The arena had never been so still.
It lasted only a heartbeat—that suspended, crystalline moment between Jeren's declaration and the reality unfolding before him—but in that heartbeat, everyone felt it. Fighters who had been raising weapons paused. Opponents summoned from shadow hesitated. Even the gods in their divine realm seemed to collectively inhale.
Then three fighters broke from their platforms simultaneously, and the world erupted.
Akhil moved first, a half-step ahead of the others by design. His boots hit the neutral ground outside the designated combat boxes and the air above him crackled—that familiar, terrible pressure of divine attention bearing down, the same crushing weight that had reduced the last rule-breaker to a memory and a bloodstain. He felt it pressing against his shoulders, felt his bones ache with the nearness of obliteration.
He kept moving.
