The void itself became their battlefield.
Hecate ripped her serpent staff free and spun it once. The twin serpents detached, becoming twenty-foot shadows that lunged. The Witch of Grim met them with her soul-whip; the chains of screaming dead lashed out like living flails. Serpent fangs closed on chains; souls bit serpent flesh. Where they met, reality tore, bleeding violet sparks that burned holes through the suspended shards.
The Witch struck first with her body. She closed the distance in a blur, palm strike aimed at Hecate's heart. Hecate slid sideways, torch becoming a short blade that carved a molten line across the Witch's ribs.
The armor parted; black blood hissed out, eating the air. The Witch answered with an elbow that carried the weight of collapsing tombs. It caught Hecate across the jaw, splitting skin to bone.
They separated, circled, crashed together again.
Hecate's foot snapped up in a crescent kick that shattered three of the Witch's floating seals. The Witch caught the leg mid-air, twisted, and hurled Hecate through five mirrored shards.
Glass exploded into burning dust. Hecate landed in a crouch, torch reversed, and drove the butt into the void-floor. A ring of black fire erupted upward, caging the Witch in burning pillars.
The Witch walked through the flames untouched, shadow armor drinking the heat, and delivered a spinning back-fist that sent Hecate barely parried with crossed forearms.
The Witch pressed the advantage. Hundreds of shadow-blades unfolded from her spine like wings and stabbed in every direction. Hecate spun her staff until it became a violet cyclone, deflecting, shattering, redirecting.
One blade slipped through, punching through Hecate's side. She snarled, seized the blade with her bare hand, and yanked the Witch close enough to drive her forehead into the Witch's face. Cartilage and tissue both gave way; violet and starlight blood painted the void.
They grappled chest to chest, claws and nails raking. The Witch's remaining hand closed around Hecate's throat, lifting her. Hecate's serpents struck, fangs sinking into the Witch's shoulder, injecting liquid night that spread in burning veins.
The Witch roared and slammed Hecate downward. The impact cratered the largest remaining shard, sending cracks racing outward like lightning.
Hecate rolled free, torch blazing white-hot. She spoke no Atin; she simply screamed. The scream became a blade of raw sound that carved a canyon through the Witch's torso. Black organs spilled, writhing, already trying to crawl back inside.
The Witch laughed through shredded lungs and punched the canyon wider, reaching in with her soul-whip to tear out something glowing and vital from Hecate's chest. Hecate answered by driving her torch straight through the Witch's sternum until the flame burst out the back in a pillar of violet fire.
They tore apart again, both bleeding rivers of impossible blood.
The Witch's severed arm regenerated as a blade of screaming souls. She swung it in wide arcs that carved burning sigils in the air. Hecate met every arc with her staff, parrying, riposting, counter-cutting until sparks of starlight and grave-fire rained endlessly.
A slash opened the Witch from collarbone to hip; a thrust from Hecate punched through the Witch's thigh and pinned her momentarily to a floating shard. The Witch ripped free, taking half her own leg with her, and kicked with the stump. The blow shattered Hecate's guard and hurled her backward through a dozen mirrors.
They landed facing each other, chests heaving, bodies shredded, neither yielding ground.
The Witch's ruined face split into a smile that dripped molten seals. "Again."
Hecate wiped starlight blood from her mouth, torch and staff both burning brighter. "Until the void breaks."
They launched at the same instant.
The suspended shards detonated one after another from the shockwaves alone. Blood of gods painted burning constellations across the dark.
The fight spiraled upward into the mist, two immortal storms tearing each other apart with bare hands, ancient magic, and unrelenting hate, while far below the silver door waited, unopened, patient as endings that refused to come.
They rose higher, locked in a spiral of claws and fire.
The Witch of Grim snapped her soul-whip around Hecate's torso and yanked. The chain bit deep, souls gnawing starlight flesh.
Hecate answered by driving her torch upward through the underside of the Witch's jaw. Flame punched out the crown of the skull in a violet geyser. The Witch ripped her head sideways, tearing the torch free along with half her face. Black blood jetted, instantly hardening into shards that rained like spears.
Hecate twisted mid-air, staff becoming a violet comet. She swung it two-handed. The strike caught the Witch across the ribs and sent her spinning through a cluster of floating mirrors.
Each shard exploded on contact, carving new wounds that sealed almost instantly. The Witch righted herself, laughed through a mouth missing half its teeth, and opened her chest cavity like a blooming flower of bone and shadow. From the hollow poured a tide of black hands, every finger a screaming mouth.
Hecate met the tide head-on. Serpents lashed from her wrists, fangs dripping liquid night, shredding hands into burning ribbons. She carved a path straight to the Witch and drove her knee into the open chest.
Ribs shattered inward. Something vital ruptured; violet light bled out in pulses. The Witch seized Hecate by the throat with both regenerating arms and slammed her downward through the entire battlefield.
They punched through shard after shard, stone and glass detonating in sequence until they hit the lowest fragment with the force of a dying star.
The impact cratered the void itself.
Hecate rolled free, coughing starlight blood that hissed where it touched the ground. The Witch rose from the crater already taller, armor knitting, seals rewriting themselves in fresh patterns. She spoke no words now, only roared.
The roar became a physical wave that peeled the skin from Hecate's arms in long strips. Hecate answered by planting her staff and twisting. The void inverted. Gravity reversed. The Witch flew upward; Hecate flew after her.
They met again above the wreckage.
Fists, elbows, knees, claws. Every blow landed with the sound of worlds breaking. Hecate's torch carved a burning sigil across the Witch's face that refused to heal. The Witch's soul-whip wrapped Hecate's leg and tore it open to the bone.
Starlight marrow spilled. Hecate seized the whip, yanked the Witch close, and bit. Fangs sank into the Witch's throat and tore out a fist-sized chunk of shadow-flesh that writhed in her mouth before she spat it away.
They spun apart, trailing blood and fire, and crashed together once more.
The Witch's remaining eye burned violet hatred. She drove both hands straight through Hecate's abdomen, fingers bursting out the back in a spray of celestial light. Hecate snarled, wrapped her arms around the Witch's torso, and ignited every serpent mark on her skin at once. Violet-black fire poured into the wounds, racing along the Witch's veins like molten chains.
For one heartbeat the dimension held its breath.
Then they detonated away from each other, hurled by the backlash. Shards vaporized. The mist burned away in a perfect sphere. Both goddesses hung suspended in sudden vacuum, bodies shredded almost beyond recognition, blood orbiting them in burning rings, neither willing to yield, neither able to fall.
They drifted, chests heaving, eyes locked across the ruined gulf.
The Witch's ruined mouth moved. One word, wet and defiant.
"Again."
Hecate's torn lips curved. Torch and staff reformed in her grip, blazing brighter than before.
"Always."
They launched.
The void screamed louder, unable to contain the war that refused to end.