There was no battlefield.
Not in the way most would define one. There were no shattered landscapes, no broken stars, no remnants of fallen civilizations.
There was only uncertainty.
A space that was neither light nor dark, neither infinite nor confined.
A space where existence and nonexistence blurred together, a realm that had never been defined and perhaps never should have been.
And within that space, two beings stood.
Xal'Zyren Valthor, the Ruler of Reality.
The force that defined all things. The one who imposed structure upon the boundless, meaning upon the void.
Across from him—
Noctis Malphas, the Living Deletion.
A being that should not be. The presence that erased what was flawed, what was unnecessary. The void that stripped meaning away.
And now, for the first time in eternity—he had been made real.
Xal'Zyren had forced him into existence.
And Noctis did not know how to undo it.
Xal'Zyren took a step forward, and the space around them solidified.
It was not through destruction. Not through power.
He was not shaping reality—he was making it undeniable.
And that was the difference between them.
Noctis did not create.
Noctis did not destroy.
He simply removed.
But now, for the first time, his presence was being rejected.
The void no longer bent to his will. It did not unmake what Xal'Zyren had built.
Because Xal'Zyren had spoken something into existence, and now it could not be undone.
Noctis remained still.
His form was flickering—unstable, uncertain.
His very nature was being forced to recognize itself.
Before, he had always been a thing without presence.
Now, he was here.
Before, he had always been something without a name.
Now, he was Noctis Malphas.
And he did not understand what that meant.
He reached into the space around him, attempting to erase it.
But the battlefield did not vanish.
He reached into himself, attempting to return to nothing.
But he remained.
Something was wrong.
Something had changed.
Xal'Zyren saw it.
He saw the first sign of uncertainty in the being who had always been absolute in his absence.
He saw the first crack in something that had never been whole to begin with.
"You are afraid," Xal'Zyren said.
Noctis lifted his gaze to him.
For the first time, his eyes focused.
"You assume too much," he replied, but his voice was different now. It was not as steady. It was not as unshaken.
"No," Xal'Zyren said. "I assume nothing."
"I see what is real."
"And now, so do you."
Noctis did not respond.
Because he could not deny it.
The space around them trembled.
A war was raging between two absolute forces.
Xal'Zyren, who commanded the presence of all things.
Noctis, who sought to remove all things.
Every time Xal'Zyren moved, the battlefield formed itself into something stable.
Every time Noctis countered, he attempted to erase what had been made.
But now—
Xal'Zyren's creation was stronger than Noctis' deletion.
Not because Xal'Zyren was stronger.
Not because Noctis was weakening.
But because Noctis was beginning to recognize what it meant to exist.
And that recognition meant he could no longer be absolute.
For the first time in eternity, Noctis Malphas felt the concept of pressure.
Before, he had always stood outside of reality, separate from it, unbound by its principles.
Now, he felt the weight of the world around him.
For the first time, he had to move within a space instead of simply removing it.
For the first time, he was being forced to engage instead of merely erase.
And that was the greatest damage Xal'Zyren had done to him.
Not a wound to the body.
Not a loss of power.
A wound to his very nature.
A loss of the nothingness that had once been everything to him.
Noctis clenched his hands into fists.
"I see it now," Xal'Zyren said. "You have never fought before."
"You have never struggled."
"You have never had to experience anything."
"And now that you do—"
"You are losing."
Noctis felt something new in that moment.
Something cold. Something invasive.
Fury.
It was not the rage of a warrior.
It was not the anger of a conqueror.
It was something deeper, something that had never existed within him before.
It was resentment.
For the first time, Noctis wanted something.
He wanted this to stop.
He wanted to return to the void.
He wanted to become nothing again.
But he could not.
Because Xal'Zyren had made him real.
And that reality would not let him go.
"This is over," Xal'Zyren declared.
And for the first time, Noctis Malphas was forced to make a choice.
Xal'Zyren Valthor stepped forward, his presence pushing against the void itself.
Noctis Malphas stood motionless, but not by choice. He was experiencing something he had never known before.
Doubt.
Fear.
"Your time as an observer is over," Xal'Zyren declared. "You are here now. You are real. And now, you can be ended."
Noctis felt the weight of the words.
The void around them shook.
"You wanted to be nothing," Xal'Zyren continued. "You wanted to exist outside of everything. But now, you have a name, you have a form, and you have fear."
"You are Noctis Malphas."
"And now, you will learn what it means to lose."
Noctis clenched his hands into fists. The battlefield did not collapse. The space around him did not fade.
"You will not escape this," Xal'Zyren said.
"You will not unmake yourself."
"You exist now, and nothing you do will change that."
"And that is why you have already lost."
The void cracked.
And for the first time in eternity—
Noctis Malphas felt trapped.