It began like any other month.
At exactly 12:00 AM UTC, five hundred people across the world disappeared without a trace.
CCTV footage captured businessmen vanishing mid-conversation, mothers dissolving into thin air as their children screamed, soldiers blinking out of existence while on duty. Planes lost passengers. Highways had empty cars rolling to a stop. Doctors in the middle of surgery left behind only blood-stained gloves.
It didn't matter if you were rich, poor, powerful, or weak. When the Forsaken Arena called, you answered.
And this month, Elias Vance was chosen again.
---
Elias sat alone in his cramped apartment, staring at the half-empty bottle of whiskey on his table. The flickering glow of the television cast long shadows across the room, illuminating walls stained with old news clippings.
He already knew what they would say.
[BREAKING NEWS: 500 PEOPLE VANISH ACROSS THE WORLD—THE ARENA CALLS AGAIN]
He didn't need to watch. He didn't need to listen. He had been one of them once. And then, by some miracle, he had returned.
A-Tier. Once among the strongest. Once feared. Once respected.
Now? A washed-up relic. A failure who lost everything.
His hands trembled as he reached for the whiskey, but before he could take a sip—
The Mark on his wrist burned.
His heart stopped.
The Forsaken Brand, once dormant for years, now pulsed with raw energy, sending jagged pain through his veins.
"No," Elias whispered.
He had survived. He had escaped. He had lived when so many others had perished. He wasn't supposed to go back.
But the gods did not care for his wishes.
The air in his apartment cracked like shattering glass. Reality itself trembled, and an invisible force gripped him from all sides.
He had only a second to curse before the world around him turned to nothingness.
And then he was gone.
---
Kieran Wolfe woke up falling.
Wind howled past his ears. His stomach lurched. His body plummeted through an endless abyss of darkness, air resistance whipping against his skin. He barely had time to process anything before he saw it—
A city, or what remained of one. Towering ruins stretched across an impossible landscape, twisted metal and shattered stone floating in midair as if gravity had lost its meaning. The sky was a crimson abyss, shifting and writhing like something alive.
And beneath him?
A battlefield.
Hundreds of figures stood on a crumbling stone bridge, locked in combat. Some wielded weapons that burned with eldritch fire, others called upon powers that bent reality itself.
And in the center of it all, a monstrous, skeletal behemoth loomed over them, its empty eye sockets burning with divine hunger.
Kieran's mind screamed.
This couldn't be real.
This couldn't be happening.
He barely had time to breathe before he saw the ground rushing up to meet him.
---
Selene Everhart did not scream.
She did not panic.
She had been here before.
Standing atop a jagged tower of black stone, she watched as the newest Chosen descended into chaos. The same cycle, repeating again. Fresh souls dragged into the nightmare.
Her fingers curled into fists. She had made a promise, long ago, to herself and to those she had lost.
This time, she would not let the Arena win.
But even as she steeled herself, she could feel it.
The gods were watching.
And they were hungry.
---
The Forsaken Arena had begun once more.
And this time, the world would never be the same.