The collision of fourteen Transcendent Titans did not produce a sound.
It produced an annihilation of silence.
When the two lines of shadow incarnations clashed upon the surface of the black ocean, the sheer spiritual pressure tore a jagged rift through the fabric of the soul sea.
The lightless water erupted into towering, obsidian geysers, raining heavy drops of pure darkness upon the combatants.
In the center of the cataclysm, the Mad Prince moved.
He melted into the darkness, traversing the spatial void in a microsecond, and reappeared directly above the true Soul Stealer.
His arms came down in a devastating, two-handed vertical cleave, the dark blade of the Sin of Solace humming with mind-shredding malice.
But Soul Stealer was a flawless mirror.
The silver imposter blurred, executing a perfect, identical Shadow Step.
The mirror-blade met the real blade mid-air.
CLANG!
A shockwave of dark essence and silver mercury exploded outward.
They did not pause.
In an instant, both the Mad Prince and his mirror copy vanished again, plunging into a frantic, hyper-accelerated dance of death.
To the eyes of a mortal Awakened, or even a normal Transcendent, the soul sea would have appeared empty.
They were moving far beyond the threshold of physical sight—two streaks of lightless void and liquid silver violently intercepting each other thousands of times a second.
Clang.
Clang.
Clang.
Sparks of corrupted soul essence rained down upon the black water.
They exchanged blows with terrifying, mechanical precision.
Every feint the Mad Prince threw, Soul Stealer copied.
Every lethal, reality-bending strike from the dark sword was parried by a perfect, silver reflection.
And yet, while the sky of the soul sea tore itself apart with their violence, the depths remained eerily, horrifically still.
At the bottom of the black ocean, standing amidst the suffocating gloom, were the silent watchers.
Millions of them.
Fallen beasts, Corrupted terrors, Great monsters of the Tomb of Ariel, and thousands of human souls.
They were the shades of every creature the Mad Prince had butchered across centuries of endless loops.
They stood shoulder to shoulder beneath the water, completely motionless, their lifeless eyes staring up at the apocalyptic battle raging above.
Among the endless, silent horde, stood a familiar figure.
He was a young man with pale skin, dark hair, and familiar onyx eyes.
He wore a simple tunic, holding a dark memory sword by his side.
The original, uncorrupted version of himself.
The past that the Mad Prince had dragged into the dark and violently snuffed out.
Sunny’s shade did not move.
He did not blink.
His mind was entirely, flawlessly empty.
There was no terror in his dead eyes, no regret, no lingering will to survive.
He was a hollowed-out husk, completely devoid of thought or emotion, reduced to a mere marionette waiting for the master’s strings to pull.
Above the water, the stalemate ground on.
Several minutes passed in a blur of hyper-lethal strikes.
The Mad Prince reappeared on the surface of the water, skidding backward.
A shallow, silver-tinged cut was carved across his pale cheek, leaking dark mist instead of blood.
Fifty yards away, Soul Stealer materialized, his liquid-glass body sporting an identical, bleeding fissure across his featureless face.
The Mad Prince lowered his blade slightly.
His chest did not heave—he did not need to breathe here—but his obsidian eyes narrowed in deep, genuine irritation.
‘Tedious,’ he thought coldly.
‘Utterly, exhaustingly tedious.’
Mordret was an annoying parasite, but his Aspect was undeniable.
In a strict duel of pure capacity, fighting a perfect mirror was a mathematical zero-sum game.
They would simply hack each other to pieces until their Supreme cores ran dry, tearing the soul sea apart in the process.
“Enough,” the Mad Prince rasped, his voice cutting through the ringing aftermath of the clash.
He stood up straight, his dark coat settling around him.
He slowly lowered the Sin of Solace, the point of the blade resting gently against the surface of the black water.
Soul Stealer mirrored the movement perfectly, the silver blade dipping to the water’s edge, ready for the next phase of the duel.
But the Mad Prince was not going to duel anymore.
A cold, terrifying smile stretched across his pale face, pulling at the fresh wound on his cheek.
He had centuries of accumulated madness, a stolen Crown of Twilight, and an absolute lack of restraint.
Why in the names of the dead gods was he fighting fair?
“You can copy my power, Mordret,” the Mad Prince whispered, his voice vibrating with dark, unholy authority.
“But you are in my house. And my house… is very, very crowded.”
He closed his eyes and unleashed his will.
BOOM!
The entire soul sea shuddered.
It was not a physical tremor, but a profound, spiritual earthquake that rocked the very foundations of the Mirror Realm’s invasion.
“Tear him apart,” the Mad Prince commanded.
The ocean erupted.
It was a tidal wave of pure, concentrated death.
The water boiled as millions of shadows broke the surface.
Colossal serpents with decaying scales, towering apes made of living stone, serpentine terrors of the deep river, and legions of human shades all poured out of the depths like a black, roaring tsunami.
Soul Stealer’s mirrored face rippled in what could only be described as sudden, absolute panic.
His seven silver incarnations raised their blades, attempting to hold the line.
But how could seven swords hold back an ocean?
The horde crashed down upon them.
A Great Beast—a massive, decaying crab from the depths of the Estuary—slammed its claws into one of the silver incarnations, pinning it to the water.
A swarm of Corrupted harpies descended upon another, their shadow-talons tearing chunks of liquid glass from the imposter’s frame.
The silver copies hacked frantically, destroying dozens of shades with every swing of their Supreme blades, but for every shadow they cut down, a thousand more rushed in to fill the gap.
The Mad Prince took a slow step backward, his hands resting casually in the pockets of his dark coat.
He dismissed the Sin of Solace with a thought, completely removing himself from the combat.
He stood on the gently rippling water, watching the massacre unfold with cold, leisurely amusement.
Through the thrashing, roaring sea of monsters, his eyes caught a glimpse of a specific shade.
Sunny.
The uncorrupted shadow of his past self had reached the center of the maelstrom.
Without a shred of hesitation, the hollow-eyed youth threw himself directly at the main body of Soul Stealer.
The silver monster parried a blow from a towering shadow-knight, only to have Sunny’s shade slip beneath his guard, driving a shadow-blade straight into the parasite’s reflective ribcage.
Soul Stealer convulsed, silver essence bleeding profusely into the dark water, as Sunny’s shade began to hack at him with the cold, mechanical efficiency of a butcher.
The irony was thick enough to choke on.
The ghost of Sunless, completely devoid of free will, violently butchering the corrupted soul of Prince Mordret inside the mind of the Mad Prince.
A low, dry chuckle bubbled up from the Mad Prince’s chest.
The chuckle grew into a loud, rasping laugh that echoed over the deafening roars of the shadow horde.
It was a sound of pure, unadulterated madness.
“Magnificent,” he whispered, his obsidian eyes reflecting the chaotic, beautiful carnage.
He tilted his head slightly, watching Sunny’s shade rip a chunk of mirrored glass from Soul Stealer’s throat.
It was incredibly entertaining.
It was a tragedy, a comedy, and a massacre all neatly rolled into one grand performance.
“You know…” the Mad Prince mused aloud, a crooked, manic smile splitting his face.
“If this were a theater in the waking world, I would have bought popcorn.”
He let out a contented sigh, watching the silver parasite slowly drown beneath the endless weight of his sins.
“What a show.”