The desert had changed again.
What was once an endless expanse of shifting dunes was now a battlefield of glass and ash. The ground beneath Evren's boots was cracked, blackened, scorched by some ancient inferno that still lingered in the air. The heat was suffocating, rising in waves that distorted the horizon. Even the sun above seemed closer—bloated, crimson, oppressive—as though the Tower itself was watching him through that blazing eye.
Evren Calden stood at the threshold of the arena, the Abyssal Flame resting loosely in his hand. Every muscle in his body ached; his mind carried the weight of exhaustion so heavy it almost felt physical. The air burned in his lungs with each breath, yet he kept moving forward, step by deliberate step.
Behind him, Lira Solen's boots crunched against the charred earth. Her daggers glinted in the dying light, twin arcs of steel waiting to strike. Her voice, when it came, was steady but low—too calm for what lay ahead.
"This is it," she said. "The Scorched Arena. The Tower doesn't send beasts here. It sends what's left of those who tried and failed."
Evren didn't answer. His gaze swept the arena—wide, circular, its edges marked by tall pillars of black stone that pulsed faintly like veins of magma. In the center lay nothing but dust and silence. Yet the silence was too perfect, too deliberate.
"The Tower's mocking us," Lira murmured. "It knows we're close to the end of the desert."
Evren adjusted his grip on his sword, his reflection burning faintly in the blade's dark surface.
"Then let it mock," he said. "I'll burn through its laughter."
He took a step forward. The ground responded with a low, distant rumble. The cracks beneath their feet glowed orange, light seeping through them like veins awakening after centuries of slumber. The air trembled.
Then the arena came alive.
Hands—blackened, skeletal, wreathed in ember dust—burst from the earth. Then shoulders. Then faces.
Dozens of them.
Hundreds.
Former climbers, their bodies burned and twisted, their armor melted into their flesh. Their eyes burned with hollow fire, their mouths opened in soundless screams. The Tower had given them purpose again—to serve as the nightmare of those who dared to climb after them.
Lira drew her daggers with a hiss. "Evren…"
"I see them."
The first phantom charged. Evren met it head-on, swinging the Abyssal Flame in a blazing arc. The sword sang—a low, thunderous hum—and the phantom split in two, its ashes scattered into the burning air. But for every one that fell, three more took its place.
The battle began.
Evren and Lira moved together as they always did—instinctively, fluidly, as if their souls had learned the same rhythm. Her blades flickered like silver lightning, darting between the shades. His sword roared with fire, carving paths through smoke and shadow.
Each swing sent a wave of heat rippling through the air, turning sand into molten glass.
Each strike echoed like a heartbeat—steady, desperate, human.
But the Tower was merciless. The phantoms grew faster, stronger, learning their movements, adapting to every rhythm they found. The ground shook beneath the endless tide of scorched bodies.
"Evren!" Lira shouted, ducking under a clawed arm that swung where her head had been a heartbeat ago. "We're being cornered!"
Evren drove his sword deep into the ground. The Abyssal Flame pulsed, exploding outward in a ring of black fire. The wave incinerated everything within ten meters, scattering shadows like burnt leaves. The glow reflected in his eyes—tired, determined, defiant.
He tore the sword free. "Then we make space."
Hours—or maybe minutes, time had no meaning here—passed in relentless battle. Sweat ran down Evren's temples, sizzling the moment it met the air. Every breath he took felt like swallowing smoke. His arms trembled from fatigue, yet his strikes didn't falter. Each movement carried purpose, precision, the kind of discipline born only in suffering.
Lira fought near him, her daggers an unending dance of grace and death. "They're endless," she muttered, slicing through another phantom that dissolved into flame.
"No," Evren said between gasps, "they're desperate. The Tower… it's testing how long we'll hold."
And then the ground split open.
A roar tore through the arena, deep enough to rattle bones. The flames that had once licked the edges of the battlefield surged toward the center, spiraling upward in a massive vortex of fire. From within that inferno, a shape began to form—vast, towering, ancient.
When it emerged, even the Tower seemed to fall silent.
A golem of fire and obsidian stood before them, its body forged from the fused sands of the arena. Cracks glowed across its surface like molten veins, and its eyes—two burning orbs of gold—locked onto Evren with the cold, calculating focus of a god.
Lira took an involuntary step back. "That… thing…"
Evren's voice was low. "The Tower's final guardian."
The golem moved. The earth shuddered with every step it took. Its fists, larger than Evren's entire body, slammed into the ground, sending geysers of molten rock erupting skyward.
Evren dashed forward, rolling under a strike that shattered an entire section of the arena. Heat washed over him in waves, suffocating, searing. He countered with a slash of the Abyssal Flame—black fire meeting molten stone—but the golem barely flinched.
Lira leapt onto its arm, running up its shoulder in a blur of movement, daggers flashing. She stabbed at the glowing cracks in its chest, each strike sending sparks cascading into the wind. The creature howled, a deep, thunderous bellow that shook the air.
Evren saw his opening. He sprinted, the Abyssal Flame roaring to life. Flames curled around his arms, licking up to his shoulders as he launched himself upward, driving his sword into the creature's side.
The impact threw him back, the explosion of heat almost blinding. He hit the ground hard, sand and glass slicing his skin. Pain flared bright and raw—but so did resolve.
He pushed himself up, teeth gritted. "Again."
They struck in tandem, Lira above, Evren below. Each blow carved deeper, chipping away at the guardian's armor. But with each wound they inflicted, the arena responded—walls of fire rising, molten rivers cutting across their escape routes. The Tower refused to let them win easily.
The golem's core pulsed—a heart of burning stone deep within its chest. Evren felt it calling to him, rhythmic, resonant, like the beat of a war drum. That was the key. That was where this ended.
"Lira!" he shouted, flames flaring around him. "The heart!"
She nodded, already in motion. She leapt from one molten rock to another, every step precise despite the chaos. Evren charged beneath her, deflecting waves of molten fire with his blade. The golem's arm came crashing down toward him—he met it head-on.
The Abyssal Flame roared. The impact sent fire scattering across the arena. Evren's arms screamed with pain, but he held firm, forcing the massive limb upward just enough.
"Now!"
Lira dove, blades glowing white-hot, driving both into the cracks of the golem's chest. At the same moment, Evren surged forward, the Abyssal Flame burning brighter than ever before. He plunged the sword straight into the guardian's core.
A sound like thunder ripped through the air.
The golem convulsed, light searing from within its chest, splitting it apart from the inside out. Its molten body began to crumble, breaking into fragments of glowing stone that fell like meteors across the battlefield. The ground shook violently one last time—and then, all was still.
Silence returned.
The flames around the arena dimmed. The air cooled. The crimson sky faded into soft twilight.
Evren stood amidst the ruins, chest heaving, the Abyssal Flame dim but steady in his grasp. Lira landed beside him, breathing hard, sweat and soot streaking her face. For a long moment, neither spoke. There was nothing to say—only the quiet realization that they had survived what so many hadn't.
Then, from the wind itself, the Tower spoke:
> "The Scorched Arena has been conquered, Evren Calden.
Few endure its fire. Few conquer despair made flesh.
Proceed. The Desert of Souls watches, and your will has been tempered anew."
Evren let the words wash over him, their weight settling in his chest. He looked across the shattered arena—the battlefield of ash, glass, and memory—and knew this was more than victory. It was a transformation.
Each trial had burned something away: fear, hesitation, weakness.
What remained was unyielding.
He turned to Lira, who gave a small, weary smile. "You never stop, do you?"
"Stopping means dying," Evren replied softly.
He sheathed the Abyssal Flame. The blade pulsed faintly, almost alive, feeding off his will. Together, they began walking toward the distant horizon, where the desert met the unknown.