The air became eerily still. The only sounds that remained were the unsteady breaths of the dying mage, the scraping of metal on brick, and perhaps, if one was keen enough, the fatigued inhales of the once-thought inhuman angel.

The scene was like a painting, a symbol of ideologies and rebellion—the wordless atmosphere adding to the finality of the canvas being painted beneath the shadows of the caste city.

"Such magical potential is wasted on cretins like you." With heavy steps, the sentry paced forward before eventually towering over the broken body of the outlaw, "For what little it's worth, you piqued my interest." Stabbing his blade beside the ground where his enemy lay, the Paladin crouched down to the tainted floor to lift the battered champion by the collar—the action the closest thing to respect the knight gave to the lawbreaker.

Pulling the bruised face of the outlaw closer to his burnt mask of charcoaled silver and tightening his grip, he continued his sermon, "However, in time, I will forget your name just as I did the countless criminals I've slain." And as both champions now held faces devoid of emotion, the final threads of the devil's fate were soon to be woven by the heaven-sent's gauntlet.

"You'll soon be remembered for nothing more than the scent of your blood mixed with excrement-" But the knight's proclamation was cut short by an incredibly subtle but sharp, tearing sound followed by the hollow chimes of dripping liquid.

Though he did not and could not show it with his face, a sensation long unknown to Efraim filled his nerves as each of them screamed an inaudible cry for help as cold steel parted the flesh on his abdomen—the churning of pain a foreign sensation.

"...Yeah, that's how it is...It'll feel like nothing for a split-second, and then it'll sting like hell..." Davi began with dying breaths, managing a weak chuckle before continuing, "Then what's left of your nerves...They'll feel the warmth of your blood...Until all you'll feel is a cold...emptiness..." And as he loosened his grip on the hidden dagger now sheathed into the gut of the sentry, he smiled with fangs bore almost sadistically.

The Paladin loosened his grip on the rambling dead man, letting him drop to the floor limp as his hand hovered above the source of the overwhelming pain—a part of his armor earlier battered by a storm of bullets.

Even through the heavy plates, his fingers could feel the greasy slickness of the metal—and the scent of iron that came with it filled his nostrils as his hand searched for a fragment within him until he could grasp it—a handle of black mirkwood.

With trembling fingers and hastening breaths, he clasped it as tight as he could and began to pull back, the piercing sounds of ripping flesh and scarlet droplets reverberating as he removed the cold steel from himself.

Within his hands and coated in a deep red liquid was a knife of flowing curves and olive hues. It was no longer than a few inches, and yet it had spilled the blood of a noble—a weapon that represented the spite of the Gaksi's oppressed.

But what presented itself to the knight was far more than a mere dagger.

"Basilisk...Venom...As potent as the black market could get their hands on..." Looking up with what little strength was left within him, the cunning spellgun filled his eyes with scorn so toxic it resembled the coating of the blade, "See you in hell, angel..." And as the blood that drenched the blade began to bubble and foam in response to the poison, neither heaven's wheel nor hell's choir sounded to mark the demise of their champions.

"...Sleight of hand and poison..." The knight spoke with a low voice, the earlier vibrato gone as he did well to preserve his energy, "A coward to the very end, Davi of Kosoru." Even so, duty weighed even more than imminent death on Efraim’s twisting mind as he outstretched his arm to grasp his heavy blade for the last time.

Holding the Lodestar with trembling hands and aching legs, he imbued it with a dull hue of violet, which wavered in luminance with each second before raising it above the outlaw—a literal guillotine from the heavens themselves.

"May you find solace in your hell." As the sounds of scraping metal began to echo, the weapon blotted out the creeping beams light as he prepared himself to smite the snake in his masters’ garden.

And in a single, swift motion that was accompanied by a brief flash of violet, the sentence was carried upon the well-fought but nonetheless fallen warrior of Gaksi's lowest.

…Ting!

A sudden resonance of clanging metal rang like a deafening thunderbolt within the lightless chambers as finality's silence was torn asunder by the reverberant sound.

Even so, beneath heaven's guillotine, a large cloud of pulverized brick and stagnant water murked the gallow of the sorcerer as, from a glance, it seemed the execution was successful—one of many from the knight, one that followed and precedes hundreds more.

But on this particular occasion, this peculiar slash, Efraim had felt something different, something unfamiliar to him.

It was not the same unfamiliarity as the ache of his wound. Instead, his blade did not feel the warmth nor give of flesh, nor the brittle shattering of bones—no, instead, it was greeted with something far colder, far more lifeless, and most importantly…

It was something that refused to yield to the sentry's fist so readily.

Instead of cleaving away the weight of life or shedding crimson fluid upon the earth once again, the blade shook for the first time in millennia as the purple aura around it flickered as the strike was deflected by something veiled within the dust.

But something else was amiss in the lightless scenery—something subtle but very much present lingered restlessly in the atmosphere as the titan processed the situation.

It is said that mana exists not only in living things but all things in general. Within water, it flows through each droplet. While in minerals, it settles and crystallizes into dazzling gemstones, with even the rays from Gaksi's twin moons carrying the mystical energy from the cosmos to the weary eyes of those earthbound.

The innate flow of mana is different in each space as objects, people, and even words or actions morph the movement of magic in minute but defined ways.

It is with these thoughts that Efraim’s mind began to process his surroundings, each prick of light and fleeting scent, every muffled echo and stinging pain, and even the bitter taste of acrid blood in his mouth clued him into something simple, something that his mere sense physical senses could not detect.

The flow of mana had changed.

The tides of the abyss's ocean were stirring, and within its gaping maw, something warped the strings of fate that were being loomed by the heavens.

As the dust slowly began to settle and the masked eyes of the knight refocused, the cause for his strike being stopped from claiming its rightful victory—and what appeared before him utterly perplexed him.

A pillar stood before him.

As it towered even above the giant, the monolith held an imperfect shape that twisted and turned with crooked edges and sharpened grooves resembling that of a rock formation molded by the sands of time over countless years. And yet here it stood, appearing out of thin air in the blink of an eye.

"...Of all things, it's a miracle this blocked my strike." Chalking up the occurrence as nothing more than a fluke at death's door from the outlaw, the Paladin brushed aside the unease he felt, ignoring the flow of mana not out of confusion or pain but out of pride and ego that had been damaged just as much as his body during the battle.

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A pride he should have let go of.

Lifting his blade once again, he aimed to shatter the pillar and finally break his opponent in one swing. He stepped back, holding his blade like a spear with bated breath and aching muscles.

"Farewe-" But before the words could even echo in the abyss, the sound of crashing metal engulfed the ears of the damned as a dull glow of lavender painted the masked retinas of the sentry.

It took a moment to process it—the shock, the pain, and the complete puzzlement as Efraim realized that he was not only launched at but inexplicably adhered to the formation—immobilized as even his blade found itself planted upon the pillar.

A sudden force had propelled the two masses together, interlocking in an unbreakable bond that illuminated the space with a crackling and fluctuating purple luminance.

"How in..?" Instead of taking the time to question it further, the Paladin immediately tried to regain control from the unknown force that compelled his very body to move detached from his will. He forced what little mana was left within his veins to his limbs, strengthening the aura that coated his armor and shielded him from countless blows.

But the peculiarities ceased to come to an end as with each gram of blood he enchanted and each muscle fiber he fortified, the pull between the sentinel and the spire only became more intense as even the starborn warrior failed to escape the invisible clasp of the force that held him in place.

There was no end to the tug of war as with each pull he did, the pillar pulled back twice as hard without any signs of waning strength as the sight began to glow like a purple flame in the darkness—the enclosed corners of the underworld painted a royal violet.

But just as the knight neared his limit and his body was practically alight, his gambit managed to pay off, and he untethered himself from the formation.

Just not in the way he had hoped.

As if an arrow nocked into place, Efraim was shot backward with extreme force as each ounce of power he poured into his body became an extra inch pulled on the bowstring that held him.

He crashed and tumbled through the space with resounding echoes of warping metal and cracking brick as his body was launched outward before finally losing its momentum when it slammed into and through a pile of debris in the shadows.

Davi, holding on with what little vigor he had left, cracked his eyes open as he scanned the scene before him—too tired to put into words or expressions the emotions and thoughts that filled his mind.

"It was a real pain getting this to work, y'know?" Footsteps slowly trailed toward the fallen sorcerer as a figure shadowed his battered body, "Trying and failing to get just the correct polarity to work while you were busy killing each other is beyond difficult." An outstretched hand hovered above him, an emerald energy flowing from the palm and onto his wounds, as he could feel wisps of vitality reinvigorate his soul.

"It took a while for me to realize it, but..." The young spellgun paused, motioning with his hand an aura of deep violet as the earlier unmovable slab of steel recalled back, returning to its master as it radiated the same hue, "You're not much good against other magnets, are you?"

Indeed, that was the crux of Ascel's counteroffensive and the reason for his absence during the battle.

For innumerable battles, those who held the title of Lodefist were unchallenged as they bulldozed any who stood in their path. This was for a simple reason.

Magic.

A blade that grew in speed as it got closer to its target, pulled by forces beyond simple strength or steel, carried by a titan whose armor deflected anything as if the very gods were guarding their champion in the midst of battle.

Through the use of a spell that summoned an overflowing magnetic aura that passed through the conductive metals of the Paladin's hide and fang, the unkillable, unstoppable Lodefist came to be born.

But this only held true if there were none who understood the simple rules of magnetism.

"Like charges repel, opposites attract, huh?" Davi asked, picking himself back up as his bones only barely held together and his skin was tattered with cuts and bruises, "But still, you'd need to find the exact charge or close to it for that principal to even remotely work on something of that strength, no?" He asked as his partner handed him their last flask of blue liquid, downing it in a single gulp as his heart began to course mana back into his veins.

"Like I said, a pain in the ass." He complained back, gripping his chest as he held his still broken ribs in place to take a breath, "It's a good thing that poison of yours softened his magic up a bit."

"Whatever the case," Dusting off his tarnished bangle and summoning forth a glyph of emerald strands that began to twist and curl around his wrist, closing his wounds and soothing his muscles, "The assist is appreciated. Thanks, son." And with a gentle but firm pat to his protege-turned-blood-bound companion, hell's duet had once again graced the mortal stage.

"...I grant you this one courtesy, lawless..." From within ashes along with dust, scorned a resonant voice, followed by the crumbling of debris and hulking footfalls from the edge of the collapse, "You have impressed me- far beyond the most absurd of my expectations." Stepping out of the cloud with warped steel and sanguine hues adorning their figure, the angel stolen from grace now faced them with nothing but wrath in their eyes—a single orb revealed from the crack in their mask, "Prepare to be shattered." And without any regard for regality or decorum, he dragged his blade across the filth of the floor to raise it high—causing sparks to erupt from its now dulling edge.

The pair looked at one another with hesitance and weariness—pushed to their physical limits as they struggled to even stand.

And yet, within that glance came a peculiar assurance.

An affirmation fueled by something more significant than simple thievery or self-preservation—beyond their needs for money and security, this sudden drive came from something that exceeded those basal desires.

The battle that raged on now surpassed its original intentions, going from a mere arrest to a war of ideals realized.

To the pair, it was proof—affirmation of something so simple yet denied so vehemently by the city that birthed- no, molded them into the vagrants that they are now.

It was a declaration of existence within the depths and among the shadows.

They were alive.

They refused to be silent.

They could win.

Each dented plate was a mark left on history, and each drop of blood drawn was ink in a book. The fatigued breaths of the knight were like rejoicing choirs as with one light faded, two more shone brighter.

They were no longer trespassers in a home that shunned and threw them away and far more than mere inhabitants as well.

They were given a rare opportunity to become more than just their hunger—a cruel twist on the Paladin's very mockings of the pair he so gravely underestimated.

"Best to think of a better pair of last words while you can, knight." With fangs bared and eyes agape in vigor, the hands of the sorcerer were engulfed in a violet hue before motioning them with both power and grace, summoning glyphs of undulating rings around his fingertips and the pillar of steel in front of him.

In a single motion, he called back his massive weapon as it dragged itself across the brick floor with ease before spinning around the mage with trails of lavender—the flourish resembling that of a planet orbiting a star.

"Save the quips for later, son. Let's get to work." With his devilishly rogue but professional airs returning, the cunning blackhat looked to his cracked bangle and conjured symbols of jagged thorns and bleeding edges whose light was a deep crimson hue.

"Coagulate." With a single word, each drop of blood that bathed the battlefield began to tremble and shake before rushing forth from the puddles and stains and converging toward and around the hand of the sorcerer and condensing into a sphere of red, "Hone." And as another command was uttered from his husky voice, the thorns became vines that wrapped around and within the mass, shaping it into an intricately curved blade with a jagged edge.

Blood magic was a dangerous practice even to those who grew up with the art as their most trusted companion—a dagger that first cuts its wielder promises its own set of dangers.

But there is no denying that a sword that only grows in strength each time it draws blood is nothing if not truly deadly, and as blood itself harbors the bulk of one’s magical power, weapons forged from the rose ichor carry an unmatched lethality.

And with a quick wave of his blade, his unarmed hand reached into his pocket and unholstered a revolver of ashen birch and scarlet brimstone as the ruby gems and barrel began to glow whitehot.

Ah, so this is what you were blabberin' on about, huh?

Ascel thought to himself with a hidden smile behind his canines as he dug his feet into position and eyed heaven's champion—his partner doing the same as hell readied itself to be raised behind them.

This was one's legacy.

This was one's downfall.

This was the heist that shook Gaksi to its very core.

Let none forget the day mere rats of the underworld clashed with heaven's blades.

And may their slashes leave trails to be followed by the oppressed evermore.

As the three came to their standoff and mere words could no longer supplement the noiseless yet heavy air, their gazes and the glints of their weapons spoke out into the unseen void without an audience, without grace, yet dripping with fervor as their cold veins ran blood-warm.