# Chapter 104: The Unmasking
The silence in the arena was absolute, a vacuum where the roar of the crowd had been. Soren's hand was steady, the glass vial a dark promise in the harsh sunlight. He held Valerius's gaze, a direct challenge thrown across the sand and blood. For a long moment, nothing happened. Then, in the royal box, the High Inquisitor's lips moved, forming a single, silent word. It was not a command bellowed, but a death warrant whispered. On the arena floor, The Ironclad reacted. Its posture shifted, the passive, testing stance melting away into something coiled and lethal. A low hum emanated from the armor, a sound that vibrated in Soren's teeth. It was no longer a test subject. It was an executioner. And it was coming for him. From the side, Kaelen Vor spat a curse, his face a contortion of rage and dawning horror as he realized he was no longer a player in a game, but a bug about to be crushed underfoot. "You insane son of a bitch," he snarled at Soren, but he was already moving, his Gift flaring as he launched himself not at Soren, but at the advancing armored figure. "Nobody wins if the tin can does!"
The Ironclad moved with a speed that defied its bulk, a blur of grey metal that closed the distance to Soren in three ground-shaking strides. The air cracked as a gauntleted fist, large enough to crush Soren's skull, swung toward his head. He didn't have time to think, only to react. He threw himself sideways, the vial of Shroud's Breath clutched tight to his chest, feeling the wind of the pass stir the dust at his back. He hit the ground hard, rolling to his feet as the fist pulverized the sand where he had just stood. The impact sent a shockwave through the arena floor, a dull thud that resonated in the bones of every spectator.
Before The Ironclad could retract its arm, a blur of motion intercepted it. Kaelen, his body wreathed in a shimmering, kinetic aura, slammed into the armored limb. The sound of grinding metal and straining energy filled the air. Kaelen's Gift, the ability to absorb and redirect force, was one of the few things that could even hope to slow the monster down. He grunted, his feet skidding back in the sand, his muscles cording with the effort of holding back the titan's strength. "A little help, Vale!" he roared, the kinetic aura around him flaring brighter, casting frantic, dancing shadows across the sand.
Soren saw the opening. Kaelen had bought him a precious second. The Ironclad was momentarily off-balance, its attention split. This was no longer a game of strategy or a test of endurance. It was a brawl for survival. He pocketed the vial, the cool glass a small comfort against his thigh. He needed to fight. He needed to use the power that was tearing him apart from the inside out. He reached for that familiar, agonizing fire in his veins, the necrotic energy that was his Gift. The Cinder-Tattoos on his arms began to glow, a faint, sickly green light that was immediately countered by the dark, creeping ash-like patterns of the Cost. A sharp, stabbing pain lanced through his side, a phantom echo of the decay that was his constant companion.
He pushed the pain down, focusing it, channeling it. He sprinted forward, not at The Ironclad's center mass, but low, aiming for its legs. As he closed the distance, he slammed his hands onto the sand. The necrotic energy surged from him, not as a weapon, but as a catalyst. The ground beneath The Ironclad's feet turned from packed sand to a slurry of fine, shifting ash, a localized patch of Bloom-waste manifested through sheer will. The Ironclad staggered, its armored boots sinking into the suddenly unstable ground. It was a small effect, a desperate trick, but it was enough.
Kaelen seized the opportunity. With a guttural yell, he released the pent-up kinetic force he had been absorbing. The energy didn't push; it exploded. A concussive blast, invisible and deafening, struck The Ironclad square in the chest. The armored figure was lifted off its feet, thrown backward a dozen paces to crash land in a spray of sand and rock. The crowd, which had been holding its collective breath, erupted into a cacophony of shocked cheers and terrified gasps. They had never seen anything like this. A coordinated assault. A desperate, chaotic alliance between two bitter rivals.
Soren didn't wait for the dust to settle. He was already moving, his body protesting every step. The use of his Gift had cost him, the familiar cold seeping into his joints. He could see Kaelen breathing heavily, the kinetic aura around him flickering like a dying candle. They had one good shot. Maybe two. They had to make it count.
The Ironclad rose, its movements slower now, more deliberate. A dent marred its chest plate, but otherwise it seemed unharmed. It turned its helmeted head, first to Kaelen, then to Soren, as if calculating the new threat matrix. The low hum intensified, and the joints of the armor began to glow with a faint, internal heat. It was adapting. It was learning.
"Hit it again!" Kaelen shouted, already gathering more ambient energy, his body trembling with the strain. "Hit it hard!"
Soren knew another blast of necrotic energy would be useless against the armor itself. He needed a weak point. He needed to get inside. He charged again, this time feinting left before darting right, a blur of tattered leather and grim determination. The Ironclad swiveled, its arm lashing out in a backhanded sweep. Soren ducked under the blow, the wind of its passage whipping his hair across his face. He was close now, close enough to smell the hot metal and the faint, sterile scent of ozone coming from the armor's joints. He drove his shoulder forward, aiming for the damaged chest plate.
The impact was like hitting a castle wall. Pain exploded through his shoulder, a sickening crunch of bone on metal. He stumbled back, clutching his arm, his vision swimming with black spots. He had failed. He was too weak.
But Kaelen was there. He didn't use a blast this time. Instead, he became a living projectile, his body encased in a sheath of crackling kinetic force. He slammed into The Ironclad from the side, not with explosive power, but with focused, relentless pressure, pinning the armored figure against the arena wall. The sound of metal grinding against stone was deafening.
"Now, Vale!" Kaelen screamed, his voice strained to the breaking point. "While it's pinned!"
Soren saw his chance. The dent in the chest plate was more pronounced now, warped by Kaelen's impact. A hairline fracture had appeared. He pushed through the pain in his shoulder, ignoring the cold dread creeping up his spine. He had one last surge left in him. He gathered every ounce of his will, every fragment of his pain, and funneled it into his right hand. The necrotic energy coalesced, no longer a diffuse field but a concentrated sphere of black, crackling power that devoured the light around it. The Cinder-Tattoos on his arm flared with an intensity he had never dared to unleash before, the dark ash-like patterns spreading like a plague up his neck.
He roared, a sound of pure, unadulterated agony and defiance, and lunged. He didn't punch. He plunged his hand, the sphere of necrotic energy held before it like a torch, directly into the center of the fractured chest plate.
For a moment, there was only silence. Then, a sound like thunder splitting the sky. The necrotic energy met whatever power source lay within the armor, and the result was catastrophic. The chest plate didn't just dent; it shattered. Fragments of superheated metal and arcane components flew outwards in a deadly spray. Soren was thrown backward, the force of the blast ripping the energy from his grasp and sending him skidding across the sand. He landed in a heap, his body screaming in protest, his vision fading to a narrow tunnel.
Through the haze, he saw the result of his attack. The Ironclad stood motionless against the wall, its chest a gaping, smoking ruin. Wires sparked, and a thick, acrid smoke billowed from the breach. Then, with a slow, grinding sound, the helmet, which had been an impassive mask of steel, tilted forward. It didn't just fall off; it was pushed from within by a hand.
The helmet hit the sand with a dull clang.
And the face that looked out was not a monster's. It was not a machine's. It was a woman's. Young, with sharp, intelligent features and pale skin slicked with sweat. Her hair was cropped short, and her eyes, burning with a cold, fanatical light, were fixed on Soren. It was a face he recognized from the Ladder Commission's dossiers, a face he had seen in the periphery of Inquisitor patrols.
Isolde.
The Inquisitor-in-training. The true believer.
A collective gasp rippled through the coliseum. The crowd, the announcers, even the guards looked on in stunned disbelief. The Ironclad was not a golem. It was a person. A Synod agent.
Isolde took a ragged breath, her body trembling, whether from pain or fury, Soren couldn't tell. She looked from the smoking ruin of her armor to Soren, then to the royal box where Valerius sat, his face an unreadable mask of stone. A grim, triumphant smile touched her lips. She had failed in her mission, but she had one final move to play.
"Valerius sends his regards," she spat, her voice hoarse but filled with venom.
Her hand, the one that had removed the helmet, dropped to her belt. There, nestled among the ruined armor plates, was a small, unassuming device, a crystal set in a simple metal housing. She pressed it.
There was no explosion. No sound. Just a wave of… nothing. It washed over the arena like a silent tide, an invisible pressure that squeezed the air from Soren's lungs. The faint, sickly green glow of his Gift, which had still been flickering around his knuckles, vanished. The pain in his shoulder, the cold in his joints, the ever-present hum of the necrotic energy inside him—it all went silent. The connection was severed. The world suddenly felt flat, muted, and terrifyingly normal.
Kaelen cried out, stumbling back as the kinetic aura around him sputtered and died. He looked at his hands, then at Isolde, his face a mask of confusion and rage. "What did you do?"
Isolde laughed, a harsh, broken sound. "I leveled the playing field." She raised her fists, her body bruised and battered but her eyes blazing with righteous fury. "Now we see who you are without your cursed powers."
The nullifying energy field settled over the arena, a suffocating blanket of mundane reality. The Grand Melee was over. The game of Gifts was finished. A new, more brutal game had just begun.