The air tasted of burnt ozone and dying stars as Payune dragged herself upright, her dragon scales still steaming from the Chef's final curse. The coliseum lay in ruins around them, its once-pristine battlements now crumbling into the void.
Hayuni's tails flickered like dying embers as she wiped celestial blood from her lips. "That wasn't the end," she panted. "It was an invitation."
The Third said nothing. He didn't need to. The way his thousand eyes tracked the shifting skies spoke volumes.
Then
Reality unfolded like a poisoned flower, revealing:
The Omega Coliseum
A fighting pit carved from the bones of dead timelines
Bleachers filled with the ghosts of fallen warriors
A scoreboard that tracked not points, but stolen destinies
"WELCOME, LITTLE DRAGON."
The voice shook Payune's bones. Floating above the arena, wreathed in dying starlight, hovered their first challenger—
Vel'kan the Undying, his nebula-armor pulsing with stolen supernovae.
"You," Payune growled, her fists igniting with dragonfire. "You were there when—"
" when your father begged for mercy?" Vel'kan chuckled, hefting his star-forged blade. "I ate his courage first."
Hayuni's tails rippled with barely-contained fury. "Payune. Don't—"
Too late.
Payune moved like a comet, her "Big Bang Knuckle" aimed straight for Vel'kan's smirking jaw.
The nebula-warrior parried with a blade made of dying light, the impact sending shockwaves through the arena.
"Pathetic," Vel'kan sneered. "Your punches lack conviction."
Payune bared her fangs. "Let's fix that."
"DRAGON GOD ASCENSION!"
Golden energy erupted from her core, her scales hardening into living crystal. When she punched this time—
—the blade shattered.
Vel'kan's eyes widened as Payune's fist connected with his gut. "How—?"
"You ate my father's courage," Payune snarled, her voice layered with the roar of a thousand dragons. "I ate your stars."
Her "Supernova Overdrive" detonated inside him, reducing the undying warrior to stardust and screams.
Hayuni didn't see the attack coming.
One moment, she was watching Payune's victory. The next—
PAIN.
A fist wrapped in dead magic slammed into her ribs, sending her skidding across the arena.
"Predictable."
Syrinn, the Silent Apostate, flexed her fingers. The chains around her wrists sang with every movement.
Hayuni spat blue fire. "Cheap shot."
"There are no cheap shots," Syrinn said, shifting into a stance Hayuni almost recognized. "Only winners and corpses."
Hayuni's tails twitched.
Then—she smiled.
"Ninefold Event Horizon."
Nine black holes erupted around Syrinn, their gravity warping the very fabric of the arena.
The Apostate didn't flinch. "Zero-Point Fist."
Her punch shattered the event horizons—
—just as Hayuni appeared behind her, a blade of pure foxfire at her throat.
"Checkmate," Hayuni whispered.
Syrinn froze. Then—laughed.
"Finally. A real fight."
The Omega Archivist didn't bother with words.
It simply opened—its pages spilling forth every erased technique in existence.
The Third watched.
Then—he ate them.
Every forbidden move. Every lost art. Every ultimate technique that had ever been forgotten—
—gone, swallowed whole.
The Archivist shuddered.
"Impossible," it whispered.
The Third smiled.
Then bit the book in half.
The arena shook as the Eclipse Reborn descended, its form now fused with the Chef's lingering malice.
"ENOUGH."
Its voice broke the sky.
Payune, Hayuni, and the Third stood together, their energies intertwining.
"Omega Gauntlet Impact."
The resulting explosion rewrote history.
In the silence that followed, only one sound remained—
The clatter of the Godsbane Gauntlet hitting the ground.
And then—
A new hand reached for it.
A hand none of them recognized.....