Qaritas gripped the railing so hard his palms hurt.
He didn't know what he was cheering for anymore.
Victory?
Survival?
Or simply a world where Knowledge didn't become hunger with a crown.
Below, Daviyi lifted her dagger.
And the ring of script around the arena flared brighter.
Ecayrous smiled like he'd just been given a gift.
Because the Hellbound wasn't watching Daviyi win.
It was watching Daviyi become useful.
And that was always the real point.
Qaritas swallowed hard.
Inside him, Eon whispered, delighted and venomous:
"Now that is an Ascendant worth remembering."
And the mist, offended by the promise—
surged again.
Harder.
Hungrily.
Like it had decided the next thing it wanted to eat…
was the word that made Daviyi possible.
Knowledge.
And the Hellbound held its breath.
Because the next exchange wouldn't decide who won the match.
It would decide whether the universe was allowed to keep naming things at all.
"No winner," Ecayrous said pleasantly.
"The Hellbound thanks you for the data."
Certain inefficiencies have already been corrected.
No drumbeat.
No ritual.
No mercy disguised as ceremony.
Just a verdict dropped like a pin into a quiet room—small, precise, and humiliating.
The ring of script around the arena guttered and dimmed, not collapsing, not erased—simply dismissed. As if the effort required to maintain it had stopped being interesting.
Daviyi stood at its center, dagger still raised.
For half a heartbeat, no one moved.
Then the fragments laughed.
Not together.
Not in harmony.
But in sequence—like overlapping echoes from different rooms in a burning house.
Atramenta's laughter cracked the geometry of the arena, bending angles inward and letting them snap back wrong.
Noct's laughter slithered, wet and intimate, like sickness remembering an old joke.
And Asarlik—
Asarlik did not laugh aloud.
The mist itself rippled, thickened, thinned again, like breath shaking with amusement.
"You misunderstand," Noct purred lazily, its voice drifting through the Hellbound like a fever that had learned how to talk. "This was never a battlefield."
Atramenta tilted its fractured mask, fissures spreading as if the idea itself amused it.
"This was a demonstration."
Asarlik's presence pressed closer, not toward Daviyi—but toward the stands.
"Do you know how many universes we've already taken?" the mist asked softly.
No one answered.
"We stopped counting at one thousand," it continued. "One thousand nine hundred ninety-nine, to be exact."
The crowd roared—late, as always—but the sound rang hollow now, unsure of itself.
"Do you think losing here undoes that?" Noct asked, genuinely curious.
"Do you think this mattered?"
Atramenta's laughter sharpened.
"You keep watching," it said. "That's all we need."
Hydeius's hand tightened on the railing—and the metal gave way with a soft, accidental crack before he realized he'd done it.
That was when Rivax snapped.
Not loudly.
Not theatrically.
His hand slammed into the railing so hard the metal screamed.
Tavran went very still beside him. Not rigid—cold. The kind of stillness that meant everything had been filed away for later.
Dheas stopped breathing.
Just for a moment.
Qaritas noticed because Dheas always breathed like someone counting—steady, deliberate. When it stopped, it wasn't shock.
It was calculation.
Rivax's voice came out raw, ugly, stripped of poetry.
"My universe burned," he said.
The fragments did not hear him.
Ecayrous did not hear him.
That made it worse.
"Universe Nineteen-Ninety," Rivax continued, jaw tight. "Eirisa didn't rule it. She harvested it. Peeled it layer by layer until time forgot how to move forward."
His hand trembled once—then steadied.
"I lost my arm buying evacuation time. Lost my leg holding a gate that shouldn't have held."
Tavran's jaw tightened. His eyes stayed forward.
"Dheas held the line," Rivax said. "When nothing else could."
Dheas exhaled.
"And I lived," Rivax finished quietly, "because Tavran carried me."
He laughed once. No humor in it.
"You think this doesn't matter because you can't hear me," he said softly, staring straight through the arena.
"That's fine. This isn't for you."
He turned—just slightly—so the Ascendants could see his face.
"Xheavend took our universe back," Rivax said.
"And Xheavend is coming again."
A pause.
"And this time," he said, voice steady now, no shake left in it,
"we aren't alone."
Above the arena—
—the sky broke open.
Not tore.
Not split.
Opened.
Millions of eyes blossomed across the black, wet and luminous and wrong, floating like constellations that had learned how to watch back.
One of them was not watching the arena.
It was watching Daviyi.
Ecayrous smiled.
Not because he'd heard Rivax.
Because something interesting had happened.
His smile stretched wider than a face should allow, chains at his throne rattling softly like laughter trying not to interrupt.
"I don't know why you're angry," his expression seemed to say.
"But I adore that you are."
Below—
Daviyi swayed.
Hydeius was already moving.
Cree moved with them—not behind, not ahead, but with, the way people who had fought side by side for centuries always did.
Power couple didn't begin to cover it.
They hit the arena floor together, Hydeius catching Daviyi's weight before gravity could finish the job, Cree's arm braced around her back, fire dimmed to a careful, furious glow.
Daviyi didn't collapse.
She refused.
Her feet dragged lines in the bone-sand as Hydeius held her upright, Cree steadying her shoulders, both of them absorbing her weight like it was nothing.
She was conscious.
Her eyes moved.
Still cataloging.
Still counting.
She inhaled.
Counted.
Paused.
Then corrected herself—one number too late.
She didn't ask for help.
"She thanked them," Qaritas realized suddenly.
Not out loud.
Not with words.
With a tiny nod.
A fraction of breath.
Not for saving her.
For keeping her upright long enough to finish.
Hydeius's hands were gentle.
Their eyes were not.
Cree's fire flickered—not wild, not explosive—but contained, surgical, furious in the way only someone ancient could manage.
They didn't look at the fragments.
They looked at Ecayrous.
"We're next," Cree said calmly.
It wasn't a challenge.
It was a scheduling note.
Hydeius nodded once.
"We're not finished."
Tavran said nothing.
That was worse.
Dheas's gaze tracked the arena, every fracture, every hesitation, every place the fragments had coordinated.
Rivax stood straight now.
No shaking.
No rage spilling over.
Just resolve that had finally found its shape.
They hadn't stopped the fragments today.
But now they knew the price.
And more importantly—
They knew who could pay it.
Above them, the eyes blinked.
Ecayrous leaned back, delighted.
The Hellbound purred.
The sound caught.
Just once.
Like a breath taken too shallow—then corrected.
And the fragments, still laughing, still confident, still certain—
Did not realize that for the first time in a very long while…
They had been witnessed.
And that was always the beginning of the end.
Cree and Hydeius did not linger.
They carried Daviyi the way veterans carry something precious and breakable—without ceremony, without urgency that could be mistaken for fear. Hydeius bore most of her weight; Cree adjusted instinctively, fire dimmed to embers that warmed rather than burned.
Daviyi did not protest.
She did not thank them again.
Her eyes were half-lidded now, script beneath them moving slower, less aggressive—as if the knowledge inside her had finally accepted that this moment was not for consumption.
Cree glanced down when Daviyi's fingers twitched, tracing a sigil she'd invented centuries ago—and then stopped, because she didn't finish it.
The Hellbound did not try to stop them.
That alone was unsettling.
As they reached the boundary line, Zcain stepped forward.
Not hurried.
Not loud.
Authority did not need volume.
"Tavran," Zcain said.
Tavran turned immediately.
"Take her to Deepcrest."
The word landed differently than anything spoken so far.
Deepcrest.
Not a location.
A promise.
A place the fragments could not see, could not reach, could not even name without something in reality correcting them violently.
"She will recover there," Zcain continued. "Have my mother notified."
Tavran bowed.
Deep.
Formal.
Unquestioning.
"It will be done, Father."
Rivax stepped forward without thinking. "I'll go with you."
Tavran shook his head before Rivax finished the sentence.
"No," he said gently. "You stay."
Rivax frowned. "Tav—"
"You need to support your grandparents," Tavran interrupted, eyes flicking briefly toward Cree and Hydeius before returning to Rivax. "They're up next."
A pause.
"And honestly?" Tavran added, almost dry. "Watching the rulers of the afterlife fight should be… educational."
That got a reaction.
Dheas snorted. Then frowned. "Why am I going?"
Tavran leaned closer, voice dropping just enough to be private.
"You know why."
Dheas stiffened.
"Mircoa," Tavran said softly. "That cult you and Xheavend dismantled."
Dheas winced. "I dismantled the cult. Xheavend dismantled reality."
"You're lucky," Tavran continued calmly, "that Xheavend was only in a coma for a week afterward."
Dheas swallowed.
Then, unexpectedly, smiled.
"I tried to stop her," he said. No defensiveness. Just truth. "I really did."
The smile softened.
"But you know Xhea," Dheas added quietly. "She'd never abandon someone in pain. Never ignore a cry for help."
A beat.
"She would come."
Qaritas felt it then.
Eon leaning forward inside him—not pushing, not seizing control—just listening.
Interested.
Hungry in a way that wasn't about violence.
Qaritas frowned inward. Why do you care so much about her? he asked silently.
Eon laughed.
Not loud.
Not cruel.
Amused.
"That," Eon said, pleased, "is a secret."
Cree and Hydeius vanished through the exit threshold, Daviyi gone with them—removed from the Hellbound so completely it was like she'd never stood there at all.
The arena felt smaller without her.
Wrong.
A breath later, Cree and Hydeius returned.
Alone.
No blood on their hands.
No weight on their shoulders.
But their posture had changed.
They stepped back onto the arena floor like something ancient had decided it was done being patient.
Ecayrous clapped once.
Slow.
Polite.
Mockingly appreciative.
"Well," he said brightly, chains shifting as he rose. "That was illuminating."
His gaze swept the stands—not landing on anyone in particular, not needing to.
"To my fellow Fragments," Ecayrous continued, voice carrying effortlessly. "You see? Even their brightest stars burn themselves out."
Atramenta hummed in agreement.
Noct chuckled softly.
Asarlik's mist thickened, satisfied.
"They cling to titles," Ecayrous went on. "To legacies. To bloodlines."
He smiled wider.
"While we collect outcomes."
His eyes gleamed.
"The Ascendants grow smaller every round," he said lightly. "Their resistance louder. Their relevance thinner."
A pause.
"Let the record show," Ecayrous finished, delighted, "that we are winning."
The Hellbound purred approval.
"Round Three," Ecayrous announced cheerfully, spreading his arms.
"Begin."
The arena shifted to comply.
Bone-sand rolled. Geometry reasserted itself.
Everything reset—
except one thin line of script beneath where Daviyi had stood.
It did not glow.
It did not pulse.
It simply remained.
Cree did not react.
Hydeius did.
They stepped forward together.
And for the first time since the Hellbound opened its gates—
The fragments felt something adjust.
Not fear.
Not doubt.
Something worse.
Anticipation.
Because this time, the ones walking into the arena were not trying to prove anything.
They were here to collect a debt.
And somewhere far beyond the Hellbound—
past Deepcrest, past sealed heavens, past forgotten wars—
Something old, powerful, and awake
shifted in its sleep.
Xheavend had been mentioned.
And that was never meaningless.