The silence following the impact was more violent than a scream. Vane's hands were numb, the vibration from the Silver Fang having traveled back up the ash-wood shaft of his spear with the force of a tectonic shift. The star-steel tip remained whole, the hardest metal in existence refusing to yield even as the obsidian-black ice on Isaac's chest absorbed the kinetic energy. Vane's breathing was a series of ragged, silver-tinted plumes. He could feel the frost beginning to bond with his skin, ignoring the heat of his mana.

Isaac did not move his hand from the spear-tip. He looked at Vane with a clarity that was terrifying. The sapphire blue in his eyes was no longer cold; it was focused.

"The problem with slowing down for so long," Isaac said, his voice carrying a physical weight that made the iron floor vibrate, "is that you eventually forget the sensation of the wind."

Isaac moved.

It was not a lunge. It was a transition of states. One moment, he was standing still; the next, he was in Vane's internal guard. He did not use a complex spell. He simply used the efficiency of his mana-flow to bypass Vane's reaction time.

Vane barely managed to bring the shaft of his spear up.

[Skill: Internal Pulse, Grade B]

His heart thudded against his ribs like a trapped animal. He overclocked his nervous system, his silver mana boiling to keep pace with Isaac's new speed. The star-steel shaft took the blow, a simple palm strike from Isaac that carried the momentum of a falling glacier. The impact sent Vane skidding ten meters across the iron grates, his boots carving deep grooves into the frost-covered metal.

Isaac did not wait for him to reset. He swept his hand, and the air around Vane did not just freeze; it compressed. It was a high-level manipulation of pressure, a precursor to the spatial magic of the Sentinel rank. The oxygen in Vane's lungs felt like it was turning to lead.

Vane roared, spinning his spear in a violent, horizontal arc.

[Argent Horizon, 2nd Form: Lunar Deflection — Refined]

He didn't just try to block. He used the silver mana to "bite" into the compressed air, creating a momentary pocket of low pressure that allowed him to breathe. He threw himself into a roll, the star-steel tip whistling through the air as he tried to keep Isaac at bay.

Isaac was no longer the static Monarch. He was a blur of silver-white silk and blue mana. He moved with a lack of wasted motion that made Vane's refined Argent Horizon look cluttered. Isaac wasn't seeing "seams" in reality, but he was seeing the slight, micro-second delays in Vane's muscle contractions. He was predicting the path of the spear through pure, high-speed calculation.

A jagged spike of black ice erupted from the floor where Vane had been standing a millisecond prior. Vane countered with a vertical slam, the star-steel tip crushing the spike into diamond dust. He lunged forward, the silver mana on his spear-tip flickering as he poured his remaining reserves into a flurry of strikes.

Isaac dodged. He did not use teleportation. He moved his head by an inch. He shifted his shoulder by a centimeter. The star-steel hissed past him, again and again, the Silver Fang's rejection logic unable to find purchase on a target that wasn't there.

'He's not just faster,' Vane realized, his vision beginning to blur from the strain. 'He's more efficient. He's stopped fighting me and started fighting the space I'm occupying.'

Isaac reached out and caught the ash-wood shaft of the spear mid-swing. The obsidian ice on his palm did not crack. It acted as a perfect anchor.

"You are fighting with the weight of your past, Vane," Isaac said, his gaze as steady as a mountain. "It makes your strikes heavy. It makes them honest. But in the winter, honesty is just another way to die."

Isaac tightened his grip on the spear and pulled.

Vane was hauled forward, his feet leaving the ground. Isaac met him with a knee to the solar plexus, the impact muffled by the thick layer of frost armor on Isaac's leg. Vane coughed up a spray of silver-tinted blood, his grip on the spear faltering for the first time.

He felt the cold. It was not the ambient cold of the Cathedral. It was the internal cold of his own mana core reaching its limit. The Internal Pulse was beginning to fail, the high-frequency vibrations of the Silver Fang tearing at his own mana-veins.

Isaac stood over him, his hand still holding the star-steel spear. The Cathedral's iron walls began to groan. The sheer pressure of Isaac's burgeoning mana was starting to warp the structural logic of the room. The blue lamps overhead shattered, one by one, unable to withstand the atmospheric weight of the Monarch's presence.

Isaac was not a Sentinel yet, but he was no longer a Rank 3 Elite. He was something in between, a monster standing on the threshold.

"Stand up, Vane," Isaac commanded. There was no mockery in his voice. There was only the cold, hard expectation of a peer. "The audit is not over until one of us is unmade."

Vane looked at the star-steel tip of his spear. It was still shining. It was still whole. He gripped the shaft, his knuckles white, and forced himself back to his feet. His legs were trembling, and his vision was a hazy mess of silver and blue, but the fire in his marrow refused to go out.

He could feel the [Usurper] authority deep in his soul. It was vibrating. It was reaching for something that wasn't there yet. It was looking at Isaac's perfection and trying to find a way to take it.

Isaac raised his hand, and the black ice began to spiral around him, forming a massive, jagged halo of frost. The temperature in the Cathedral hit a point where the iron floor began to turn brittle and snap.

Vane raised his spear, the star-steel reflecting the dying light of the Cathedral. He was at his limit, but he could feel the "Door" again. It was closer now.

He just needed a key.

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