The Unraveling

The black mask, still smoking and split in two, lay amidst the pools of warm blood. The orange patterns that once pulsed with an unsettling energy were now dim, broken, as if something deeper had shattered along with them. Sophia trembled. The echo of her attack still seemed to resonate within the bare walls of the coliseum. Her fingers were stiff, and she didn't know whether it was from fury or from horror.

—Raven... is that you?

The eyes of the young occultist, now revealed, held that same disturbing calm he used to show when speaking of parallel worlds and impossible geometries. But there was no awe in them anymore. Only an ironic, cold, and slow emptiness, like a disease that crawls without hurry.

Jake stood motionless. The blood slipped through the cracks in the ground, and the stench of death was so thick it hurt to breathe. He couldn't look at Raven without remembering the exact moment when the bodies of the directors, judges, and professors collapsed like gutted puppets. The threads of starlight, invisible to the naked eye, had sprung from Raven's fingers and wrapped around their necks. Then, with an almost lazy motion, he squeezed them one by one. Their bones cracked like dry twigs.

Jake said nothing. He still didn't understand if what he had seen was real. Part of him hoped to wake up. Another, deeper, more broken part, knew that this was only the beginning.

A crack cut through the tension like a dagger. From a blind angle, amid the smoking ruins of a fallen column, Reiss emerged, muscles tense, his face contorted with rage. He didn't scream. He didn't hesitate. He just charged.

His fist, coated with a shining layer of starlight, struck Raven's exposed face with terrifying violence. The sound was dull and brutal. Raven's head twisted as though it would detach from his neck, and a shower of blood shot toward the ground.

The blow sent him flying several meters back, bouncing between the broken slabs. He dragged himself by inertia, leaving a red trail behind him.

—What the hell did you do?! —Reiss approached, step by step, each one heavier than the last.

Raven spat blood. He smiled. His broken teeth shone like shards of glass in the open flesh.

—What I had to do.

No more warnings. Reiss jumped at him, this time channeling his energy into his leg. He spun in midair and delivered a whip-like, burning kick directly to Raven's side. The impact was brutal. The sound of a bone breaking spread through the air like a gunshot. Raven's body bent sideways and crashed against a destroyed column.

Still, he kept smiling.

Sophia didn't move. Her body seemed nailed to the ground. Not out of fear, but something worse: a bitter mix of betrayal and compassion. That wounded, bloody face was still her friend's. The one who once told her how darkness could be a refuge, not just a threat.

—Why? —her voice broke, as if the question had lodged itself in her soul.

Raven lifted his gaze. His left eye was swollen, barely staying open. And still, he spoke as if none of this affected him.

—Because they don't understand, Sophia. And you... you knew.

Before she could respond, Reiss charged again, this time with both hands outstretched. A wave of starlight energy surrounded him in erratic spirals, vibrating with each step he took. The air distorted in his wake, pulling dust and dry blood with it.

Raven raised a hand, his fingers curled. The ground beneath him exploded in a ring of pressure. An invisible barrier blocked Reiss's advance just before impact, throwing him backward as though he had crashed into a wall of iron.

Jake stepped forward, instinctively, but his legs still trembled. Not from fear of Raven... but from what he represented. From what he confirmed. No one was safe. Not even from their own.

—How could you...? —Jake murmured, barely audible.

Raven stood tall again, though his body was bent from the blows, covered in bruises and cuts. Small threads of energy streamed from his wrists, dancing in the air like translucent tentacles, seeking new targets.

—This world needs a purge —he said with a calmness that hurt more than any scream.

The threads tightened in the air, ready to strike again.

But this time, Sophia no longer hesitated.

—I'm going to stop you with my own hands —she said, lowering her gaze as a sphere of starlight energy began to pulse between her palms. Its light was pure and white, beating like a heart set on fire.

And Jake, still trembling, clenched his fists.

Silence shattered.

And the coliseum trembled again.

The starlight energy threads floating from their wrists slowly coiled back, as if they were aware, as if they were breathing. And it was then that something in the air shifted.

Jake felt it first. A chill, dry and slithering, crawling from the base of his neck down to his lower back. As if a presence was slipping beneath the world's skin, tearing at the fibers of reality from the inside. A faint hum, barely audible, began to fill the coliseum. It didn't come from any particular place. It was everywhere.

The blood staining Raven's face began to vibrate. Drops that had trickled down his chin rose, suspended in the air, as if an invisible force refused to let them fall. His wounds, once open and red, began to slowly close, as if time had turned backward just for him. The torn flesh fused with a sickening, sticky sound, the bruises disintegrated beneath his skin like crushed smoke, and the broken bone in his side clicked back into place with the sound of a rock fitting into position.

A dark mist, barely perceptible, oozed from his pores. It wasn't real mist. It was something denser, dirtier. Like a stain from the universe that had found form. His energy was no longer like theirs. It didn't pulse like starlight. It was a cold abyss, without beats or light. And yet… it was alive.