The path to the Grand Temple was paved in white marble, but Arc's boots left a trail of crimson and gold.
He walked with the steady, rhythmic pace of a predator that knew its prey had nowhere left to run. Every breath was a sharp reminder of the battle with Ares. Even a "Monster" like Arc couldn't slaughter a High God without paying a price. His shoulder wound was knitting shut, but the golden Ichor of the War God acted like a spiritual acid, slowing his regeneration.
It didn't matter. By the time he reached those towering gold doors, he would be ready to finish the job. Today, the Heavens would fall.
Inside the Grand Temple, the atmosphere was far from divine. It reeked of a scent the Gods hadn't smelled in millennia: Panic.
"He really did it," Hera whispered, her voice trembling as she watched the distant silhouette of the black-armored Variable through a scrying pool. "He killed Ares."
"This is your failure, Zeus!" she suddenly snapped, turning on the King of Gods. "You had him on that shore! He was weak, broken—and you struck him once and walked away? You assumed a 'Variable' would simply die?"
Zeus sat on his throne, his lightning-bolt grip white-knuckled. He looked distraught, his usual arrogance replaced by a hollow stare. "He was not meant to survive. No mortal could. It's that damned Beast... if he hadn't inherited that power, we wouldn't be in this nightmare."
"Then we end the nightmare now," Athena interrupted, rising from her seat with a cold, analytical light in her eyes. "He is capable of killing us. Immortal or not, his blade finds the soul. There is only one option left."
The room went deathly silent. They knew what she meant. The Ancient Rite of Erasure. It was a ritual designed to seal a soul and vaporize the physical vessel.
"It will cost us," Hades grumbled from the shadows. "A fraction of our divinity. We will be weakened for centuries."
"Better weak than dead," Athena countered. "Does anyone object?"
Silence was her answer. The fear of the man walking toward them was greater than the pride of their power.
"We need time," Apollo noted, checking the sun's position. "The Rite is complex. It cannot be rushed."
Zeus turned to Hades, his eyes narrowing. "Send a gate-guardian. Distract him. Buy us every second you can."
Hades didn't argue. He stepped to the center of the hall and tore a rift into the air. It was a jagged hole of pitch-black nothingness that reeked of rot and old graves. From the abyss crawled a monstrosity that defied nature—a hound the size of a cathedral, its skin a patchwork of mutated muscle and bone, its eyes glowing like dying stars.
"Go," Hades commanded. "Feed."
On the temple path, Arc stopped. The air in front of him curdled.
A massive pressure slammed into the ground as the Underworld Beast appeared. It lunged instantly, a clawed forepaw the size of a carriage swinging at Arc's head.
Arc moved like a shadow. He dodged the initial strike, but the beast was faster than its size suggested. He sent a retaliatory slash toward its ribs, but his blade skidded off its hide with a shower of sparks.
Thick skin, Arc noted, his eyes narrowing. They're desperate. They're buying time.
The creature roared, a sound that felt like a physical weight, and snapped its jaws at Arc's torso. Arc leaped backward, his mind racing. He didn't have time for a duel of attrition. He needed to end this now.
"Fine," Arc hissed, his obsidian aura flaring to life, coating his twin blades in a shroud of devouring darkness. "If you want to be a shield for them, you can die with them."
The beast charged, driven mad by the dark energy. Arc didn't move until the last possible second. He slid beneath the creature's belly, his dark-coated blade carving a massive trench through its back leg. Green, acidic fluid sprayed the marble as the monster shrieked in agony.
As the beast stumbled, losing its balance, Arc lunged. He propelled himself off a crumbling pillar, a streak of black lightning aiming straight for the creature's skull. With a guttural growl, he drove his sword through the center of its head, pinning it to the earth.
The monster gave one final, shuddering breath and went still.
"Nothing stops me," Arc growled, pulling his blade free. "Not today."
But inside the temple, the Golden Blood had already been spilled.
The Gods stood in a circle around an ancient, pulsating seal. Zeus led them, drawing a dagger of solidified light across his own forearm. The golden Ichor hissed as it hit the floor, filling the grooves of the ritual circle. One by one, the Pantheon followed, their divine essences merging into a singular, terrifying force.
The air began to vibrate with a low, cosmic hum.
CLANG.
Outside, the ground beneath Arc's feet didn't just crack—it vanished.
Dark golden chains, forged from the very Laws of Order, erupted from the void. They lashed around him with impossible speed, biting into his obsidian armor and pinning his arms to his sides. He struggled, his monstrous strength screaming against the bindings, but these weren't physical chains. They were the weight of the universe.
The Ritual, Arc realized, his blood running cold.
THWIP-THUMP.
Before he could summon his mana, three spikes of pure, white-hot divine energy materialized. They moved faster than thought. Two pierced his sides, locking him in place, and the third—a jagged shard of raw Divinity—drove through his back and erupted from his chest.
Arc's head snapped back. A sound tore from his throat that wasn't human; it was the primal, draconic roar of the Ancient Beast, a cry that shook the pillars of the Grand Temple.
How? his mind splintered. I had every counter... I saw every move...
The heat of his dark mana was being snuffed out by the cold, blinding light of the spikes. He looked toward the temple doors through a veil of red, his heart hammering a frantic, dying rhythm. He didn't feel fear. He felt a hatred so pure it threatened to ignite the air.
"Not... like... this," he rasped, blood bubbling at his lips. He looked up at the sky, his eyes burning with a promise of eternal vengeance. "I will kill you... damned gods... even if not in this life... I will find you in the next!"
The world exploded into white light.
Then, total, silent darkness.
Arc felt himself falling through a void where time didn't exist. The pain of the spikes faded. The coldness of the chains vanished. He was drifting in a sea of nothingness... until a sound broke the silence.
Thump-thump.
A heartbeat. Not his own. It was muffled, rhythmic, and warm.
Then, the darkness broke. A blinding light flooded his senses, followed by the sharp, cold air of a world he didn't recognize. He tried to roar, to curse the gods, but all that came out was a high-pitched, fragile cry.
"Look at him," a woman's voice whispered, exhausted but filled with an overwhelming tenderness. "He's so beautiful...