The silence that followed was not peaceful; it was a vacuum, heavy with the copper tang of blood and the acrid stench of burnt divine energy. Rex stood there, motionless, studying Apollo's ruined, broken expression.
The man was a wreck of shattered bone and punctured organs, yet his eyes remained stubbornly fixed, refusing to cloud with the shame of defeat.
Rex felt something uncomfortable stirring beneath his own calculated detachment. It was an unspoken acknowledgment of the sheer, pathological stubbornness of a man who had lost every tangible thing—his power, his body, his future—and still refused to surrender the one thing. Rex couldn't touch the core of his soul.
"That's the part I'll actually miss," Rex said quietly, almost to himself.
His voice lacked its usual mocking edge; it sounded almost hollow. "Not the friendship..."
"The conviction underneath it... It's rare, Apollo."
"It's the only thing about you I never managed to fake for myself."
