Silence imposed itself before any choice.
The rain continued to fall over the courtyard, thick drops cracking against fractured stone, running into craters still hot, filling fissures that had not existed before that night.
The sound was not violent.
It was constant.
Persistent.
Like something that did not need to accelerate in order to win.
Éon remained motionless.
The katana low, the dark blade reflecting only fragments of diffuse light.
The body adjusted, not in guard — in silent readiness. The black eyes did not waver.
Fenrir did not move either.
The human form remained where it was, wounds almost fully recomposed, black marks still pulsing beneath the skin like unfinished writing.
The space around him remained dense, compressed, as if reality itself had learned not to expand too much in his presence.
The rain hesitated for an instant.
It did not stop.
It simply fell heavier.
"Submission…" Fenrir said, his voice low, steady, without echo.
A short pause.
"…or definitive containment."
There was no threat in the tone.
No promise.
It was a functional reading of what would come.
Éon did not answer.
The sustained gaze carried no challenge.
Nor explicit refusal.
Only presence.
Like a piece that refused to leave the board before the opposing move had fully resolved.
Fenrir inclined his head slightly.
A minimal gesture.
Evaluative.
"I understand," he said. "A prince remains a prince…"
His eyes fixed on Éon.
"…even when all that remains is the title."
Then Fenrir advanced.
The first step was not heavy.
It was precise.
Even so, the ground answered.
The stone beneath his feet did not crack — it yielded. Sank a few centimeters, as if the foundation had forgotten, for an instant, how to support that.
Fissures spread in slow circles, not explosive, drawing rainwater down into a newly formed void.
The second step came.
Deeper.
Nearby craters vibrated.
Broken columns groaned, losing alignment.
One of the remaining courtyard walls tilted a few degrees, unable to hold its own weight under that pressure that did not push — it replaced.
Éon felt it first in his chest.
Not pain.
Compression.
The air grew denser.
Breathing demanded adjustment.
The muscles answered before thought, redistributing tension, lowering the center of gravity even further.
The blade trembled a millimeter — not from fear, but from the need to recalculate resistance.
Fenrir kept walking.
"You demonstrated competence," he said, as the ground sank beneath the next step. "And you demonstrated something more dangerous."
Another step.
The entire courtyard dropped a few centimeters, as if pressed by an invisible hand from above.
"Accelerated growth," he continued. "Unforeseen adaptation."
Fenrir's gaze traveled over Éon without haste. Base. Rhythm. Breath.
"When I heard of you…" he said, "of those who move where Thrones cannot walk…"
A brief pause.
"I admit it. I underestimated."
The ground groaned.
A long fissure opened between them, not violent, but deep, revealing ancient heat beneath the soaked stone.
"Here you are," Fenrir stopped a few meters away. "An entity that can walk within the Divine…"
The space around him compressed once more.
"…without belonging to a pantheon."
The rain began to evaporate as it touched the ground near Fenrir's feet.
"In the Abyss…" he continued, "…without being consumed."
Éon felt the weight reach the blade.
The steel answered with a low, almost imperceptible note, as if being tested not against force — but against permanence.
"In the World…" Fenrir concluded, "…without breaking it."
Silence.
The courtyard had sunk nearly half a meter since the first step.
"That makes you…" Fenrir inclined his head again "…incompatible with the war that approaches."
The pressure increased.
Not as attack.
As correction.
"Entities like you…" Fenrir said. "…do not participate in wars."
"They distort them."
His gaze narrowed.
"Thrones fall. Worlds bleed. But Structures… were never made to accommodate what you are."
The space around Éon vibrated.
The rain lost cadence, drops veering into irregular trajectories, as if gravity were being recalculated every fraction of a second.
"If you continue to exist without containment…" Fenrir paused minimally "…there will be no possible conflict."
The ground beneath Éon's feet began to yield.
Not to topple him.
To measure whether he would resist.
"My father will understand."
"My brothers as well."
Fenrir raised his right hand to chest height and moved it in a straight lateral line, as one cuts the air to brush aside invisible dust.
"This is not execution."
"It is maintenance."
The gesture was simple.
There was no visible displacement of energy.
There was no flash.
There was no explosion.
The world answered afterward.
Éon switched places in the same instant.
It was not delayed teleportation — it was immediate substitution.
The presence where he had been vanished and emerged meters away, at the edge of the lowered courtyard, the blade already turning to follow the new axis of the body.
Then space split.
Not as violent rupture.
As inevitable separation.
The line traced by Fenrir's hand crossed the entire courtyard, from the destroyed arch to the outer wall, dividing stone, air, and rain with the same geometric indifference.
The rain was cut first.
The drops aligned for a microsecond — and then began to fall in two distinct rhythms, as if obeying different gravities.
The ground opened without shattering.
The stones did not explode — they parted, revealing a smooth, deep cleft that exposed ancient layers of the world, still hot, still alive.
Everything behind Éon's former position was separated.
Columns.
Walls.
The courtyard itself.
The division continued onward, crossing the space beyond, extending outside the structure as if the castle were merely a detail along its path.
Éon felt the impact after he was already out of the line.
His body locked in midair.
Not by direct force — by disagreement.
Something in him did not fully follow the new position.
The cut appeared on his chest like a delayed signature.
A deep, precise line, crossing flesh, superficial bone, and something beyond — something that should not have been touched.
He dropped to his knees.
The katana drove into the ground to prevent a complete fall.
Blood ran hot, mixing with rainwater, lightly vaporizing as it touched stone still affected by the division.
The courtyard fell into absolute silence.
Then Fenrir lowered his hand.
He looked at the fissure that still remained open, stable, as if the world accepted that new configuration without protest.
"End Resonance."
The word did not activate the phenomenon.
It named it.
The cut on Éon's chest began to close.
Not fast.
Not clean.
Flesh reconstructed in layers, as if something were being forced outward from within.
Bone readjusted with a dry crack.
Blood was drawn back in, leaving dark marks beneath newly formed skin.
When the regeneration finished, the shadow beneath Éon moved.
It did not expand.
It contracted.
And then it spat.
Five bodies were expelled onto the soaked ground, one after another, with heavy, wet impacts.
Drakkouls.
Black fur plastered to their bodies by rain and blood.
Their red eyes still open, empty, frozen in an instant of terror that had no time to become a scream.
The chest of each was collapsed, as if something had been pulled out from within — not destroyed, extracted.
They did not move.
They did not breathe.
They were functional remains.
Material discarded by a regeneration that demanded more than it should have.
Fenrir observed Éon kneeling for an instant longer.
Stable.
Silent.
As if the world had accepted that this separation would not be undone.
"See?" he said, without raising his voice. "Even reacting correctly…"
His eyes lifted to Éon, attentive, evaluating not the body — but what still sustained it.
"…the cost does not decrease."
A brief silence.
"You do not have many functional lives left."
The rain continued to fall, divided by the fissure, obeying two distinct axes.
"Each correction like this…" Fenrir continued "…demands more than you can replenish indefinitely."
The space around him stabilized.
It did not yield.
It did not retreat.
Éon placed his free hand on the soaked ground.
The katana was pulled from the stone with a low, resistant sound, as if the metal hesitated to abandon its support.
He rose slowly.
Not in challenge.
Not in haste.
The body answered with subtle delays — micro-adjustments, forced recalibration — like a structure that still insisted on remaining functional despite losses.
His gaze lifted again to Fenrir.
Present.
Still there.
"You are still standing," Fenrir said. "But you are no longer whole."
The fissure remained open.
The rain continued to fall, divided, unable to decide where it belonged.
Éon moved first.
He took a step.
Only one.
The body answered with minimal delay — enough to betray that every movement now demanded extra calculation.
Even so, he advanced.
The shadow spread across the cracked ground.
Not as mass.
As intention.
Éon's advance came in a low diagonal, closed base, blade aligned to the hip, body projected to reduce silhouette.
It was a clean, efficient displacement, trained to cross dead zones before they closed.
The shadow answered with it.
From the ground, wolves rose without sound, compact forms, muscles taut, converging trajectories.
Crows tore through the air above, cutting the rain, fragmenting lines of sight.
Fenrir advanced through the middle of it.
He did not avoid the wolves.
He entered.
The first impact struck Fenrir's forearm — jaws closing.
They did not pierce.
The arm did not recoil.
The second wolf went for the leg.
Fenrir stepped.
He did not crush — he anchored.
The creature came apart under the weight, shadow pulled back like smoke sucked by negative pressure.
Éon was already within reach.
The katana rose in a short arc, aiming at joint, not flesh.
Fenrir rotated his torso half a palm-width.
The cut passed.
It did not miss.
It was allowed to pass.
The counter came with the back of the hand.
Short.
Dry.
The blow struck the side of Éon's face and tore the ground out from beneath him.
There was no launch — there was forced relocation.
Éon switched.
Reversum.
The presence vanished from the impact and reappeared three meters back, near the open fissure, a knee touching the ground to absorb the return.
The delay came afterward.
Air left his lungs in a spasm.
A thin cut opened along his flank, parallel to the earlier one on his chest, as if space had decided to finish the gesture Fenrir had not completed.
Fenrir was already walking.
"You're choosing well where to appear," he said. "You're just not choosing when to pay."
Fenrir raised his hand.
He did not cut.
He closed his fingers.
Space answered.
Éon felt the pressure before the pain.
His entire body tensed as if being pulled toward a fixed point behind him.
Muscles reacted, the blade dropped into defense, the axis adjusted — too late.
The Resonance arrived as consequence.
Not as blow.
The ground beneath Éon suddenly sank, not from weight, but from loss of reference.
He fell sideways, rolling out by reflex, but the damage had already been applied.
Blood ran from the corner of his mouth.
Fenrir was only a few steps away.