The first to move was Adrian's shadow. Axe lifted, swing dropping fast.

Merlin raised his blade to meet it.

Steel met steel, no, mock-steel. Still the impact jarred him back. His knees buckled, arms shaking. The strength that once made such clashes effortless now felt brittle.

He staggered back two steps.

Adrian's hollow voice scraped air. "Missed me?"

The others joined in, discordant echoes of voices he knew. Liliana's laugh on repeat, Ethan muttering the same line: "I'm bored, I'm bored, I'm bored." Seraphina reciting rules in clipped fragments, Dorian's silence louder than sound.

They came at him together.

Merlin's body refused to answer at the speed he wanted. His parry missed by a fraction, axe clipping his shoulder. Pain flared. Real pain. Warm blood down his arm.

He hissed. Slashed at Liliana's shadow. Steel cut, but not clean, like hacking fog. The wound sealed instantly, her head twitching side to side in endless loop.

[The Audience leans forward.]

[The Messenger smiles wider.]

[The Arbiter records.]

Merlin's breath came ragged. Sweat soaked his back, sword heavy as lead.

'I've been dancing in their strings. From the labyrinth to now. None of it mine.'

Shadow-Ethan lunged, longsword sweeping. Merlin ducked, too slow, edge tore a line across his cheek. He grit his teeth, twisting under the follow-up slash. Brought his blade up in desperation, knocking the attack aside.

Every movement felt wrong. Sluggish. Like wearing chains.

He remembered the simulation, the ease with which he had cut gods apart. The clarity of thirteen stars burning through him. And now? Shackled. Mocked. Reduced.

Merlin spat blood, glaring at the shifting audience he couldn't see. "Is this what you want? To laugh at me crawling? To watch me choke?"

The void answered.

[The Trickster claps.]

[The Arbiter remains silent.]

[The Audience is entertained.]

A hollow laugh escaped his throat. Low, harsh. "Then choke on this."

He charged.

Not with thirteen-star speed. Not with Rathan's annihilation. With his own flesh, his own bones, grinding through every ounce of weight pressing down. His blade screamed as it met Adrian's axe, sparks flashing. He roared, shoved forward, teeth bared.

Liliana's shadow darted in, claws forming from nothing. Merlin twisted, let the claws rake his side, and in the opening drove his sword through her torso. The form convulsed, burst into ash.

He staggered, blood dripping down his hip. But he smiled.

The gods reacted—

[The Audience gasps.]

[The Messenger tilts its head.]

[The Arbiter's record glows faintly.]

Adrian's shadow howled, axe splitting void. Merlin ducked, shoulder screaming. Dorian came next, daggers flashing. Pain burned as one sliced across his arm. He grabbed the wrist, headbutted the phantom, drove steel up through its chest.

Ash again.

Two gone.

Merlin stumbled back, chest heaving, arms shaking. Sweat blurred his vision, blood wetting his palms.

Ethan and Seraphina closed in.

He raised his blade anyway. "Come, then."

They rushed.

Steel against steel. Ice shards cutting flesh. Fire lancing past his guard. Pain stacked, body breaking.

Merlin's grin widened with every blow. Blood dripping between his teeth.

'Even shackled… even crawling… I'll carve through.'

His blade found Ethan's throat. A scream, cut short, body dissolving. Seraphina froze for half a second too long. Merlin slammed forward, shoulder-breaking her stance, then jammed his sword through her chest.

Ash.

Only Dorian remained, jagged, pale, red-eyed.

He circled Merlin like a wolf. Silent.

Merlin spat more blood. "Go on, then. Bite."

The shadow lunged. Daggers flashed, carving his side open. Merlin let it. Grabbed Dorian's wrist with one hand, slammed his forehead against the phantom's nose. Bone cracked. He twisted, drove his sword upward, splitting the face apart.

Ash rained down.

Silence again.

Merlin collapsed to one knee. Blood dripping, lungs clawing for air. His sword clattered beside him.

The void pulsed.

[The Audience murmurs at the defiance.]

[The Trickster applauds slowly.]

[The Arbiter notes deviation.]

Merlin raised his head, eyes blazing gold even through exhaustion. "Five stars. Six stars. Thirteen. Doesn't matter. I'll cut whatever you throw."

Silence followed.

Then, softly—

[The Audience is intrigued.]

The void trembled, as though the walls of the stage were cracking again.

Merlin staggered back to his feet, gripping his sword in blood-soaked hands. "Keep watching. I'll give you a show you choke on."

The silence deepened.

—

The void did not fade.

Ash still floated where his classmates' shadows had dissolved, but the ground beneath Merlin's boots was not stone, nor dirt, nor air. Just blankness. A stage without edges.

His body throbbed. His shirt was ragged, skin streaked with blood, blade quivering in his grip. But the wounds did not matter. The silence did.

Merlin straightened, eyes narrowing into the endless dark. His voice broke it like a blade striking glass.

"How long?"

No answer.

His chest rose, fell. Louder. "How long have I been dancing for you?"

Still, the void hummed, full of unseen breath.

Merlin snarled, golden eyes blazing. "Answer me! Since when? Since when have I been your puppet?"

The void rippled.

[The Arbiter acknowledges the inquiry.]

[The Audience leans closer.]

[The Messenger finds this amusing.]

Merlin's grip on his sword whitened. "Tell me. Don't twist, don't veil. Say it."

Silence. Then—

[Ever since the host departed the labyrinth.]

The words burned across the void like molten iron.

Merlin froze. His chest constricted. His breath hitched, sharp, ragged.

"…What?"

[All encounters, all faces, all trials have been orchestrated here.]

[No reality was breached.]

[The host has not taken a single step in the waking world since.]

Merlin staggered back. His blade nearly slipped from his hand.

'Morgana's office. Elara's eyes. Nathan's sparring. The white-haired man's words. All of it… lies?'

His laugh came out broken. "You—" He spat blood, shaking. "You made me believe—"

The void pulsed.

[The Audience delights in the despair.]

[The Trickster claps gleefully.]

[The Arbiter notes emotional variance.]

Merlin's knees almost buckled. His breath tore out of him. He saw Nathan's grin, the way his friend had said "Try and hit me, bastard," just before their spar. Saw Elara waiting in the hall, voice tight as she asked if he was alright. Saw Morgana's lips curve in her half-smile.

Gone. All gone.

Not gone, never there.

A simulation. A play for the gods.

Something in his chest cracked.

His voice shredded itself as he screamed. "HOW LONG?!"

The void swallowed the sound, yet it rang back from every corner.

Merlin lifted his sword, arm trembling, golden eyes burning. "How much time has passed outside?!"

The answer bled slow, deliberate.

[Seven days.]

Seven.

Only seven days.

Merlin's body shook. His laugh came low, manic, torn from his throat. "Seven days for me. And here—" He gestured to the void, the ghosts, the illusions. "Here I've lived weeks. Months. Fought. Bled. Lost."

The gods said nothing.

Merlin's head dropped. His shoulders trembled with each breath. 'Nathan, Elara, Morgana. All the words. All the gazes. All dust. All nothing. I trusted shadows.'

Then he raised his face again. His grin was jagged, bloodied. "You think I'll break?"

The void rippled.

[The Audience is entertained.]

[The Messenger is eager.]

[The Arbiter notes defiance.]

Merlin spat into the nothing. "You caged me in your lie. You thought I'd kneel? You thought I'd be grateful for the borrowed stars? I'll carve the truth out of your throats."

The air itself trembled. The gods' reaction folded into him, unseen.

Merlin spread his arms wide, blade loose at his side. "Come on, then. Show me more of your comedy. Or are you afraid I'll rip through even this body, even these shackles?"

A pause.

Then:

[The Audience rises to the challenge.]

[The Arbiter adjusts the parameters.]

[The Trickster laughs, giddy.]

The void cracked.

New shapes bled from the dark. Not classmates this time. Not friends. Larger. Heavier. Chains dragging behind them. Forms that reeked of divinity, mock-gods, stitched from light and shadow, their faces blurred but their presence oppressive.

Merlin's heart pounded. His hand clenched around the sword again. His grin split wider.

"Good."

The first descended. Its foot crushed the ground that wasn't ground. A hammer of stone and fire in its grip.

Merlin whispered, low, almost tender, eyes like knives. 'Even in your false world, I'll make you bleed.'

And he charged.

—

The sword cut the air.

Merlin's muscles screamed, golden eyes locked on the first mock-god, a thing of stone and fire, hammer raised. He wanted nothing more than to split it in half. To drive his fury through its chest. To bleed it until the void itself drowned.

Then—

The blade stopped.

No clang. No resistance of steel on steel. Just a hand. Pale fingers around the flat of the sword, holding it still as though Merlin had swung a stick.

Merlin froze. His breath tore out of him, ragged. His gaze snapped sideways.

White hair.

Glasses glinting faintly in the void's false light.

Eyes colder than silence itself.

The white-haired man.

Merlin staggered back, tearing the blade free, chest hammering. 'Impossible. He—he shouldn't be here. He was part of it. He was—'

The man didn't move. Didn't posture. Just stood, hand lowering slowly after letting go of the steel. His voice was flat. Calm. Surgical.

"This is enough."

The void trembled. The mock-gods behind him shuddered, then collapsed into dust and light, vanishing as if they'd never been. The silence that followed was heavier than battle.

Merlin's voice cracked, sharp. "You—" He raised the blade again, trembling between rage and disbelief. "Are you real? Or just another mask they're making me fight?"

The man's eyes shifted to him. Cold, detached, but focused. "If I were one of their masks, your sword would already be broken."

Merlin's jaw clenched. His knuckles whitened around the hilt.

The man stepped closer. Not fast. Not threatening. Each footfall carried the inevitability of stone settling into place.

Merlin swallowed, throat tight. "Then what is this? Why are you here? They said—" His voice cracked, and he spat the words like venom. "They said everything since the labyrinth was a simulation. Every face. Every word. A lie."

The man's reply came measured, calm. "They spoke truth."