The lights in the arena faded, swallowed by an otherworldly silence. The last echoes of Violet's scream still rang in Ethan's ears, but the bloodstained platform was already being swallowed by rising mist. Around him, the bodies of those who had fallen were nowhere to be seen. The corpses had vanished, almost as if the gods had erased them from reality.
And maybe… they had.
Ethan stood alone, his body still trembling—not from fear or exhaustion, but from something else. Something was wrong with the air. It crackled, hummed, as if reality itself was being pulled taut.
Then, the world blinked.
He was no longer in the arena.
Instead, he stood in a chamber of impossible geometry—its walls stretching too far in the distance yet pressing too close at the same time. The ground shimmered like liquid obsidian, and the ceiling was a swirling sky of stars that pulsed with alien rhythms.
A voice echoed from nowhere and everywhere.
"You chose power over peace. Sacrifice over compromise. You have been marked."
Ethan turned sharply. A figure emerged from the mist, cloaked in robes that shimmered like galaxies in motion. Its face was hidden, a void beneath a hood, but its presence pressed down on him like the weight of a mountain.
"You stand on the threshold of divinity. You are… Awakened."
The words struck him like a thunderclap, resonating not in his ears but in his soul.
"Who are you?" Ethan asked, his voice hoarse.
"A mouthpiece," the figure replied. "The gods speak through me. The competition you survived? Merely a sieve. The billionaire? A pawn. The spectacle? A distraction. The truth is far more vast."
The chamber pulsed, and visions flashed before Ethan's eyes—ancient cities made of light and crystal, colossal beings drifting through voids between worlds, humans glowing with divine sigils clashing in grand arenas across distant lands and dimensions.
"You're saying… this was never about money."
"Correct. The billion dollars was bait. You, like the others, were tested—not for wealth, but worthiness. To rise beyond what your species understands as possible."
Ethan's knees buckled, but he didn't fall. Something was holding him upright. Or perhaps, something within him.
"What happens now?"
The figure extended a hand, and a glowing symbol burned into the air between them—a radiant spiral of gold and green light, spinning with purpose.
"You have been gifted your first connection to the divine plane. A fragment of divinity now pulses within your soul. The gift of healing. Divinacea."
The symbol slammed into Ethan's chest, and his body arched backward, eyes glowing white-hot as fire rushed through his veins. He didn't scream. He couldn't. The sensation was beyond pain. Beyond comprehension.
And then, calm.
He fell to his knees, panting, drenched in sweat. His muscles felt different. Not stronger—cleaner. Like something inside had been purified.
Tentatively, he looked at his hand and focused.
In an instant, it shimmered with gentle emerald light. A sensation of warmth, of balance, of restoration.
He waved it toward a gash on his arm he hadn't even noticed earlier. The wound closed, skin stitching together like it had never existed. The pain vanished.
"You may now restore life's pattern," the figure said, "to a limit. You can mend flesh, cleanse disease, and soothe death's touch—but only so much, so soon. You are Awakened, not yet Chosen. Growth will require effort… and conquest."
Ethan rose, unsteady. "What do you mean?"
The hooded figure turned and gestured toward an archway that had materialized from nothing.
"Many stand where you now stand. Awakened, touched by divinity, gifted with power. But only those who surpass others ascend. If you wish to rise—to become Chosen—you must enter the next contest."
Ethan's heart pounded. "Another death game?"
"No. Not death… but challenge. You will face other Awakened—each with gifts of their own. Only one may rise. The rest will remain, stagnant… or be cast out."
The figure paused, then spoke again, voice low.
"Be warned. Power does not guarantee purpose. Many of the Awakened have gone mad. Others now serve dark gods. And some… have begun to prey on their own."
Ethan's fists clenched. So it wasn't over. This was just the beginning.
He looked back at the symbol still faintly glowing on his chest. Divinacea. The power to heal in a world of destruction. The irony wasn't lost on him.
"I won't waste this," he said.
"See that you don't."
The mist swirled again, and the chamber began to dissolve. The voice echoed one last time.
"Prepare, Ethan. For your next trial awaits."
And then—
Darkness.