, readying his blade only seconds before Natalia used a near instant burst of movement, appearing right in front of him along with a devastating slash.
Rayan growled, his eyes illuminating as corruption shot from his body, forming a wall of radiated flesh, affectively blocking the shot.
Natalia's eyes widened, shooting back with a burst of energy and regathering her wits.
Rayan let out another deep breath, blinking several times in order to even somewhat see her movements.
"You shouldn't exist..." Natalia wore a deep frown.
"Neither should the Heir, and yet he persists." Rayan bit back the urge to give a cocky grin.
"Mockery..." She muttered, instantly flashing behind Rayan's field of view.
He leaned his body left, fully relying on extinct as her sword pierced where his head had just been.
Natalia growled, pulling her blade down against the laws of inertia, causing Rayan the hassle of fully twisting his body and relying on a devastating counter-slash.
"Son of a-"
CLANG!
Pure numbness hit Rayan's hands, and just the same: Natalia had staggered back a few feet reeling in pain.
Rayan launched himself up from his back, turning to a slide as he slashed at her stomach with haste.
CLANG!
'She deflected?' He panicked, in an unbalanced state.
CLANG!
He was forced to defend, forced onto his backfoot while both using his off-hand for defense and offense.
She flashed forward with the jab of her blade, blue energy swirling at a vortex on the tip of that sword.
'I refuse...'
Rayan let out a horrifying roar as spheres of purple energy erupted from the ground around the them.
They hovered above the ground for but a single second... Swirling and launching themselves with such flurry that Natalia had completely halted her movements, staring at the meteor shower above with distant eyes.
"Astonishing..." Natalia said with a blank expression, simply watching as the violet energy came crashing down.
Rayan tilted his head in confusion.
BO-BO-BOO-BOOOOOOOOOM!
Natalia staggered back, a soft smile on her stunned face. Above her, thousands of shattered glass-like shards had dispersed throughout the air: The remnants of Seh Jenah's mighty barrier...
Rayan dashed forward, leaping and reeling his blade back with locked on precision.
Natalia raised her blade.
CLANG!
Their blades met, deflecting each-other at the center.
CLANG!
Natalia parried a low slash, stabbing Rayan in the shoulder.
However, the corruption instantly trapped the blade within his flesh, forcing Natalia to back away as spikes of violet energy tore from Rayan's skin.
She swayed and avoided several of the vicious spikes before the last one finally caught in her in the shin with fear following in her eyes.
Rayan roared, launching a slash of vertical energy at the injured Natalia.
She blocked with a weak barrier of indigo energy, shattering upon impact with Rayan's deadly might.
However, he had prepared... Following up the attack with a low slash intended to sever her legs from her body.
...
"GET OUT OF THE WAY!" Rayan screamed, blocking the incoming energetic attack.
Still strangely euphoric, Jack began to walk towards the ruins at the center of the room.
His arms swayed lazily, almost forgetting that he held a venomous tooth in each of his hands.
"How peculiar..." Jack pondered, stepping down into a crater filled with metal debris and the grunting Callahan, lying wounded at its center.
"A damn cheap shot..." Callahan bit, pressing his brutish fist into the ground and forcing his colossal human body to stand.
Jack shook his head with a grin.
"None of that." Several swords, each made of burning orange flames, formed within the air behind Jack.
"Sit back down." Jack chuckled, shooting the flurry of swords at Callahan before he could gather his posture.
Jack frowned, watching as the blades met an instantaneous metal wall that stood between the two.
Then with a loud roar, the metal wall grew larger.
'No.'
It grew closer.
BANG!
Jack found himself soaring at insane speeds towards the edge of the crater, the other side of his body plastered against a hot metal surface.
BOOM!
The wall stopped.
And suddenly, a torrent of flames erupted from the other side of it.
"How annoying..." Callahan grit his teeth, looking up as a tornado of dark orange flames began to rip through what was left of the lavish Rotunda.