Thunder rang out as the titans clashed, one trailing tendrils of soot that glowed with ember, the other weeping tears of blackness from its entire frame as it weaved and danced between the Cinder's flurry of blows. Flame trailed his blade as with slashes that curved wide and deep, the Soul battered his foe, steel grinding on steel, adding its shrill voice to the cataclysmic choir of battle. His feet ground against the beaten earth, spraying shuddering wraiths of dust with each swirling, pivoting step. The air glowed around him, ignited by the grating impact of steel on steel, filled with embers that stared on with tearful radiant eyes.

Exhaustion's frost poured through his veins, slowing the arc of his mighty sword, his breath rasping through his helm in desperate fingers of mist. The monster fell into a crouch, pivoting beneath his swinging blade and lunging inside its reach, free hand smashing against his face, throwing him to the ground with a solemn thud that rang like dirge's melancholy knell through the chamber. He scrambled to his feet, bringing his blade to bear in a long, smooth crescent of black and scarlet that solidified as it clashed with the silvered tempest of his foe.

Fear clawed at his ancient heart as the Soul gazed into the deep, barren eyes of his foe. His blade lashed out, yet was immediately parried, knocked aside with contemptuous ease, then the monster was upon him again, its sword cold against his flesh, gleaming through the air like a sliver of the sterling moon, and passing through his outstretched arm without pause. The Soul reflexively flinched back, retracting the ragged stump, tracing a band of wavering darkness as his blood clung to the air; yet this time, his reflexes had failed him, had furthered his doom. A dangerous glimmer, a blade sweeping in like the dangerous glint of a predator's claws about to rend flesh and clink against bone. The Soul threw up his arm to ward off the blade, his severed arm. His eyes widened in horror as the sword came whistling down toward him, its song the wordless chant that Death murmurs on his dark quest. He twisted aside, taking the blow on his shoulder instead, feeling its keen edge bite eagerly into him, passing through armour, flesh, and bone as if all were mere honey, slowing it slightly and only slightly as it crunched through him, carving a diagonal path from his right shoulder to his left hip.

The Soul fell to his knees, and then crumpled face first onto the stones where he bled his last in silent terror, the warmth leaking from his body and staining the weathered ground. A new age had come, not of Flame or Dark, not of Light or Shadow, but of Void, of nothingness come once more.