The arena pulsed with unstable energy, a chaotic symphony of destruction and despair echoing off the blackened spires of shattered ruins.
Daein stood at its center — a twisted silhouette of man and machine. His left arm was no longer flesh but gleaming steel, ending in a whirring claw. Metallic plates crawled up his torso like a second skin, his face half-shrouded in reinforced plating, his eyes burning cold and mechanical. The shadows of the ruins slithered across his augmented form, unable to cling to something so far removed from life. He was not human anymore. He was a weapon.
Solari stood a short distance away, her hands raised over the fractured ground. Molten veins pulsed beneath her touch, lava boiling in the cracks of the arena like blood fevered by madness.
"Stay sharp!" she barked, her voice low, guttural, vibrating with a grim, satisfied resonance. "One mistake, and we fall with him!"
Teya's heart twisted painfully. "This isn't Daein, something's corrupting him." Survival itself turning against them. Still, she yelled at him, hope and despair dueling in her heart. "Daein! It's us, don't you remember?!"
"This isn't him!" Sirel shouted. "This isn't Daein!" her voice cracking under the weight of grief and fury, electricity screaming along her arms, her fists clenching hard enough to leave blood on her palms.
A couple of hours earlier, he had gone missing during a survival run — a brutal dash through the outskirts where hybrids had surged, clawing after the group like wild, corrupted dogs. They'd parted from Kairon's team only minutes before, venturing closer to the unstable perimeter where the stone gave way to broken ruins and whispering ash.
No scream.
No signal.
Just silence.
It had happened during the chaos. A ruin-beast — massive, shadowbound, pulsing with ancient power — lunged for Teya. Daein moved without thought, shoving her aside.
The creature collided with him, and then… vanished.
Daein was flung across the broken stone like a doll stitched with regret.
They thought he was unconscious. Maybe dead. But while the others tended to injuries and caught their breath inside the half-formed arena structure they'd collapsed into, no one noticed Daein dragging his mangled body toward the arena's fractured center.
Toward the pull.
Something called to him.
Not a voice — a sensation. Like clarity being offered from within madness. A whisper not of healing… but of purpose.
And then, the arena responded.
The ground trembled.
A private chamber sealed itself off around him. Ancient stone shifted. A hidden path opened — a stairwell choked in memory and ash, descending beneath the arena's broken bones.
Below, in a place untouched even by ruin-scavengers or ghost-blooded challengers, the ruin waited.
And it judged.
Not loudly. Not cruelly.
But with terrible, perfect precision.
It had watched him earlier — when he had thrown himself over a collapsed girl. She was just a teenager his sister's age, still trying to figure out her abilities during one of the skirmishes. Shielding her from falling debris with nothing but his body and guilt wasn't enough as she slept from her injuries while he fought. Maybe he could make right with his conscience on how badly he'd treated his sister by saving this girl. But it wasn't enough.
The ruin had watched as his fists bled while he wept. As he bought time for others to live. As he burned with failure and fury. Wishing that he could have done more, wishing he had saved the girl.
It did not kill him.
It offered.
From the depths emerged a ruin-beast — tall, skeletal, and ancient. Its ribs were made of fused relics. Its skull wore a crown of memory and sorrow. Its voice was wind over graves, unspoken.
It did not ask.
It opened itself.
And Daein, half-conscious and bleeding, filled with guilt and grief, accepted.
Not to win.
Not to conquer.
To survive her loss. He merged with the beast willingly.
The pact bound him instantly. Metal surged into his bones. Shadows crawled across his flesh and veins. His heart slowed… and then thundered again — no longer entirely human. His scream was devoured by the ruin's silence. Where others had been subtly changed by their relics — limbs quicker, senses sharper, instincts honed — this was different. They were changed.
He was remade.
And when he rose, hours later, standing in the center of the arena, armor whispering ruin and purpose, the others barely recognized him.
His eyes were not filled with rage.
They were empty.
And when he finally spoke, his voice echoed with mechanical stillness:
"I see the purpose now.
You must be broken to be useful."
Electricity writhed along Sirel's arms like wild serpents, searing the ground wherever she stepped. She hurled a bolt of raw lightning at him — it struck dead center, forcing Daein to stagger half a step — but he barely reacted. The ruin had hardened him beyond pain. Her lightning then snapped in chaotic arcs, scorching the broken relics Daein hurled at them, burning them to ash before they could touch ground.
Varek simply raised an eyebrow, scanning Daein with chilling detachment. "Could this be happening to the others too?" he asked, voice calm, almost curious. As if the idea of more corrupted survivors didn't disturb him but only intrigued him.
Daein moved then, slow but inexorable. His reinforced armor hissed at every shift, a grotesque symphony of machine muscles tightening and releasing. His massive fists — now hybridized energy cannons — whined as they charged.
Solari slammed both palms into the soil. A pulse traveled outward — lava spewing upward, wild, uncontrollable. The ruin itself seemed to scream as molten rock swallowed Daein's next attack in a wash of violent heat.
Sirel laughed — but it was a jagged, broken sound, not joy. Electricity flared wildly from her body, dancing across the shattered ruins like vengeful spirits. Every step she took left the ground cracked and scorched.
Teya darted forward, moving too fast for the eye to catch — Her limbs slicing through fallen debris like paper, metallic extensions whistling through the air with deadly grace. There was beauty in her movements now — but not the beauty of life. The beauty of a blade sharpened past reason. Daein roared — a low, metallic distortion — and hurled a fragmented relic straight at her. Teya sliced it cleanly midair, her eyes wide with something between horror and awe. She hadn't just gotten faster. She was becoming something else.
Varek, ever precise, moved with terrifying economy — His new exoskeleton turning at every step, every pivot, into an effortless dance of death. Red charges like currents coiled around his hands like leashed serpents, waiting to be unleashed.
"Daein's gone," Varek muttered under his breath, too soft for anyone to hear. "And we might be next."
The fight turned savage as Daein charged, a juggernaut of corrupted flesh and cybernetic power.
Solari answered with a molten wall erupting from the ground — but Daein plowed through it, molten rock exploding around him in a storm of embers. Teya struck at his side — fast, sharp, desperate. Sirel unleashed another arc of lightning, aiming for exposed joints in his armor. Sparks showered the battlefield. Varek darted behind Daein, aiming precise jabs at his weak points. But Daein was faster, stronger, angrier than before.
"Pull back!" Solari roared. "We can't break him head-on!"
They regrouped at the edge of the arena, panting, battered, shaking. Daein loomed across the broken stone, the ruin's whispering energy clinging to him like a shroud. Solari's fists clenched. She could feel it. The same energy inside her. Coiling. Spreading. Changing her.
Sirel wiped blood from her mouth, lightning crackling along her veins. "How much longer do we have?" she gasped.
Teya flexed her metallic claws, eyes unfocused. "I don't know," she whispered. "But whatever it is, it's already inside us."
For a moment, they just stood there, five figures on the crumbling edge of something ancient, something patient, something that no longer cared about humanity. Others who they'd fought with had either fled or died during Daein's first attack. The ruin wasn't just a place anymore. It was alive. And it was hungry. Across the battlefield, Daein tilted his head — as if listening to something none of them could hear. He moved with the mechanical certainty of a machine, but the reckless fury of something still faintly human — something desperate to erase that last shred of memory. And he smiled.
A terrible, broken smile.
Then he charged.
Solari gritted her teeth, slamming both fists into the ground again. Molten rivers burst from the stone, searing paths across the broken arena. But this time, the lava writhed uncontrollably, lashing at everything — friend and foe alike. Sirel had to leap aside, lightning cracking from her fingertips just to deflect the scalding wave.
"You're losing it!" she barked at Solari, fear hidden poorly behind anger.
"I know," Solari hissed, sweat pouring down her temples. "But it's not just on the outside — it's inside me."
Teya blurred across the broken ground, slashing at Daein's side — sparks flying as metal struck reinforced armor. Daein barely reacted. He turned — faster than he should have — and caught Teya mid-dash, his clawed arm locking around her wrist with crushing force.
"Teya!" Varek shouted. He moved — fluid, precise — exoskeleton amplifying every motion.
Electric energy mixed with a sort of sandstorm coiled in his hands, and with a snarl, he unleashed it. The bolt struck Daein squarely in the chest. For a heartbeat, Daein staggered. Teya twisted free, gasping, her arm bruised but intact. But Varek's strike barely slowed Daein's advance. The ruin had made him something... more. Or something less humane. Sirel hurled a rush of lightning spears, but they all shattered harmlessly against the plates bolted to Daein's skin. Despair gnawed at her as she stumbled backward.
"He's not even feeling it anymore," she muttered. "We're too late."
Solari stood firm at the center of the storm, her arms trembling with barely contained power. She could feel the lava calling to her — no longer obedient. It roiled with hunger, with madness. She wasn't sure if she could contain it much longer. Or if she even wanted to.
"We have to fall back," Varek said sharply.
He fired another quick burst to cover their retreat, narrowly missing Daein's head. But Solari didn't move. She watched Daein advance, step by unstoppable step, molten footprints sizzling in his wake.
"This is what the ruin wants," she said softly. "For us to become like him."
Teya clutched her slashed wrist, face pale, eyes wild. "We're already halfway there," she whispered. "You can feel it too, can't you?"
Her voice cracked on the last word. Daein roared — the sound vibrating the stone itself — and charged again. Teya leapt away, limping slightly now. Sirel covered her, electricity sizzling dangerously along her forearms.
Varek dodged right, weaving in tight, calculated movements, always looking for an opening. But there were none. Solari didn't dodge. She slammed her fists into the ground one more time —
but this time, it wasn't just lava that answered. The stone cracked open beneath her feet. A surge of pure ruin energy exploded upward — tendrils of darkness laced with fire, wrapping around her legs, her arms, her chest. Binding her. Welcoming her, making her stronger. For a moment, she stood frozen in its embrace, eyes wide with horror — not at the ruin, but at herself. At how easy it would be to give in.
To stop fighting.
To become more.
"I get it. Daein didn't fall!" she cried out suddenly, voice cracking as the shadows flooded her veins. "He was chosen."
Sirel grabbed Solari's shoulder roughly, jerking her back from the fissure.
"Don't say that," she snarled, lightning sparking wildly between them. "Don't you dare!"
But Solari's eyes were glassy, haunted. She looked at her friends — their battered bodies, their flickering energy, their despair — and she wondered, for the first time, if resisting even mattered. Varek stepped between Solari and Daein, taking a defensive stance.
"We...survive," he said quietly, panting. "Or we become...him. There is no third path."
Daein stopped a dozen meters away, cocking his head like a curious animal. Metal groaned as his mechanical jaw shifted into something resembling a grin.
"You think you're still you," Daein said, voice distorted, layered with static. "But the ruin sees you already."
He raised his claw — and the ruin pulsed in response. The ground beneath them rumbled. The very air seemed to warp, bending toward Daein's augmented form.
"You're not fighting me," Daein whispered. "You're fighting what you're meant to become. So you can save others."
Solari's hands trembled after breaking free from the shadows. Teya gritted her teeth, her metallic limbs twitching. Sirel tightened her fists until blood dripped onto a shattered stone. Varek set his stance, but even his breathing had quickened, shallow with fear. The ruin force inside them stirred. And for the first time, it whispered promises they could almost believe. Daein took a step forward — slow, deliberate. Solari's heart pounded. Part of her wanted to run. Part of her wanted to kneel. And a terrible, rising part of her...wanted to embrace it.
"Stand together," Varek said, voice hard, exhausted. "We can still go home."
Solari clenched her fists again until her nails dug into her palms.
"We're not done yet," she said. "So come on!!!"
And she meant it. Even if she had to rip the ruin out of her own bones. They braced themselves. Lightning arced. Lava hissed. Metal shivered. Charges grew.
Across the battlefield, Daein opened his arms wide — a cruel parody of a welcome. And the ruins howled.
Somewhere in the crumbling darkness and chaos of their fight with Daein, something watched — not with eyes, but with the deep memory of the ruins themselves. As if cataloging each power flare, each broken transformation, each loss of self.
And it was waiting.