As I stood in the dark, in the perfect silence, a single shriek shattered the world.

It came from behind me, a solid, overwhelming wall of noise. My head felt like it'd explode. I fell to my knees.

As soon as the scream began, it stopped. But its echo reverberated, lingering.

I knew that voice. It was Jack. I fired a shot in the direction of his scream. But I couldn't tell if I hit anything.

The silence returned.

What was happening?

My mind raced through the possibilities. Alice, the architect of this world, cared about balance, so this Ultimate had to be beatable, somehow. If only I knew its effects.

I pushed my palm against the ground to ease myself back up. Where I could see only empty darkness, my hand felt something. The damp, stony floor.

So that must be it.

I clutched the parabolic dish on my railgun. I hesitated. Then, I wrung it off with a forceful twist. What I needed right now wasn't range, but rather omnidirectional coverage.

I activated the Eye of Odin.

In the impenetrable darkness, shimmers of blue lit up. The presence of metal. I saw the silhouette of the chandeliers overhead. I saw the nails of the shelves around me, and the hinges of the door to my left. And to my right, near the opposite end of the corridor, was Jack's figure, delineated by his buckles and buttons and zippers and daggers. Before the light could fade, I aimed my gun and fired – gunshot, Cold Grenade, Frost Missile, gunshot. Both spells, weaved in between my gun's 2-second cooldown. My optimized combo.

Another skull-splitting screech hit me. I felt blood trickle out my ear. I forced myself to stay calm, despite the sickening echoes of the scream.

The shriek came from where Jack would be, down the corridor.

And…if my senses were right, it came eight seconds after the last one.

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A vibration-based ranged attack with an eight second cooldown. And the resonating echo afterwards.

This was just like Vacuum Palm, wasn't it?

I began counting in my head. …Three, four, five, six, seven –

Vortex Shield.

Just as I conjured a dome of swirling water around myself, a blast of noise smashed into it, blasting ripples across the surface. I fired towards the direction of the noise. Gunshot, Frost Missile, gunshot.

So that was his plan. Hide in the darkness and fire from range. In order to conceal his position, he wouldn't even approach me.

In that case, this was the worst place for him to fight me.

I stumbled in the dark, towards the door. My free hand felt at the shelves to guide myself along. When I finally reached the door, I leaned my back against its sturdy, wooden surface. And I started blasting.

The surface of the door served as a guide, helping me orient gunshot after gunshot right down the corridor. I knew that Jack would have to be down there, somewhere. Maybe taking cover in the corner. Maybe trying to scale a wall. It didn't matter. In this narrow corridor, he had to be somewhere in front of me, and if he didn't want to engage, my spray of bullets would catch him sooner or later.

Then I felt it. The subtle, barely-perceptible vibrations in the ground. It was his approaching footsteps. He knew his only option now was to overwhelm me in close-quarters.

I planted my palm on the ground, its surface a reassuring thing in the darkness.

Maw of Leviathan.

Though immune to the spell's effects, even I felt a tinge of the ocean's crushing pressure all around me.

A wink of candlelight shone through the darkness.

The chandelier reappeared overhead. And so did the rest of the room, eventually, as the darkness dispersed. And sounds returned too. The first thing I heard was Jack's labored breathing as he lay upon the ground, sprawled out in front of me. Multiple puncture wounds riddled his torso and limbs.

A puddle of blood surrounded us. I wondered how much of it was his, and how much mine.

He had 80 HP left. Myself, a bit over 200.

I raised my railgun to his forehead.

He looked up at me, his eyes glazed and swollen. He tried to talk but choked on blood. Jack turned his head aside to spit, then turned once again to stare at me.

"This is not who you are," he told me.

"I'll show you who I am."

He looked miserable and broken. Physically, I mean. His body was torn, pierced and crushed. This was the worst I had ever seen him. Not ever in the arena had he been reduced to this. I did this.

His finger twitched feebly in the pool of blood.

"You'll regret this," he said.

"I know," I replied.

I squeezed the trigger and shot him in the skull.