Aurelius does not hesitate for a second and shoots to the right in a photonic high speed movement, starting to run around the Hybrid in a circle like a flash of light. On the left side, Beat and Blitz advance in sync; like a crimson electric meteor, they flash in the opposite direction around the Child, causing a ringing storm of photons and blood red lightning bolts to rage around the monster.
In the middle of this hectic circular movement, Jeshua and Silarias look at each other tightly for a fraction of a second. Jeshua nods. With serene focus, he unleashes a gigantic Holy Radiance. This pure, divine light not only radiates blindingly upward, but explodes outward as an extreme speed buff for his allies.
Suddenly you hear a psychopathic laugh and a dull thud roll across the arena floor. The already flashing forms of Aurelius and Beat with Blitz spontaneously accelerate exponentially due to the buff; their speed becomes so absurd that they turn into pure, liquid tracks of light and electricity. At the same time, the bright beam of Jeshua's Holy Radiance cuts through the purple void mist like a laser, creating a direct, unprotected line of opening aimed straight at the split mask of the Hybrid.
Silarias braces his heavy hind legs, ready for a devastating counter leap to cleave the monster through the middle. But the Child anticipates with a psychopathic grin and immediately throws a deadly trump card onto the table. Instead of blocking the attack, the Hybrid launches a salvo of screaming Void Missiles, not at the attackers, but straight toward the audience and the bleachers. The purple black projectiles slam with deafening violence into the specific section of the arena where Nicola, Ren, and Miki are located, and where Nyx and Jane were trying to evacuate the severely injured Pandavas. The complete platform collapses completely under the brutal impact.
Jeshua loses his mind completely upon seeing the catastrophe. Panic sets in as he sees in a split second before his eyes how many of his friends are going to be buried alive here. As a raw scream escapes his throat, Jeshua goes completely all out. His form begins to glow so intensely radiant that it hurts the eyes. The pure, divine energy of his transformation seeks an outlet and merges seamlessly with the vibrating, radiant soundwaves that Beat continues to strike from his energy drum.
The frequencies melt together and something happens that defies logic. The complete Secret Arena begins to glow golden. The falling debris stops in mid air, the purple smoke retreats, and the complete explosion at the bleachers is reversed with an astronomical force. The stone foundations fly back into place; the arena is completely whole again within a fraction of a second and the destruction is completely undone.
But the price for this divine intervention is immense. Jeshua's energy is completely drained in a single instant. His Halo extinguishes and he collapses forward with a heavy nosebleed onto the dry arena floor.
Before his body hits the ground, two black shadows flash perpendicularly downward with reckless speed from the dark shadows in the highest corner of the arena. The lead shadow lands noiselessly and catches Jeshua's limp body in her arms. The heavy cloak of the form snaps open due to the wind as she throws her head up and screams with a hoarse voice to Silarias and the rest of the group: "DON'T WORRY?! I WILL BRING HIM SAFE!!"
In the fading light her face is immediately recognizable: it is Signora Vespera. Almost immediately afterward, the cloak of the second shadow snaps open, standing right behind her to guard their cover. "I won't forget this!" Hebel shouts with a hissing voice upset by adrenaline. His form is in his terrifying half snake shape while his clawed hand firmly grips the massive blade of his axe.
With an explosive push off, the two shadows blast perpendicularly back up together with the unconscious Jeshua, deep into the shadows of the ceiling, toward a safe exit.
Silarias stands on the arena floor and exhales pitch black, hissing smoke from his lion muzzle. He lets go of his allies' escape and focuses completely again on the center of hell. His smoldering eyes look straight ahead, where Aurelius and Beat with Blitz still continue to flash around the Child as two unstoppable, deadly tracks of photons and crimson electricity squared, ready to permanently dismantle the Hybrid.
The ringing storm of golden light and blood red lightning trails raged like a liquid wall around the Hybrid. Aurelius had turned into a massive, circling loop of pure photons, while Beat and Blitz screamed across the arena floor in the opposite direction. The static electricity was so absurdly high that the hair on their arms stood straight up. The monster was trapped in the epicenter of a perfect, deadly containment.
Then the momentum died instantly.
A mechanical, cold voice vibrated not from the speakers, but directly from the air molecules of the arena itself.
"LINK COMPLETE."
The split mask on the Child's face began to hiss. It did not crumble off, it melted. The white porcelain flowed like liquid glass into his cheeks, while his organic limbs began to lengthen with a sickening crack of breaking bone. His skin turned pitch black, hardening into razor sharp, chitin armor like joints. From every pore of the creature seeped a viscous, boiling void mist that burned holes in the stone floor. This was no longer a child. This was a hungry, abyssal god assuming his true form.
The Hype Man's microphone picked up his heavy, cracking breathing. His voice burst through the speakers in pure panic:
"NO! NOT THE LINK! THE LINK WITH THE CURSED SWORD IN HIM IS COMPLETE!! HE HAS FORCIBLY THROWN OPEN THE PORTALS TO THE OUTSIDE! EVERYONE, LEAVE THE BUILDING NOW! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!"
The audience in the bleachers exploded into a blind, screaming panic. Thousands of feet stomped toward the blue glowing fault lines in the walls.
In the middle of the chaos, Nyx froze. Her silver eyes reflected the pitch black smoke rising from the Hybrid. She spun abruptly on her heels, her gaze shooting to the center of hell. There stood Silarias. The golden fire in his chest pounded wildly, and the Cursed Form was now taking over his body at a raging speed. He looked at her through the flashing barrier of photons. He did not speak. There was no time for words. He only gave her a slow, heavy nod.
For the first time in her memory, the dams broke. Thick, glowing tears broke loose and rolled down Nyx's pale cheeks.
"No..." she whispered, her voice choked by the smoke. But her survival instinct took over. She clenched her teeth together so hard that it hurt, turned around, and grabbed Ren and Miki roughly by their collars. She dragged the two kiddos with brutal force toward the tearing fault line of the nearest portal.
"What about Big Bro Sil then?!" Ren wailed, his small legs pumping in the mud as he tried to break free. "Why are we leaving without him?! Let me go, Nyx!"
"We can't leave him behind! Sil!" Miki shrieked, her fingers clawing into Nyx's sleeve, her face red and flooded with tears.
Nyx did not answer. With a set face and a pounding heart, she raised her arms and threw the two children straight through the shining portal in one violent motion, into relative safety.
"RUN ALREADY, LORD SIL!" the Hype Man screamed over the noise of collapsing stone pillars. "THE ARENA IS EXPLODING AND THE PORTALS WILL CLOSE WITHIN MINUTES! THERE IS NO TIME LEFT!"
Beat and Aurelius did not even hear it. Their focus was pure, raw, and deadly. With a joint roar, they combined every last remnant of their photonic and crimson energy for one all destructive, frontal clash to cleave the transformed Hybrid permanently in two.
"STAY DOWN!" Aurelius roared.
But even before their fists could hit the monster's shiny chitin armor, the universe bent out of shape. A gigantic, detached shadow arm materialized directly from the ceiling. With a brutal, indifferent Void Swipe, the claw swept horizontally through the arena. The impact hit the two frontliners with the weight of a crashing planet. Their attacks were completely squeezed out. Aurelius and Beat were thrown backward like ragdolls and slammed flat against the arena floor with a dull, bone crushing impact, deep into the rubble.
Silarias saw his family being pushed back and a raging fury rose up from his lungs.
"NO! NOT NOW!!" he shouted, his voice tearing to a raw, beastly volume that cracked the glass of the VIP lounges.
The perspective switched violently.
Nyx tumbled backward out of the sticky heat, her boots landing hard on the cold, wet stones of the Bastion outside. The fresh outdoor air cut through her lungs. Around her, Jane, Lyn, Nicola, Apollo, and Cilla were already standing in formation, their weapons drawn, ready to receive the stream of refugees.
Nyx looked up. Her pupils were enlarged with adrenaline. She fixed her gaze directly on Jane, who was standing there trembling on her legs.
"Jane... I have to..." Nyx began, her voice trembling, her hand already reaching halfway toward the closing portal behind her.
Jane looked at her. Her own face was smeared with ash and flooded with tears of pure powerlessness, but when she saw Nyx's gaze, she straightened her back. She interrupted her completely, grabbed Nyx by her shoulders, and pushed her back toward the glowing blue crack with possessed strength.
"GO FOR IT!" Jane shouted with a cracking voice. "JUST GO! BRING HIM HOME!"
Nyx did not hesitate for a single millisecond. She jumped backward, blindly back into the rippling depth of the portal.
"Only one minute remaining," the icy, mechanical computer voice chirped in her ears.
When she hit the arena floor on the other side, the heat struck her face. The Secret Arena had turned into a visual nightmare of cosmic proportions. And there, in the epicenter, stood the Cursed God.
Silarias was completely absorbed into his Cursed Form. He looked like a mythological lion, but built from the deepest darkness. His golden coat burned actively with a heavy, pitch black fire that literally sucked the ambient light inward. His wild mane stood straight up like waves of living, hissing smoke. His gauntlets were fused at an atomic level with his iron staff, forming a monstrous, asymmetrical piece of armor around his complete left forearm. When he turned his head, Nyx saw that the whites of his eyes were completely flooded with a viscous, pitch black liquid that smoked heavily with every breath.
And Silarias began to laugh. It was a deep, resonating sound that vibrated in the cavity of his chest, a laugh of pure, unadulterated adrenaline.
"Is this all?!" the lion roared. "Is this the power of the link?! Come on then!!"
The transformed Child leaped at him with a terrifying, inhuman speed, splitting the air behind him into purple void sparks. But Silarias was already gone. He turned into a burning flash of black fire. He moved so insanely fast that he defied the laws of inertia; he bounced off the left wall with a sonic boom, shot at a right angle toward the ceiling, kicked a stone pillar to smithereens, and was everywhere and nowhere at once. The arena was filled with the terrifying sound of his adrenaline fueled shouts for more.
With an explosive push off, Silarias shot perpendicularly into the air, right up under the steel roof structure. He folded his newly formed, demonic shadow wings with a loud slap and let himself fall downward in a perfect freefall. He transformed into a pitch black comet.
BOOM!
The impact on the Hybrid was catastrophic. The shockwave shattered the arena floor to pieces and created a krater meters deep whose cracks ran deep into the building's foundations. But before the smoke even had the chance to clear, Silarias dealt a devastating upward uppercut from the depth. The blow launched the monster hundreds of meters into the air. Silarias exploded after it, accelerating through the air like a burning, black lightning bolt.
Nyx stood at the edge of the abyss, her hair blowing wildly in the brutal updraft. She could not believe her eyes. Her thoughts spun through her head:
Is this truly Silarias...? What kind of absolute hell did he have to endure here to master these kinds of powers? What did Juro do to him in that basement?
In the air, Silarias spun around like a madman. He turned into a pitch black tornado of pure kinetic energy and flames. Due to the absurd speed, the Child remained pressed against his massive iron fist non stop. With every rotation, Silarias dealt a devastating strike, causing the Hybrid's chitin armor to splinter and break in mid air. He was single handedly beating the monster to a pulp.
"TEN SECONDS REMAINING!" the Hype Man's voice suddenly screamed through a half melted speaker on the wall. "THE GATES ARE CLOSING NOW AND EVERYTHING WILL EXPLODE! GET OUT OF THERE!"
Nyx saw the blue glow of the portal behind her flicker and become unstable. This was the absolute limit. She turned around and started a final sprint.
In the air, Silarias heard the warning. He abruptly cut off his upward momentum. With folded wings, he pushed himself into a downward dive, aimed straight at the spot where the unconscious bodies of Beat, Blitz, and Aurelius lay in the rubble. He landed with a heavy impact, grabbed Aurelius with his left claw and Beat and Blitz with his right.
Silarias made a fierce, brutal pirouette on his axis. His muscles tensed to the absolute limit while the black fire of his coat flared up high. With the centrifugal force of a possessed mechanism, he hurled the three severely injured frontliners through the portal like heavy artillery shells.
In that same spin, he saw Nyx sprinting. She was almost there, but the portal was already shrinking to the size of a slit. She was not going to make it.
"CRAZY GIRL!" Silarias roared.
With a fierce, whipping stroke of his gigantic arm, he caught her momentum mid jump. He grabbed her and threw her with a brutal, kinetic swing right behind the rest. Nyx flew horizontally through the air, barely clearing the shrinking rift, at the exact moment the portal completely vanished from reality with a hissing flash.
The very last thing Nyx saw before the darkness closed was an enormous, blood red bang of destabilizing energy that completely wiped the inside of the arena clean.
Fresh air. Grass. The smell of wet earth.
Nyx crashed face first into the grass on the square in front of the Bastion, right next to the unconscious bodies of Aurelius and Beat. She gasped for air, her lungs burning from the ash, while the surviving refugees scrambled up around her. No one looked at each other. Everyone looked at the center of the square.
Standing there was a gigantic, holographic projection screen linked to the internal, heavily secured cameras of the Secret Arena. The image staticed and flickered due to the massive energy noise, but it was still playing.
Inside, the arena was a burning ruin. Pillars collapsed, the floor split open over glowing magma lines. And in the middle stood Silarias, his breathing heavy, the Cursed Form still burning wildly around him.
But the Child was not dead yet. Driven completely mad by pure insanity and with a distorted, asymmetrical body, the Hybrid raised his trembling, broken arm. With a chilling crack, a terrifying, gigantic sword of pure void energy materialized in his claw. With one last, desperate explosion of power, the creature shot forward.
SHLICK.
The sound was hauntingly clear through the audio feed. The gigantic, purple black sword was driven with brutal force right through Silarias' chest. The tip of the blade broke through his back flesh outward in a fountain of dark blood.
Outside, on the square of the Bastion, the entire crowd fell dead silent in a single instant.
Miki put her hands over her mouth and fell to her knees weeping. Nicola turned his head away, his fists clenched so hard that his nails cut into his palms. Several refugees began screaming and looked away, helpless to watch the boy who had just saved them get executed live on screen.
Even the Child emitted a weak, triumphant giggle while pushing the sword one notch deeper into the lion's ribs.
But Silarias did not fall.
His head hung motionless for a second. Then his shoulders began to twitch. Slowly, millimeter by millimeter, he raised his head back up. His black flaming mane did not flare down in fear, it exploded three times higher and more intense than ever before. His smoking, pitch black eyes fixed directly on the face of the Child standing right in front of him.
Silarias' jaws split. A broad, terrifying, and completely psychopathic grin appeared on his face.
And in the burning ruins of the arena, he began to laugh. Not weak, not dying, but louder, rawer, and crazier than he had been all evening. The laugh vibrated through the Bastion's speakers and cut straight to the bone of everyone watching outside.
"Is that all you've got...?" Silarias whispered with a voice that sounded like roaring fire.
At that exact moment, a massive wave of interference struck the camera system. The holographic screen snapped completely to black with a loud feedback whine, leaving the outside world behind in a chilling, suffocating silence.