"It is rude to keep a lady waiting," she said, almost gently, her voice curling like smoke around Chaos’s battered frame, but before she could mock him further, her eyes narrowed ever so slightly, and she tilted her head in a manner that carried all the casual menace of a blade being sharpened. She saw it then—the slow, sluggish crawl of darkness along his limbs, the way his regeneration faltered, the death beginning to pool in the broken spaces of his body—and she let out a small, disappointed sigh, as if she was a child that had dropped her toy.

  "You’re like a big baby," she said with a chuckle, her monstrous claw flexing idly as if considering whether to snap him in two, "Such a frail little thing... it would be so very problematic if you died now, when we were just beginning to have fun."

  Without hesitation, without grandiosity, she lifted her metallic claw lazily into the air, and from the trembling air above her palm, an enormous sphere of radiant blue energy roared into existence, swirling with the density of collapsing stars. Chaos, barely conscious, barely tethered to himself, felt the heat, the weight, the infinite familiarity of the power she summoned and his half-dead mind staggered backward, recognizing it immediately for what it was.

  Sol.

  It was Sol, pure and immense, not drops of it, not crumbs, but a monstrous, unfiltered sea of life force. The amount she held in her hand was not just equal to his own reserves when he had been in his prime—it surpassed it. Chaos stared, hollow-eyed, hollow-souled, no longer even able to muster true shock. The absurdity of everything: the wolves, the Origins, the annihilation, the woman who crushed godly powers like dust, it was too much. His sense of reality floated apart from him like ashes on a dying wind, and somewhere, deep inside the remnants of his pride, Chaos wondered if perhaps he was already dead, if this was the madness that came after oblivion.

  The sphere of Sol condensed in her palm, the bright blue bleeding into a breathtaking shade of pink, glowing and seething with barely contained violence, but somehow so beautiful it hurt to look at. Without a second to waste, she shoved the condensed Sol directly into Chaos’s broken form, flooding him with raw power, forcing his dying body to rebuild itself faster, stronger, fiercer than it had ever been.

  The shadows around Chaos thrashed wildly as he gasped, feeling power surge through him with a potency he had never known, even in the brightest moments of his blood-soaked life. His chains reformed in bursts of blinding blackness, his missing limbs grew again and his molten eyes reignited with fury so intense it set the very air around him trembling.

  He looked at himself, marveled for a breathless moment at the absurd vitality thrumming within his veins, before lifting his gaze back toward the waiting woman who had done all of this as casually as one might light a candle. She stood, arms crossed loosely, staring at him with a look that was equal parts amusement and threat, and Chaos knew—he knew—that hesitation would be punished.

  So, despite the searing terror still coiling in his bones, he forced himself to speak. First it was just a single letter, a breath of sound. The woman tilted her head, considering him, and for a moment, he tensed for the blow he was certain would come.

  But it did not.

  Instead, she smiled, a slow, wicked smile that sent cold shivers tearing through his newly reborn flesh, and she gestured grandly, giving permission. Gathering what little courage remained, Chaos rasped out the words, "Do you wish to know what happened to them after the Divine War?"

  Her face lit up like a child given a new toy, a bright laugh spilling from her lips. "Of course," she said, clapping her clawed hand against her hip, before catching herself mid-laughter, her expression darkening suddenly. "Why even ask such a stupid question, you know whe—Oh, right. You don't remember me."

  Her mood twisted instantly from gleeful to enraged, her leg snapping out with a monstrous crack of force that severed Chaos’s arm cleanly at the shoulder, sending it spiraling through the broken air like a discarded twig.

  "How dare you!" she hissed, voice now vibrating with a venom that made the very shadows recoil from her. "How dare a filthy little creature like you forget my greatness!"

  Chaos grunted in pain, dark smoke and chain fragments already knitting his arm back together, but he dared not speak, dared not even move as her burning black eyes pinned him in place.

  "Are you truly so dumb?" she snarled, pacing back and forth before him like a panther caging its prey. "Or just grotesquely uneducated? Or perhaps..." she slowed, smirking, her voice a mockery of softness, "Perhaps it is not your fault. You always were close to that nerd of a king... the little rat obsessed with hoarding every scrap of knowledge he could get his filthy fingers on."

  Her claw snapped in the air once, violently enough to make the very ground beneath her feet crack. "Mind control. Memory manipulation. Bah are possible for a weakling like you," she spat, her beautiful face twisting into something monstrous for a heartbeat before returning to its almost serene calm.

  She stopped pacing, fixing him once again with those black void-like eyes, and this time her voice dropped to a dangerous purr. "Now then, little shade. Tell me. What happened to those ungrateful glory seekers after the war?"

  Chaos, forcing the words out like dragging blades from his throat, answered, each sentence weighed down by the insanity of the situation. "The First, the Second, and the Third... vanished. Gone the moment the Divine War ended. Not even the King dared pursue them." He inhaled shakily, feeling her presence push tighter against him with every word. "The Fifth remains in isolation... unreachable, her circumstances... are specific and irreversible. The Eighth still sleeps, sealed beneath her usual ground, though the location has been hidden, cloaked deeper than ever before."

  He swallowed, feeling her growing interest, the darkness of her smile widening.

  "The Fourth and the Ninth still rule within their Liberatoriums," Chaos said. "Rarely seen, but still there."

  He hesitated then, uncertain whether to say more, but the woman only raised a hand, wordlessly demanding he continue. "And the Sixth..." he rasped, lowering his head slightly, "...the King still reigns, as he always has…” He continued, but his voice was notably quieter. "The Seventh... still plays hero." He let out a dry, bitter chuckle. "Though calling it playing is an understatement.”

  Chaos, despite the searing pain still throbbing through his partially rebuilt frame, looked up at her through narrowed, burning eyes, catching the far-off gleam in her gaze as she momentarily turned away from him, lost in her own dark musings. She spoke aloud, uncaring that he heard, as if the ruined arena around them was nothing but an empty stage and he a forgotten prop beneath her notice.

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  "That bloodthirsty maniac..." she murmured, a slow, delighted smirk curling her lips, "she must have started searching for me the moment I fell. She must have thought someone like me could never die."

  She chuckled to herself, a sound low and almost affectionate, like an old woman reminiscing about the follies of her youth, and tapped her claw lightly against her chin in thought. "I really was right to choose her as my successor," she continued, her voice filled with a strange, self-satisfied warmth, "Good girl...."

  Her black eyes flickered dangerously as she spoke, the memories of blood and conquest and betrayal flaring behind them like dying stars.

  "I already know where the Second is." she mused aloud, as if merely piecing together a riddle she had long since solved. "That uptight little rat... the Third Hope... I never could stand that weirdo. Never could get close enough to even pretend to care about him, so I have no idea where he might have gone."

  Something darker crossed her face then, a shadow so cold and bitter that even Chaos, despite the reforged strength thrumming in his veins, felt a crawling unease skitter up his spine. She snapped her gaze back to him so suddenly that it sent a fresh tremor through the chains binding his limbs, and her smile sharpened into something cruel and expectant.

  "What happened to the rest of the damn gods after my death?" she asked herself lightly, almost singing the words.

  Chaos, ever obedient in the presence of true terror, opened his mouth to answer, but before a full syllable could escape his molten tongue, the air itself tore apart around him and his lower jaw was ripped clean off again.

  He screeched, the agony raw and immediate, but her glare—oh, her glare—froze the sound in his throat before it could fully escape, and he fell silent, clutching at the searing remnants of his face. Her expression grew even darker, a new level of rage seeping into the cracks of her already fractured sanity.

  "How dare you…" she whispered, each syllable dragging like knives against the walls of his mind. "How dare you speak without permission, Grounded scum!"

  She waited, arms crossed lazily, while the chains and smoke mended his broken mouth once again, her gaze never leaving him, pinning him in place like a nail driven through flesh and bone.

  Only when his jaw was fully restored, trembling and aching, did she lean down slightly, her towering form still dwarfing him as she repeated, sweetly this time, "Now then... tell me, little shade. What happened to those gods after I was gone?"

  Shaking, humiliated, and half-certain he was answering a death sentence, Chaos forced the words from his reknit throat. "Most were killed," he croaked, his voice raw and hollow. "Some surrendered. Those that did were... given territory, small scraps of the world... in exchange for absolute allegiance to His Majesty."

  He dared not look up, dared not meet her gaze. Yet he could hear it—the sudden peal of her laughter, bright and pure and utterly, utterly wrong, a sound that twisted reality around them like wringing water from a cloth.

  "You mean to tell me," she gasped through her laughter, slapping her monstrous claw against her thigh for emphasis, "That that piece of shit—that rat—spat on everything I built? Everything I stood for?"

  The laughter died, choked out by a snarl of contempt. "I should kill him," she whispered, almost lovingly, "The moment I fully possess this humans body."

  At those words, something in Chaos snapped, and without thinking, without planning, he surged forward, moving faster than his battered mind could comprehend, planting himself mere inches from her, his molten eyes burning with a rage that, for the first time, burned brighter than fear.

  "If you value your life, you shall not threaten his Majesty in front of me" Chaos growled, each word low and heavy with fury. The woman froze, staring at him with a curious, almost fascinated look, as if seeing a particularly interesting insect daring to bite its master.

  Chaos pressed on, his voice gaining strength, his body trembling not with fear now, but with the force of his own convictions. "I hate the damn royal family," he spat, "but the King... the King is the only one who makes sense of this cursed world. Without him, it would collapse into madness… I will not let you hurt him!"

  For a moment, the silence stretched, and Chaos braced himself for annihilation. Instead, a sudden sharp slap hit him across the back, sending him stumbling forward, coughing as the force rattled through his reinforced body. He turned, expecting death—but she was laughing again, this time not with cruelty, but with something dangerously close to approval.

  "Good for you," she said with a crooked grin, "Standing up for what you believe in. I hate spineless, deceptive worms the most. Open books are so much more fun to read."

  Her gaze darkened, the amusement slipping from her face like a mask being torn away, revealing something far, far more lethal underneath.

  "But..." she said, voice low, almost tender as she stepped closer, each word slithering across his soul like a blade across flesh, "Even if you have a backbone, even if you have conviction, it does not change the filth you are."

  She continued, not giving him the time to even think about what she said. "I have tolerated the presence of a filthy Grounded for far too long," she said, her voice sickly sweet, her words dragging across Chaos’s mind like nails across wet stone. She tapped her monstrous claw lightly against her hip, as if pondering something of no real consequence, before chuckling softly to herself. "I wonder..." she mused aloud, her voice dancing with cruelty, "Whatever happened to the Tenth Hope?"

  The very mention of that title sent another cold ripple through Chaos's battered mind, but before he could even process the implications, she laughed—a sharp, pure sound that rang with such disdain it seemed to sour the very air.

  She placed her clawed hand over her mouth, laughing harder now, and finished with a sneer, "No matter. Thinking about you and the rest of your kind makes me feel sick. Truly... sick. I might just vomit if I let you stay near me much longer."

  Chaos closed his molten, burning eyes and bowed his head deeply, the weight of inevitability settling on his ruined form. He knew. He knew in the marrow of his bones that there was no fighting this woman, no defiance, no bargaining. She was something beyond Titans, beyond Liberators, beyond anything the Divine War had ever birthed. Whatever she was, whatever had festered and grown inside the soul of the man whos soul he had invaded, it was not something a creature like him could ever hope to face.

  He braced himself, ready for death, ready for the end… But instead of destruction, laughter spilled from her lips again, lighter now, almost... amused.

  "Oh, you silly little worm," she said, a grin splitting her flawless face. She stepped forward in a leisurely stroll, towering over him like a living god. "You think I would kill you? How rude! We go way back, you and I," she said with a mockery of affection, her human hand resting casually on her hip as she leaned closer, her black eyes glinting with wicked pleasure. "I want to see it. I want to see the moment your pathetic little mind remembers who I am. I want to watch it dawn on you, to watch the horror creep up your spine when you realize just how terribly you wronged me."

  She chuckled again, a low, predatory sound. "And only then," she whispered sweetly, "only then will I kill you."

  Before Chaos could react, before his weary mind could comprehend, she smacked him square across the back with her human hand, the casual gesture carrying a monstrous force that smashed him face-first into the cracked stone floor, the arena groaning from the impact. He lay there dazed, feeling her towering presence above him, hearing her voice drift lazily down.

  "We were friends, you and I," she said cheerfully, almost singing now, "For over a thousand years!"

  The words twisted in his mind, impossible, insane, but before he could even think to respond, she grabbed him once more by the back of his neck. Her monstrous claw gleamed with a pulsing red light, veins of energy snaking through the blackened metal as it clamped down around him like a vice.

  "And one more thing," she whispered into his ear, her breath cold as the void itself. "Never. Touch. My soul. Again."

  And without another word, she hurled him upward with a strength so obscene it shattered the ground beneath her feet. Chaos shot through the ruined ceiling like a beam of night, the sheer force of his ejection leaving long, trailing wisps of shadow behind him, smearing the air with the remnants of his flight. The broken sky above seemed to split around him as he was thrown higher and higher, his body ragged and twisted by the violent ascent, a tattered comet of blackness vanishing into the endless sky of Kaisers soul.

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