The guards threw Kairo into the dust. Chains scraped against black stone, their sound swallowed by the vastness around him.
He raised his head slowly.
The arena stretched outward like an endless circle carved into the bones of the underworld. No sky loomed above — only a ceiling of darkness that seemed to breathe, pulsing faintly as though it were alive. The air was thick with the stench of iron, ash, and something older… something that remembered every drop of blood spilled here.
The stands were full, yet not with mortals. They were filled with shadows — silhouettes without faces, without form, their cheers rising like the wailing of the damned. It was not applause. It was hunger.
Kairo's body still trembled from the punishment in the Hall. His wrists ached from where the hooks had torn through him, his mind burned with whispers that refused to fade.
"Again."
"Show us."
"We will carry you to the throne."
He shut his eyes. The voices pressed harder. They wanted him to rise, to strike, to give them more.
A figure loomed above, seated on a throne cut from obsidian and bone. Hades. His presence draped across the arena like a shroud. His voice rolled through the silence, cold and absolute:
"Round Four begins."
The gates creaked open.
From the blackness beyond came not a roar, not a beast, but silence. Something moved there, dragging across the ground, but its steps made no sound.
Kairo's crimson eyes fixed on the dark opening. His breath slowed. His heart beat louder in his ears. The sand beneath him seemed to shift, as if recoiling from whatever approached.
The shadows in the stands screamed, demanded blood.
But Kairo did not move. He waited.
Because he understood something in that moment — the arena was not meant to test his body. It was meant to break the last threads of his will.
And the silence crawling toward him was more dangerous than any roar.