The defeat of the Chronicler was a Pyrrhic victory. They had survived, but the encounter had left them deeply shaken. They had come face to face with the sheer, casual, reality-bending power of a top-tier Proving Grounds champion, and they had only won because Echo had revealed a new, unexpected level of its own, post-ascension abilities. Their reliance on the construct was becoming both a blessing and a terrifying vulnerability.
"What happens if we face two of them?" Silas asked, his voice a low, grim rumble as they made camp in the shadow of the dead god's hand. The question hung in the dusty air. They had a single, powerful answer to a single, powerful threat. But the Architect had put a bounty on their heads for the entire world. They were outnumbered a thousand to one.
Their journey across the Ashen Plains continued, but now with a new sense of urgency and a heavy, pressing dread. The encounter had been a warning shot. The Architect was not just sending random hunters. He was sending specific, curated opponents, each one a living test designed to probe their weaknesses and push them to their limits. The Chronicler had been a test of their conceptual defenses. The next hunter would be a test of something else.
They found their next great obstacle at the edge of the Ashen Plains, where the grey desert met a vast, impassable chasm of black, volcanic glass. According to the map, a single, ancient, First Scribes-era bridge was the only way across. And, as they had expected, the bridge was guarded.
But it was not guarded by a single champion. It was guarded by an army.
Standing in perfect, disciplined ranks on their side of the bridge was a force of at least two hundred warriors. They wore the burnished, black iron armor and the clenched-fist sigil of the Iron Legion. And at their head, standing like a statue of grim, unyielding authority, was a man Olivia recognized from the Grand Melee. It was not Kaelus, the newly-transferred General. It was his second-in-command, a brutal, efficient, and famously uncompromising warrior known as Commander Valerius.
Not the refugee who had taken the name, but the original. The true First Blade of the Legion.
Beside him, however, stood a figure that made Olivia's blood run cold. She was tall, clad in iridescent, crystalline armor that now seemed to be shot through with angry, black, static-like veins. Her silver hair was wilder, her face a mask of cold, obsessive fury. It was Seraphina.
"It seems our paths were destined to cross again, Editor," Seraphina's voice, now permanently grating and discordant, echoed across the dusty plain.
This was the Architect's new test. He had not just sent a powerful army. He had sent two of their oldest, most personal rivals, and he had forced them into an alliance. The disciplined order of the Legion and the chaotic, corrupted power of the Crystal Queen. It was a nightmare coalition.
"An alliance of convenience, I presume?" Olivia called out, her mind already racing, calculating the impossible odds.
"The Architect is a persuasive negotiator," Commander Valerius replied, his voice a deep, gravelly bass that carried with absolute authority. "He offered the Legion control of this entire sector in exchange for your heads. A simple, profitable transaction. The Crystal Queen's motives are her own."
"My motive is to watch your story end in a scream," Seraphina hissed, a jagged spear of black-veined crystal forming in her hand.
There was no way forward. To fight was suicide. To retreat was to be hunted down in the open plains.
"They're waiting for us to make a move," Silas murmured. "They have the perfect defensive position. They can hold that bridge forever."
As they stood, locked in a tense standoff, a new party arrived on the scene. From the west, a chaotic, howling mob of warriors on the backs of massive, beastly mounts galloped into view. The Wild Hunt. And at their head, riding a colossal, sabre-toothed cat, was the Matriarch, her wild hair flying, a predatory grin on her face.
"Valerius!" the Matriarch roared, her voice a challenge. "The Architect's prize is not for the Legion alone! The Hunt will claim this bounty!"
The situation had just devolved from an impossible battle into a catastrophic, three-way war. The Legion, the Hunt, and Seraphina's personal retinue were all here, all with the same goal, and none of them willing to share the prize.
But as the three factions faced off, their animosity for each other momentarily overriding their focus on Olivia's small team, Olivia saw it. A flicker of a possibility. A single, insane, desperate gambit.
She turned to her companions. "I have a plan," she said, her voice a low, urgent whisper. "It is a terrible, reckless, and likely fatal plan. But it is the only one we have."
She explained it in a series of short, telepathic bursts. Silas's eyes widened. Elara's face went pale.
"That's not a plan," Silas said. "That's you sacrificing yourself."
"No," Olivia countered. "It's me editing the board. I can't win this fight. But I can choose the terms of the next one."
Before they could argue, she acted.
She broke from their cover and began to walk, alone and unarmed, into the open space between the three warring factions.
Every eye turned to her. The howling of the Wild Hunt died down. The disciplined ranks of the Legion tensed. Seraphina's crystal spear hummed with a hungry, murderous energy.
Olivia held up her empty hands. "Commander Valerius! Matriarch! Seraphina!" she called out, her voice clear and unwavering. "You are all here for the same prize. But the Architect has played you for fools. He has gathered his three strongest remaining assets in the Proving Grounds in one place, hoping you will weaken each other for his entertainment."
"Your point, glitch?" Valerius growled.
"My point," Olivia said, "is that you are all thinking too small." She turned her gaze to Valerius. "He offered you this sector. I can offer you the Legion's ultimate dream: a final, decisive victory over your eternal rivals, the Wild Hunt."
She then turned to the Matriarch. "He offered you a simple bounty. I can offer you the chance to break the Legion's iron grip forever and let true, glorious chaos reign."
She was speaking their languages, playing to their deepest, most fundamental desires.
"And you, Seraphina," she said, her voice softening slightly. "He is using your pain as a tool. I can offer you something more. A chance at a true, final battle. A chance to correct the flaw you see in the system, once and for all."
She let her words hang in the air. "I am proposing a new game. A tournament within the Tournament. A test to see which of your philosophies is truly the strongest. I will surrender myself to the winner. But not here. Not in this meaningless, dusty field."
She held up the Scribe's Key. It began to glow with a brilliant, golden light. "I will use this key to create a new, temporary arena. A pocket dimension. A perfect, neutral battlefield. The three of you, and your chosen champions, will enter. The last one standing wins everything. Me. The bounty. And the ultimate bragging rights."
It was a masterful, insane bluff. She was using the Architect's own love of dramatic, narrative events against his own champions. She was offering them a story so compelling, so epic, that they could not refuse. The chance to definitively prove their own supremacy was a prize far greater than any bounty.
The three leaders looked at each other, a silent, predatory communication passing between them. The Matriarch grinned, a flash of feral teeth. Valerius gave a slow, ponderous nod. Seraphina's furious gaze softened into a look of cold, focused calculation.
Olivia had just turned her own execution into the Proving Grounds' next great pay-per-view event.
"The terms are accepted," Commander Valerius declared.
Olivia focused her will, pouring all of her power, all of her cunning, all of her desperate, reckless hope into the Scribe's Key. She did not create a portal. She did not create a door.
She created a world.
A massive, shimmering, dome of pure, golden energy erupted from the ground, enveloping the leaders and a chosen retinue from each faction. It was a perfect, sealed arena, a pocket dimension where the final, bloody chapter of the Proving Grounds' oldest rivalries would be written.
As the dome solidified, Olivia sent one, final, telepathic message to her team, who were watching from the edge of the chasm, their faces a mask of horrified awe.
«The story is written. Now run.»
She had created the ultimate diversion. She had trapped her most powerful enemies in a cage of their own ambition. But she was now alone, her energy spent, standing at the edge of an impassable chasm, with the full, undivided, and now utterly furious attention of the Architect about to fall upon her. She had just written a check her body had no way of cashing.