The air was too still.
Too clean.
Rhea sat on the floor of the cold chamber, knees tucked to her chest, arms wrapped around them. Her fingers trembled slightly—but her voice didn't. Not yet.
Stix sat across from her, close this time—knees almost touching hers. He leaned forward with his elbows on his thighs, head tilted down. Silent.
"I still remember the way you screamed," she whispered.
He didn't look up.
"I told you to run. You didn't. You… shoved me out of the way and then the spider…" Her throat tightened. "It tore through you like paper. Your armor, your skin, all of it. Gone. I was frozen. I couldn't move. I couldn't stop it."
Still, no reply. Just a slow breath from his nose.
"I didn't even cry until it was over. Until I saw what was left of you. Your—your legs. Your face. It didn't even look like you anymore."
Stix's voice was quiet when it came. Almost too soft to hear.
"…It's okay."
"No, it's not," she said, voice cracking. "I should've— I should've been stronger. I should've—"
"Rhea." His tone sharpened, but only slightly. "You don't have to carry that."
She looked at him—eyes wide, brimming.
"I watched Jalen lose himself. His glyphs turned black. I'd never seen him like that—screaming, tearing through everything. He didn't care what he hit. It was like... something snapped in him."
Stix nodded once. Still listening.
"And I wasn't scared of the monster anymore," she said. "I was scared of him."
Silence settled between them. For a second, it was just breathing and the crackling quiet of wherever they were.
Then—
A laugh.
Not Stix's.
Not hers.
It crept in like mold, crawling across the ceiling and curling down the walls.
"How precious," came the voice."The God of Freedom... capable of such rage. I do wonder what he'll do when he finds you. When he finds out you're already mine."
Rhea's head snapped up.
The torches in the room flared sickly green.
And the Smiling Man emerged from the ceiling—oozing downward like he was made of melted skin and oil. His body stretched as it dropped, then snapped into place with an almost joyful shiver.
Rhea flinched and tried to move—only to find her wrists locked in place.
Chains.
Black, wet, pulsing—like webbing made from nerves.
Stix was chained too, upright on the opposite wall, hands bound above his head.
"Son of a bitch," he muttered, mostly to himself.
The Smiling Man walked between them, his smile far too wide for his face.
"So fragile, little Rhea," he said in a singsong murmur. "So much guilt. So much noise in that head of yours."
Then his attention slid sideways, crawling toward Stix like a whisper.
"And you... poor boy. How many times do I have to kill you before it sticks?"
Stix didn't blink.
Didn't flinch.
He just said, flatly, "You gonna monologue the whole time, or do something useful?"
The Smiling Man's grin froze slightly—just a twitch. As if the jab didn't land but irritated him anyway.
Rhea shot a glance at Stix.
He didn't look at her. Just kept his chin raised, gaze locked on the monster in front of him.
The Smiling Man giggled.
"Oh, I'm not here to hurt him. Not directly. I just thought it might be... fun, to bring back an old friend."
His body convulsed.
Joints popped.
Flesh slid.
Arms twisted backward as his body lengthened. Hair sprouted across limbs that weren't meant to have it. A gaping maw split open along his chest, dripping black ichor.
The sound of skittering filled the chamber—loud, echoing, suffocating.
The Smiling Man became the spider.
But not just any spider, the one that killed Stix.
The spider skittered forward.
Its legs cracked the stone beneath it like glass, joints clicking like warped clock hands.
But the worst part?
Its face.
The twisted maw of the creature wore Stix's old face, stretched thin like parchment across bone and mandibles. Its eyes were too many. But one of them… one of them looked like his.
Rhea froze.
"No…"
Her breathing shortened. Her limbs trembled again—not from fear, but memory.
The room fell away. The stone walls faded. The torches vanished.
All that remained—
Was the cave.
The boss arena.
The moment.
Blood. Screams. The crunch of bones that didn't belong to monsters.
She was back there. Watching it happen all over again.
Stix diving in front of her. The web spike piercing his chest. His body thrown into the wall. The sickening sound of it landing like a sack of broken meat.
Her own voice crying out. Useless.
And Jalen—
God, Jalen's roar. His glyphs turning black. The way he tore through everything in sight, friend or foe.
Her legs gave out now—slamming into the ground beneath her. Her chains clinked but didn't break.
"Stop," she whispered.
The spider crawled closer, each limb slamming with awful precision.
Its face smiled. That same smile.
"Weak little Rhea," it hissed, voice now a mockery of her brother's. "Can't save anyone. Not then. Not now."
Stix, still chained beside her, strained against the webs. "Hey! Don't listen to that freak. Rhea, look at me!"
She didn't.
She couldn't. In her mind, she saw herself younger again. The little girl who was always clinging to Stix's arm, hiding behind him whenever something scary happened. When they lost their parents. When the soldiers raided their village.
Despite her being the older of the two, he was always there. The shield. The smile. The brave words.
And she was just… behind him.
She clenched her fists now.
"I'm not that girl anymore," she said, though her voice barely left her throat.
The spider laughed again. A horrible wheezing cackle, mandibles clicking.
"Aren't you? Look at you. On your knees again. Waiting for someone else to save you."
Rhea took a deep breath, and the memories surged. Training with Kuromi. Standing at Jalen's side. Fighting monsters and getting stronger.
No. She wasn't the same, but she wasn't helpless.
She chose this fight. She wasn't just someone's big sister anymore.
She wasn't a victim.
She opened her eyes—and for the first time, she didn't look at the spider.
She looked at Stix.
His eyes met hers—wide, scared, but steady.
"It's my turn to protect you now," she said.
A crack echoed in the silence.
Then another.
Chains.
They trembled.
Stix blinked. "Uh… Rhea?"
She was standing now—slowly. Her breath still ragged, but her posture had changed. Shoulders back. Legs steady.
One of the manacles binding her wrist had fractured, glowing faintly.
A soft golden light traced across her skin… like veins… no—like a glyph.
It pulsed once, in rhythm with her heartbeat.
The Smiling Man turned so sharply it was like his neck unhinged. He stared at her, eyes wide with wonder—genuine and disturbing.
"Well, well…"
The spider-creature stopped moving.
That grin, stitched from mockery and menace, twitched.
"Oh this is interesting."
Rhea didn't respond. Her hands rose—not in defense, but in stillness. The second shackle cracked. Light surged from her palm, a faint ripple trailing down her fingers like memory coming to life.
Stix yanked at his own chains again. "Rhea, I don't know what you're doing, but maybe don't do it while demon-spider-face is monologuing?!"
The Smiling Man ignored him, completely transfixed. "That glow… it isn't yours. It's borrowed. Stamped onto your soul like a favor from something beyond."
He leaned forward, his translucent eyes now swirling with dark interest. "Tell me, little girl... what did the God of Freedom give you?"
Rhea flinched slightly—but she didn't look away.
The final chain snapped.
She stood unbound now, breathing heavily, the glyph still faint but present. Her eyes shimmered—not fully glowing, but enough to unsettle.
And enough to tempt.
The Smiling Man chuckled. "Oh, he marked you. That's divine interference. A tether. A thread of godhood wrapped around a mortal spine."
He took a step forward.
Stix struggled harder. "Rhea, don't fight him! He's not like the others—he doesn't play fair!"
Rhea didn't turn.
She was shaking—not from fear, but from something waking up.
And she knew it.
She could feel Jalen. Not his presence, but his power—still alive inside her. A gift she never asked for. A spark meant for survival, not glory.
But now… it might get her killed.
The Smiling Man grinned wider, arms spreading.
"Oh, I have to see what happens next."
Stix shouted again, voice cracking. "RHEA!"
But she was already moving.
Somewhere far below the world—or maybe above it—Jalen sat cross-legged in silence.
Or what passed for silence here.
There were no walls. No sky. No sound.
Just static.
An endless gray hum that wormed its way behind his eyes and made time feel like sludge.
He wasn't bound. Not physically.
But something about this place kept him still.
Like his body had been filed away—labeled and shelved in a dimension that couldn't be punched through.
And Jalen had tried.
His knuckles still ached from the first ten minutes of swinging at the nothingness.
Now, he meditated—not out of peace, but because it was the only way to feel anything.
Until—A flicker.
His eyes twitched beneath their lids.
Something… cracked.
Heat.
Not inside him—but from him.
The glyphs. His glyphs.
One of them… burned.
He didn't need to see it. He knew whose it was.
Lucio.
It was faint—flickering—but it wasn't gone.
The link had snapped during Zeraphon's trial… but now it sparked back to life like a soldier refusing death.
And then, just as quickly—another flare.
Different.
Gentler.
But louder somehow.
His breath caught.
Rhea.
The glyph he gave her in secret—half a god's heart, buried beneath her skin—was active.
And not just active.
It was responding to something.
Jalen's fingers curled into fists.
"She's fighting."
The realization punched through him like a heartbeat breaking the surface of water.
She was fighting.
Lucio was changing.
The others…
Were being hunted.
He stood slowly, eyes opening to the void.
The static didn't fade.
But now—it had direction.
He could feel the threads of his glyphs pulling outward, guiding him through the fog like anchor lines in a sea of ash.
Jalen bared his teeth.
"Time to move."