The arena had become a graveyard.
Bodies littered the cracked stone—some whole, most not. Fighters who'd survived impossible scenarios, who'd been enhanced by divine gifts, who'd pushed themselves beyond human limitation, reduced to scattered remains that painted the barrier's interior in patterns too terrible to look at directly.
{Fighters Remaining: 7/20}
{Monarch Awakening: 71% → 89%}
{Barrier Integrity: 34%}
The notifications updated with mechanical precision, tracking the mathematics of their extinction. Each death fed the Monarch. Each death weakened the barrier. The equation had only one possible conclusion, and everyone still breathing understood it with perfect clarity.
They were going to lose.
