The suffocating purple mist still hung like a thick shroud over the battlefield, but the atmosphere had fully escalated to a level of pure, apocalyptic madness. Kaelid slammed his granite-covered boots so hard into the rotting flesh floor that deep fleshy fissures split open, spurring a rancid, viscous fluid upward. He threw his entire, massive weight forward, the runes on his shield illuminating a brilliant blue. With a loud, cracking force, a massive wall of pure, mythical stone erupted from the ground to intercept the charging corrupted crusader.
“I’ll hold them here! Now! Don’t give them a single damn inch of space!” Kaelid roared, veins bulging dangerously thick on his forehead as the viscous purple energy hissed aggressively against his defense.
But the Child refused to yield. Instead of backing away from the stone barrier, her limbs snapped backward with unnatural, jerky twitches, as if the bones in her body were turning to liquid. Her fragile spine bent at an anatomically impossible angle, the back of her head pressed almost flat against her own heels. With a sickening, hissing sound, the skin between her shoulder blades ripped open, and dozens of pitch-black, wafer-thin arms made of pure, gleaming cosmic matter burst forth. The fingers of those deformed limbs clawed wildly at the empty air. The atmosphere surrounding her figure began to visually glitch, ripple, and collapse like a burning film reel, warping reality itself into a nauseating distortion. With brutal, inhuman speed, she hovered razor-close to the ground, purple lightning burning deep, glowing furrows into the floor like restless, hungry roots.
“Left, Beat! She’s veering to the flank! She’s absorbing the pressure!” Silarias yelled, his voice distorted by raw energy while his black-flaming ash particles shot off his armor in thick, glowing flakes, instantly reducing the ground beneath him to ash.
The Nobodies dove right into the fray, every fiber of their bodies strained to break this Elden Ring-like nightmare. Beat launched himself sideways with a deafening electrical discharge, his cobalt-blue Oni horns glowing so intensely that the shadows in the arena were forced back with brute force. He slammed one lightning bolt after another directly onto her barrier, the screeching crackle tormenting the eardrums. Silarias followed right in his wake, digging his heavy claws deep into the Child’s cosmic aura. The intense heat of his ash flames fought a brutal battle for survival against the icy mist, resulting in constant, loud explosions of steam and sparks. Stone splinters flew around like lethal projectiles, atmospheric shockwaves battered the entire inner sector, and they were insanely close. They pressed her back meter by meter, until her hovering, deformed shape began to stagger dangerously, her cosmic arms wilting one by one under the brute pressure.
“We have her! Keep pressing! She’s breaking!” Aurelius roared, his photon sword flashing through the darkness.
Until suddenly, a chilling, terrifying sound thundered across the entire amphitheater, bringing time to a complete standstill.
“NOOOOOOO… NOOOOO!!”
A heavily dysmorphed, screeching child’s voice shrieked out of pure, cosmic fury. The sound was so intense, so loaded with supernatural hatred, that the magical microphones along the arena completely blew out with a hissing pop. The crowd on the walls collectively clutched their hands over their ears as the vibration sliced through the stone grandstands. High in the VIP boxes, the Hype Man went completely wild over the intercom, his voice hoarse and cracking from pure adrenaline: “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THEY HAVE HER! THE SHIELD IS ALMOST DOWN! THE REVOLUTION IS HERE!”
But mid-sentence, the Hype Man cut himself off with a violent jolt. The speaker system above the arena gave a loud, hissing pop, and his entire tone abruptly shifted into pure, frozen horror: “NO! WAIT! WHAT IS HAPPENING RIGHT BEFORE OUR EYES?! THIS CANNOT BE REAL!”
The Child's chilling screech abruptly turned into a terrifying, warped laughter that echoed in heavy waves throughout the inner sector. It was no longer human laughter; it was a giggling, psychopathic cacophony. Her fragile form began to visually shake and distort like a broken, glitching hologram. Directly behind her floating spiritual apparition, the purple mist contracted with a sudden, violent jerk into a spine-chilling silhouette.
The mist split open, revealing true horror: a grotesque, meters-tall creature bearing a terrifying, Joker-like smile. The corners of its mouth were pulled unnaturally far back, deep into its cheeks, exposing a row of far-too-sharp, pitch-black teeth in a constant, insane grin that radiated no emotion other than pure cruelty. Its hollow, white-glowing eyes were wide open within that monstrous smile, gleaming with sadistic pleasure. Its long, thin fingers moved through the air with nervous, rhythmic twitches, as if it held the Child suspended on invisible, pulsing puppet strings of pure darkness. It was the puppeteer, reveling in the chaos.
“Watch out! Behind her!” Beat warned, but it was already too late.
With a fluid, violent movement, the entire right arm of the grotesque creature swelled to three times its original size. The skin burst open and dysmorphed into a giant tentacle smeared with glowing purple runes, covered in pulsing veins and thick strands of slime. The monstrous appendage slammed through the solid stone floor with seismic violence. The entire arena shook to its foundations as the fleshy tentacle shot out from beneath Kaelid with sickening, impossible speed. With raw, brute strength, the tentacle scooped the heavy warrior out of the debris of his own defense and hoisted him meters high into the air, suspended above the battlefield like a trophy, ready to smash him against the stone ground with total destruction like a flyswatter.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Precisely at that critical moment, eight giant magical explosions detonated synchronously around the center of the arena, so loud that the air pressure swept the purple mist away in a single blow.
The thick, pitch-black smoke parted with a heavy gust of wind, revealing a wall of pure dominance. On one side, Malaka and the mighty Shinto gods Izanagi and Izanami materialized from the flashes, flanked by the terrifying goddess Kali. Kali threw all of her brute arms upward simultaneously, her eyes glowing with divine wrath. With a loud, cracking force, they caught the plunging, leaden tentacle mid-air. Their boots and divine robes rattled deep into the rotting flesh floor to absorb the immense impact, the ground beneath their feet splintering under the pressure.
On the other side of the circle, Shrimpy broke through the smoke plumes with a violent shockwave. His massive muscles trembled heavily, the veins on his arms bulging on the brink of bursting under the weight of the colossal tentacle, yet he kept his back straight as an arrow. Amidst that display of brute force, with his face tight and shining with sweat, he forced out a crisp, firm salute straight toward Beat. Right beside him, Karan and Arjan Pandava blocked the downward pressure, crossing their charged legendary weapons against the fleshy mass, while a tired but proud grin appeared on their faces despite the horror.
“Sorry, Beat-sensei…” Karan growled through his teeth, sparks flying off his sword as his voice trembled under the immense strain. “We noticed your true, uncensored presence the moment that magical illusion on your body broke… but we simply couldn’t help ourselves from racing THE speed legend of this world one last time!”
In a majestic, epic final stand, they all stood there in a perfect, unbreakable circle surrounding the Nobodies. Their auras flared brightly against the rising darkness—a wall of gods and heroes pooling their strength to block the monstrous limb using pure muscle power and divine magic.
Kaelid was caught with a smooth roll and reclaimed his position with a creak, his armor rattling. Jeshua shook the spiritual shock out of his head, and Aurelius immediately resumed his photon ninja stance with a hissing light effect. Beat was breathing heavily, his hands resting on his knees, while cobalt-blue sparks jumped uncontrollably from his Oni horns onto the wet ground. Only Silarias felt the entire world around him fade away at that exact moment. The shouting, explosions, and flashing light fell silent as he sank into a deep, pitch-black blackout for a fraction of a second.
In that intense split second, no arena existed anymore—only the fathomless void of his own consciousness where the icy echoes of the five-year countdown reverberated. The majestic, deep, and terrifying voice of the Lion Spirit thundered through the absolute silence of his mind:
“Why do you still doubt yourself, Silarias? You are so much more than this mortal form. You are the perfect vessel for true power. Accept the lion.”
Immediately after, the heavy, ruthless, and icy tone of the Curse cut through the void, mercilessly exposing the brute reality of his true nature:
“Do you think the black flames are your limit? You can use the black flames to reduce everything to ash, yes… but you can do so much more. You are the Landlord. Claim your right.”
With a sudden, violent jolt, Silarias’ burning, golden lion eyes snapped open again. A giant, circular spiritual shockwave exploded outward from his feet across the entire floor, instantly evaporating the purple mist within a ten-meter radius around his boots into pure nothingness.
Upon witnessing his brutal resurrection, a deafening, ecstatic uproar erupted from the massive outer walls and the VIP boxes. The Hype Man began screaming hysterically over the crackling speakers once again, his microphone held so close to his mouth that his breathing thundered loudly through the arena: “BUT WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING RIGHT BEFORE OUR EYES?! THEY ARE STILL STANDING! THE ENTIRE GUARD STANDS LIKE AN UNBREAKABLE, DIVINE WALL!! THIS IS NO LONGER A TOURNAMENT; THIS IS A BATTLEFIELD OF THE HIGHEST ORDER!!”
Beat stepped forward with heavy, halting breaths. Sweat dripped from his chin, but an arrogant, unbreakable, and utterly exhausted grin spread across his face as he looked puffingly at the little cloud Blitz, which began spinning wildly and hyper-charged above his muscular shoulder.
“I just had Blitz… do something very special moments ago…” Beat managed to say with a laugh, his voice hoarse yet filled with pure adrenaline. “He saved our backup.”
With a loud, crisp, and crystal-clear snap, he flicked his fingers. Blitz instantly expanded with a screaming sound into a giant, pulsing magnetic vortex that sucked the purple mist inward like a black hole through brute force. With a loud, heavy mechanical clatter, the vortex began spewing forth the legendary weapons that had been hidden deep in its core for this exact moment.
Aurelius’ iconic Aethergard flew through the air with a hissing sound, landing in his grip with a perfect metallic click, its photon light instantly synchronizing with his aura. The brutal, heavy gauntlets Frey and Freya, alongside the massive staff Odre, slammed into the stone ground right in front of their feet with a dull, screaming metallic thud—right next to Beat’s special, hyper-charged drumsticks, which immediately began sparking with cobalt-blue voltage.
The Nobodies tightly wrapped their fingers around the reclaimed handles and assumed their positions for the ultimate, all-destroying discharge. The massive, fleshy tentacle above their heads suddenly grew even heavier with violent, pulsing shocks, as if the grotesque creature in the shadows had thrown all its cosmic weight into the fray with one psychopathic jerk. The viscous purple runes on the monstrous appendage's skin flared up terrifyingly bright, and the immense downward pressure increased with such velocity that the entire circle of gods and heroes visibly began to stagger.
CRAAAACK!
The sound of breaking stone and creaking bones thundered across the battlefield. The massive boots of the Shinto gods and Kali sank dozens of centimeters deeper into the splitting flesh floor with a heavy thud. Their knees, which had been locked straight moments ago, began to bend dangerously under the inhuman weight. The goddess Kali’s arms trembled so violently that sparks flew off her divine aura, while Karan and Arjan Pandava gritted their teeth loudly, forcing their weapons upward as their full armor rattled under the immense strain.
The entire block holding back the tentacle began to irrevocably sink toward the ground millimeter by millimeter, the gravity of that purple corruption simply too powerful to hold still any longer.
Shrimpy kept his back as stiff as a board, his expression unbothered and entirely focused on the mechanical task before him. Though his muscles trembled violently, his salute remained suspended mid-air with cold, monotonic precision, as if his brain completely ignored the physical pain and approaching apocalypse just to fulfill the military code to Beat.
“Pressure parameters… exceeding… maximum capacity,” Shrimpy uttered in a flat, wooden, and emotionless voice, the veins on his neck on the verge of bursting as his feet sank deep into the flesh. “Position… unsustainable. We are sinking.”
“Guys, hurry the hell up!” Karan Pandava roared in full panic over the noise, his voice hoarse from pure adrenaline as he pressed his sword upward with both hands. “It’s getting heavier!! It’s getting way too damn heavy?!”