The tide slowed at his command.

Every pulse, every swell of the living mass adjusted to his pace, tendrils knitting themselves into a perfect path beneath his boots so he never once touched the gore. The sea of flesh bowed to its king, folding under and over itself to bear him higher, just enough to see the bridge below like a surgeon glancing over a fresh table.

Belphegor's hands clasped loosely behind his back. His coat remained immaculate — not a fleck of black blood, not a smear of marrow. Even the heat of the tide couldn't crease its seams.

He let his eyes drift from one specimen to the next.

The golden one first. Dan, flaring like a torch in the mist, light burning away the nearest tendrils. Golden boy. So handsome. So caring. He could almost feel the warmth of that aura from here — the kind that made people trust, made them lean closer. Break the light, see what crawls out of the dark. I wonder if you'll still care then. He imagined cutting the glow from him slowly, leaving him in a black so deep even his own hands would seem like strangers. Whispering into that dark until the voice broke, until the careful, steady hands reached out for anything — even him.

The scalpel. Chloe, flickering in and out of solidity, her blade slicing the air in neat, surgical arcs. Hmmm, the first of my beauties. Still sharp. He pictured her pinned in place, unable to phase away, her own blade pressed to her skin, his hands guiding the cut. Will it cut yourself as easily? How many pieces could she take from herself before her precision faltered? Would she beg him to stop — or beg him to show her where else to carve?

The hammer. Alyssa, arms like pistons, every strike a shock through the deck. My other beauty. The strength was intoxicating, that pure, unthinking violence. Crack the shell, watch your delicious yolk spill. He wondered how many breaks it would take before she stopped putting herself back together. Whether she would fight harder once the bones began to splinter — or if she'd finally go limp, ready for him to rebuild in shapes that pleased him more.

The shadow. Ying, darting in and out of reach, her void arcs carving absence into the tide. Little shadow. He thought of her with the void bound shut, nowhere to run, her body against his tide with every breath. Wonder how you'll taste when you're bound. He'd feed her nothing but silence until she screamed for sound, and then give her voices she couldn't bear to hear. We'll have such fun.

The red one. Elizabeth, halo flaring with every lash of psychic force. Red's a beautiful colour on you. The anger was bright, but anger burned out. He could make it smoulder instead, slow and endless, like a coal that never cooled. It's wasted. For now. There would be time later to take that fire and teach it how to warm instead of burn — and teach her who to warm.

And then…

Max.

Belphegor stopped walking. The tide held still under him, tendrils coiling like patient serpents around his ankles. He let his gaze linger on the man in the centre of the fight — upright, staggering, yet still there. The sight curled heat through his chest.

Taken from me. Torn away like a lover in the night.

He smiled, slow, indulgent. "I'll chain you again," he murmured, voice soft enough to be mistaken for affection. "But this time… I'll put a spike through both legs. So, you'll kneel properly."

He let the tide still again, raising him higher until the mist curled away and every one of them could see his face.

"I should be angry," he said, almost musing to himself. "You've killed my toys. You've cut my tide of flesh. You've taken something that belongs to me." His gaze slid to Max and lingered. "And I do not like being robbed."

The words were calm, but the tide twitched underfoot, a shiver running through the mass like it was waiting for permission.

"You think this is a fight? No. This is a collection. A reclaiming. Each of you will be mine when the tide comes in — and I will not waste you." His eyes drifted from one to the next, the faintest smile playing at his mouth. "The golden boy will learn to hold a knife the wrong way. The scalpel will cut herself to prove she can. The hammer will break her own bones before she begs. The shadow will learn the pleasure of stillness. The red one will burn, but not for herself. And you…" His head tilted at Max. "…you will kneel."

Max's fingers curled without meaning to, nails biting into his palms. His jaw locked, but the heat in his chest was old — older than Belphegor, older than this war.

"You've knelt before," Belphegor said, softer now, almost intimate. "Not just to me. To every hand that pushed you down. You don't know how to stand, Max Jaeger — not without someone telling you where to put your feet. I'll be that hand again. You'll thank me for it."

Dan's aura flared. Liz's whips snapped red across the mist. Alyssa's jaw locked. Chloe's blade twitched in her grip.

Belphegor only sighed, like a teacher disappointed the class hadn't understood the lesson. "Fight if you wish. It will make the capture sweeter."

Then the tide surged forward again, carrying him on a crest of living flesh toward the bridge.

***

The tide pressed in, a wall of wet sound and crawling limbs.

Dan's voice cut through it, low and dangerous. "You think that filth scares me?" His golden aura flared, burning the mist away in a searing circle. The nearest tendrils recoiled, skin blistering in the light. He shot a glance at Max without turning his head. "Stay in the centre."

Ying's lip curled — rare, raw emotion sharpening her voice. "I'm not staying anywhere." She vanished in a thin arc of shadow and reappeared high above the tide. "Catch this!" Her arms swept out, and a dozen void arcs rained down like blades, severing limbs and torsos in sprays of black steam. She landed beside Alyssa with a hiss of displaced air. "Clear enough for you?"

Alyssa didn't even look at her. "Clear as your attitude." She caught a Tomas-thing mid-lunge. "You smug piece of—" The rest vanished under the sound of marrow-veins splitting as she slammed it into the deck. The bridge shuddered. She straightened, breathing hard, and spat to the side. "That one was smiling at me."

Liz stepped into the gap, her halo blazing crimson. Psychic whips snapped from her hands, cutting through a wall of clones in a single sweep. "Then stop giving them the chance," she said, her voice tight. Another lash — another line of bodies split apart. "I'm getting to Dad. Move!"

A shadow blinked into place at Alyssa's back — Ying's void arc sliced a lunging clone clean in half before its claws could rake Alyssa's side. The two halves toppled, steaming.

Alyssa didn't miss a beat. "You missed a spot," she said, already driving her fist into the sternum of another charging shape.

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Ying's mouth twitched into the barest smirk. "You're welcome."

It was only after the next heartbeat, after they'd both spun in opposite directions and dropped the threats coming at them, that they realised they'd just covered each other's blind spots. A quick nod — nothing more — before they were swallowed by the fight again.

From the flank, Liz caught the exchange through the blur of movement — a split-second where fists, void, and trust aligned without a word spoken. Her halo burned hotter for it. They weren't breaking. Not yet.

Victor grunted without looking back. "You'll move when it's safe." His claws tore a tendril apart, black blood spattering the deck. He shoved the corpse aside and set his stance again. "Nobody's getting past me."

"Vic—" Max started.

"Not now," Victor said, eyes still locked on the tide. "You just breathe. We'll handle the rest."

***

The fight had stopped being a series of skirmishes — now it was one long drag toward the centre.

Alyssa's forearms burned, every strike a jolt through bone. She felt the impact in her teeth when her fist cracked another clone's skull, then stepped sideways without looking, trusting the space she left would already be filled.

It was. Ying blinked in, void slicing clean through the thing trying to follow her. A flash of a grin — just for Alyssa — before she vanished again. The trust was easy now. Earned in seconds, forged in blood.

She heard Chloe's blade sing behind her, felt the air shiver as Liz's psychic lash passed overhead. Dan's light expanded, rolling over her shoulders like warm armour.

They were moving together now. Not ordered, not rehearsed — just an instinct, the same beat running through all of them.

Alyssa found herself back-to-back with Victor, his breathing ragged but steady. "Max covered?"

"Always." His claws flexed, eyes never leaving the tide.

Alyssa ducked under a tendril, felt the wind of it clip the top of her braid, and came up swinging. The bone spur at its tip snapped in two under her fist. She didn't wait to see it drop — she was already pivoting toward the centre.

"Close it up!" she barked, voice cutting through the roar.

She caught sight of Chloe ahead, weaving through a knot of Tomas-smiles. One phased slash, two solid stabs, and Chloe was already drifting back toward her, smoke-trails curling off her shoulders. Alyssa didn't have to speak — they passed each other in motion, Chloe slipping into the gap she'd left, Alyssa taking her place on the outer ring.

Ying blinked into existence on Alyssa's left, void arc carving a perfect line through the floor. The severed slab of flesh slipped away into the mist. "Keep moving — don't let them fix on one spot." Then she was gone again, a shadow flicker in the corner of Alyssa's vision.

Dan's voice rose from the centre, calm but edged. "Aura's shifting. Hold still a moment."

Alyssa felt it — the familiar golden heat expanding to wash over her shoulders, curling between her and Victor, even brushing Chloe's arm.

Victor took a step sideways, and Alyssa moved with him without thinking, keeping their flanks tight. She realised then — every time Max shifted in the circle, Victor adjusted automatically, covering his blind side before Max even turned his head.

Another tendril surged over Alyssa's shoulder. Chloe's blade met it midair, and the two women shared a brief nod before turning back to the tide.

No one smiled. No one wasted breath. The circle tightened until there was no space left to give — claws, blades, light, and psychic fire knitting together like the ribs of something alive.

The bridge groaned under them, but the line didn't break.

Victor's horns lowered, claws flexing. "Then let them come."

***

They'd pulled tight, shoulder to shoulder, but the tide didn't break.

It bent. It curved. And now it wrapped them fully.

Dozens of clones stood in a perfect ring, their faces lit by the hellish glow of Liz's halo and Dan's aura. Some wore stolen features Chloe recognised — Alyssa's glare, Dan's jaw, Liz's hands curled like claws. Others were strangers stitched together from memory and meat, their faces sagging where the tide hadn't decided what they should look like.

They spoke.

"Daa–aad?"

Liz's younger voice — stretched too long in the middle, like the mouth saying it had too many teeth.

April's laugh — almost — but wrong at the end, breaking into a wet cough, like the body making it didn't know what laughter was for.

Ferron's bark — "On your left!" — but thin, brittle, like it had been snapped in half.

Ethan's drawl, smile too wide. "You'll fail again. You always do."

Then came the others — voices no one here should hear again.

Dr. Grimm's cool, measured tone, now thick with bile. "Fascinating, how easily you all break. Shall I show you?"

Alpha's flat monotone, each word separated by a slow click of teeth. "Target acquired. Weak points located. Begin dismantling."

Omega's voice — a growl bent into a chuckle — "I'll start with the bones that scream the loudest."

And then the townsfolk of Prague, dozens at once. Pleading, sobbing, wheezing through ruined throats.

"Help us…" "Take me instead…" "Don't stop… keep going…"

The last one moaned, high and trembling, and Chloe felt Alyssa's head jerk, shoulders tightening in disgust.

Others whispered in tongues she didn't know, vowels catching in wet clicks, consonants dragging over each other like slabs of raw meat being pulled apart. Some didn't even form words — just breathed too close, shallow and fast, with the soft smacking sound of lips tasting the air.

Every syllable felt wrong. Like wearing someone else's clothes and feeling the shape of their body still in them.

The sound crawled up her spine, coiling behind her teeth.

Overhead, the rib arches wept condensation. Drops pattered against her cheek, cold as a morgue slab. She blinked it away and kept her eyes moving.

The wave pressed in, the circle tightening. Every step back was another foot given to the tide. Every moment they hesitated, the voices grew louder, clearer — until it felt like the dead were breathing down their necks, too close to turn away from.

Chloe swallowed hard. The bile stayed down. Just.

She locked her stance, feet planted in the slick marrow beneath them. Tenso was already humming in her grip.

She didn't need to breathe deep. She didn't need to speak. All she needed was to stay in the gap until there was no gap left.

And when the next wave came, she phased — just enough to let it pass through — before stepping forward into the press again.

Overhead, the rib arches wept condensation. Cold drops pattered onto Chloe's cheek, tracing the seam of an old scar. She didn't flinch.

She phased just long enough for a tendril to pass through her shoulder, then solidified, driving Tenso into the next clone's eye. "Not today."

And the circle held.

***

He hated being here.

Not in the fight — here. In the middle. Where the wounded go. Where the useless wait for the real soldiers to bleed for them.

Every step since Prague had been wrong. Boots heavy. Legs shaking. He felt their eyes when they thought he wasn't looking. Alyssa's half-second glance. Chloe's quick check before fading back into the mist. Dan shifting the light to keep it on him. Pity dressed up as formation.

They must have looked at him — trembling, bent, barely holding upright — and decided this was where he belonged.

The centre. The safest point.

The place for the helpless.

And that thought almost broke him worse than anything Belphegor had done.

The Flame Father. Meat-thread cuffs burning his wrists. Bone spikes through the calves until he couldn't stand. "You'll kneel properly," Belphegor had whispered.

Lilith's hive. The scratching inside. Eggs under the skin. Her tongue at his ear. "Be still, let them grow."

Orobas's pit. Fists breaking. Teeth gone. Crowd screaming for more. No weapon. Just the taste of his own blood.

Moloch's dream. Liz's smile. Dan's laugh. Perfect. Fake. Begging not to wake.

Years, drained out of him in pieces. Trained to kneel without a word spoken.

And now — here. In the circle.

Then—

Alyssa slammed another clone into paste, her back brushing his arm before she moved on. Chloe slid through a gap, phasing her blade clean through a Tomas grin and out the other side. Liz's psychic lash split the tide above, raining steam. Ying blinked in and out, leaving severed limbs spinning away. Dan's light swept over all of them, sealing the gaps. Victor — always Victor — between Max and the wave, claws high, daring anything to try.

It clicked.

They hadn't put him here because he was helpless. They'd built this wall around him because he mattered. Because they'd decided he was worth the risk.

His chest felt tight, like the air was too big to breathe. He almost called out — not in warning, but in something closer to gratitude — and the words caught in his throat. For the first time in years, he didn't feel like a prisoner or a pawn. He felt… theirs.

Dan's light warmed his back, Chloe's blade carved a path ahead, Alyssa's shoulder pressed to his for a heartbeat before moving on, Liz's halo scorched the mist above, Ying's shadow flickered at the edge of his sight, and Victor's bulk anchored it all — a wall of heat, steel, shadow, and will.

Something lit in his chest — small, but burning. A flicker brushed the edge of sight. His halo. Weak. Faint. Still holding.

This wasn't the pit. This wasn't the dream. This was real.

A roar split the mist.

The first monster slammed into Victor's flank. The deck jumped underfoot. Victor's boots scraped. A grunt — sharp, angry.

He dug in. Shoved it away.

The line held.

For now.

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