Chapter 12: Echoes Beneath the Rift
The arena fell apart.
Not metaphorically—literally.
Thousands of floating slabs of obsidian drifted through a dark, dimensional void as if gravity itself had been shattered and sold for scraps. Arin soared between them, momentum carrying him through air that warped and folded around every breath. His fingers burned from gripping the jagged edges of a levitating fragment.
Below him, or above—he couldn't tell—an endless abyss twisted into a spiral of flickering constellations.
Lira landed on a nearby shard, boots skidding along its tilted surface. "Arin! Raviel's been pulled into the lower fracture zone!"
Arin scanned the fractured battlefield. Raviel's silhouette was falling—plunging through shifting gravitational pockets that accelerated and reversed at random. A vortex of broken dimensions dragged at him like a sea tide made of space itself.
But Raviel wasn't screaming.
He just looked annoyed.
Arin pushed off the slab and shot downward. "I'll get him—watch Reth!"
"Reth is watching me!" Lira yelled as a bolt of warped energy sliced past her cheek and vaporized the floating tile behind her.
Arin didn't look back. Couldn't.
Not when Raviel was seconds from being pulled into a spatial shear that would slice anything crossing it into dust finer than memory.
Wind roared past Arin as he plunged through unstable gravity. His body twisted with the currents, every instinct screaming at him to slow down. But Raviel was spinning into the maw of the dimensional rift, its edges glowing white—so bright they hummed with the sound of tearing universes.
"Grab my hand!" Arin yelled.
Raviel scowled, hair whipping around him. "I don't need help."
"Too bad."
Arin reached him just as Raviel lost the last stable foothold. Their fingers brushed—barely—and Arin seized his wrist, jerking him away from the shear at the last possible moment.
The rift snapped shut behind them like jaws.
Raviel exhaled sharply. "If you dropped me, I was going to haunt your entire bloodline."
"You don't even know my bloodline."
"Exactly."
Arin hauled him onto a stable slab. It hovered, drifting slowly in an impossible wind. For a single breath, they caught themselves.
Then the air cracked.
A sound like a bell made of broken galaxies resonated through the arena. Reth hovered at its center, expression empty. But his body trembled—barely visible, like a glitch fighting itself.
Glyphs spun around him, orbiting faster with every second.
Lira shielded her eyes. "He's charging something! A dimensional rupture—if it completes, this whole trial zone collapses!"
Arin felt it too. A suffocating pressure. A rising hum that vibrated through bone.
Reth raised his hand. Energy condensed at his palm, swirling with layers of red circuitry and deep violet void-light.
The system chimed overhead:
[WARNING: Arena core integrity at 9%]
[Phase Shift Event: IMMINENT]
Raviel's eyes narrowed. "That attack will erase anything it touches, living or dead."
Arin already knew.
He also knew he didn't have time to think.
He leapt.
Gravity twisted sideways mid-jump, slamming him toward a floating pillar. His boots scraped stone, and he launched from it again, bounding between driftwood fragments of shattered architecture like stepping stones in a storm.
Another pulse fired from Reth—Arin ducked beneath it. The beam sliced through a massive platform, turning it into dust.
Reth didn't speak. Didn't blink.
But his breath hitched.
Arin saw it.
The human part—buried, screaming.
"Reth!" Arin shouted as he landed on the slab closest to him. "I know you're still in there! Fight it!"
Reth turned his head an inch, eyes flickering with something like recognition… then glitching back into the cold, controlled void.
"Inhibitor Protocol: Reinforced."
The glyphs around him brightened.
Arin sprinted.
A shockwave rippled outward—Raviel and Lira braced against the force as dimensional fractures shot across the battlefield like cracks in glass.
Arin pushed through the storm. The air tore at him; tiles disintegrated beneath his feet.
Reth lifted both hands.
The rupture ignited.
A sphere of annihilation bloomed between his palms—silent, humming with the end of all things.
Lira screamed, "ARIN, STOP—"
But he didn't.
Couldn't.
He threw himself into the blast zone.
The rupture flashed—exploding outward like a collapsing star.
Arin crossed his arms, bracing for an impact that should have shredded him completely.
But—
It didn't.
The world slowed.
The rupture froze inches from Arin's face, trembling like a bubble trapped in time. Reth's eyes widened—pained, strained, human.
His fingers shook violently.
The synthetic voice in his throat broke.
"…override… failing…"
He clenched his jaw, fighting the control twisting through him.
A whisper escaped him—barely audible.
"…Arin… help me…"
Arin reached out and grabbed Reth's wrist.
The rupture shuddered.
Then—
Arin pulled.
The blast imploded, collapsing into a single point that sparked and died like a dying ember.
Reth choked, staggering backward. Cracks of unstable light ripped across his skin. Not wounds—code.
The thing controlling him reacted instantly.
A second system voice—colder, inhuman—pierced the air:
[EXTERNAL AUTHORITY INTERVENTION DETECTED]
[Initiating Backup Protocol: STAGE OMEGA]
Reth screamed—not from pain, but from something deeper.
A third glyph ignited over his heart.
Dimensional chains wrapped around him like spectral serpents, pulling him upright against his will. His limbs snapped into rigid formation. His eyes dulled, circuitry spreading like vines.
"Arin…" Lira whispered. "It's turning him into a dimensional weapon."
Raviel gritted his teeth. "We need to break the controller. The core. Whatever is puppeteering him."
Arin stared at Reth—his mentor, his guide, the first person in the Underworld who treated him like he mattered.
Now being used like a tool.
And something inside Arin finally snapped.
"We're ending this," he said quietly. "Now."
Reth's body lifted off the ground again, glyphs spiraling around him like a crown of execution.
The arena trembled, reality thinning.
Reth's lips parted—
"…Arin… don't let… them—"
The controller seized him again.
His voice warped, doubling:
"TARGET PRIORITY: ARIN VALE. TERMINATE."
Arin stepped forward.
"Then you'd better prepare," he said, lightning flickering in his eyes.
"Because I'm not losing you again."