The last breath of the Vale of Dusk was still in Eliakim's lungs when the world ripped open around him. The fading mist of the trial peeled away like torn silk, and he was slammed back into the arena—stone beneath his boots, dust in the air, and the roar of the Baphomet crashing over him like a black tide.
The scythe was already descending.
Instinct took the reins before thought could form. His body dissolved into shadow, the world smearing into grey silence as he slipped beneath the swing. The blade met only the afterimage of him, slicing deep into the earth with a crack that sent stone shrapnel screaming through the air.
Chains rattled at his wrist.
The bracelet he had worn since the beginning was no longer the simple iron band it once appeared to be. The metal was blackened, the links alive, writhing faintly as though tasting the air. Each finger bore its own length of chain, each humming with the silent weight of a treasure claimed. The palm—the newest segment—smoldered with a deep, abyssal glow.
From it bled power.
It spilled over his hand, dripping like molten shadow, and solidified into a jagged length of black steel. The Corrosion Blade pulsed, its edges exhaling a faint hiss, each droplet that fell from its tip burning through the stone like acid. The air reeked of metal and rot.
Beelzebub. The name was not spoken, but it thundered in his skull, the first of his inner demons stirring in triumph.
The Baphomet lunged again, eyes burning with hellfire, scythe spinning in a murderous arc. Eliakim didn't meet it head-on—not yet. The veil still clung to him from the trial, wrapping him in silence. He was gone from sight before the beast's eyes could track him.
A heartbeat later, he was beside Gideon, who lay gasping against a shattered pillar. Eliakim's hand gripped his shoulder, and the veil swallowed them both. They vanished before the scythe split the stone where they had been.
Ezra was next, barely conscious and bleeding from a wound across his ribs. Eliakim's presence flickered beside him like a shadow gaining form, hauling him into concealment without a word.
Skyling was still standing—barely—parrying a blow with her twin knives. Eliakim's hand caught her wing, pulling her into the same nothingness that hid the others.
Three allies, safely shrouded in shadow. All before the Baphomet could even understand why its prey was slipping through its scythe.
Only then did Eliakim step back into the light.
The veil peeled away from his form, chains clinking like the tolling of some dark clock. The Corrosion Blade tilted in his hand, venom glistening along its fractured edge. His gaze locked with the monster.
"Now," he said, voice low and steady, "you're mine."
The Baphomet roared, charging with enough force to quake the arena. The scythe came down like the swing of a guillotine.
Eliakim met it.
When blade met blade, the sound wasn't steel against steel—it was the sound of something dying. The edge of the scythe began to blister, rot blooming outward in blackened veins. Chunks of curse-forged metal sloughed away, hissing as they hit the ground.
The Baphomet snarled and swung again, desperate to land a decisive blow before its weapon decayed entirely. But Eliakim was no longer there.
He moved like the shadows of the Vale had taught him—appearing for the barest instant, the glint of his blade followed by the wet sound of corrosion eating into flesh. Black wounds spread across the beast's hide, glowing faintly as the rot sank deeper.
Every time the monster turned, he was gone. Every time it thought it could predict him, he came from another angle. The chains on his bracelet sang with each strike, as though the treasures themselves were exulting in the fight.
The arena floor became a map of decay—footprints of rot, trails where the scythe had melted through stone, the scent of death thick in the air.
For the first time, the Baphomet stepped back.
Its chest heaved, eyes narrowing as if realizing that this was no longer the same opponent it had faced before. This was something sharper. Faster. Deadlier.
Eliakim stood in the center of the devastation, the Corrosion Blade dripping poison in a slow, steady rhythm.
The fight wasn't over. But the hunter was done running.