They made their way down the path and into the amphitheater.
It felt like a line of survivors walking toward a new, more polite kind of execution. The trial had been brutal. Bloody. Honest about what it was. This felt worse somehow. More civilized. More fake. Death wrapped in silk instead of claws.
Behind Dante, his team followed in tight, silent formation. Not scattered. Not relaxed. Still battle-ready even here. They weren't just his soldiers anymore. They were proof. A living example of his power. Evidence of what he could do. What he'd accomplished.
Their beaten bodies and haunted eyes were a walking display of the hell they'd survived to stand here. The scars visible and invisible. The trauma barely contained beneath their skin.
All eyes were on them. Hundreds of eyes. Thousands maybe.
