The polearm lay inches from her fingertips, gleaming in the dirt like a cruel joke. Nyxia gasped, blood bubbling from her lips as she dragged herself onto her knees. Her right shoulder hung at a sick angle. Her ribs felt like glass grinding under every breath. And deep in her chest, the Void pulsed—too loud, too hungry.
Let me in,Let me heal,Let me consume.
Tharn stomped forward, towering, unbothered, swinging his chain-slab weapon with lazy menace. Blood streaked down his thigh where she'd struck him, but he grinned like he'd already won. "You look good in red, lil' shadow," he jeered. "Think I'll break yer legs next. Make it last."
Nyxia's hand clawed at the sand, her fingers brushing the haft of her weapon. She didn't look at him.
She looked past him.
Up. Toward the stands.
To the cloaked acolyte watching her from the shadows.
His lips moved—chanting. His eyes gleamed with runes not his own.
Still spying.
Even now. Even broken.
The rage came fast, white-hot and bottomless.
Her scream tore through the pit—not pain. Fury. Pure and blistering. Voidlight flared behind her eyes, and for a single breath, the crowd fell silent.
The sand trembled beneath her like it remembered war.
Her left hand—her only working arm—gripped the polearm. Void tendrils spiraled down the shaft, curling into her veins like roots. She spun—unnatural, fluid—and drove the crescent blade straight into Tharn's thigh.
He screamed, high and ragged.
Not just pain. Something worse.
He looked down—and saw the void leeching into him. His skin blackened at the edges. His bones groaned like breaking trees.
Nyxia rose, blood streaming down her jaw. Her body shook with pain, but her voice was steady. "You picked the wrong fucking elf."
The Temple — Scrying Hall
"Did you feel that?" A junior acolyte stumbled back from the pool, voice barely a whisper. "It answered her."
"She's not channeling it," another said, pale. "It's channeling her."
The elder's voice was grave. "No. Not yet. But it knows her name now."
The others stood frozen—some horrified, some reverent.
Then the doors slammed open.
Perseus strode into the room like a storm with no mercy. Light clung to him, but his eyes were wild.
"What the hell are you doing?" he demanded.
Dozens of acolytes turned. In the center of the circle, the scrying pool glowed—Nyxia's bleeding form projected inside, flickering with voidlight.
"She's an anomaly," the elder intoned. "A vessel with unstable resonance—"
"You're watching her die," Perseus snarled. "And calling it research."
"She chose the pit."
"She didn't choose your spells. Your spy. Your paranoia."
He stepped closer to the pool. Nyxia's image twisted in the smoke—her polearm buried in Tharn's gut, her eyes blazing like dying stars.
"She's fighting for her life."
"And perhaps," the elder murmured, "for something far greater."
The Pit
Tharn stumbled, howling, clutching at his ruined leg as the void corroded bone and flesh.
Nyxia yanked the weapon free with a sickening crunch—but the cost came fast.
The void surged in her chest like a tide. Her muscles seized. Her knees gave out. The polearm slipped from her hand.
She fell.
Hard.
The crowd gasped.
Boo screamed from the stands, fists pounding the railing. Draj leapt to his feet, drawing steel. Loque snarled, his spectral tail lashing sparks from the stone.
Nyxia lay unmoving.
Blood pooled beneath her. Her breath came in thin, trembling shudders.
Above her, shadow bloomed.
A figure stepped into the ring.
Not part of the crowd. Not part of the fight.
He knelt beside her, face ghost-pale, eyes aglow with starless light. His hair shimmered with threads of the cosmos, and his voice slid into her mind like silk soaked in venom.
"You did well, little shade."
She tried to move. Couldn't.
"So much rage. So much beauty in your destruction. The others didn't survive this long, you know."
He traced a finger along her jaw.
"You bleed like stardust. Like a promise broken too many times."
Nyxia's lips parted in a choked hiss.
"The void sees you," he whispered. "And now… you've been seen."
Then—he was gone.
Smoke.
Gone like a thought.
The Stands
Boo shoved past the stunned crowd, elbowing trolls and goblins with raw fury. "Move! Now!"
Draj followed, blade in hand—not threatening, just ready.
Loque vaulted the barrier in a flash of ghostlight and reached Nyxia first. His snarl became a rumble as he shoved his head under her ribs, nudging her, willing her to breathe.
"Wake up," Boo whispered, dropping to her knees beside her. "C'mon, Nyx. Wake up."
Darj crouched, helping to roll her gently on her side. Blood poured from her nose, from a deep cut above her eye, from her shoulder torn nearly from its socket.
And still—no movement.
Loque howled, long and low. The ground trembled again.
Then—
A breath.
Shallow. Gasping. But real.
Nyxia's eyes cracked open. Glazed. Then focused.
Her voice rasped out like smoke through broken glass.
"…where's my money?"
Boo laughed—one short, broken sound. "You unbelievable bitch."
Loque collapsed beside her with a relieved snort and curled around her like a second skin.
"Still breathing," Darj said softly, brushing her blood-matted hair from her face.
"Barely," Boo said. "But she's here."
"And the void?" Darj asked, low.
Boo met his eyes. "Still whispering."
Sky — Hours Later
Perseus leaned low over the gryphon's back, wind screaming past him, cloak billowing like torn banners. The temple spires shrank behind him, swallowed by cloud and distance.
His knuckles whitened on the reins.
He'd seen her fall. Seen the void take her to the edge.
He'd seen him—that figure. That… thing.
Whatever Nyxia was becoming, she would not face it alone.
He pressed his heels into the beast's flanks.
Faster.
The Pit — Dusk
The blood had dried to rust on the sand.
Nyxia lay in a makeshift infirmary tent, her armor peeled away, her wounds crudely stitched. Boo sat beside her, cleaning her blade in tight, angry motions. Draj paced. Loque dozed beside her, a restless, growling mound of fur and light.
Nyxia stirred.
"Void's still humming," she mumbled, lips dry.
Boo leaned forward. "Then ignore it."
"I tried."
"Try harder."
Nyxia's voice cracked. "It's… louder now."
Darj paused. "Louder how?"
"Like it knows I won," she said. "Like it thinks we're working together."
Boo's face went cold.
"Then maybe next time," she said, "you don't let it in."
Nyxia met her eyes. "I didn't. Not really."
"Are you sure?"
Loque growled low in his throat.
"I don't know anymore," Nyxia whispered.
Cliffside — A Shadow Watches
The void-fed man—watcher, whisperer, recruiter—stood atop the ridge where the pit opened into ruin. He watched the trio beneath, the aftermath of the battle, the cracks widening in Nyxia's will.
He touched a pendant at his neck—shaped like a broken spiral—and whispered to no one:
"She bleeds, but she rises.She breaks, but she remembers.The seed is planted."
And the sky above answered with a soft, distant thunder.