They collided again.
No signal.
No warning.
No hesitation.
The instant Rigor's transformed frame surged forward, Riven answered.
The impact cracked the air.
They vanished from ordinary sight.
To the low-ranked wolves in the stands, it was nothing but shockwaves and blurred afterimages two streaks of black and crimson detonating across the arena floor. Stone shattered under their feet. The cliffside amphitheater trembled as if it were no longer certain it could contain them.
Each strike sounded like thunder sealed inside a cage.
Fists met ribs.
Claws met bone.
Foreheads slammed together with concussive force.
Riven's dark lunar energy raged like a storm unchained. It cloaked him fully now blackened silver flares bursting from his back like torn wings of night. His eyes were no longer human. They burned like fractured moons.
He did not breathe.
He did not think.
He did not feel.
Rigor met him head-on, crimson aura erupting in jagged arcs around his towering wolf form. Where Riven's power was chaotic and primal, Rigor's was structured, dominant refined brutality honed by lineage and war.
They traded blows at speeds that split the stone beneath them.
Each exchange pulverized the arena floor. Massive fissures webbed outward. Pillars supporting the coliseum's outer ring cracked, raining debris down onto shielding wards cast by Fourth Order elders.
Gasps erupted from the crowd.
Some rose to their feet in awe.
Even veteran Alphas leaned forward.
Because this was no longer spectacle.
It was calamity contained by architecture.
Riven lunged, claws carving streaks of dark energy across Rigor's armored chest. Sparks and blood mist burst outward. Rigor answered with a backhand that sent Riven skidding across fractured stone only for Riven to flip mid-slide and re-engage before momentum died.
They crashed into the arena wall.
The wall shattered.
Dust consumed everything.
Low-ranked wolves covered their faces as debris tore across the stands like a violent sandstorm. The protective glyphs shimmered and strained.
Through the haze, flashes of silver and red collided relentlessly.
At first, it looked even.
Strike for strike.
Impact for impact.
Dominance contested in raw violence.
Nyss stood frozen in the royal section, fingers gripping the railing so tightly her knuckles blanched.
"Riven!" she screamed.
Her voice drowned beneath the war of bodies.
He couldn't hear her.
He wasn't there anymore.
Down in the chaos, Riven's body began to fail.
It started small.
A crack in his ulna when he blocked a descending claw.
Ligaments in his shoulder tearing when he forced it to rotate beyond its limit.
Microfractures spreading through his ribs from absorbing blunt shockwaves.
Muscle fibers snapping like overstretched threads.
Cartilage splitting under rotational torque.
His knees bending further than they should.
Every time he pushed past collapse, his structure paid for it.
But in his feral state, pain was erased.
There were no warning signals.
Only motion.
Only enemy.
Only kill.
He accelerated again, ignoring the blood spraying from reopened wounds.
Rigor narrowed his eyes.
The hybrid was breaking himself to keep up.
And yet
He was keeping up.
Their next clash launched both of them into the air. They collided mid-leap, spinning, exchanging blows faster than thought before crashing back down hard enough to send a circular shockwave across the entire arena.
Stone slabs lifted from the ground before slamming back down.
Wolves shielded their faces.
Elders whispered in disbelief.
Even Selene's expression shifted slightly not fear, but calculation.
Riven drove a clawed fist into Rigor's ribs.
Rigor answered with a crushing knee to Riven's spine.
Riven twisted, slamming his forehead into Rigor's snout.
Rigor caught him mid-follow-through and hurled him through another section of wall.
The structure groaned.
The cliffside beneath them fractured.
For a moment, the entire coliseum felt like it might fall into the abyss.
And still they fought.
Nyss's voice broke as she shouted again.
"RIVEN STOP!"
He didn't even flinch.
Dark energy wrapped tighter around him, thickening, consuming.
But now something was changing.
Subtly.
Slowly.
Riven's movements lost precision.
His left arm responded a fraction slower.
His stance dipped unevenly.
His regeneration was slowing.
Blood loss.
Severe.
Already catastrophic.
Rigor noticed.
And adjusted.
The next exchange ended differently.
Rigor slipped past Riven's wide swing and drove a fist directly into his liver.
The impact folded Riven's body.
A second strike shattered two more ribs.
A third sent him airborne.
Riven hit the ground hard didn't stay down lunged again on instinct alone.
Rigor grabbed his wrist mid-charge.
Crushed.
Bone snapped audibly.
Still Riven swung with the other hand.
Rigor head-butted him so hard the shockwave silenced the crowd.
Riven staggered.
For the first time, he swayed.
The tide had shifted.
Now Rigor pressed.
He struck like a war machine controlled, relentless, merciless. Each hit landed with surgical brutality.
Riven's chest caved inward under a hammering elbow.
His knee bent wrong.
Blood sprayed from his mouth in violent arcs.
He lost another chunk of flesh from his shoulder.
Seventy percent.
That was how much blood his body had likely lost now.
The dark aura flickered.
But still he moved.
Rigor's next blow tore through his guard and drove him backward step by step toward the very edge of the arena.
The cliff yawned behind him.
The abyss swallowed light.
Nyss screamed.
"STOP THIS!"
Her voice cracked.
She tried to move but guards restrained her.
Across the chamber, Riven's pack strained violently against their own captors.
Lyra's eyes were wet but blazing with fury.
Roran roared in helpless rage.
Marlis trembled, jaw clenched.
On the throne above, Selene's voice rang cold.
"Finish this."
No hesitation.
No mercy.
Riven wavered at the brink.
Blood poured down his chest.
His breathing stuttered.
Dark energy surged violently around him one final time.
He raised his claws.
Charged everything he had left into one last strike.
A desperate, furious lunge.
He roared and brought his claws down with everything remaining in him
They shattered on impact.
Fragments of bone scattered across the fractured stone.
The sound was sickening.
Rigor stepped forward into the broken momentum.
And drove both claws straight through Riven's chest.
Clean.
Precise.
Dominant.
The claws pierced through both lungs.
They erupted from Riven's back.
Silence fell over the arena.
Blood poured in heavy streams.
Rigor lifted him upward arms extended, holding him impaled in full view of every Order present.
A display.
An execution.
Dark energy flickered violently
Then began to fade.
The monstrous aura receded like a dying storm.
Riven's eyes cleared.
The feral glaze softened.
Pain returned.
Weakness followed.
His body trembled.
Blood bubbled at his lips.
He looked up.
Past Rigor.
Past the dust.
Past the chaos.
He found her.
Nyss.
Tears streaming down her face.
Silver hair trembling in the wind.
Her hands stretched toward him, though she could not reach.
For a moment
Everything else vanished.
He smiled.
Weak.
Small.
But real.
Rigor leaned closer.
"You gave me a good fight," he said calmly.
A pause.
"Too bad you have to die."
He yanked his claws free.
And kicked Riven off the edge.
Time slowed.
Nyss screamed.
Riven's pack broke against their restraints, desperation ripping through them.
Guards held firm.
Riven's body tipped backward into nothingness.
The cliff swallowed him.
He fell.
Past jagged stone.
Past drifting dust.
Past moonlight.
Blood trailing behind him like torn ribbons.
Wind roared in his ears.
The arena became distant.
Small.
Unreachable.
His vision blurred.
His chest wouldn't fill.
Every heartbeat was shallow.
Fading.
He stared upward one last time.
The Blood Moon loomed above.
Red.
Cold.
Watching.
His lips parted.
A whisper escaped into the abyss.
"I guess… it wasn't enough, Mum…"
Darkness took him.
And the abyss swallowed the hybrid whole.