Elito rose from the scarlet vortex, drawing a sword the size of a cathedral door. Its edge hummed like collapsing stars, warping the air as the arena walls twisted into screaming faces.
Maya gripped her chest, eyes wide: "This… isn't power. It's despair."
"This is only twenty percent," Elito said faintly.
Lacolone steadied his blade, aura trembling.
"The eclipse was unsheathed."
The arena walls bled scarlet, reshaping into bone pillars. Valgor smashed the ground, only to see it heal instantly, laughing in a thousand voices.
"You stand in me now," Elito declared.
Chains descended from the ceiling, binding nothing but leaving scars in the air.
"It's… alive," Eden muttered.
The Twin-Knife Kid flickered into view beside Elito, aura bending the scarlet geometry beneath him.
"Playtime's over. Who wants to die first?"
"Over my body," Maya gared, wings flaring.
Elito raised his sword — one slow swing sent Riftquake shockwaves sucking the heroes inward. Jessica's pistol shattered before firing. Valgor caught the swing with his fists — bones cracking like glass.
"One death," Elito whispered.
Visions of false deaths plagued the heroes: Eden drowning in scarlet oceans, Jessica executed by Maria, Maya seeing Lacolone's corpse.
Salah muttered: "We're already dead…"
Lacolone roared, katana fracturing scarlet geometry, but Elito barely shifted his wrist. The Kid slashed Maya's wings with surgical precision; Valgor's vortex punch met the Kid's parry.
"Hope was measured in seconds."
Elito spoke a single word — the arena walls screamed, weapons vibrated, and memory faltered.
"Your names are ashes," he said.
Maya poured all five Pillars into a surge of healing, stitching Valgor's fists mid-combat. Her nose bled heavily as the Kid cut through her threads.
Lacolone clashed mid-air with the Eclipse Blade. Sparks exploded into geometric voids.
"You're saving your hatred for me? Good," Elito whispered.
Salah bent Driftform, dodging the Kid's blades, but lost strands of his soul; the boy read every move.
Walid charged Caline, steel bending against golden arcs. Even as his sword broke, he swung with the hilt, bleeding but standing for Salah.
Elito's swings tilted the arena sideways; heroes tumbled screaming, bullets vanished midair. Despair pressed like stone.
Valgor poured blood into a sigil, glowing red-blue, smashing Thano's phantom. Elito caught the punch effortlessly.
Elito raised the Eclipse Blade high; runes of the 33 Saints ignited, screaming with layered agony.
"It's… their souls," Maya gasped.
"They are my blade," Elito whispered.
Lacolone dove, aura burning scarlet-white, katana fracturing reality into shards.
"You're not God. You're a cage."
Maya unleashed a dome of soul-light, shielding allies. Wings cracked but kept glowing.
"You won't have their names…"
"Then I'll take yours first," Elito replied. The Kid darted at her, knives screaming.
Elito slammed the Eclipse Blade into the ground; the arena fractured, scarlet rivers pouring upward. Eden collapsed unconscious; Jessica dragged him back.
"Maya—don't stop!" Lacolone shouted.
Full-page splash cliffhanger: Elito and the Kid stand side by side, the arena collapsing into a scarlet abyss. Behind them, the 33 Saint coffins ignite, their spirits screaming into the Eclipse Blade. The heroes kneel, broken and barely alive.
"This was only twenty percent. And yet — it was enough to give them each a ticket to hell."