Alistair stood over Vardis’s smoking corpse, the Fang of the Hollow Maw lying cracked and twitching at his feet. The revenant’s body was nothing but blackened husk, its chest cavity caved in, smoke curling from where the heart had burst. The smell was foul, burnt marrow and copper, but Alistair breathed it in anyway, like proof.

  Proof that Thess had been avenged.

  His legs shook under him. Every muscle burned, every nerve screamed. Lightform’s aftershock gnawed at him, raw weakness spreading through his body like frostbite. His HP ticker glowed crimson at the edge of his vision.

  HP: 51 / 415

  Status: [Severe Light Vulnerability] – Duration 1:52

  He didn’t linger. Even half-dead and reeling, his instincts screamed the same truth: leave nothing useful on a corpse. He crouched, yanking the corrupted relic free from Vardis’s clawed hands. The Fang twitched like a dying animal, spectral teeth snapping weakly before going limp. Next, his fingers dug into the revenant’s charred chest, prying free the shriveled black heart that had pulsed with such grotesque power moments before. Both artifacts hissed in protest, smoking against his touch, but he stuffed them into his pouch without ceremony.

  “Souvenirs from a feral idiot. Just what I needed in my pockets.” He muttered bitterly.

  The shades circled but didn’t close.

  They hissed, rattled their weapons, their eyeless sockets burning with ghostlight, but not one dared step into striking range. He had slaughtered too many. Burned them into nothing with fire, ash, and scripture. Even the dead knew fear.

  Alistair raised his blade anyway, smoke trailing from the cracked edge. His ember crown sputtered faintly above his head, symbols orbiting in slow, unsteady arcs.

  “Come on, then,” he rasped, voice raw, blood running down his chin. “Who’s next?”

  None moved.

  They held back, shifting in the ash, giving him a wide berth as though his shadow alone could unmake them.

  Above, the gods howled. Their voices were a storm, colliding with one another, betting fortunes, declaring triumphs, jeering at failure. Some praised, some mocked, some simply laughed, drunk on the spectacle.

  The Herald spun cartwheels through the void, shrieking his delight. “THE BEAST IS BURNT! THE LORD STANDS! OH, HOW THE BLOODMISTRESS’S PET PREACHES IN FLAME!”

  Alistair didn’t listen. He didn’t care to.

  Instead, he lifted his gaze across the fractured battlefield.

  Platforms cracked and shifted, jagged bridges rose and fell, magic pockets shimmered in sickly hues. Dueling champions clashed in distant corners, their shouts drowned beneath the crowd of gods. Shades swarmed where mortals faltered, swallowing them into the tide.

  Alistair’s hand clenched around his sword. His breathing steadied.

  The fight with Vardis had nearly broken him, but it hadn’t. He was still here. Still standing.

  And Thess was avenged.

  Now the only thing left was survival.

  Alistair steadied himself, one hand pressed to his ribs as he forced air into lungs that burned like cinders. His vision cleared enough to take in the battlefield.

  The Arena had shrunk.

  The outer edges had fallen into the void, jagged bridges collapsing into endless dark. The platforms the finalists had stood on when they first entered were gone—now nothing but fragments suspended in the void, unreachable, silent tombstones for what they’d all once been.

  The gods cheered above, blind to the cost.

  Alistair’s gaze flicked across what remained.

  The minotaur roared, his warhammer swinging in great arcs that smashed shades into drifting ash. Each swing cleared a dozen phantoms, his raw strength cutting a bloody path toward the Founding Crystal. He looked unstoppable, until Alistair remembered nothing in this place stayed that way.

  Nearby, another champion fought, but Alistair’s eyes narrowed. He hadn’t seen that face on the starting platforms. Which meant it wasn’t a champion at all. It was a shade that had managed to kill one.

  The cycle was vicious. He watched as the impostor fought with desperate ferocity, only to be dragged down beneath clawing hands. The moment its body dissolved, a new figure appeared in its place, resurrected, triumphant. Two steps later, it too was shredded apart by the frenzied mob. Over and over, death and rebirth, until even victory looked like damnation.

  A whisper of movement snapped him back.

  Two shades crept close, blades raised, their green eyes flickering. Alistair’s fangs bared. He lifted a hand, shadow and ghostfire curling between his fingers.

  [Grave Ember – Activated]

  Three ember spirits streaked forward, screaming as they detonated. The shades dissolved in a violent flare, ash scattering into the void.

  [Enemy Shades Destroyed: +2]

  EXP Gained: +1,600

  Alistair’s chest heaved. His mana replenished slowly, flesh knitting across cracked ribs. HP ticked upward, sluggish but steady.

  HP: 51 / 415 → 67 / 415

  Mana: 52 / 241

  He reached inward, toward the bonds. Brimma. Still alive.

  Relief cut through the exhaustion. His eyes scanned the battlefield until they found her.

  A badger. Bloodied, battered, tearing through shades with savage claws. Every step looked desperate, her paws slipping on cracked stone, her body leaking crimson. She wasn’t charging. She was fleeing.

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  And then Alistair saw why.

  Behind her came an army.

  Not the pitiful phantoms clawing mindlessly for a second chance, but something different. Bigger. More substantial. Their eyes glowed not green but deep, violent purple. Their movements weren’t frantic, they were disciplined. A tide of purpose.

  They moved like soldiers.

  Alistair’s gut clenched.

  And among them, at their center, stood the Necromancer.

  His tattered robes hung heavy with runes, his hands weaving sigils of control that bound the purple shades like puppets. Where others tore and flailed, his army marched. Every motion precise. Every strike deliberate.

  And his gaze, cold, empty, was fixed on the Founding Crystal.

  Alistair didn’t think. He ran.

  The battlefield blurred past, all the other champions, all the collapsing bridges, all the shrieking gods. None of it mattered. Only Brimma, and the mob that hunted her.

  He cut through shades with wild fury, the Redcrystal Sword screaming as it drank essence, his off-hand dagger leaving trails of fire.

  [Firebite – Active]

  [Warmth: 3 Stacks]

  Every swing burned, every strike left something bleeding. Ghostly bodies unraveled into ash in his wake.

  [Enemy Shade Destroyed: +3]

  EXP Gained: +2,400

  But there were too many. For every phantom he cut down, three more swarmed to fill the gap. He carved a bloody line anyway, driving himself forward, sprinting toward Brimma’s bond like a drowning man reaching for air.

  Ahead, her badger form tore through the mob. Blood matted her fur, chunks missing from her hide, but she still fought, biting, clawing, dragging herself forward.

  And then her body convulsed. The green shimmer cracked.

  [Shapeshift: Badger Form – Expired]

  Cooldown Remaining: 2h 47m

  Brimma stumbled as the magic broke, shrinking back into her gnome body. Wrinkled face, tangled hair, robes torn and blackened. The cranky, spitfire form he loathed and loved. For a single heartbeat, relief flashed across his chest, familiarity, grounding him.

  Then the shades closed.

  One leapt, blade of spectral bone raised high...

  ... and something else leapt too.

  A shade, green-lit, but different. Its form flickered in and out of existence, torn rents cutting through its body like wind through silk. It smashed into the attacking phantom, raking it open with impossible ferocity. The enemy shade disintegrated, its scream cut short.

  Brimma gasped, stumbling back, then raised her staff and spat fury.

  [Rotcurse Hex – Activated]

  [Veil of Dread – Activated]

  The front line of shades faltered as vines of spectral rot coiled around their limbs, their strikes slowed, accuracy failing. Brimma’s staff spat green bolts like fireworks, trying to stem the tide.

  Alistair’s heart slammed in his chest. His legs burned as he sprinted harder, dodging, leaping. A collapsing bridge fell beneath him, and he vaulted across, landing in a roll. A bubble of magic shimmered overhead, he zagged aside at the last instant, the air crackling with confusion magic.

  “Hold on, Brimma!” he roared.

  Another purple shade lunged at her, bigger than the rest. Brimma swung her staff in panic, too slow.

  The green shade was faster.

  It slammed into the purple phantom, spectral bodies colliding in a shriek of broken echoes. The flickering figure tore into its enemy with desperate ferocity, buying her seconds.

  Alistair’s eyes widened. He knew that stance. That speed. That fire.

  The world froze.

  “No,” he whispered. His voice cracked. “It can’t be…”

  Thess.

  The green shade was Thess.

  The realization hit like a spear through his chest, stealing his breath, blinding him with grief and fury. He ran faster, his body screaming in protest.

  But Brimma stumbled.

  Her foot caught on broken stone, her staff clattering from her grip. She fell hard, her small form sprawling on the fractured platform.

  The mob fell on her instantly.

  Purple shades, green shades, a hundred screaming voices. Thess’s protector form was torn apart, shredded into ribbons of light, her flickering body disintegrating in Brimma’s defense.

  Brimma screamed.

  And so did Alistair.

  Their voices rose together, raw and furious, echoing across the void, a sound that shook the battlefield and clawed at the heavens.

  “No!”

  The mob swallowed her.

  Alistair’s heart lurched as Brimma disappeared beneath the wave of purple spectrals, their claws raking, their hollow faces shrieking without sound. He slashed, tore, screamed her name, but he couldn’t see her. Couldn’t feel her. Only the bond tugging faint and frayed, as though it too were being buried alive.

  Then light.

  A tree erupted where Brimma had fallen.

  Not some twisted phantom, not some sickly shade-illusion, but a beautiful, ethereal tree, its trunk shimmering with runes, its branches stretching skyward. Vibrant green leaves unfurled, each one glowing faintly as if carved from emerald light. Small, white blossoms rained down in a gentle drift, each petal radiating warmth.

  The shades shrieked. The soundless noise rattled the void, their spectral bodies spasming. A dozen collapsed instantly, dissolving into ash. Dozens more were hurled backward, flung against an invisible barrier encircling the tree. They clawed at it, desperate, useless, their hands scraping without purchase.

  Inside the bubble of protection, grass sprouted. Flowers bloomed in the cracks of shattered stone. The void itself seemed to soften, reshaping into a sanctuary.

  And at its center, Brimma.

  She stood tall. Or as tall as a hunched, cranky gnome grandmother could manage.

  Alistair huffed out a breath even as he kept running, blood streaking his chin. “Figures. Nearly die, and suddenly she remembers how to stand up straight. Should’ve tried that before the mob dogpile.”

  Brimma’s battered body was already knitting itself back together, wounds closing as the blossoms glowed against her skin. Her staff—no, not just a staff—gleamed brighter than ever, runes spiraling up its gnarled length. For the first time, Alistair saw it clearly for what it was.

  A spirit guide.

  He didn’t stop running. Couldn’t. The shades still clawed around the barrier, desperate to breach it. His sword skewered a phantom in passing, the Redcrystal blade hissing as it drank.

  [Enemy Shade Destroyed: +1]

  EXP Gained: +800

  Brimma’s head whipped around, wild eyes taking in the scene. Her face tightened, grave as the purple tide battered her defenses. Her gaze found him.

  And for the first time in this entire damned Arena, he could hear her above the chaos.

  “This is the end for me, blood boy! I am withdrawing!” she yelled, voice sharp enough to cut bone. She raised her staff and jabbed it toward the heavens, where the gods shrieked and jeered. “Claim that damn thing and become as powerful as those asses upstairs! Or all of this has been for nothing!”

  Alistair snarled, skewering another shade through the throat. “No! We can do it together!”

  Brimma shook her head, clutching her medallion. Her smile was crooked, weary, but fierce.

  “Stop being stupid, boy! I’ll only drag you down!” Her voice cracked, but it carried. “Give them hell!”

  The tree pulsed one final time, blossoms falling like snow.

  And with one last smile, Brimma pressed the medallion.

  [Champion Withdrawn: Brimma Rootgleam]

  She vanished in an instant, the tree dissolving with her, its branches unraveling into motes of green light. Grass withered back to dust, blossoms faded, and the sanctuary collapsed into ash.

  The shades rushed in...

  ... and found nothing.

  Alistair skidded to a halt, chest heaving, sword dripping essence. He stared at the empty space where she had stood, where the tree had grown. His throat tightened, his fangs clenched.

  Then he raised his blade again.

  “Damn it, Brimma,” he rasped. “You’d better live to yell at me later.”

  And with that, he charged straight into the purple tide.

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