The sound of the steel doors locking behind them was heavier than any war drum. Three shapes filled the arena’s far entryway, each one a grotesque parody of a man. They didn’t walk so much as stomp forward, every step vibrating through the sand and into Kael’s bones. The Warden had been busy. The Monsters The first was Grak, a slab of muscle with arms like hanging slabs of meat, his skin stapled together over deep graft lines. His right arm wasn’t flesh at all it was a pneumatic hammer, each strike capable of pulping bone. The second was vorr, leaner but armored head to toe in crude plating bolted directly into his flesh. His helmet was welded on, the only visible flesh his mouth stitched into a perpetual snarl. The third… was Irik. Tall, gaunt, with long segmented claws replacing his fingers. His face was wrapped in wire, only his black, hollow eyes exposed. The claws clicked as he flexed them, like an insect anticipating its prey. The Warden’s voice purred over the interco

The silence after Kael’s roar was deafening. Corpses blanketed the sand some still twitching, others already half dissolved into pools of gore. The blood of man, beast, and hybrid soaked into Kael’s boots. His skeletal wings twitched like broken blades, dripping chunks of flesh with every movement. The Void System hummed with feverish hunger, louder than the heartbeat pounding in his chest. [Void Hunger Threshold: Critical.] [New Ability Unlocked Corpse Puppeteer.] [Feed the Void or perish.] Kael gritted his teeth, his body shaking under the strain. If I don’t release this hunger now, it will consume me whole. He slammed his palms into the blood soaked earth. The arena floor convulsed. The bodies around him twitched violently, as though lightning surged through them. A guttural moan rippled across the battlefield as the dead began to rise. Shattered ghouls dragged their blade stumps across the sand. Brutes with half their skulls caved in stood upright again, twitch

The blast still echoed in Kael’s skull long after the flames had burned out. His collar had exploded, detonating with the Warden’s command, but instead of death, the Void System had dragged him back through the maw of oblivion and spat him into existence again. His body smoked. Charred flesh peeled off in ribbons. Black blood oozed down his torso in slow rivers. The scent of burned meat carried across the arena, and many in the audience gagged, pressing cloths to their mouths. Others cheered like rabid animals, convinced they had just witnessed proof that the pit had birthed a god. Kael staggered, his bones knitting in sickening cracks, tendons squirming beneath his ruined skin like worms. He looked down at himself half of his chest was gone, ribs glowing with seared marrow, yet already, new growth bubbled over the exposed bone. His face twisted into something feral. The Void whispered in his skull, louder now, urgent: [You cannot be killed. You are the abyss clothed in flesh. De

The iron gate yawned open like the maw of some ancient beast, spilling Kael into a world he had not seen since before the pit if this world could even be called the same. The city loomed before him, vast and sprawling, its spires stabbing into a night sky choked with ash and smoke. Torches burned along walls slick with grime. The streets writhed with life merchants shouting in the midnight market, rebels whispering in alleys, nobles being carried in palanquins by slaves. The air reeked of sweat, incense, and rot. Kael’s chains still clung to him, glowing faintly with broken runes, but they no longer bound him. He tore them off piece by piece, letting them clatter onto the cobblestones. Each impact echoed like a warning bell. The city didn’t notice yet. But it would. His first step into the streets was slow, deliberate. Faces turned. A beggar woman, her eyes dull from hunger, looked up and froze. Her scream split the night. “Monster!” Heads whipped toward him. The crowd rippled

The city never slept. Even in the aftermath of slaughter, its streets thrummed with desperate life vendors hawking rotten food, guards dragging prisoners through the mud, whispers of rebellion bleeding into the alleys. But tonight, something different stirred beneath the surface. Kael felt it in his bones. The cathedral’s ruin still clung to his skin the blood, the whispers, the pale eyes of the Herald. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw that smile, that impossible restraint. His claws ached, his veins buzzed with unspent rage. But the Void wasn’t quiet. It pulsed. It gnawed. And tonight, it screamed. Kael’s vision blurred as he stumbled into the lower wards. The cobblestones underfoot cracked, bleeding shadows that only he seemed to notice. Faces twisted when they looked at him, even if they didn’t understand why. Mothers dragged their children inside. Stray dogs bolted into alleys. The air thickened, charged, as though the sky itself was holding its breath. Then A bell to