The void energy tendrils drew back at Asher's orders, no longer devouring him, but bending—twisting—responding. The darkness that had been his foe now coursed through his veins, responding to his will as if it were a part of his own flesh. He tightened his fist, and the abyss pulsed with raw, primal might.
The creature screamed, its fluid form stumbling, in doubt. It hadn't anticipated resistance—not from him. It had anticipated prey, not a predator.
Asher pushed forward one step, and the cathedral shook with his footfall. The shattered remnants of sacred energy remained in the air, leftovers from the Architect's divine might. But it was depleting. The only remainder now was the void. And it was his to command.
"Yours was a hunger to swallow me up?" Asher's voice was a growl, sharpened on something other. "Choke on it then."
He flung out his arm once, and the nothing complied. It rushed forward in a tide of black, writhing tentacles. These slammed into the creature's mass, nothing against nothing, a war of devouring power. The creature howled as its own being was turned back on itself.
It attacked at once.
It spat out a clump of darkness from its center, a concentrated beam of raw emptiness. Reality shrieked in horror as its power warped space. Asher didn't even have time to breathe before it slammed into him in the chest, knocking him out of the wreckage of the cathedral. He burst through the broken pillar, stone shards tearing his skin.
"Asher!" Ardyn's cry came from afar, panicked.
Achilles' heel wracked across him, but Asher scarcely felt it. He struggled to rise, blackness wrapping about him protectively. He had pushed too hard. He was not going to fall.
The creature loomed over him, its bulk writhing ever-changing, constantly growing. It had learned to support him—it had grown larger. Its arms grew stronger, serrations springing along its tentacles, ready to rip a swath through reality itself.
And Asher smiled.
For so had he.
The darkness that swirled around him darkened, no longer savage and untrained, but controlled, deliberate. He extended his hand, and they obeyed immediately, coalescing into something new—something lethal.
A knife.
Shaped from sheer darkness, its edge throbbed with an otherworldly keenness. It vibrated in his hand, a flawless creation of his desire. The beast staggered, perceiving the balance thrown off.
"Round two," Asher smiled.
He moved.
Quicker than ever before. Quicker than the emptiness itself would have anticipated. The sword sliced through the air, biting deep into the beast's flesh. It screamed, its body being severed—but before it could recover, Asher attacked again. And again. Each strike chopped away more of its being, each punch banishing it from existence.
The creature struck back, lashing out in desperation. Tendrils coiled around him, but Asher dodged them, a ghost among nothingness. He struggled no longer against the shadows—he was one of them.
The killing blow was swift and merciless.
With one quick stroke, Asher split the nothing creature in two. Its shape contorted, twisting in pain as its own existence unraveled. It let out one last thundering howl before it was nothing, dissipating into nothing from which it came.
Silence.
And then the cathedral started to sag. The crushing pressure of the nothing gave way, air stopped moving again. Asher breathed out, his sword returning to darkness.
"It's over," he breathed.
A sneer. "Damn, you actually did it."
Ardyn was a few feet back, his face a combination of shock and shock. He was bruised, bleeding, but most certainly alive. Asher turned to look at him, shaking his head. "Not yet," he said. "This was just the start."
Ardyn scowled. "What the hell are you talking about?"
Asher looked past him, toward the remains of the Nexus Gate. Though shattered, its core still pulsed faintly, a reminder of what had been lost—and what had yet to come.
"The Architect is gone," Asher said. "But something else woke up in the void."
Ardyn followed his gaze, his expression darkening. "And let me guess—you're planning on finding out what it is."
Asher curled his fingers, and the shadows trembled once more. The hunger in him had not diminished. It had increased instead.
"I don't have a choice."
A smirk played on the edge of Ardyn's mouth. "Then I suppose I don't either."
Asher chuckled, shaking his head. "You really should escape while you still can."
Ardyn threw up his eyes. "And leave you all the fun? Not on your life."
They stood there in silence for a moment more, the burden of what had just transpired weighing on them. The fight had been won, but the war was far from done. The chasm had been bridged, but not conquered.
And Asher would not be at peace until he had deconstructed whatever existed beyond its borders.
With a final look back at the desecrated cathedral, he turned away and stepped into the void.