Qaritas had seen that rise before. In memories he didn't dare breathe near.
Ecayrous rose, slow and deliberate. Each clap slammed into the silence like bone breaking on marble—one, then another, then again. The sound didn't echo. It reverberated, thick as smoke, settling in the lungs like judgment. The arena didn't cheer. It bristled.
Voices snarled from the shadows.
"Let the weak bleed!"
"Sin does not kneel!"
Fists pounded rhythm into the stone—no pattern, just hunger.
Qaritas's jaw clenched. That sound—like thunder wrapped in mockery—dragged old nightmares to the surface. Ecayrous didn't applaud victories. He applauded ownership.
He turned toward Ayla, his smile carved from ash and cruelty.
"This," he said, voice smooth as spilled oil, "is what grows in the grave of kindness. When mercy dies, despair becomes divine."
Her eyes pinned him—molten red fading to gold, with that slow, swallowing blue at the center. The same look that once made fire kneel. Her jaw locked—then cracked open with a growl that was primal.
"Then let's dig," she whispered.
A hush fell. Like even the arena feared what she'd just invited.
Silence.
Qaritas stiffened. He'd heard whispers—legends, even among gods—but he had never seen it. Not like this. Not so quiet. Not so final.
But he'd frozen—just like he had when Ayla was a child, and Ecayrous first shattered her ribs for speaking too freely. Some part of him still waited for permission to move. And hated himself for it.
But Ayla didn't need defending—she wielded rage like scripture. Still, it burned him, watching her bleed composure into war.
"Yes, please," Ecayrous purred, fingers curling under Ayla's chin like she was still his to command.
"You're finally interesting—not just my weapon, my former bed-warmer, or the womb for my seed. Now you're harder to kill. But not impossible."
The others growled—low, primal.
Then came the sound of steel meeting flesh.
Qaritas moved faster than thought.
One clean slash.
Ecayrous's hand hit the ground, twitching once.
He wanted to feel righteous. But the blade hadn't sung for justice. It had purred with relief.
And in that moment, Qaritas wasn't sure if he'd acted for Ayla's safety—or his own satisfaction.
"That hand cost you nothing, but if you touch her again, I'll take something you can't regrow," Qaritas said, voice cold as starfire.
Ayla didn't blink.
She stepped forward, boots crunching through blood-wet stone. Her voice was a whisper—intimate and venomous.
"You lost the right to touch me eons ago.
After my mortal body went cold, Ecayrous. When I had no choice but to obey.
But now—"
She stepped closer. Voice lower. Deadlier.
"Now I've seen what you made of Zcain. What you took from him. What you tried to take from all of us."
His stare held, but the smile did all the lying.
"I've carried many grudges.
But there's no one I want to kill more than you.
And I won't let the others have the pleasure.
You're mine."
He chuckled, letting his newly-grown hand flex, mock-casual.
"Kill me if you can, Ayla. We'll just have to see about that."
He looked down at the severed hand. A slow smirk curled across his face. Then to Qaritas.
"So dramatic," he murmured, tone almost fond. "Let's give them a show."
The arena held its breath. Even the blood paused.
Then Ecayrous grinned.
As he stepped off the dais—landing in a splash of warm blood. Dust coiled around his boots like the ground recoiled from him, as if even the arena couldn't stomach his presence.
"Come now, Ascendants," he said, arms wide, voice velvet and venom. "It's time you met your teacher—Zcain, the Ascendant of Sin."
For one breath, Zcain didn't move.
Not out of resistance—but remembrance.
His hand twitched. Barely. Like a thread pulled taut from two ends.
Then, with the grace of something too used to obeying, he stood.
Zcain stood—ten feet of coiled grace, motionless. His stillness wasn't silence. It was obedience learned too well. When he finally spoke, his voice was velvet-wrapped iron—quiet, but too sharp to ignore.
Crimson eyes narrowed, unflinching.
He wore a high-collared jacket of crimson and gold—stitched tightly at the ribs, concealing his form like armor disguised as finery. The sleeves fell to leather gloves, each finger embroidered with faint glyphs. His boots were thick, reinforced with metal seams—made for blood, not ceremony. Every thread whispered of restraint, control—power wrapped in ritual.
Beside him, Nimarza tilted her head. Eight feet of silence and leather-slick menace. She wore an obsidian corset laced with curved pink threading, the color barely visible until she moved. Her shoulders draped in layered black silks—soft, but cut to flow like smoke. Her leggings shimmered with violet hints beneath the black, and her boots bore needle-thin heels that clicked like secrets. Elegant. Deadly. A wraith wrapped in silk and sin.
Her porcelain snake-mask caught the light in fractured reflections. Hissing softly with every breath, she didn't speak—but one vial at her hip rattled against another, a warning dressed in glass...
Ecayrous lingered, eyes scanning Zcain's unreadable face. The silence stretched—thin as thread, sharp as judgment.
Qaritas had read every scripture carved into this arena's stone, and none terrified him more than the one Ecayrous wrote with his smile.
Then, with deliberate cruelty, he turned his back on them—
—and faced the masses.
"In this world," he declared, arms outstretched, "the strong survive—and the weak? They become memory. Ash. Footnotes."
His voice carried effortlessly, amplified by blood and legacy.
"Zcain and Nimarza have proved this truth again and again. Not by accident. By design."
He paced the platform like a preacher in the ruins of a church.
"Some of you—Djallra, who feast on memory; Forsaken, born in the void between gods; Light-Eaters, who scavenge the bones of dying stars; Skotosar, who bleed shadow like truth—stand here thinking yourselves elite.
And divinity alone does not guarantee survival."
Then he pointed sharply—directly at Qaritas and Ayla's group.
"Today, I give you six Ascendants… and one more who has yet to awaken."
He turned to face Ayla , letting the words sink in like a blade.
"For the next twenty-six days, before they take the Path of Becoming—a rite all Ascendants walk when their soul is still unwritten. Not a punishment. A proving. A journey where the unknown is either claimed by memory... or carved into myth. Perhaps, if they survive, even join our ranks. Till then they will abide by the laws of the Hellbound. They may challenge—and be challenged—by anyone.
The crowd erupted—
"Challenge them all!"
"Let sin test the spine!"
"One dies, one rises!"
Dust kicked up in waves as some began to stamp the stone with their heels.
But let me make this very clear outside the Hellbound, they are under my protection and shall not be harmed in any way."
The crowd screamed—bloodthirsty, rabid, chanting for pain like it was worship.
"Rip them open!" one voice shrieked.
"Ascendants break best when begging!"
A chorus followed—disjointed but frenzied.
"Pain is proof!"
"No mercy, no myth!"
The coliseum trembled, not from spellwork—but belief.
Cree leaned closer to the others, voice low. "Well... that's not good."
Ecayrous raised a hand, and the noise choked into silence. His voice dropped. "You are in my domain. Is that clear?"
But the quiet didn't hold. It twisted—tight, electric, mean. Not reverence. Resentment.
A hiss broke through the crowd—one voice, then another. Not language. Spite. One jagged rock arced through the air—then another. The first struck Cree just beneath the eye. The crack echoed.
They staggered, one hand flying to their face. Blood spilled across their cheekbone—bright, jarring against their silvered skin.
Qaritas flinched. Niraí's fingers curled like claws. But it was Hydeius who moved.
Slow.
Deliberate.
He stepped forward with the weight of old gods—no roar, no flash. Just inevitability.
The crowd stilled.
Then the air twisted.
One man in the stands—robed, smirking, still gripping the remnants of a second stone—met Hydeius's gaze.
And then began to scream.
Not from fire.
From the inside out.
Hydeius reached across the distance without lifting a hand. The man's chest arched, back bowing as if bent by the weight of a god's disapproval. His soul tore loose—a ribbon of flickering white laced with ink-dark guilt.
It hovered.
Then Hydeius opened his mouth.
And ate it.
No flourish. No ritual.
Just silence.
The hush wasn't reverent—it was a reckoning.
For one breath, even the arena forgot how to cheer.
Then someone shouted:
"He eats the guilty!"
Another answered, laughing:
"Then eat us all, God-Thing!"
And the cheering returned—this time edged with awe.
Qaritas moved first, crossing to Cree's side with a hand already raised, shadows coiling protectively around his wrist.
"Cree," he said, voice low but urgent. "Are you alright?"
Cree winced, blood still trailing down their temple. But their eyes found his, steady despite the wound. "It missed my eye," they murmured. "Barely."
Komus was beside them a breath later, pressing a folded cloth into their palm. "Don't shrug it off," he said, gruff but gentle. "You've got a crater in your face. It's allowed to hurt."
Cree chuckled once—tight, wincing. "It does. But pain's always had a good memory."
Hydeius said nothing, still watching the corpse cool in the stands. But the way his stance shifted—just slightly—said everything. His silence wasn't distance.
Ayla growled—a low, visceral sound that curled through the link like thunder in a sealed tomb.
She stepped toward Ecayrous, each breath spiked with fire.
"This is what you call protection?" she spat, pointing at Cree's blood-slicked face. "You let your animals throw stones at us, and you stand there applauding it?"
"Stone the saints!" one voice howled.
"They bleed red—make them prove they're divine!"
It was less crowd and more storm now—a gale of fury wearing skin.
Ecayrous didn't flinch. His lip curled—slow and indulgent, as if her fury amused him.
"My dear," he drawled, tilting his head, "if that's what it took to break your link, perhaps you've miscalculated what you call strength."
Then, with a shrug that reeked of mockery, he added, "Next time, I won't let them miss."
Ayla's hands clenched into fists. Magic prickled beneath her skin—ready to rise, ready to burn.
The bond tightened, hearts coiled, everyone waiting for the world to crack.
Then—Daviyi's voice cut clean through the moment.
"Now is not the time for that," she said, sharp and cool as glass.
Her eyes flicked toward Cree, still bleeding.
"We're not here to give him the spectacle he wants. We're here to take it from him."
It was vigilance.
The arena held still.
Hydeius exhaled once—steam curling from his lips.
"Touch one of mine again," he said, voice calm, guttural, eternal. The silence didn't crack—it folded. And through that fold, memory slipped in.
"And I won't stop at the soul."
The threat hung in the air, not as a warning—but as prophecy.
And beneath it, memory stirred.
The bond stilled. And the past began to speak.
Then, inside the bond—
a different silence.
Ayla spoke first. Low. Brittle. Bone-deep.
"He applauded like that the day he broke my spine. Left me disfigured for a month before sending a healer..."
Komus followed, bitter as salt over fire.
"Ah yes. A fine performance, wasn't it? My screams echoing down the hall. Your bones shattered into art. Truly, father of the millennium."
The crowd roared in response—chanting names, beating fists against stone. Ecayrous raised one hand and the noise ceased as if pulled by string.
His voice dropped—quiet, commanding.
A sneer tugged at his mouth. It wasn't kindness. It was promise.
____________________________________________________________________________
Cree leaned forward, jaw clenched, hands white-knuckled at his sides.
<"He acts like he's earned the right to raise legends. We forged Zcain with care. He twists that into spectacle.">
Komus spat the next words like acid.
<"That's his art. Break you, then frame your scars like obedience. Call it loyalty because you didn't die screaming.">
Through the link Ayla's voice cut through.
<"He doesn't applaud strength. He applauds obedience that bleeds.">
Hydeius, usually silent, spoke with the weight of restrained anger.
<"He thinks Zcain is his victory. He doesn't see the thread resisting.">
Daviyi spoke like she was presenting a theory, but her fingers trembled around each syllable.
< "That thread didn't glitch—it hesitated. Recognition.">
Niraí spoke next—gritty, grounded. Her voice always carried truth like stone carried moss.
<"That hesitation again... We've said it's memory. Maybe it's refusal. Maybe he's refusing to become what Ecayrous forged.">
Komus's tone dropped, soft and raw.
<"He called me heir once. Gave me Vannah. Then let her be devoured to test me. Said I didn't cry right.">
Ayla's answer cut through, swift and sharp.
<"He dragged me from a burning temple. Told me pain was my crown. He called me his miracle. Then made me watch what happened to the ones who disappointed him.">
Cree's voice softened, mournful now.
<"We thought we could fix it—build something cleaner in the ashes. But Zcain was born in that fire. He doesn't know another light.">
Qaritas finally spoke—low, steady, threaded with ache.
<"He still remembers warmth. I saw it when the thread curled instead of killing.">
Daviyi followed, gentle and precise.
<"That's because Ayla encoded it. Not in flesh. In soul-structure. Legacy code. It's not gone. It's encrypted.">
Niraí didn't lift her eyes. Her breath barely moved the air.
Far below, a dragon's severed wing shifted in the ash, the sound dry and bone-light.
Komus turned his thought directly to Ayla—soft, but iron underneath.
<"He said Zcain would train us. He meant: 'You'll learn to kneel.">
Ayla's tone hardened—resolute, unshakable.
<"Then we teach Zcain how to stand.">
Her vow lingered, heavy and bright.
Even the bond paused—awed or afraid.
Hydeius's voice came next, rough like rust.
<"Even if that means breaking him first?">
Ayla answered without hesitation, softer now—but no less fierce.
<"No. It means reminding him who held him before the darkness—and that monsters don't sing lullabies.">
Komus exhaled a ghost of grief.
<"And gods don't cry. But I saw Zcain tremble. That's not weakness. That's what's left of the boy he never got to be.">
Cree's voice flared again, alive with fragile hope.
<"Then we remind him there's still something worth choosing.">
Qaritas ended it gently—steady, unyielding.
<"Then we stay. No matter what he becomes. No matter what it costs.">
____________________________________________________________________________
< The air trembled—still, but alive, as if the coliseum itself was holding its breath.
Ayla's final thought rose like a vow across the link, a soft liturgy of fire.
"Because we're not just here to fight Ecayrous."
All of them, in quiet unison agreed.
From the stands, another chant began—uglier this time.
"Break them! Break them! Break them!"
But it didn't land.
The bond held louder. Stronger. Quieter.
Their silence answered the chant like a blade drawn in the dark.
They weren't here to break him. They were here to rewrite the story.
And this time—mercy wrote the ending.