The hour of the Grand Hunt had arrived, but the air in the tunnels beneath the Arena did not smell of glory; it smelled of ancient grief and ionized ozone. As Yun, Shara, and Meilin walked toward the massive iron portcullis that led to the sands, the ground beneath their feet began to vibrate with a frequency that bypassed the ears and rattled the very marrow of their bones.
Yun stopped abruptly, his hand clutching the Void-Hilt. The dark bone of the handle pulsed in sync with the tremors. Suddenly, the world around him blurred. The stone walls of the tunnel vanished, replaced by a mental landscape of swirling stardust and chains made of solidified gravity.
The Telepathic Glimpse:
In the center of this psychic void, Yun saw her—not a beast, but a celestial entity whose form shifted between a woman of starlight and a dragon of shadow. She was bound by thousands of glowing Imperial needles, each one draining her essence to power the city of Odis. She wasn't a monster born to destroy; she was a Star-Sovereign, a remnant of a fallen galaxy that had been hunted, broken, and driven mad by the Empire's greed.
"So... another hunger comes to finish what the needles started," a voice echoed in Yun's mind, ancient and exhausted. It was the spirit of the Beast. "You smell of the Titan, little void-walker. Will you eat my sorrow, or will you grant me the silence I crave?"
Yun felt a pang of resonance. Like him, she was a prisoner of her own nature, used as a battery for a world that feared her. Like him, she had been labeled a "calamity" simply because she occupied a space the Heavens could not control.
"I am not here to eat your sorrow," Yun replied within the vision, his Will manifesting as a calm violet ocean. "I am here to give it an edge."
The vision shattered as the portcullis creaked open. The roar of a hundred thousand spectators hit them like a physical blow. The sunlight of Odis was artificial and harsh, reflecting off the blood-stained sands of the Arena. At the far end of the stadium, a massive containment field of blue energy flickered and died.
From the shadows emerged the Star-Eater Beast. She was sixty feet of translucent scales and shifting nebulae, her wings tattered and her eyes—four burning orbs of dying gold—fixed on Yun. The Imperial needles were still embedded in her spine, glowing with a cruel light that forced her into a state of feral rage.
"She's in pain," Shara whispered, her Thorn of Providence glowing with a soft, empathetic green. "The Arena isn't just a cage; it's a torture rack. The energy they're drawing from her is what's powering the suppression field around us."
"Then we break the rack first," Meilin said, her Cinder-Wraiths igniting with a white flame that seemed to cut through the very air. "If we kill the beast while she's chained, her soul will shatter and Yun will never get his edge."
"Don't kill her," Yun commanded, his voice cold but carrying a strange weight of compassion. He stepped onto the sand, the Void-Hilt in his hand beginning to manifest a faint, ethereal vapor. "Meilin, use your flames to cauterize the needles on her left flank. Shara, use the Thorn to stabilize the energy bleed. I will go for the heart—not to take it, but to unlock it."
The Beast roared, a sound that tore through the sky, and charged. She moved not like an animal, but like a falling comet. The Grand Hunt had begun, but for the Trinity of the End, it was a rescue mission disguised as a massacre.
From the high balcony, Marquis Valerius leaned forward, a cruel smile on his lips. "Activate the Gravity Wells," he signaled to the technicians. "Let's see if the 'Void' can still float when the weight of a mountain is placed upon its shoulders."
As the ground around Yun suddenly increased in gravity by a factor of ten, the Star-Eater Beast lunged, her jaws wide enough to swallow the sun.