The coliseum itself seemed to feel it—stone groaning, iron veins in the walls vibrating like the strings of a titanic instrument. The air shimmered, not with heat but with resonance, the clash of two truths that could not coexist.
Kaelith rolled his neck, vertebrae cracking under the tension of his Sovereign Core. His broken arm still dangled, but the weight of his presence only grew heavier. His grin had returned, but it was sharper now, tinged with the madness of a man who had found the abyss staring back at him and wanted to leap.
Leon steadied his breath, blood dripping in a steady rhythm onto the shattered stone. The Fifth Pulse spun around him like a storm on the verge of breaking apart, each fracture threatening to turn inward and shred him from within. But he held it—barely.
"Your ruin," Kaelith said, voice rolling like thunder, "is only power if you can survive it."
