Chapter 96

“Tiberius…”

“Tiberius…”

"Tiberius..." The voice came from the blackness again, softly taunting me, pulling me further into awareness. I forced my mind to focus, but my universe remained a drunken haze of nothingness, an endless swirling mess of disconnected thoughts and electric pulses.

"Tiberius," the voice repeated, sounding eerily familiar. Was it father’s voice? Where was I? Where was he? What was father doing out here in this ocean of blackness.. Wasn’t he… wasn’t he somewher else?

“Tiberius…” Like Father’s—yet not. It drifted through the void with a teasing, sing-song quality that Father would never employ. The timbre sharpened slightly, higher now, more alien than before. My head throbbed.

I had awareness of very little—just darkness and the disorienting sensation of spinning through a void, a nauseating nothingness that pulled at me. My stomach churned, a bitter reminder that I still had a body somewhere in this emptiness, and it was doing everything in its power to turn itself inside out.

"Tiberius..."

"Voice?" I croaked, my own voice distant and weak.

It spoke again, "Yes, it's me."

That brought confusion flooding back to me. I could only hear the voice when I was in the Tower or the suit. But I wasn’t in either of those places, was I? Where was I? I was floating, lost in the nothingness, disconnected from anything tangible. The endless spinning in my head made the nausea worse. But then... something—dirt, gritty and rough—shifted beneath my fingers. I groaned, twisting as my stomach heaved violently. A bitter wave of vomit surged up, acrid and vile, filling my nostrils and making me gag again.

"It’s just little old me," it repeated as if amused. "Checking on you. You might not believe this, but I’d be heartbroken if you died. I might never see the likes of you again."

"What... what are you doing here?" I stammered, spitting the last of the bile from my lips. The dark void swirled around me, and the ground beneath me seemed to tilt.

"Checking on you, obviously," it said, still with that insufferable amusement. "Making sure you didn’t get yourself killed. That would be... quite unfortunate."

"But... you can't be here," I mumbled. "You only come to me in the suit..."

The voice chuckled, a teasing note lacing through its words. "And where exactly is here, Tiberius?"

I struggled to think, my mind a swirling haze. I blinked, or at least, I thought I blinked. My eyelids were heavy, weighted down as if by lead. The act of trying to open them sent my head spinning again. Flashes of unfocused light leapt through the gaps in my eyelids. Bright beigeness. Pain speared through my brain. My body wretched once more, but there was nothing left, just dry heaves and the bitter burn of bile at the back of my throat. I could feel tendrils of drool wetting my lips.

"I... I don’t know where I am," I admitted, my breath coming in ragged gasps. "Am I dead?"

The voice chuckled again, soft and almost comforting. "No, not dead—though you had me going for a while there. You’ve been unconscious. It’s alright. I’ve checked your brain. It took quite a beating, but you’ll live."

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I groaned, feeling the hard surface beneath me again. The ground? Yes, it had to be the ground. The grit of dirt pressed against my cheek, rough and uncomfortable. There was pressure against my hip, an ache from lying in one position too long. It hurt... but it was real.

The voice spoke again, almost gleeful. "It’s been fascinating, really. Poking through your neurology... it's not something I can normally do when you're conscious. But while you were out, I got to clear up some of your little mysteries."

"Mysteries?" I mumbled, confused. My eyelids fluttered as the darkness began to give way to flashes of unfocused light, the blurred edges of the arena coming into view through a painful, dizzy haze.

"Yes," the voice said smoothly. "How you gain attributes so quickly, how you can level in jumps."

"What does that have to do with..." My thoughts trailed off as the realization crashed into me like a wave of ice water. The fight. The suit. Lance. Gideon. The Choosing. It all slammed back into my mind in an instant, sending me into a spiral of panic. My stomach clenched violently, forcing me to retch again, though there was nothing left inside to come out—just dry heaves and painful convulsions.

I forced myself onto all fours, pressing my forehead to the dirt. The pressure in my skull was unbearable, lancing pain shooting through my head with every tiny movement.

"Careful there, Tiberius," the voice cautioned, almost lazily. "I said you’d live, but you’ve taken a terrible pounding."

Through gritted teeth, I managed to hiss back at it, "I need to get back to the fight... I can’t lose the suit..."

"There's no hurry," the voice said with an unnerving calmness, as if it hadn't heard the panic in my mind.

"No hurry?" I thought it was crazy—was it trying to toy with me?

Reality crashed back into me in brutal waves. I had been winning. Lance had been retreating. I had them both terrified—Gideon and Lance, mere prey before me, and I had felt like a war god. Something—something like a thunderbolt—had struck me in the side of the head, a hit so fierce it felt like the very beginning and end of time collided.

How long had I been down? It couldn't have been long. It couldn't have been. Any longer and the fight would be lost beyond retrieval.

I forced my knees under me, trying to steady myself. When I opened my eyes, the arena floor swam into view, a hazy brownness of dirt and grit. My head pounded in excruciating pulses, and even as I looked, the ground came in and out of focus—little particles of dirt, specks of stone, flickering as though reality itself was uncertain. It would be impossible to fight like this.

"Slow down there, slugger," the voice teased. "You can't stand yet."

"I have to," I groaned, crawling my hands beneath me, lifting my weight from the ground. My body felt like a tree caught in a storm—pushed, swayed, and threatened to be toppled by invisible forces. Staying upright was a war I was losing.

"It's utterly pointless," the voice chided, "You can't even crawl. You'll just embarrass yourself."

A hot tear stung the corner of my eye. This couldn't be how it ended. I had done it—I had won. I couldn’t leave the fight now. Not like this.

"I have to," I said through gritted teeth. "I have to! I can't lose the suit now. Not when I'm so close."

My head spun faster as though the entire world was tilted against me. My arms gave way beneath me, and I collapsed sideways, muscles convulsing out of control. I was trapped between reality and an abyss of darkness, where my body refused to listen to me anymore.

"Don't worry about that," the voice said, calm and almost sympathetic.

I jerked my head at that, dirt grinding against my helm, filling my ears with coarse static. "I have to!" I shouted in desperation. "I need it! I'll never be whole again without the suit!"

"Just stay there," the voice said, utterly unfazed by my struggles.

"I can't stay here!" I spat back, trying to roll over again. "I need to fight!"

"Oh," the voice replied, almost amused now. "Don't worry about that... there's nothing to be done now."

I froze. What did that mean?

"The round is already over."