The city was gone.

  Not entirely, yet, but enough that Alistair’s sprint felt like running through the bones of something that had already died. Streets cracked and caved in behind him, the sound of stone collapsing into nothing swallowing every other noise. The Maw chewed at the world with a hunger that didn’t stop, didn’t slow, didn’t even acknowledge him.

  On his left, the enchanted wall shimmered faintly, impossibly smooth, as if the gods had decided the world needed a boundary and simply willed it into existence. On his right, the abyss. An endless mouth stretching wider every second, devouring towers, shops, whole courtyards.

  And ahead, just a single strip of broken road, the kind of path only a lunatic would trust.

  Alistair ran anyway.

  For the first time in days, he was completely alone.

  No Brimma cursing like a forge about to explode.

  No Kael scowling while pretending he wasn’t worried.

  No Thess with her stubborn silence.

  Not even Buddy’s molten warmth at his side.

  Just him.

  The thought hit harder than he expected. He’d been alone plenty of times before, the trials in the Colosseum, the endless years in his father’s shadow, nights staring at ceilings wondering why his soul felt hollow. But this was different. This was after the bonds.

  And the bonds were the problem.

  He could still feel them, faint pulses deep inside him, threads tugging in different directions, each one burning like a reminder of what he stood to lose. Any of them could vanish before he reached the next tier. Any of them could die while he was stuck racing toward a door.

  He hated it.

  Hated the bonds.

  Hated the way affection had snuck in like rot under armor.

  Hated the way those misfits had become… his.

  “Damn you,” he muttered under his breath, his voice ragged as his boots hit fractured stone. “Damn all of you for making me care.”

  The Maw roared again, a sound so vast it didn’t feel real, like the sky itself was cracking in half.

  A tower crumpled just ahead of him, folding in slow motion before it slid screaming into the abyss. Alistair vaulted the rubble as it went, the heat of fire and the sting of grit lashing his face.

  He landed hard, boots slipping on loose cobble, and pushed on.

  Dust clouded the air, glowing faintly where the enchanted wall caught it like moonlight. The contrast was maddening: one side of him endless, hungry void; the other side an unbroken, perfect surface. The gods had built the arena like a cruel joke, safety just out of reach, destruction nipping at his heels.

  “Playing dirty,” Alistair spat between breaths. “That’s what you’re good at, isn’t it? Always another obstacle. Always another game.”

  He couldn’t shake the thought: this might be the last time. The last run. The last chance he had to reach them. Maybe Brimma wouldn’t hold on long enough. Maybe Kael’s stubbornness would get him skewered. Maybe Thess would finally break under the weight of her silence.

  Maybe Buddy...

  No. He shoved the thought down before it could tear open his chest.

  He sprinted harder, sword bouncing against his side, every step hammering home one truth:

  He wasn’t running from the Maw. He wasn’t running toward the portal.

  He was running because if he stopped, if he let himself slow down for even a heartbeat, he might have to admit that he was terrified of losing them.

  The gods wanted drama? Fine.

  He’d give them a vampire sprinting through the apocalypse, fangs bared, eyes burning, and heart breaking with every step.

  The pull of the portal tugged harder now, a pressure in his chest like a heartbeat. Every instinct screamed he was close. Just a few more streets. Just a few more leaps over crumbling stone.

  And then something else pressed against him.

  Something cold. Something vast. Something inside his head.

  Alistair staggered, hand flying to his temple.

  The voice slid in smooth, sweet as honey, sharp as razors dipped in venom.

  Look up, the Bloodmistress whispered.

  His feet faltered. He forced his head up, and there, just above the broken rooftops, wings caught the light.

  Bronze.

  Not feathered, not natural, metal forged into living muscle, each beat sending ripples of gold through the sky.

  A champion.

  Not just any. The aura was unmistakable. Divinity radiated off him like a second sun, even in this ruined half-night.

  The champion of Aurion, God of Sun and Light. The golden tyrant of the Pantheon.

  Alistair’s breath caught.

  Kill him, the Bloodmistress hissed. Rage boiling like oceans of blood, so loud it almost drowned out the Maw’s roar.

  Alistair blinked, still running. Still gasping. “Sure. Just let me pencil that in between ‘don’t get swallowed by the apocalypse’ and ‘maybe survive the next hour.’”

  Now.

  Her voice crashed through him like a tidal wave.

  He stumbled, pain lancing through every vein. His blood ignited, boiling from the inside out. His vision blurred red. His hand jerked upward on its own, muscles screaming.

  “What the!” he snarled, teeth bared. “Bit of warning next time before you turn me into a puppet, lady!”

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  The words were barely out before his palm tore open.

  Blood whipped forward, snapping through the air with a speed that didn’t belong to him, didn’t belong to anything mortal.

  A crimson lash cracked across the distance, so fast he didn’t even register the motion until it struck.

  The champion ahead lurched midair, bronze wings beating harder, gold sparks scattering like embers.

  Alistair’s knees buckled, the backlash tearing through him. He howled, body arching, as if the Bloodmistress herself had lit every drop of his blood on fire.

  Somewhere above the pain, above the divine fury burning through his veins, his sarcasm wheezed out like a dying ember.

  “…Great. Nothing like divine possession and a light show. Exactly what I needed.”

  The Bloodmistress’s voice rose again, no longer smooth, but jagged with hunger.

  Kill him.

  The blood-lash had struck true.

  It wasn’t clean, wasn’t graceful, but gods, it was brutal. The crimson tether snapped tight, dragging across the champion’s chest like a blade made of lightning and hunger.

  The winged figure cried out, bronze pinions locking, and then he fell.

  A blur of gold and fire crashed down through the collapsing skyline, scattering rubble like a giant’s fist. He hit hard, skidding across a half-collapsed boulevard, stone and dust exploding around him.

  For one glorious second, Alistair thought it had worked.

  Then the backlash hit.

  His blood boiled like molten glass, every vein screaming as the divine tether tore through him. He staggered, barely holding onto consciousness, vision swimming red. The taste of iron filled his mouth.

  “Fantastic,” he wheezed. “New skill unlocked: spontaneous combustion.”

  The burning subsided, finally, leaving him swaying on his feet. Across the street, the champion of Aurion pushed himself up. He shook his head once, twice, then turned.

  Their eyes met across the ruin.

  Bronze wings flared, sunlight glinting off every razor edge. His face was carved fury, divine wrath given form.

  And then he moved.

  The light around him ignited, flaring so bright the shadows hissed away. He became a beacon, no, a comet, bronze and gold streaking across the boulevard straight toward Alistair.

  Alistair’s brain caught up exactly one second too late.

  “Oh… shit.”

  And then...

  Everything froze.

  The rubble suspended midair. The Maw’s roar cut off mid-breath. Even the golden flare rushing toward him hung motionless, just meters away, heat frozen in place.

  Alistair couldn’t move. Couldn’t even breathe. His body locked in place, blood frozen mid-pulse, eyes burning as if nailed open. Even the comet-bright champion charging at him hung suspended, every spark of light frozen in midair.

  And then...

  Clap. Clap. Clap.

  Deranged laughter rained down from above, manic, high and rolling.

  The Herald appeared in a crackle of scroll-light and smugness, tumbling through the sky like a drunk actor too enamored with his own entrance. He spun once, twice, then stopped midair, grinning wide enough to split his skull.

  “Delightful!” he screeched, eyes wide, arms flung wide. “Delightful!”

  He shook his head so violently the golden laurels crowning it nearly slipped off, then jabbed a finger up toward the unseen heavens.

  “You thought, yes, you thought that the little mortals scrambling toward their precious portals was entertaining enough. Oh, but of course the favorite wouldn’t disappoint!”

  His voice dropped, theatrically low, before he threw his head back and bellowed:

  “KNEEEEL!”

  Alistair winced internally. Great. Now it’s a catchphrase.

  The Herald cackled, nearly doubled over midair, before whipping around to stare right at him. His grin split wider.

  “Bloodstain, you truly know how to play the crowd.” He ticked the words off on his fingers, as if tallying a bill. “First, you attack the champion of Olmira, the dainty little goddess of daylight and purity. Then? Oh, then! You lash out at her father’s chosen. The champion of Aurion, the Sun God himself! Ohhh, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you had a grudge against light.”

  He gasped, hand pressed to his chest, and then snickered. “Silly me. A vampire loathing light. Who would have guessed?”

  Above them, unseen laughter echoed, deep, cruel, amused. Alistair felt it vibrate in his teeth.

  The Herald leaned close, fake-whispering loud enough for the dead to hear. “But I bet the light-side of the Pantheon won’t be very pleased with your antics. No, no, no. Naughty little bloodsucker.” He winked. “Never mind that now! We’re here for spectacle!”

  He flung both arms wide, spinning to address the unseen gods. “With only a handful of champions left, each battle is crucial, each clash nail-biting, each fight dripping with drama! And our darling blood-bat here? Oh, you should expect nothing but the best!”

  Alistair ground his teeth. If he could move, he’d have flipped him off.

  The Herald snapped his fingers. “Now then, my dear fellows, let’s find you a place to sit!”

  The world shifted.

  Above the dying city, black stone cracked into existence, a great crescent arching across the sky. It grew and folded on itself, jutting upward and sideways, tier upon tier stacking with impossible speed. In seconds, the crescent became a vast colosseum, its stands rising high enough to blot out the clouds.

  But there was no central arena.

  The fighting ring was already chosen.

  It was what remained of the city itself, the boulevard where Alistair and the sun-winged champion still hung suspended in time.

  The Herald’s voice thundered over the silence, manic and ecstatic.

  “Ladies, lords, and luminous leeches of eternity, welcome to the next show!”

  The black stone stands were barely finished when the heavens cracked open.

  They descended.

  Gods and godlings, demi-powers and ancient hungers dressed up like mortals at a masquerade.

  Chariots of flame and bone skidded down from the sky, their wheels screaming sparks as they landed on the obsidian tiers. Leviathans coiled through the clouds, scales glistening with liquid starfire and claws gouging the air itself, ridden by figures who smiled too wide. Carriages of glass and ivory creaked into being, pulled by spectral steeds that left hoofprints in the sky.

  And each of them tried, oh, how they tried, to look mortal.

  Elves, humans, dwarves, beastkin. Faces borrowed. Limbs reshaped. But it was all wrong. Off, like someone had skimmed the idea of mortality from a book illustration and forgotten what real people actually looked like.

  They wore mortal flesh the way drunks wore masks at a masquerade, backward, crooked, distorted. Skin that sagged in the wrong places. Eyes that blinked sideways. Fingers too long, smiles too sharp. Limbs bent in places no limb should.

  The gods hadn’t worn flesh in centuries, and it showed.

  Alistair’s jaw tightened. Well. That’s not nightmare fuel at all.

  One goddess tried her hand at dwarfish form, short, hairy, thick as a keg, but with fangs so absurdly long they clacked against her chest as she moved. Her beard was smeared with blood as if she’d dunked her head in a slaughterhouse bucket. She turned to the god beside her, thrust both fists in the air, and roared:

  “KNEEL!”

  The god next to her, shaped like a hulking minotaur with bronze wings bolted to his back, collapsed theatrically onto one knee, groaning loud enough to shake the stands. The crowd of divines around them howled with laughter, high-fiving each other like schoolchildren mocking a teacher.

  Another deity strutted by in the shape of a lean elf with alabaster hair. He carried two blades, oversized, jagged, dripping with painted “blood.” He threw his arms wide and bellowed, “Checkmate!” before stabbing the air. His companions shrieked with glee, slapping their thighs, repeating the word “checkmate” until it lost meaning.

  Alistair’s jaw clenched. Mocking me. Mocking all of us.

  Further down the row, he saw gods clutching leashes. At the ends of them yipped miniature hellhounds, perfect Buddy replicas, only the size of terriers. Their maws belched tiny spurts of flame like sickly candles. The gods paraded them proudly, making them sit, roll, and bare teeth on command, tossing each other mock coins whenever one performed correctly.

  “Sit, Buddy! Good boy, Buddy!” they shrieked, falling over themselves in divine hysterics.

  And then, bronze wings. Too many of them.

  Half a dozen gods strutted along the top tier, bronze contraptions strapped to their shoulders, each one flaring them wide and striking heroic poses. “The Sun!” they shouted. “The Light!” They smirked, flexed, and posed, then deliberately crashed into each other, tumbling in heaps of tangled wings and laughter.

  More descended, the crowd growing stranger with each arrival. A goddess in silk robes drifted by, but her body flickered like bad parchment, eyes in the wrong place, a mouth that stretched too wide before snapping back. Another strutted proudly with bronze wings strapped to his shoulders, glowing faint with stolen sunlight.

  It was grotesque.

  It was absurd.

  And it was all for them.

  Alistair’s eyes narrowed. Some were mocking him, others were mocking the enemy. And some were just here to sneer, sipping invisible wine.

  They weren’t just gods. They were fans. Betting degenerates with infinity to waste.

  And they’d come for a show.

  Alistair was frozen, still locked in divine stasis, but inside his chest something twisted between horror and bitter amusement.

  “The Pantheon,” he thought, “looks like the worst costume party in history.”

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