"Are you insane?!" Christy hissed, scrambling to her feet, her voice trembling with fury and fear. "You just gambled all our lives! A death match? Against one of them?" She gestured wildly at the silent, imposing spider guards. Gray clenched his fists, his face pale but furious. "Kid, what were you thinking? We could have maybe talked our way out, offered something—" "Offered what?" Kyle cut him off sharply, not looking back at them. His gaze was still fixed forward, assessing the potential opponents. "Our loyalty? Our gear? She could take anything she wants. This was the only deal on the table." May stepped forward, her voice low but intense. "Kyle, there had to be another way. This is reckless. You’re betting everything on a fight you might not win." He finally glanced back, his eyes cold, devoid of the manic energy from earlier fights, replaced by something harder. "Do any of you have a brighter idea? Because I’m all ears. Otherwise, shut up and let me handle this." The sh

Jenna braced herself against the pillar where Xena had impacted, spitting blood. The surge of power that had fueled her desperate punch still hummed within her, but it felt thin now, brittle. Blood trickled from her nose, dripped from her lip where she’d bitten it. She swayed, a wave of dizziness washing over her. Gray started to cheer, "Yeah! Take that, bitch!" but his voice died as he saw Jenna stagger. "Wait," Luke breathed, his eyes wide behind his glasses, fixed on Jenna. "Her energy signature... it’s fluctuating wildly. It’s plummeting, but the output is... unnatural. It’s like she’s..." He trailed off, the implication dawning. "Life force. She’s burning her own life force." Christy’s head snapped towards Luke, then back to Jenna, horror replacing the relief on her face. "What? Burning her life? For this?" May gripped her sword hilt tighter, her knuckles white. "Jenna..." Across the hall, Xena pushed herself up from the base of the pillar. She brushed a fleck of stone d

Kyle turned slowly, his unnervingly blank gaze lifting from the hole in the wall where Xena had vanished to meet the Queen’s eyes across the chamber. The silence stretched, thick with stunned disbelief and simmering fury from the throne."Thank you," he said, his voice a perfect monotone, devoid of warmth or gratitude. "For this second life. For this power." The glowing green lines covering his body seemed to pulse brighter for a moment, then began to flow like liquid light, retracting from his limbs and torso, converging entirely onto the back of his right hand.They coalesced rapidly, etching themselves into his skin, forming a complex, glowing green symbol that resembled interwoven circuitry and fractured webbing. The light subsided slightly, leaving the intricate mark clearly visible.He flexed his marked hand slowly, observing it with detached curiosity. "It is... considerable." He looked back at the Queen, his eyes fixed on her. "But I have no intention of becoming anyone’s pet.

Her movements were impossibly fast. She flowed across the floor, Klaw blurring in intricate, deadly arcs. Kyle found himself purely on the defensive, his earlier confidence shaken by the sheer lethal presence of the bone weapon.His blade met the scythe again and again. Sparks flew – bone-white against emerald green. Each block sent jarring impacts up his arm, each parry required precise timing and footing. He wasn’t fighting back, merely dodging, weaving, using the blade to deflect the killing edge by the barest of margins.She was relentless. A slice aimed at his throat forced him to duck low. A sweeping horizontal cut aimed to bisect him made him leap backward. A sudden upward thrust nearly took off his arm.He was faster, perhaps, thanks to the Mana Cell, but her skill with Klaw, honed over unknown eons, was terrifying. She anticipated his dodges, flowed around his parries, always pressing, always aiming for a killing blow.He focused, the blankness returning to his eyes, processi

Arachne watched it happen.Her mind shattered. Her Queen. Her goddess. The absolute power she had served, feared, worshipped her entire existence... erased. With a snap. Like snuffing out a candle.A strangled sound tore from her throat, a mixture of a scream and a sob. Primal grief and rage surged through her, an instinctive urge to lash out, to avenge, to do something.She started to push herself forward, claws scraping against the stone, murder burning in her six eyes—But instinct screamed louder.Every fiber of her altered being shrieked. The presence of the Creator wasn’t just powerful; it felt fundamentally wrong, like staring into an abyss that stared back with cold indifference. To move against him wasn’t just suicide; it felt like inviting utter annihilation, erasure from existence itself.She froze again, trembling violently, tears streaming down her face, trapped between impossible grief and paralyzing, existential terror.The Creator hadn’t even looked at her.He smoothed