The Chains
Chapter 33
Eidolon slowly lifted his head.
His eyes were no longer human.
They burned with a bright, unnatural purple, glowing like twin stars swallowed by darkness.
A murmur of horror rippled through the arena.
Then something even stranger happened.
The arm he had lost earlier-
Moved.
Flesh twisted.
Bone grew.
Muscle stitched itself back together as if time itself had been reversed.
Within seconds, his arm had fully regenerated, hanging at his side like it had never been severed.
The sight alone made several warriors step back in fear.
But the transformation wasn't over.
Eidolon's skin began to crack.
Thin lines spread across his body like fractures running across frozen glass.
They crawled along his chest... his shoulders... his neck...
Until-
The "cracks" peeled open.
Revealing something underneath.
Chains.
Dark metallic chains wrapped around his entire body like tattoos carved into flesh.
From his neck...
Across his chest...
Down his arms...
All the way to his feet.
Heavy cuffs were locked around both of his wrists.
And from those cuffs-
Two long chains extended outward.
Dragging across the ground behind him.
But there was something deeply unsettling about them.
The chains did not connect to anything.
No wall.
No pillar.
No prison.
It looked as if Eidolon had ripped himself free from somewhere he was never meant to escape.
A terrifying roar suddenly shook the arena.
"RAAAAAAAAA!!"
The chimera charged forward, its massive claws slicing through the air as it rushed to tear Eidolon apart.
Sand exploded beneath its feet as the monster lunged.
Eidolon didn't move.
He simply looked down at his hands.
Then slowly raised his eyes toward the incoming beast.
Everything...
Had slowed down.
The chimera's charge felt distant.
Like watching the world through thick water.
A strange calm filled his mind.
Then-
A smile appeared.
"Ha... ha..."
A quiet laugh escaped him.
The chains attached to his wrists suddenly lifted from the ground.
They moved like living serpents.
In an instant-
They shot forward.
WRAP!
The chains coiled around the chimera's enormous neck, tightening violently.
The beast thrashed, roaring in confusion.
Eidolon turned his back on it and began walking away.
Calm.
Unbothered.
"Too slow," he said quietly.
Then-
BOOOOOM!!
The chained chimera slammed violently into the ground.
The impact blasted sand and stone into the air, creating a massive cloud of dust that swallowed the entire arena floor.
The spectators shielded their eyes.
"What happened?!"
"I can't see!"
Inside the thick cloud-
Boom...
A low impact echoed.
Then again.
Boom... boom...
The tension grew unbearable.
Everyone stared into the dust, trying desperately to see what was happening inside.
Then suddenly-
Something shot upward from the cloud at incredible speed.
It tore through the air like a cannonball.
Straight toward the elders' balcony.
Eidolon stepped out of the fading dust, smiling with terrifying delight.
"You're dead," he said calmly.
But just then-
A voice echoed inside his mind.
"HEY... MASTER."
The laughter that followed was twisted and delighted.
"Time to pay the price."
"HAHAHAHAHA."
The entity had returned.
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