The inner Ruiner’s expression turned mad, but it didn’t really matter... he could feel it, the anger escaping him, the one thing their lineage were proud of, was being tamed by a violin, a song, a tone, so soft, so warm, many viewers had already closed their eyes and kept moving left and right in serene quiet.
Levi didn’t care what he thought or saw this... he just played with a soft smile tugged under the mask, imagining himself playing in a field of dandelions with his little brother and parents.
The song was playing in the background and he... just played, no worries, no anger, no frustration, just a child without the weight of the world on his shoulders.
The Ruiner tried to fight back... but to no avail... he barely took a few steps before his knees failed him, the wrath fueling his movements, his body, his everything... was no longer under his control.
It was never in the first place... otherwise, the real Ruiner’s consciousness wouldn’t be screaming inwardly for his beast to stand up, to fight back.
The Ruiner’s claws retracted... the red mist around him wavered and thinned as Levi’s improvisation grew more confident and relaxed.
The anger wasn’t gone... it never will... but it was listening and bending to his will.
As Levi noticed the Ruiner landing on his knees... his face completely enthralled with a forced serene smile and eyes closed shut, Levi started playing while walking downward from the high heavens.
The dark violin gleaming under the painted void and the billions of somewhat closed-shut eyes spread across it.
No one was talking, no one was cheering, no one was making noise... they just embraced the last piece of Levi’s performance, having a feeling that it would be a long time before they saw him perform ever again...
With one final soaring note that filled the silent arena... the viewers and the Ruiner bathed underneath it, feeling like it carried all the restraint, all the anger, all the negative emotions eating everyone away... day by day, hour by hour.
Once its last echo went silent... so as their hearts: for at this very instant, their hearts were cleansed from anger.
It didn’t matter if it was anger directed at their abusive parents... at the betrayal of their friend, or in relation to revenge... no matter how severe it was, if it was capable of reducing the Ruiner from a monstrous state back into his original form, leaving him with a serene, gentle smile, the viewers couldn’t escape it either.
For once Levi decided to play... the universe halted to listen.
Levi lowered the violin slowly as he stood a couple of meters away from the Ruiner, who was still sitting on his knees.
Sweat rolled down Levi’s forehead, but his hands were steady as the Ruiner’s form had returned to normal... he no longer posed a threat to him.
The Ruiner opened his eyes and met Levi’s orbiting three stars... there was no redness, no anger left... only acknowledgment and a hint of disappointment.
"My people... we have mastered control over wrath. Absolute control... and yet, I am defeated by a song? How ironic is that." The Ruiner let out a soft exhalation, already accepting his defeat.
Levi gazed at him for a moment... usually, he wasn’t much of a talker with this persona, but he couldn’t help but shake his head in disagreement.
He felt the Ruiner’s words touch him personally because of what he was going through with three Seeds... he had three extreme personas raging a war inside him, and he never dared to call himself having any sort of control on them even when he managed to make them reach a truce.
Because he understood:
"That isn’t control... that’s submission. True control isn’t sealing your wrath and letting it push you around... It’s knowing it, facing it, and acting with choice. Anything less is just being controlled by yourself." Levi uttered, his voice as wise and echoey as the cosmos.
Then, he pointed his bow in his direction and waited silently... he was voiceless, but the Ruiner understood that he was giving him a chance to use the resignation token if he had one.
In the aftermath of unleashing the beast, the Ruiner was just like Drayven... as weak as a twig.
The Ruiner smiled gently as Levi’s words echoed in his mind... it wasn’t like Levi told him some new revelation.
His lineage were the first to realize that their control was nothing but delusion... true control didn’t require seals, didn’t require a whole battle arts to wield it... true control meant never needing the beast in the first place. For they could turn into their natural forms at will and remain sane.
But... they tried... god knows they tried. Yet how could one turn anger into a weapon when it was restrained, when its power came from being the unrestrained part of oneself?
It wasn’t easy... but the Ruiner had been taught a grave lesson against Levi.
"You’re right... if we don’t control it, someone else will." The Ruiner nodded in appreciation at Levi’s direction and said with a faint smile, "Celestial... congratulations on becoming a noble, and I hope I can pay you back with a drink someday."
Following his voice, the Ruiner used a resignation token, and his form broke into spatial particles in front of Levi.
In less than a split second, only Levi remained in the center of the Arena of Gambits... holding his violin with one hand and the bow with the other.
Drayven, the Wanderer, Dreambreaker, Madam Future, the Ruiner, Hollow Titan, Light Eater, Masked Butcher, the Dealer... nine powerful and considered prodigies of their respective lineages and races.
All were gone... some killed, some resigned.
But only one stood at the end.
The Celestial.
He lifted his head into the sky and saw nothing but darkness again... Levi didn’t know if he should smile or feel relieved.
The violin never felt heavy until now... his hands and fingers were shaking and cramping up nonstop as his body was finally collapsing from such an intense Death Game. At the moment, all he wanted was to fall face-first into a bed and sleep for an entire day.
But... it wasn’t over yet.
WOOOOOOAAAAH!!! THE CELESTIAL! THE CELESTIAL! THE CELESTIAL....
Billions of excited and thrilled voices engulfed the Arena of Gambits in cheers and chants... his diehard fans never lost faith in him and were rewarded in the end with his victory, standing alone in a war he had no business being part of.
For he was a human under the mask... but the viewers never saw him as such. For they refused to believe that someone as resourceful, as powerful, as mysterious as him was a mere human... not even any human, a blind human.
Levi left them to bathe under the bliss of ignorance as he knew... it was easier to accept a mysterious entity reaching this level than weakling humans, who were seen across the universe as nothing but victims to the Shadow Dimension’s corruption.
Suddenly, above Levi’s head, ten giant Joker cards appeared, spinning slowly in a circle... their faces lit up with bright colors: red, blue, yellow, green... like some chaotic festival.
They hovered there for a moment, casting colored light across the ruined battlefield... then, the cards shattered into particles, which rained down and sank into Levi’s hands.
He didn’t feel any difference as he knew that this was nothing but for show.
As expected... a glowing title appeared above his head: HAND OF MADNESS
Its colors kept shifting like a clown’s paint... bright, chaotic... but arranged in perfect symmetry.
Levi stared at the empty battlefield, thinking about everything that happened... the fights, the choices, the deaths, and the strange path that led him here.
Above him, fireworks burst through the void as Gamemaster Gamble was celebrating his victory like it was his own.
"Promotion! Promotion! Baron rank achieved in three death games!! The Celestial has joined one of the fastest Rifters to become a Noble in the Nocturnal Ring!" He shouted like a showman... the previous ominous threat he left Levi when the Dealer helped him was nowhere to be seen.
Then... the sky lit up with letters: Baron Three-Body Problem.
But the crowd ignored it... they were chanting something else... something that truly spoke to them more than the chosen name of Levi’s.
Celestial Baron! Celestial Baron! Celestial Baron!...
Following the chants, Levi couldn’t help but show a pleased smile. ’I have to admit... it does have a nice ring to it.’
’You think?’ Ash’Kral smirked, ’Congratulations, little one... You did us proud.’
Levi couldn’t hear the Titan’s voice, but he could tell that he was cheering for him too.
As Levi saw Gamemaster Gamble getting closer to him, probably for a post-interview, Levi turned his back on him and stepped inside the dimensional gate, leaving the game once and for all.
He had no idea what Gamemaster Gamble meant with what he said before, but he could tell... the last change in the arena was done to make him fight against the Ruiner before his form could run out.
Levi didn’t like that, and he had no intentions of entertaining a Gamemaster who put the viewers’ entertainment first above all else.
The moment he stepped out of the dimensional gate, cold air hit his face... his wounds and exhaustion were healed instantly as if he had taken a magic potion.
He showed a serene smile as he looked around... white snow, ice stretching endlessly in every direction with frozen winds cutting across the land.
He was back... back in the real world, alive somewhere in Antarctica.
And the death game... was finally over.