The Thalassomare Festival (Third Stage)

The combat circle boiled with steam and hatred.

Waves crashed against the wet stone, while bluish torches barely illuminated the stage. 

Ayato advanced slowly, adjusting the hilt of his sword and reloading his revolver, while Fatima walked beside him elegantly, her fingers playing with strands of invisible thread.

On the other side, Tatsuya Homura, ablaze with erratic flames, looked more like a raging fire than a warrior. 

Yuzuru Kurohime ripped off her mask, revealing her disfigured mouth, cut into a grotesque smile, howling with wounded fury.

"Look at me!" she spat, her voice cracking with hatred and shame. "Do you think you can laugh at me too?"

Ayato replied coldly, "I don't need to laugh. You become the joke yourselves."

"This isn't over!" Tatsuya roared, his flames whipping through columns and water alike.

"It ended a while ago," Ayato replied, dodging while measuring each blow with cold precision.

Fatima, on the other hand, danced in circles. And then, with a graceful and cruel movement, she unleashed the Danse Maudite once more.

Grrrchhh!

Five lethal spins. Five dark slashes that tore through the air and the bodies of their enemies.

The duo fell to their knees, but instead of surrendering, they rose in a final berserk throb. This state of maximum power as a last resort made them more brutal... and more vulnerable.

Yuzuru fell as a slash from the thread scythe slammed her into the water, soaking her wings until they were useless. Tatsuya rushed at Ayato, but her sword plunged him into the burning pool of his own extinguished fire.

Wounded, gasping, humiliation weighed more than pain.

A teleportation circle activated beneath their feet, dragging them like debris.

Before vanishing, Yuzuru shot a look of resentment at Fatima; Tatsuya, one of pure rage at Ayato.

The arena fell silent until another presence made itself felt.

Zeltha, watching from the upper stands, sighed behind her glasses. Her voice, cold and disappointed, descended like a judgment.

"These are my Lone Demons? Two buffoons... defeated on the stage that was meant to exalt their resentment." She disappeared into shadows, her voice laced with disdain... 

"Pathetic."

The dark elf's silhouette disappeared into shadows, leaving behind an icy promise of future punishments.

Ayato sighed, sheathing his sword.

"Two less to worry about."

Fatima smiled with a fake blush, leaning toward him and highlighting her cleavage.

"Et deux more reasons... for you to take me seriously, cher Ayato."

He pushed her away in annoyance, and the echo of his rejection was drowned out by a distant roar.

[Isolde´s Group Route]

At the same time, in the vast circular hall of the amphitheater, the other team advanced among sea salt sculptures. Human figures trapped in poses of despair, petrified by Anastasia's singing.

"What a grotesque gallery..." Isolde murmured, touching with the tip of her glove a statue that creaked as if about to crumble.

"Our fate will be even more grotesque if we don't keep a low profile," Vera replied, her tone dry but her eyes restless.

Lucien, on the other hand, seemed amused by her interrupted theatricality.

"Ah, my ladies... let us not forget that every opera needs its second-act monster."

The croaking then resounded, soft at first, but laden with a musical cadence that made one's skin crawl. At center stage appeared a ridiculously sized frog, wearing a necklace of shells.

Sylphidia giggled.

"Is that all? A singing pet?"

The creature puffed out its chest. Its croaking transformed into an operatic chant. The sound waves shattered several salt statues, and its skin swelled, grew, and deformed.

In seconds, the frog transformed into a cyclopean beast, a cross between a batrachian and a leviathan, adorned with gills that gaped like church organs. An amphibious parody of Dagon, accompanied by a guttural chorus that rattled the bones.

Lucien stepped back theatrically, swallowing before becoming serious for the first time.

"…Can I take that back?"

The chanting engulfed the room, each note weighing like lead on the ears.

Isolde drew her sword, the gleam of its blade reflecting the damp lights.

"No. Stand your ground. This is only the prelude."

The Frog-Dagon lunged, its chant shattering several statues into clouds of salt. Isolde rolled to the side, and Vera raised a dark barrier that vibrated like glass under the sound pressure.

"Sylphidia!" Isolde shouted.

The goddess summoned gusts of wind that momentarily deflected the wave, creating an artificial silence amidst the chaos.

The frog roared in fury, its chant transforming into even lower notes that shook the entire amphitheater.

Lucien took advantage. With a leap, he fired bomb-tipped arrows into the creature's exposed mouth, stunning it with the blast and the residual damage to its stomach.

"Hold your ground!" Isolde ordered, charging at one of the slimy legs.

Her sword sliced ​​through salt sinew and sea flesh, and the beast staggered. Vera closed her eyes, concentrating her magic: chain-like shadows rose up, pinning the monster to the ground.

"Now!" Vera roared.

Sylphidia descended from above, her spear imbued with biting wind, piercing the amphibious Dagon's throat.

The monster croaked one last off-key note that shattered several statues… and collapsed, disintegrating into sea foam that dissolved into thin air.

Lucien, breathing heavily, smiled faintly.

"Bravo… though I admit I prefer to applaud from the audience."

Isolde didn't reply. Her gaze remained fixed on the salt statues that still surrounded the amphitheater, each a reminder of Anastasia Vodnikova's power.

Both scenes end in parallel, like two dissonant notes in the same macabre symphony of Thalassomare.

In one wing of the Pseudo-Castle, the Lone-Demons retreated in humiliation.

In the other, the amphibious monster fell defeated.

Both victories were only preludes: the true horror opera was just beginning its final act.