Vis struggles through rapidly rising water in the Arena’s tunnels, fighting to keep his footing until he forces his way up the stairs. He emerges into devastated stands, the lake draining around jagged stone paths Estevan raised, with fires guttering and crowds decimated. Estevan remains seated at the center, calm and cross-legged, while the survivors cower near blocked exits.

Determined to reach Estevan, Vis climbs onto the slick, narrow stone causeway. As he advances, the air around Estevan distorts into a shimmering, violent blur, and the stylus in Vis’s hand grows painfully hot. Closing the distance, Vis lunges, putting the stylus to Estevan’s neck—and reality flickers. For a heartbeat, Vis sees an otherworldly scene: a black, mirrored pyramid of impossible scale beneath a bruised, lightning-laced sky, a colossal bridge lined with towering statues, and monstrous waves crashing—accompanied by searing, body-rending agony—before everything snaps back to the Arena.

Shaken and gasping, Vis keeps the stylus at Estevan’s throat. Estevan speaks without surprise, addressing Vis as Diago. Vis begs him to stop; Estevan replies that the Hierarchy leaves no neutral ground, that “Silence is a statement… Inaction picks a side,” and that benefiting from inaction is complicity. Energy hums and builds around them as Estevan’s muscles tense, the stylus breaking his skin.

Vis offers help—himself and the Anguis—if Estevan ceases the slaughter. Estevan, saying Sedotia was right about Vis and that a broken blade can still cut, gently takes Vis’s hand and then tightens his grip. In a sudden, brutal motion, Estevan forces the stylus upward through his own neck into his brain, ending the confrontation in a shocking act of self-destruction as the chapter closes.