The Nothingness shivered as Voltraeus materialized, his form crackling with black lightning energy, eyes ablaze with rage. Across the void, Nocturne emerged like a living shadow, formless yet tangible, edges flickering between being and nothing.
Voltraeus charged first, fists crackling with lethal bolts that tore through the emptiness, each strike a concentrated storm of destructive force. Nocturne evaporated into shadows, slipping through the attacks, reforming behind Voltraeus with claws reaching for his throat.
Voltraeus twisted mid-air, avoiding the grab, sending a wave of razor-sharp black electricity slicing through the void. The energy grazed Nocturne's form, scattering parts of his shadow, but he reformed instantly, merging with the surrounding darkness.
Nocturne struck again, phasing through Voltraeus' next attack, his hands solidifying mid-phase to punch at Voltraeus' chest. Voltraeus countered with a violent swing, sending a concentrated lightning bolt through the shadow-form, shredding the edges of Nocturne's body.
Neither had landed a decisive blow yet, but the void around them was already starting to warp and fracture, a battlefield forming from pure power and concept alone.
Voltraeus's strikes lit the abyss like stars being born — bolts of black lightning splitting through the endless dark, each one strong enough to erase dimensions had they existed. The clash between thunder and silence reverberated through the Void.
But then… the flashes began to dim.
Every bolt that Voltraeus unleashed seemed to bend, drawn away by unseen gravity. The darkness around him thickened, swallowing his light, muting his rage.
From within that suffocating gloom came Nocturne's voice — cold, harmonic, and endless.
"You bring light into my home, brother… but light cannot exist without shadow."
The shadows coiled upward like living smoke, wrapping around Voltraeus's arms and legs, binding every movement. Voltraeus snarled, tearing free — only for more shadows to pour from the Void itself, countless and infinite.
Each spark of his lightning fed them.
Each scream of thunder gave them shape.
Voltraeus realized too late — the more he fought, the stronger Nocturne became.
The entire void turned black on black, an absence so absolute that Voltraeus's lightning no longer illuminated even his own hands.
And then came the strike.
A spear of pure shadow pierced his chest — not physical, but conceptual, severing his lightning from its source. Voltraeus roared, channeling every ounce of rage left within him, forcing his power to surge back.
The darkness shattered momentarily — lightning ripping the void open — and for the first time, Nocturne was pushed back, forced to take a step.
Nocturne's shadow reigned absolute. The void itself bowed to his will, every corner steeped in his essence — until the darkness began to flicker.
A low hum.
Then a pulse.
It started from Voltraeus's chest — a faint shimmer, like a heartbeat forcing itself against the night. The shadows around him twitched, as though recoiling from something foreign.
Then came the surge.
Lightning erupted from Voltraeus's form, not in arcs, but in waves — sheets of raw, black electricity turned incandescent white by his fury. His veins blazed with light, burning through his translucent, divine flesh until his entire body became a living storm.
For the first time in eternity, the Void glowed.
The storm howled to life.
Every tendril of shadow that touched him was erased — unmade by the purity of the radiance he exuded.
Nocturne flinched as the edges of his domain peeled away like burned fabric. The very substance of his being — the shadow essence that was him — began to sizzle and unravel where Voltraeus's light reached.
He raised his hand, trying to reforge the void, but Voltraeus moved faster — his lightning struck from every direction, each bolt exploding with enough energy to shatter thought itself.
Darkness screamed.
Light devoured.
Voltraeus advanced through the ocean of night, incandescent and unyielding, each step erasing the ground beneath him until even the concept of "shadow" began to fracture.
The Void screamed.
Where Voltraeus walked, light devoured. His every breath erased the concept of shadow. The emptiness itself warped, hissing under the pressure of illumination.
Nocturne staggered backward, his form flickering like an eclipse on the brink of collapse. Every particle of his being burned. Every tendril of darkness shredded by the radiance.
But then—he stopped running.
He sank to one knee, pressed a hand to the void's "floor," and whispered.
The darkness listened.
"You cannot erase me, Voltraeus," Nocturne murmured, voice trembling like a chorus of ghosts. "Because I am not in the shadows… I am the shadow."
Then the void itself turned against Voltraeus.
The darkness beneath his feet twisted, coalescing into a massive, pulsating field — a horizon of hunger, where even light slowed and began to bend inward. Every photon screamed as it was dragged into the abyss.
Voltraeus roared and pushed harder, lightning erupting into a godly nova. His body became a radiant silhouette, brighter than existence had ever seen. Every strike cracked the void, lightning flooding into the black sea below.
"Then I'll erase the concept of shadow itself!"
The light clashed with the black hole of nothingness.
Reality shuddered.
The two Primordials vanished beneath the storm.
For an eternal instant, everything existed and didn't exist — pure contrast tearing the foundation of creation itself apart. When the glare finally faded, both figures were gone.
In the silence that followed, the Void was split — half scorched white, half drowned in darkness.
Floating amid the fracture lay Voltraeus and Nocturne, motionless, their divine bodies cracked and leaking essence.
Voltraeus's light dimmed first, his lightning fading into flickers.
Nocturne's shadow followed, dissolving into mist.
Neither had won.
Neither had lost.
They had cancelled each other out.
And in their unconscious fall, the first balance of the universe was born —
Light and Dark, forever intertwined.