Alistair stood at the peak of his jagged mountain, arms crossed, eyes narrowed, waiting for something to happen.

  It didn’t.

  Still no champions. No explosions. No dramatic godly interventions. Just wind and rock and the faint crackle of Buddy’s molten breath.

  “I swear,” Alistair muttered, “if this is the gods’ idea of suspense, I’m going to rip out someone’s divine kneecaps.”

  Buddy grumbled beside him, tail flicking, eyes scanning the horizon. His hackles had been raised for the past minute. Which meant something was wrong.

  Something worse than usual.

  Then, laughter.

  Not the cool, villainous chuckle of some smug champion. No, this was high-pitched, deranged, and childlike. A wet, gurgling cackle that rolled across the mountaintop like a curse.

  Alistair froze.

  “...That’s not a good laugh. That’s the laugh of something that has definitely eaten its siblings.”

  Buddy growled, low and guttural. Flames licked his jaws.

  The air shifted. Thickened.

  Alistair’s skin prickled. Every hair on his body stood on end as a pressure settled over the mountain like a descending hand.

  Then the sky rippled. Ripped.

  From above, a swarm descended.

  Tiny shapes, dozens of them, flapping erratically, screeching with laughter. At first, Alistair thought they were some kind of mutated birds.

  Then he saw their faces.

  “...Oh gods.”

  Babies.

  Purple-skinned, winged… babies.

  Each the size of a toddler, but with grotesquely oversized heads and mouths packed with jagged, ink-black teeth. Their eyes glowed white. Their wings were bat-like and veined, twitching mid-flight with disturbing, insectile movements.

  And the aura they carried…

  Godly.

  Undeniably divine.

  Alistair took one step back. “Nope. Nope. Nope. Not today, demon toddlers.”

  The babies let out a unified screech of joy and dove.

  Alistair spun on his heel.

  “Buddy. Plan A is running. Buddy?”

  Buddy was already mid-lunge, fire surging from his maw. He caught the first of the abominations midair, tearing it apart in a gout of flame and fury.

  It shrieked not in pain, but in pure delight.

  “What the hell kind of monster enjoys being chewed on?!”

  Alistair ducked as two more swept toward him. One giggled as it flew upside down, mouth wide open, black drool spilling as it tried to bite his face.

  He slashed upward with his redcrystal sword, the blade humming. Contact. The creature exploded into violet mist, but two more took its place.

  They weren’t attacking to kill.

  They were grabbing him.

  “OH HELL NO.”

  He activated [Kindle Spark], flinging flame at another as it dove toward his chest. It cackled and caught fire but didn’t stop. He activated [Darken Sight], casting the whole peak into shadow, then [Summon Chittering Bats] for good measure.

  The babies ignored the bats. Played with them.

  “Oh gods, they’re playing fetch.”

  Then the first one grabbed his arm.

  “Don’t you da...”

  The second wrapped stubby fingers around his other wrist.

  And then they all lifted at once.

  “No. No no NO! PUT ME DOWN!”

  Too late.

  Alistair screamed as the swarm of divine flying infants launched into the sky, carrying him with them, flapping like a demonic parade.

  Buddy barked furiously from the mountaintop, trying desperately to fend off the deranged babies.

  “BUDDY I SWEAR TO THE MISTRESS, CATCH ME IF I FALL...”

  Higher. They soared through thick clouds, mountain peaks vanishing below, the arena reduced to a craggy blur. The babies chattered, screeched, laughed, jaws snapping far too wide for their faces.

  Then one bit his boot.

  “OW! You oversized placenta! That was leather!”

  No response. Just giggles.

  And now he saw it far ahead. A glowing white rift in the air, pulsing with power.

  “No. Nonono. We’re not doing the portal thing again. I just got back from being caged!”

  The babies didn’t care.

  They carried him higher.

  Toward the light.

  And somewhere in the back of his mind, a thought wormed its way up:

  This wasn’t a kidnapping. It was a summons.

  The gods weren’t done.

  Not by a long shot.

  And apparently, they’d outsourced divine transport to… flying vampire teething rings.

  They burst through the rift like a fish hook ripping through skin.

  For a moment, Alistair saw nothing, just brilliance. Magic itself, so thick it had color. White-gold. Pulsing. Alive.

  Then they broke through a membrane of sound and sensation, and the world opened up like a storybook soaked in wine and dipped in madness.

  A city.

  But not just any city.

  Floating towers of polished starlight twisted above him, tethered to nothing, spinning in slow orbits like lazy gods pretending to obey gravity. Streets of gold and sapphire curved into impossible angles, running upside-down, sideways, into the air and then out of it. Gardens bloomed in midair. Rivers flowed upward into spiraling columns of mist.

  Above, enormous thrones drifted like islands in a broken sky. Gods lounged on them, some humanoid, some not even pretending. One was just a thousand eyes stitched together in a laugh. Another a stone lion sipping wine from a floating glass held by a cloud.

  And there, below, beneath it all, like a parasite sealed in crystal...

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  The Arena.

  A tiny sphere of magic, no larger than a pin in the godly tapestry.

  Alistair saw the jagged peaks and mountains inside, the bloodstained rock and drifting medallions. The chaos. The survivors. It was all there.

  Trapped.

  A bubble.

  A toy.

  His stomach flipped.

  “…Oh. Oh no. We’re in the toybox.”

  Then the gods noticed him.

  One by one.

  Heads turned. Eyes narrowed. Fingers pointed. Mouths whispered.

  And some didn’t whisper.

  “Is that him?”

  “The Soulbound one.”

  “The Bloodmistress’s accident.”

  “He stinks of mortal.”

  “Who let him in?”

  The weight hit him like a hammer.

  Alistair gasped, body curling as if gravity had just changed its mind. His health bar plummeted.

  [HP: 141 → 112 → 84 → 61]

  Each glance from a god was like a slap made of pressure and disdain. A divine presence shoved into a mortal skull.

  Buddy howled in the distance, Alistair saw him now, flailing against the sky, paws clawing as the same winged toddlers dragged him along a different arc.

  “B-Buddy!” he croaked, but the dog couldn’t hear him.

  Then came the alert.

  [Status Effect Gained: Divine Exposure]

  Your mortal body is under direct attention of higher entities.

  -10% Max HP per second of direct gaze

  -30% Resistance to Magic

  Cognitive Clarity: Impaired

  Warning: Extended exposure may lead to irreversible ego fragmentation

  Suggested Action: STOP BEING LOOKED AT.

  “Oh that’s just GREAT,” Alistair hissed. “Let me just, what? hide behind this INVISIBLE WALL OF HUMILIATION?”

  His vision blurred. The world shimmered. A god with bronze wings and empty eye sockets sniffed the air and smiled.

  Alistair’s HP dropped again.

  [HP: 61 → 45]

  His knees buckled midair.

  Then, mercifully... SNAP.

  The winged babies screeched gleefully as purple shields blossomed around him like petals. A soft, flickering barrier shimmered into place. The air grew lighter. The weight lessened.

  The pain eased.

  [Divine Exposure: Neutralized by Protective Aura – Lilitu’s Cloak]

  He could breathe.

  “…Thank you, horrible sky babies. I will build you a shrine. I will light you candles. I will offer you milk and cookies and firstborns. I don’t care. Just don’t drop me.”

  Now shielded, Alistair drifted forward and for the first time, really saw the city.

  He wasn’t flying through it.

  He was being presented to it.

  And the city saw him right back.

  The protective shell of magic shimmered around Alistair as the babies carried him higher, away from the mocking laughter of gods and the exposed nerve that was the arena. Behind him, the jagged mountains of the trial sphere became a distant speck, a bauble forgotten in a jewelry box of nightmares.

  Above him, the sky wasn’t a sky, it was a canvas of suns.

  Not one. Not two.

  At least six visible suns, each burning with different color and intensity, pale blue, molten gold, a jagged crimson sphere that pulsed instead of shined. Their orbits weren’t fixed. They shifted, spiraled, collided gently and separated again like celestial dancers drunk on their own choreography.

  And somehow, none of them burned him.

  Yet.

  Alistair twisted in midair, still cocooned by the soft, humming shell of divine protection. Through the haze, he saw it.

  A darker region of the city. No less beautiful, but undeniably other.

  Where the rest of the gods lounged in radiant gardens and alabaster spires, this sector pulsed with a subtler gravity. The towers were sharp, sleek, crimson-veined obsidian rising like needles into the sky. The air shimmered, heavier, thicker, as if scented with old blood and broken vows.

  The winged horrors chirped gleefully and dove.

  The transition was seamless.

  One moment he was surrounded by divine brilliance, the next he was in her realm.

  The Bloodmistress’s domain.

  A palace carved from veined crystal and dark metal, rising in cruel, elegant spirals. Floating platforms hovered like petals in orbit, each one holding lounging figures cloaked in red-black robes, faces hidden, attention sharp.

  Statues lined the walkways, vampires of old, some crumbling, some weeping blood from stone eyes. Massive fountains spewed crimson ichor into basins of black glass. The walls bled in places, slow trickles running along silver seams as if the building itself mourned something ancient and terrible.

  And it was silent.

  Horribly, impossibly silent.

  Even the babies stopped giggling.

  They slowed their flight, circling one final spire that looked less like a tower and more like a giant fang stabbing upward from the heart of the domain.

  Alistair’s stomach flipped again.

  “Oh. This is fine,” he muttered. “She’s only the blood goddess of death, vengeance, and impossible standards. I’m sure she called me up for tea.”

  The babies spiraled lower, gently setting him down on a floating crimson platform ringed with thorny railings. His boots hit the surface with a soft click.

  Then the protective bubble vanished.

  And the babies?

  Gone.

  Just like that.

  “Right,” Alistair said, brushing himself off. “Abducted by flying demon infants, shown off to the divine peanut gallery, and dumped in the most terrifying deity’s penthouse suite. Just another Monday.”

  He turned slowly.

  Behind him stood a single obsidian door, taller than any mortal thing had a right to be. No handle. No hinge.

  Just a faint pulse.

  A heartbeat.

  From within.

  His fingers twitched toward his sword.

  And yet…

  Somehow, he knew.

  She was waiting.

  THUMP.

  A solid mass crashed onto the platform behind him.

  Alistair whirled just in time to see a blur of fur and flame skid to a stop.

  “Buddy?”

  The hellhound blinked up at him, dazed, wings of two infants fluttering away with mischievous giggles. One slapped Buddy’s flank like it was congratulating him on a job well done.

  Buddy let out a low, smoldering growl. His entire body was bristling. His mouth smoked. But he didn’t move to attack.

  He just stepped to Alistair’s side.

  “Good boy,” Alistair muttered. “Let’s go meet the lady who probably wants to kill us.”

  The door pulsed again.

  This time, it opened.

  The door yawned open with a sigh of mist and warmth.

  Alistair stepped through, Buddy at his side, and was instantly hit by the smell, copper, roses, and something older, something wet.

  They were inside the Bloodmistress’s domain.

  The interior was cathedral-like, vaulted, endless, carved from black-red marble that pulsed faintly with veins of light. The walls shimmered with runes, some half-screaming in silent tongues. Sconces held no flame, only floating orbs of congealed blood, casting the hall in a low, hungry glow.

  And waiting for him...

  A crowd.

  Dozens of figures stood in formation. All silent. All cloaked in dark crimson robes, hoods drawn low over their faces. Identical. Featureless. Almost mannequin-like in their stillness.

  Buddy let out a low growl, ears flattened, the fur along his spine rippling with heat.

  Alistair, fighting his own instinct to step the hell back, reached down and scratched behind Buddy’s ear. “Easy, murderpaws. If they wanted us dead, we’d already be artwork on the walls.”

  The hellhound grumbled but stayed close.

  From the crowd, one figure detached. Graceful, gliding, robes barely brushing the floor. The hood turned toward him, and though Alistair couldn’t see a face, the voice that followed was smooth, feminine, and powerful in its restraint.

  “She is waiting. Come.”

  Alistair gave a slow nod. “Of course. Wouldn’t want to keep a goddess of blood and vengeance waiting.”

  He meant it respectfully. Mostly.

  The figure turned, and without a word more, began walking.

  So Alistair followed.

  And so did the entire crowd.

  A silent procession.

  The only sound was the soft splash of footsteps across the blood-wet floor. Not water. Blood. It coated the marble in a thin sheen, still warm. The scent of it clung to the air like perfume.

  The corridor wound endlessly through the tower until they reached an archway, a final set of massive obsidian doors flanked by statues with hollow faces and outstretched hands.

  The doors opened on their own.

  And Alistair saw her.

  The throne room was vast and alive with shadows. At its center stood a towering throne sculpted from black bone, twisted iron, and veined crystal. At its base, writhing bodies, living, moaning silently, mouths open in perpetual scream, but no sound escaped.

  They twitched. Bled. Shivered.

  Feeding her.

  The Bloodmistress sat on her throne, legs crossed, resting one pale hand on the armrest as if she owned time itself.

  Her dress was the color of deep wine, its fabric flowing like liquid hunger. Her skin gleamed with unnatural smoothness, and her eyes, crimson pools rimmed with gold, settled on Alistair the moment he stepped through the threshold.

  He bowed.

  Deeply.

  No jokes. No quips.

  “Bloodmistress,” he said, voice steady.

  She smiled.

  A slow, dark thing.

  “My lovely little disaster,” she purred, voice like blood running over silk. “You’ve done well.”

  Alistair straightened. “Thank you.”

  “Your duel pleased many,” she said, fingers twitching ever so slightly. “And annoyed others. Which pleases me more.”

  He dared a smirk. “Happy to irritate in your name, as always.”

  Her smile deepened.

  “I’ve decided to grant you a reward. A boon.”

  Alistair tensed slightly. Boons from gods were rarely straightforward. Or survivable.

  She raised one finger, lazily.

  “Today, you are free. No Arena. No trials. No blood tribute. For one day, you belong to no one.”

  He blinked.

  Then narrowed his eyes.

  “…That’s it?”

  “Indeed,” she said. “A day off.”

  She rose, descending the throne like water trickling down a blade.

  “And we’re going to spend it together.”

  Alistair’s throat dried.

  “…Great.”

  Buddy sneezed blood on the floor.

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