Electric tension charged the air with unbalanced power as Asher charged forward, darkness twisting about him like a living thing. His eyes tightened, every motion hyper-focused, every breath a planned step within the madness. The Devourer stumbled backward, feeling the sheer change in balance, but already too late.
Asher struck.
A pillar of abyssal energy burst forth from his fist, filling the air between him and the monster. The collision rocked the desecrated Cathedral, shattering what remained of its tenuous architecture. The Devourer shrieked—a vibration that shook across existence itself, warping the very fabric of reality.
Ardyn covered his face from the backlash. "For the love of. Asher, are you even human anymore?!"
Asher ignored him. There was no time to lose. Shadows narrowed tighter over his limbs, filaments of nothingness coiling between his fingers, throbbing with devouring power. The Devourer struck, its freshly forged swords flashing in the air. But Asher was no longer merely evading—he was tearing down.
He grabbed the closest tendril halfway through the attack, an iron grip clamping down upon it. Void energy in his hand flamed, disintegrating the arm of the creature in a burst of nothing that left behind dissolving fragments. The Devourer stumbled, its shape shaken, changed, but the fear was still present. It knew him now.
"You were spawned from the void," the beast growled, its many voices speaking at the same time. "You cannot fight it. You become what it is."
Asher's lips curled into a deadly smile. "Then let's see who is stronger."
With a wave of his wrist, the darkness behind him coalesced into stabbing spears of raw void energy. He unleashed them at high speed, each one slicing through the Devourer's fluid form. The creature screamed as its body destabilized further, bits of its essence crumbling under Asher's relentless barrage.
But it wasn't finished.
The Cathedral trembled wildly as the beast expanded, its form dissolving and contorting into an endless knot of writhing tendrils. A swirling whirlpool of void energy erupted from its core, pulling Asher in.
Ardyn cursed. "Asher, get out of there!"
Too late.
The whirlpool drew Asher in, drawing him into its whirlpool, pulling him off the ground. He struggled against it, his body resisting the choking pressure. He could sense the emptiness reaching for him, wanting to suck him back in, wanting to rip him asunder and incorporate him into its never-ending hunger.
Asher was past that now.
With a snarl, he pushed his hands forward. The void energy within him convulsed, not as hunger, but as an aspect of his will. The vortex draw slowed, then ceased as Asher reversed the current. He sucked it in.
The Devourer trembled, its own energy working against it.
"It's impossible—"
Asher's eyes burned with a foul brightness as the blackness closed in around his own and expanded him bigger than he ever was, bigger than he ever could hope to be. He tightened his fist, and all of the Cathedral shook with him. The shadows no longer belonged to the Devourer. They belonged to him.
"You're right on one thing," Asher replied, his voice tinged with something more, something ancient. "I was born in the dark. But I do not serve it."
And then he delivered the final blow.
The shadow coalesced, creating a singularity in his hand. The power seethed and tore, consuming everything it touched. Asher shoved it straight into the heart of the Devourer. The beast howled as its body imploded in on itself, being sucked down the maw it emerged from.
The vortex exploded outward, sending ripples of energy through the ruined Cathedral. Asher landed on one knee, breathing heavily as the darkness around him settled. The Devourer was gone.
Silence reigned.
Ardyn exhaled sharply, stepping forward cautiously. "You still in there, Asher?"
Asher looked up, his silver eyes still laced with traces of black veins. But he smiled—a tired, victorious smile. "Yeah. And I'm not done yet."
For beyond the Cathedral, beyond the broken rubble of this fight, something else loomed.
Something that watched.
And the war was far from over.