Vaerros's laughter shook the Covenant Chamber like a drum of war. He stepped forward, the haft of his battleaxe resting against his shoulder, the blade broad enough to eclipse a man. His tusked grin gleamed in the starlight spilling through the chamber's ceiling.

"Come, humans," he boomed, his voice echoing into every camera and screen across the world. "Choose your champion!"

The hall erupted in noise. Some delegations shouted in protest, others in fearful excitement. Generals rose from their seats, pointing to their soldiers. Politicians argued with theologians, each jockeying to control who would bear humanity's burden.

Cefketa's hand rose. Silence followed like a leash pulled tight.

"This is the Rite of Measure," he said, his voice smooth and deep. "It is the same for all who have sought a seat among us. You call us tyrants; you call us conquerors. But know this: no Seat claims dominion without trial. No nation has ever joined without battle. Without the Rite, peace is only obedience. With it, peace is earned."

The delegations began to murmur again, panic crawling through their ranks.

"We cannot submit to this barbarity," one president whispered.

"If we refuse, we admit weakness before the whole world," countered another.

"And if we accept? What human alive could survive against a monster like that?"

All eyes turned to the line of the Tiny Tots. The pressure of billions of watching souls pressed against them like a storm. The Tiny Tots themselves all looked over towards Mythara. He sighed as he looked over at Vaerros and then locked eyes once again with Cefketa. His Rose-Gold and deep Violet collided as they both tried to assert dominance over the other with a glance. Cefketa could feel Mythara's unrelenting resolve and smiled. Mythara scoffed and shifted his attention to the others, shaking his head,

"No," he said. His voice was quiet, but it carried. "I was born human, but no longer am. I became a Dragon two years ago; it's time for me to accept that. My strength would prove nothing. Humanity must answer with one of its own."

Cefketa raised an eyebrow at Mythara's answer. This was… unexpected. He could have used the fact that Mythara is not human to illustrate how much humanity needs dragons.

Myhtara understood the Rite's true meaning. He was here when Cefketa underwent the Rite of Measure. Back then, he did not defeat Vaerros; in fact, he had lost… all of the seats outside of the top 3 had lost against him, and yet they still sit there as equals.

Victory was not needed, only proof of strength.

Myhtara's declaration sent another ripple through the chamber. Cameras drank it up.

"Well played," Cefketa whispered to himself. Vaerros grumbled in annoyance. Mythara was the one he wanted to fight the most.

The Tiny Tots looked towards The Trinity. The three exchanged glances. Amaterasu's fire flickered faintly and uncertainly. The Conductor's hands twitched against his sleeves, the hunger of his instincts never fully leashed. Only Shango stood steady, his breath even, his posture calm, the storm in his veins tamed beneath discipline.

It was Amaterasu who spoke the truth aloud.

"Among us… only Shango is ready. He is the one most in control. If any of us can stand, it is he."

"I agree…" The Conductor added, as he gripped his wrist. He closed his eyes to let out a deep breath to calm himself.

Immediately, the delegations exploded again, voices overlapping in waves of disbelief and dread.

"Shango? He's the quiet one!"

"We haven't seen much from him—no fire, no storm, no power!"

"The boy is a good leader. But his personal combat abilities are unknown. He cannot represent all of humanity!"

But the cameras were already fixed on Shango. His stillness in the face of the storm was an answer of its own. Above them, Vaerros grinned wider, tusks gleaming. This Shango wasn't his first choice, or even his second, but he liked the look in the boy's eyes. He shifted his axe onto both shoulders, his voice a rolling thunder.

"So be it. Let the world see what humanity's measure truly is."

The Covenant Chamber rumbled.

The obsidian floor split with cracks of light, Vaylora veins racing outward like lightning. The great banquet table dissolved into black mist, reconstituting into jagged terraces that ringed a vast, circular stage. The walls peeled back into nothingness, revealing an endless void of stars, as though the chamber had been torn from the tower and set adrift in the heavens.

The thrones of the Seats rose higher, looming like judges above an arena meant for gods.

Delegations gasped, some clutching their seats as the stone beneath them shifted and floated into galleries suspended above the pit. Cameras auto-tracked, their feeds now filled with a panorama of cosmic spectacle. The obsidian beneath the center swelled, shaping into a battlefield: a cracked plateau of stone etched with glowing glyphs.

Vaerros descended first, battleaxe across his shoulders, his bulk casting a shadow that stretched across the arena. He stomped once, and the entire stage shuddered.

"Shango," he thundered, his tusked grin returning, "step forward. Show me the might of humanity!"

Billions held their breath.

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Shango glanced once at his companions. Amaterasu gave him a firm nod despite the uncertainty in her eyes. The Conductor gave his friend a confident smile. There was no doubt in his eyes.

With no more words, Shango stepped forward. Calm. Steady. His presence rippled outward, not like fire or lightning, but like the deep stillness before a storm.

The cameras locked on him. He turned to wink at it, saying,

"No worries, mates."

For the first time, humanity's champion walked into the Rite.

Shango walked into the arena, hands in his pockets, shoulders loose. Billions watching expected fire, fury, or trembling nerves. Instead, he sighed as if bored.

The delegations erupted again.

"He's not taking this seriously!"

"This is a mockery—"

"He's going to get us all killed!"

Vaerros's grin widened, his tusks gleaming like ivory scythes.

"You're bold to come so relaxed, tiny squishy one. Do you think this is a game?"

Shango rolled his neck, the faint crack of joints echoing louder than it should have in the star-lit void. He finally pulled his hands free, flexing them once before resting his thumbs against his belt.

"Game? Nah." He tilted his head with a half-smile. "A bit of sport, maybe. After-dinner entertainment, you know?"

The delegations froze, scandalized. The Seats chuckled softly, their voices rumbling like distant storms. Even Cefketa allowed himself the shadow of a smile and whispered to himself,

Vaerros stomped forward, battleaxe grating sparks across the stone as he dragged it into his grip. His voice was thundering.

"There is no spare. There is no play. Only glorious battle."

Shango shrugged, calm as ever.

"Good to know. I'm not very good at not killing things."

Vaerros's tusks gleamed as he laughed.

"Then perhaps I will enjoy you after all."

Gasps rippled across the galleries. The delegations panicked, but the cameras loved it. In seconds, Shango's grin was plastered across every screen in the world.

Vaerros lifted his axe, muscles rolling like avalanches beneath his skin.

Vaerros's laughter hadn't yet died when he stomped forward. The battlefield itself seemed to answer him — obsidian pillars erupted like jagged teeth, and veins of iron tore free from the ground, coiling around his arms until they resembled armored gauntlets carved from the bones of the world. His battleaxe hummed, edges layered in an unknown alloy that drank the light and spat sparks with every movement.

"Stand, little one," Vaerros growled. "And be broken."

He swung.

The axe cut through the void with such force that the entire arena shuddered. The glyphs carved into the battlefield flared as if bracing against the weight of the blow. The shockwave detonated outward like a cannon blast, ripping cracks into the obsidian plateau. Delegations cried out, clutching railings as the vibration carried even into the floating galleries. Cameras blurred, unable to process the distortion. To meet such a blow head-on was suicide.

Shango exhaled and walked into it, the air rippling around him. The instant the shockwave reached him, its violence bent like reeds in the wind. Vibrations split, folded, and rolled back on themselves. The boom became a pulse, rhythmic and contained, radiating outward like the slow, steady beat of a drum. It spiraled harmlessly around him before snapping back toward Vaerros in a spiraling echo.

The Titan Orc grunted as the rebound struck his chest, his massive frame absorbing the feedback without flinching. His grin widened anyway, tusks flashing in delight.

Shango smiled,

"That had some heft to it, yeah? But tell me, big guy—do Orcs know anything about rhythm? Might help you swing less like a drunk boulder."

The Seats chuckled, some covering their mouths, others letting the laughter roll like distant thunder. The delegations gasped, scandalized, while the billions watching saw a boy in a fine-pressed suit strut casually through a Titan's wrath as if he were on a runway.

Vaerros's roar split the void. The ground beneath him fractured, splitting into glowing fissures as he called more of the battlefield to life. Entire slabs of obsidian tore free, hanging in the air like islands ripped from the underworld. He thrust an arm forward, and the blocks shot toward Shango in a storm of black stone.

Iron veins followed, slithering out of the ground like serpents, hardening mid-flight into jagged spears that screamed through the air with enough force to pierce steel.

The delegations screamed. Even some Seats leaned forward.

Shango didn't flinch. He extended a hand lazily from his pocket, palm facing outward.

The first obsidian block crashed against him—no, against the invisible current rolling off him. Instead of shattering him, the force rippled outward in waves, the impact carried away like stones skipped across water. The block fractured mid-air, shards sucked backward into the wave's undertow.

Another slab hit. Another. Each one broke against him, waves bending the violence into harmless rhythms. The iron shards shrieked toward him, spinning with lethal force, but when they struck his current, they ricocheted, redirected into harmless arcs that spiraled upward into the void like fireworks.

Shango crouched slightly, pressed his palm to the ground, and grinned.

"See? Waves. You throw mountains, I just send 'em back out to sea."

The shockwaves rippled outward from him, rolling across the battlefield in rhythmic pulses that shattered the remaining obsidian pillars into dust. The delegations erupted again, half in awe, half in panic.

Billions of eyes locked on him.

Shango rose slowly, the air around his body vibrating now with a steady rhythm. The glyphs etched into the battlefield hummed in sympathy, each wave causing them to flicker in different colors, as though the arena itself recognized him.

He ascended into the air, riding the very pulses he emitted, his body buoyed by the invisible rhythm of waves. His eyes glimmered with mischief.

"Bumi's got the same tricks as you, mate—earth, stone, iron. So I'm well-versed. Let me extend an olive branch, yeah?"

He spread his arms, waves pulsing visibly now, shimmering in the void like concentric circles expanding across water.

"I control waves. Shockwaves, sound waves, motion waves… even brain waves, if I feel cheeky. You might give me a jolly good time, but you'll have to do better if you want to get my blood pumping."

The delegations convulsed in uproar. Some roared for him to stop taunting, others begged him to finish it quickly. The Seats leaned forward, expressions ranging from amusement to fascination.

Cefketa's faint smile lingered. "That's my boy." He mused to himself.

Vaerros's grin turned feral. His tusks gleamed as the veins of iron and stone across his arms burned brighter. He planted his axe into the ground, and the battlefield responded.

"Good! GOOD! Come, little wave-maker." Behind him, a System unfolded in the air, a construct of ancient symbols layered in impossible geometry. The glyphs interlocked into spirals and jagged runes. The complexity of it made the delegations flinch. Shango's grin only widened.

"Well, alright!" Behind him, an equally complex System came to life. Circles overlapped into spirals. Shango's System shimmered with fluidity, alive with rhythm.

The Titan Orc surged forward like a collapsing mountain, axe raised high, iron and obsidian orbiting him in a storm of jagged fury. Shango rocketed to meet him, waves rippling off his body in visible rings of energy that bent the battlefield's light around him.

Two primal forces collided at speeds the human eye could not follow.

The Rite of Measure thundered into life.

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