The silence that followed Selene's words lingered longer than anyone expected, not empty, but weighted, as if the arena itself were considering what it had just witnessed. The sigils beneath their feet dimmed to a low, watchful glow, no longer reacting yet not fully dormant, like embers that refused to cool.
The girl straightened slowly, wiping the last trace of blood from her mouth with the back of her hand. Her breathing steadied faster than it should have, her core settling into a quiet, contained rhythm that made several observers above exchange uneasy looks. This was not exhaustion. It was calibration.
Selene turned first, her attention shifting upward toward the observation platforms. She did not bow or acknowledge them openly, but the message was unmistakable.
We are done.
The isolation field disengaged with a soft reverberation, and the unseen pressure watching them thinned, though it did not disappear. The girl felt it still, threads of attention pulling back reluctantly, some curious, some wary, and at least one unmistakably calculating.
As they walked from the arena side by side, Selene's pace was unhurried, but her awareness remained sharp, extending far beyond the corridor ahead, she took her back to a room and when she entered, the girl glanced at her.
"Do not think too much; this room is for your healing. You got a bit of bruises, it is just for one night, your training continues tomorrow, for now, just rest," Selene said through the door after she closed it, her voice low. "Tomorrow, they will begin asking questions they are not ready to hear the answers to."
After Selene left, the silence inside was different, not heavier, but layered, as though several kinds of quiet had been stacked atop one another and forced to coexist. The walls were smooth and warm to the touch, faintly luminous in places where containment fields braided invisibly through the structure. Nothing restrained her openly. Nothing needed to.
She took a few steps forward, boots echoing too clearly, and exhaled through her nose.
"This is fine," she muttered to no one.
At first, nothing happened.
She crossed the room and sat at the edge of the bed, fingers drumming absently against her thigh. Her core was calm and contained, still riding the afterimage of alignment from the arena. The limiter hummed softly, synchronized, almost cooperative, and for the first time since arriving in the city, she allowed herself to loosen, just slightly.
That was when the air shifted.
Not sharply, not violently, but it felt wrong, like a note slipping out of tune halfway through a familiar melody. Her fingers stilled and her eyes narrowed as the hum of the limiter wavered, its rhythm stuttering once before resuming at a different pitch.
She frowned and lifted her head as she looked around, the room was the same, but it felt… deeper.
The walls seemed farther away than they had been moments ago, the corners stretching subtly, perspective bending just enough to make her stomach tighten. The light dimmed in pulses, like something blinking behind her eyes.
"Selene?" she called instinctively, then paused.
Her voice sounded distant to her own ears and pressure gathered behind her eyes, sudden and sharp, forcing her to squeeze them shut. Images surged forward unbidden, crashing into her awareness without transition or mercy.
Stone corridors, not these, older, cracked, lined with sigils carved by hands that no longer existed. A city screaming without sound as light folded inward, collapsing upon itself. Chains, not physical, nor were they metal—wrapping around a core that burned too brightly, dragging it downward, downward, downward.
She gasped and clutched her chest as pain flared, white-hot and immediate.
"No," she whispered, breath hitching. "Not again."
Sigils ignited along the walls in rapid succession, containment patterns flaring to life as the system registered instability. The temperature dropped abruptly, air crystallizing as suppression protocols activated.
She slid off the bed, knees hitting the floor hard enough to jar her teeth as another vision slammed into her.
Eyes.
Hundreds of them.
Opening in darkness, not watching her, but waking because of her. They blinked open one by one within invisible cells, embedded in stone, in void places that should not have existed, and when they turned toward her, recognition rippled through them like a shared breath.
Her scream tore free before she could stop it.
Her body arched as energy surged outward, raw and uncontrolled, spilling through her veins in blinding waves. The limiter shrieked, its glow flaring as it struggled to compensate, to contain something that it knew little of.
Light spilled from beneath her skin, tracing glowing fractures along her arms, her neck, and her spine, patterns that did not belong to any known system. Her hair lifted as if caught in a storm, tail lashing violently behind her as she clawed at the floor, fingers scraping against stone that suddenly felt too real and close.
"What is going on?" She asked as she gritted her teeth.
Shackles materialized midair, not summoned, but deployed.
Bands of hardened energy snapped around her wrists and ankles, slamming her limbs outward as containment fields locked her in place. Additional restraints coiled around her torso and neck, forcing her upright on her knees, her spine arched, breath tearing painfully in and out of her lungs.
She cried out again, the sound raw and fractured, as the restraints tightened in response to the surge rather than the motion.
"I—can't—" she gasped, words dissolving into another scream as her eyes snapped open.
They did not look human anymore.
Light poured from them, not white, not gold, but something deeper, layered, as if several spectrums were bleeding through at once. The pupils were gone, replaced by shifting sigils that rotated slowly, deliberately, like locks turning open.
The containment sigils flickered violently as pressure spiked from beneath the room, not an attack or a breach, it felt like a resonance. The eyes from her visions felt closer now, no longer distant impressions but presences pressing against barriers.
Her body shook as another wave of energy ripped through her, lifting her slightly off the floor despite the shackles, the stone beneath her cracking in spiderweb patterns.
"Stop—please—" Her voice broke, no longer controlled. "I don't know how—"
The system did not care.
[Suppression intensified.]
[Core Protection Activated.]
The restraints burned, flooding her nerves with stabilizing force that clashed violently against what was trying to surface. The pain became unbearable, blinding, drowning out everything except the roar in her ears and the pulsing light tearing at her vision.
Above, alarms finally began to whisper, not blaring, but alerting systems that something unprecedented was occurring.
And far away, Selene froze mid-step.
The familiar sensation struck her like a blade between the ribs, the same pull she had felt in the arena, now magnified and twisted into alarm. Her eyes widened, and without a second thought, she sprinted toward where the girl was being kept.