The Requiem didn't summon anything.
That was the first wrongness.
He didn't raise his scythe.
Didn't speak.
Didn't gesture.
He simply stepped aside.
And the arena answered him anyway.
Something moved at the edge of the Hellbound.
Not from above.
Not from a gate.
From within.
Figures rose from the bone-sand where no graves had been marked—pulling themselves free like memories the afterlife had failed to bury. They stood slowly. Deliberately. Too controlled for the Hellbound's chaos.
They wore the shape of Reapers.
But nothing else fit.
Their scythes did not glow.
No Aether sang along the blades.
Instead, shadow clung to the metal in veins, pulsing, breathing—Obsidium grown directly into the weapon's spine.
Armor hugged their bodies like skin.
Not forged.
Not worn.
Grown.
Souls recoiled.
Not screamed.
Recoiled.
Hydeius felt it immediately.
His grip tightened.
The billion souls behind him shifted—instinctively pulling back, forming a defensive curvature they had not needed seconds before.
"…No," Hydeius said quietly.
Rivax went still.
"…Bakari," he said.
The word sounded like a wound reopening.
The figures moved.
And that was when the Hellbound went silent again.
They didn't rush.
Didn't snarl.
Didn't overcommit.
They aligned.
Five stepped forward.
Two flanked.
One hung back, watching angles.
Military.
Precise.
Wrong.
Hydeius stared at their formation—
and remembered something he had spent entire eternities ensuring would never exist again.
Hydeius took a step forward.
"Don't let them touch the foundation," he said—too quiet to be a warning anyone could hear.
The Requiem watched them like it was an opening act.
He didn't lunge.
He didn't sprint.
He performed.
Dark Matter peeled from his ribs in strands, thick as tendon, and he traced a circle into the bone-sand with the tip of his scythe—slow, reverent, like he was signing a contract with the dead.
The circle completed itself even where he didn't touch.
Skulls surfaced from the arena floor as if the Hellbound had been storing them for this exact moment.
Hundreds.
Then thousands.
They rolled into place, jawbones clacking, eye sockets turning toward the center like they were hungry for instruction.
The Requiem raised his hand.
And the skulls opened their mouths.
A single sound poured out of them—half chant, half scream—so low it made the teeth in Qaritas' skull ache.
The ring ignited.
Not flame.
A dark halo—deep purple, blood red, blacker than shadow—spinning with runes that looked like someone had written language using broken fingernails.
Hydeius' sword reacted immediately.
The names etched into it flared pale-gold, luminous, steady—Aether refusing to be bullied.
The Requiem smiled at the blade like he was meeting an old enemy in a hallway.
Then he spoke one word.
"Open."
The skull-ring cracked reality.
And the arena vomited hunger.
Souleaters poured out first—not marching, not breathing, just crawling like a disease given limbs. Bodies held together by pulsing Dark Matter like wet glue, mouths split too wide, teeth too many. They dragged themselves from the circle in heaps, feeding on the ones beneath them just to stand.
Behind them, Obsidium constructs clawed up through the sand—spines, spears, cages of bone-black crystal—tools made for one purpose: to corrupt what Aether protects.
The Bakari didn't come from the ring.
They were already there.
Watching.
An army, summoned by a circle of skulls that remembered how to pray wrong.
Ecayrous laughed.
Cree didn't.
They dropped.
Fire hit the sand like judgment and for a heartbeat the arena returned, lit by the only honest thing left in the Hellbound: burning.
Their monstrous form unfolded mid-fall—rib cage exposed and blazing, wings split between angelic light and demonic ash, skull-face lit from within by remembered flame.
The macuahuitl came down sideways.
Not to kill.
To open.
A Bakari split at the waist as ember-crystals tore through corrupted flesh. Dark Matter spilled out like oil—and Cree stepped into it like it was water.
The fire remembered.
The Bakari screamed as its stolen angel and demon halves burned back into it—memory restored just long enough to feel regret—
—and then Cree crushed its skull and moved on.
The Bakari shifted—only this time, the formation wasn't for battle. It was for surgery.
That alone made Hydeius's souls tense.
Bakari weren't supposed to move like soldiers.
They were supposed to be hunger with a scythe.
Rivax's voice cut through the stands, low and tight—like he was speaking around an old injury.
"Zstryss," he said.
Qaritas didn't look away. "What does that have to do with—"
"Reapers," Rivax snapped, and forced himself calmer. "In my universe, they're guides. Aether-powered. They sever Threads cleanly and escort souls where they're meant to go."
His jaw clenched. "And they don't do it alone. Each reaper bonds to an angel and a demon—three minds, one judgment."
Komus frowned. "Then what are those?"
Rivax's stare didn't move from the arena. "What happens when you rip the angel and demon out and replace the bond with Dark Matter."
Hydeius didn't speak. He didn't need to. The billion souls behind him had already started to recoil.
Rivax swallowed once. "The Requiem wasn't born like us. He was born mortal—like the bloodline got erased. So he tried to build power instead."
A pause, sharp enough to cut. "He opened a way to Eirisa. She broke him. Killed his partners."
Qaritas felt sick.
"And she made him eat what was left," Rivax finished, voice gone flat. "That's when he woke up wrong. Not Ascendant. Djallra."
Rivax's eyes narrowed at the formation below. "The Bakari were once noble reapers… until the Requiem delivered them to her."
He exhaled through his teeth. "And she took them apart."
Because on the arena floor—
the Bakari lifted their scythes in perfect unison.
And the Hellbound screamed again.
An army.
Below, Cree was already burning.
They waded.
Each kill lit another corner of the arena, revealing more enemies just in time for them to reach them.
Cree did not shout.
They did not roar.
They burned.
At the center of the Hellbound, Hydeius met the Requiem.
Dark Matter screamed as the Scythe of Corruption swung, infecting the air itself, severing Threads mid-flight.
Hydeius raised his blade.
The names etched into it flared.
The clash did not explode.
It silenced.
Aether met entropy—and refused to yield.
The Requiem staggered back half a step.
Only half.
"Still clinging to order?" the Requiem hissed, shadow boiling off him. "To cycles? To chains?"
Hydeius advanced.
Each step sent a ripple through the souls behind him.
"I am not order," Hydeius said calmly. "I am ending."
He cut.
Not the Requiem.
The bond.
Dark Matter peeled away from the Requiem's form like skin rejected by bone, screaming as a thousand corrupted Threads snapped clean.
The Requiem howled and retaliated—Obsidium spears erupting from the ground, shadow-clones striking from impossible angles—
Souls intercepted them.
Billions of hands reached out, restraining corruption, holding space, buying time.
Hydeius never looked back.
He raised the blade again.
A name slipped free.
Complete.
Cree slammed into the last Bakari line like a meteor.
Scythes clashed with ember-crystal obsidian. Each impact rang like a funeral bell. Fire reflected in bone and steel and screaming eyes.
A Souleater lunged from behind—
Cree caught it by the throat.
"Remember," they whispered.
The fire surged.
It died knowing who it had been.
They turned—macuahuitl already swinging—and carved a burning path toward the Requiem.
The arena shook.
Fire and soul-light collided at the center as Hydeius struck again—
—and this time, the Requiem bled.
Dark Matter spilled, writhing, alive and furious.
Ecayrous' laughter faltered.
The Hellbound held its breath.
Because this was no longer spectacle.
No longer a match.
This was history correcting itself.
And gods were about to pay for what they'd broken.
The Bakari stepped into position like they remembered being soldiers.
Five of them spread wide, scythes lowering—not toward Cree, but toward the bone-sand itself.
One dragged its blade across the arena floor.
Not cutting flesh.
Cutting Threads.
The sand screamed.
Actual sound—thin and shrill—as invisible bonds snapped beneath the surface. The Hellbound shuddered, tiers flexing like ribs under pressure.
Souls in the stands flickered.
Some went dim.
Hydeius's head snapped toward them.
"Cree—"
Too late.
The Bakari struck the floor together.
Dark Matter detonated downward, not outward, flooding the arena's foundation. Obsidium veins surged up like black lightning, spearing through bone and sand, erupting beneath Cree's feet.
One spike punched through Cree's thigh.
Another through their ribs.
A third tore straight up through their shoulder and burst out the back in a spray of fire and bone fragments.
The Hellbound howled.
Cree didn't scream.
They staggered—just once—as Dark Matter crawled into the wounds, trying to eat the flame from the inside.
A Bakari lunged through the smoke, scythe hooking around Cree's neck—
—and yanked.
Bone cracked.
Flame guttered.
The scythe bit deep, tearing through vertebrae, ripping half of Cree's head sideways.
For a breathless moment, it looked like that was it.
Then Cree laughed.
It came out wrong.
Wet.
Broken.
Flame poured from their mouth and the split in their skull like blood from a furnace.
Cree grabbed the scythe blade with both hands.
The Dark Matter screamed as it touched their fire.
"You remember me," Cree said softly, almost kindly.
Then they pulled.
The Bakari didn't expect that.
Its arms tore free at the shoulders—wet pops, tendons snapping like old rope. Black blood sprayed across the sand, sizzling where it landed.
Cree slammed the macuahuitl into the Bakari's chest.
Not a swing.
A plant.
The ember-crystals flared, drinking.
The Bakari convulsed as the weapon learned it.
Every sin.
Every soul it had eaten.
Every reaper it had once been.
Cree twisted the blade sideways and ripped it out.
The Bakari collapsed into a pile of twitching meat, its Dark Matter unraveling into smoke that burned purple before dying.
Cree staggered again.
Their wounds didn't close.
Dark Matter clung inside them like parasites.
They were bleeding fire—and it was running out.
Across the arena, Hydeius roared.
The Requiem smiled wider.
"Good," he said, voice scraping through his exposed throat. "You feel it now."
He lifted his scythe and dragged the blade along Hydeius's sword.
Not striking.
Caressing.
Dark Matter oozed off the scythe and crawled onto Hydeius's blade like mold on bread.
The names etched there flickered.
One dimmed.
Then another.
Hydeius recoiled a step—just one—and the souls behind him rippled in alarm.
The Requiem leaned in close, skull-face inches from Hydeius.
"You think your blade ends bonds cleanly?" he whispered.
"I rot them first."
The Dark Matter seeped deeper, sinking into the grooves where the names lived.
A name screamed.
Not aloud.
Inside Hydeius.
A soul that wasn't ready.
Hydeius gritted his teeth and swung.
The Requiem caught the blade bare-handed.
His palm split open, bone showing, black ichor spilling—but he held it.
Dark Matter surged from his arm, racing down the sword like a vein injection.
Hydeius felt the weight change.
Not heavier.
Wrong.
The sword wanted to hesitate.
To choose.
Hydeius snarled and slammed his forehead into the Requiem's skull.
Bone rang like a bell.
The Requiem laughed even as cracks spidered across his face.
"Break," he commanded.
The Dark Matter obeyed.
The blade's edge blackened.
A third of the names went dark.
Hydeius staggered as the souls behind him screamed—not in fear, but in violation.
The Requiem wrenched the sword aside and kicked Hydeius square in the chest.
Hydeius flew.
Not back.
Down.
He hit the bone-sand hard enough to crater it, souls spilling forward to catch him, to hold him together as Dark Matter snapped at their heels.
The Requiem straightened, rolling his ruined shoulder.
His gaze flicked toward Cree.
Toward their wounds.
Toward the flickering fire.
"End them," he said.
The Bakari obeyed.
They didn't rush.
They coordinated.
Two scythes came high.
One low.
A fourth spun behind Cree, Dark Matter weaving into a net that cut off escape.
Souleaters poured in beneath it all—climbing over each other, teeth gnashing, mouths splitting wider than anatomy allowed.
Cree stood still.
Their fire dimmed to embers.
Blood—actual blood now—ran down their bones, sizzling where it hit the sand.
The macuahuitl pulsed in their hands.
Warm.
Hungry.
Cree closed their eyes.
And listened.
The weapon remembered everything it had ever burned.
Angels.
Demons.
Bakari.
Souleaters.
Corrupted reapers.
Fire victims.
War victims.
Entire cities.
Cree slammed the macuahuitl into the ground.
Not to strike.
To anchor.
The ember-crystals detonated—not outward, but inward, sending a shockwave through Cree's body.
The fire didn't leave them.
It went through them.
Cree screamed.
This time, it was real.
Their ribs burst open, flames pouring out like organs. The Dark Matter inside their wounds ignited—and didn't burn away.
It was forced to remember.
Every time it had consumed flame.
Every time fire had hurt it.
Every universe where it had failed.
The Bakari froze.
Just for a heartbeat.
That was enough.
Cree yanked the macuahuitl free and swung—
—and the fire didn't cut bodies.
It cut memory.
The flames lashed outward, not as heat, but as recollection.
Bakari screamed as their pasts slammed into them all at once—every soul they'd devoured clawing back from inside, every oath they'd broken burning through their skulls.
One Bakari collapsed, ripping its own head off in an attempt to make it stop.
Souleaters burst like overripe fruit, their Dark Matter unraveling as the fire reminded them what hunger really felt like.
Cree turned on the last Bakari.
The one with the net.
They walked forward, dragging the macuahuitl behind them, sparks falling like dying stars.
"You were a reaper once," Cree said.
The Bakari shook, black blood pouring from its eyes.
Cree leaned in and pressed their flaming forehead to the Bakari's.
"Remember how it ends."
The fire surged.
The Bakari imploded, collapsing into a knot of ash, bone, and screaming Threads that snapped one by one.
Silence fell.
Ragged.
Broken.
The arena was a charnel pit—smoking bodies, melted bone-sand, soul-light flickering like damaged constellations.
Cree stood in the center of it.
Barely.
Their fire was a guttering thing now.
Their form cracked.
They were dying.
Hydeius forced himself upright, souls screaming as they held his body together.
His blade was still corrupted.
Still blackened.
Still bleeding Dark Matter.
The Requiem watched them both.
His voice came soft, almost reverent.
"Good," he said again, voice almost reverent.
"Now you understand."
He raised his scythe for the killing stroke.
And somewhere deep in the stands—
Qaritas felt Eon lean forward inside his skull.
Not amused.
Not cruel.
Interested.
Like something ancient had just seen proof that the rules could be bent far enough to snap.