Rey, as if he were casually wishing good morning to someone who had enjoyed a pleasant night's sleep, said:
"Well, about time you woke up."
He drew in a breath and glanced around, as though he were simply admiring the scenery, before adding:
"I kept my promise. If you use your power, you'll be able to break through this barrier and get where you want to go…"
Edith was being held up by a single hand. Her feet dangled in the air, and she felt the iron-strong grip of someone smaller than she was. When she lifted her gaze, she too noticed Rey's transformed hand, buried deep in the solid mass of the platform overhead. She saw his wings, still smoldering like live coals, and White's pale face—her mouth hanging open, tongue lolling out, not even bothering to breathe.
"Are you insane?! What if this isn't Tartarus?!" she cried, eyes brimming with tears.
"No, no, no… Don't play games with me, Edith." His fingers slipped a little in the stone above them. "It's not like I've got much time left. This is the only chance I can give you—as a friend. Face your problems and take responsibility for the consequences. It's the only way. It's better than wandering lost. When I look into your eyes, I see myself reflected there. You made me realize that the only way out is straight through the very thing I was trying to escape." His grip broke a bit more.
Edith shook her head, tears spilling over.
"I don't want a friend…" She paused and turned her face away, hiding her eyes. "To fulfill my purpose and then take responsibility afterward, I need us to be something more…"
Rey, almost without surprise, replied:
"Mm. That's something I can consider… later. But for now, this has to be goodbye for the two of us."
Edith, alarmed, asked:
"With those wings… will you even survive the fall?"
"Will I survive the fall?"
He flashed a wide, arrogant smile, the kind that belonged to someone even more conceited than his words.
"Aren't our strings already tangled together? Isn't your name Edith Lachesis? Have a little more faith in yourself and stop making me laugh. Our lives have far more paths than the ones shown by a few simple threads. We just need to see them and have the strength to take them…"
"But, but—"
"Edith, I wish you the best…" Rey cut in softly.
The stone around his hand gave way with a grinding crack. The section of roof he had been using to anchor himself broke apart, and all three small bodies dropped into the abyss. Even while falling, Rey forced himself to move: using his free hand, he hurled the Reaper's body upward with all the strength he had left, practically throwing her toward the barrier so she would be forced to become intangible—unless she wanted to slam into the rocks and shatter.
With sorrowful eyes, Edith let the little boy with no last name and that entire red-stained world vanish from her sight. Passing through the ground was like plunging into pure darkness. She could have stayed intangible and let herself fall back down again… but that would have been a waste of the precious opportunity someone had just bought her with his sacrifice.
"No," she whispered.
She emerged through the surface of Tartarus and brushed her eyes with the back of her hand, trying to clear the blur from her vision. Shapes slowly came into focus: more than a dozen figures stood before her, tall and imposing, dressed in long black robes fastened with silver buttons and cinched with cords of gold. They had the subtle curves only a woman's body could carry, hands as black as ink, and faces hidden beneath heavy hoods. What gave them away were their lifeless eyes, looking at her from the shadows as they spoke in unison:
"Oh, little one. We've been waiting for you. Come now, you're going to be late for your Ancient Language class," they said, as if absolutely nothing had happened.
Edith stopped floating and dropped to the ground with a soft thud. Jaw clenched, eyes rolled upward with barely contained fury, and fists balled at her sides, she followed her guides—women who carried themselves like strict instructors, all sharp posture and measured steps, with whom she was all too familiar. The Reaper knew how harsh they were: no matter how much she learned or how brilliantly she proved her talents, not one of them ever gave her a smile or the slightest nod of approval. Yet whenever she made a mistake, the reprimand was swift and merciless. More than a hundred times she had gone to sleep after a vicious beating.
"Won't they punish me for escaping?" she wondered. "Why were they waiting for me in this exact spot? Was this all part of their plan?" Questions piled up in her mind, but none of them made it to her lips. If she dared ask, they might take it as a request for punishment.
…
Meanwhile, Rey, curled into a tight ball with White held firmly against his chest, fell all the way back down from where he had climbed, until his barrier slammed into the almost solid surface of a dried-up lake. The impact was brutal. The spherical shield fractured in a web of cracks and warped out of its original shape. The ground below—swollen with writhing bodies, seething blood, foul sludge, and dense, hostile mud—erupted like a bomb had gone off. Shards of hardened muck and pieces of those tormented forms flew in all directions. The air filled with ragged screams, sobs, curses, and hoarse cries of rage.
White and the boy both survived only because the defensive barrier had absorbed the brunt of the blow. That did not mean its creator had come out unharmed. The shield had split and splintered like an egg hitting the floor—fortunate only in that it hadn't cracked fully in two. Because its core was tied to his heart chakra and to all the others, Rey felt the external damage slam directly into his chest. A copper taste flooded his mouth as he coughed up blood. It was as if something inside him had burst. He clenched his jaw so hard it hurt, trying to ride out what might have been the most agonizing pain he had felt so far.
"I… can't pass out…" he muttered through his teeth.
Battling the waves of dizziness and the dark spots closing in on his vision, he forced the barrier to shrink. The battered sphere compressed and flowed back into him, returning to his body as a trembling core of energy.
Fighting to stay conscious, Rey began to lose track of his actions, his location, even his own thoughts. Up and down blurred together. If it weren't for the constant reminder to protect his furry friend, he might have opened his hands and let her go.
The dead, will-less entities churned and shifted, filling the crater carved by his fall. With no barrier left to shield him and nowhere to stand, Rey was swallowed by a thousand dead hands dragging him down into the depths of the mire. He kept his arms wrapped around White's small body, using himself as a shield while he took every blow, scratch, bite, and scream those hateful shades could give. Once human, now they drowned in rage and hatred. They no longer had eyes in their sockets or flesh on their bones, yet they still possessed two swollen black lungs, bloated with mud and filth. Those two sagging sacks hanging in their open chests existed for one purpose only: to draw in the sludge and expel it in endless, howling screams. And even though many had no tongues, the few who did used them to curse the gods and curse Leonel.
Dragged back into the present, Rey struggled as hard as he could, kicking and twisting in that suffocating chaos. But when all his effort produced nothing, he told himself:
"It's impossible to reach the surface."
Claw marks, blows, bites, and kicks rained down from the dead, but the pain began to fade.
"Hm. My body isn't feeling damage anymore… If I can't go up, then it's better to keep going down," he decided, and let himself sink. It wasn't hard; he weighed far more than the dead things all around him.
Even when he forced his eyes open, Rey couldn't see a thing. All around him, shapes thrashed and clawed upward in the churning mud, desperate to reach the surface of the mire and scream out their sorrows to anyone who might listen. Yet the deeper he went, the calmer it grew. The flailing arms, the frantic scratches, the bites—little by little, they faded away, until only the occasional kick struck his body.
"This mud feels thinner… more like liquid. But I still don't think I'll be able to see," he thought, while the little boy, eyes still closed, gave White two firm pats on the back to calm the convulsions shaking her as she fought for breath.
White had been without air for far too long. Every instinct screamed at her to inhale the thick fluid around them, to surrender and let it rush into her lungs, but she resisted with growing desperation. The struggle was turning useless. Her chest burned. The moment she felt Rey's hands pat her back, she made a choice: she slowly exhaled every last pocket of air she had been holding inside, letting it escape in small bursts, anything to do something—anything—to buy a few more seconds.
Without opening his eyes, Rey drove his feet downward and pushed, swimming deeper and deeper, until the sludge stopped feeling like mud at all and began to feel, unmistakably, like water.
Keeping himself apart from all the motion and rage that had been tearing at him, the little boy with no last name decided to put his core to use once more and summon the barrier that let him push the water away. When he finally managed to plant his feet on the bottom of the narrow sphere—still fractured and unstable—he called forth a rush of wind, a torrent of air rich in oxygen and all the gases needed to breathe. The wind spun around them and swelled the sphere's size, and the barrier obediently expanded according to his will.
White inhaled through her mouth. A heartbeat later she snorted, expelling the lingering water from her nasal passages, then drew in a breath so deep she would have sworn she'd never breathed like that in her life. Still drained of strength, she staggered a few steps, shook out her soaked fur, and then flopped down on the circular floor. No matter how she tried to move away, the slight slope always made her slide back toward the center.
Rey opened his eyes. Even though he could see in the dark as if it were broad daylight, he still couldn't see anything beyond the barrier. His body was wrecked. All he had to do was stretch out a hand and his fingers found the cracks along the enlarged core's inner surface. As a sorcerer, he knew exactly what he had to do: sit and meditate. So he did, lowering himself to the floor, crossing his legs, letting his breathing settle as the energy from all his vortices flowed properly through him again. Little by little, that flow of power stitched the cracks in the protective core, mending the shell around them. At the same time, it healed the gashes on his skin and restored the dark plumage of his wings.
Once White had fully recovered from her near-death experience, Rey opened his eyes and reached out to gently scratch the top of her head.
"Thank you for trusting me so much," he said.
White answered with a soft, rumbling purr.
"Well then, time to find a way out. I think we've hit rock bottom already. Whether that's good or bad… who knows?"
The white-eyed boy rose to his feet. Extending his hand again, he summoned another gust of wind, further enlarging his now-repaired core. He called the great black book with red lettering into the air, letting it float and drift open beside him while he searched through its many pages. When he finally reached the conclusion of his search, he invoked a sphere of light outside the barrier. He poured far more energy into it than the spell actually required, and as a result, the orb became powerful enough to illuminate a considerable stretch of the lake's floor.
The light cut through the darkness and revealed an immense face: eyes wide open, features twisted into a blinding, murderous hatred. Her brows and eyes were pulled upward, as if someone were yanking her by the hair, and her mouth gaped in a silent, eternal scream. It was a woman's face, but the size of her body was impossible to guess. How big did something have to be when a single pupil was twice the size of the barrier protecting Rey?
So huge and terrifying was the image that White immediately lifted a paw, covered her eyes in surrender, collapsed onto the ground, and pretended to be dead.
Rey, on the other hand, contorted his expression into something fiercer, like a fighter ready to gamble everything on one final, glorious battle. Deep down, though, an immense weakness crept into his legs. If his feet hadn't been wedged in place, he might have landed on his backside from the shock of that horrific vision rising out of the dark.
"Edith wasn't wrong to be afraid of whatever might be lurking beneath a lake," he thought, grimly reflective.
Flipping through the pages of his book with his mind, Rey stopped at one in particular. Two pages, wrapped in layer upon layer of mystery, filled with strange chants and countless strokes of ink that formed the summoning of one of the most powerful creatures in history. A creature so powerful, so terrifying, so untamable that Heroclades had marked those pages among the "unusable" ones.
A dragon.
According to the books Rey had read in the Library of Knowledge, this kind of creature harbored an uncontrollable rage toward any being that wasn't of its own kind—especially humans and those that resembled them. Their hatred ran so deep that no dragon would ever hesitate to trade its life just to annihilate the object of its fury.
No sorcerer in history had ever managed to forge a contract with such beasts. The only way they had been added to the grimoires was through a sealing method. To summon one meant breaking that prison for a brief period of time, and the intelligent beast would use all its might to curse the summoner. Calling such a creature had to be a last resort—a desperate, reckless gamble.
Even under that blazing stare, Rey held his breath and waited, ready for any attack.
Nothing happened.
The boy decided to draw the luminous sphere back, but something caught his attention. The enormous pupil didn't react to the light. The eyes didn't follow it. When he lowered the orb, Rey realized what he had been looking at: only a severed head. Just the head of something that massive, lying motionless. Nearby, he spotted a few fingers, a foot, a bare breast. The rest of the dismembered body lay scattered across the bottom of the lake—the work of someone who had wanted their victim not just dead, but erased.
With the tip of his foot, Rey nudged the stiff little feline body beside him. White continued pretending to be dead. He smirked with half his mouth, then scooped his "unconscious" companion into his arms and tried to walk forward, coaxing the barrier to move along with his steps.
"Heroclades couldn't move if he kept his barrier fully exposed. But I managed to fly with mine… Here, though, this smooth surface won't let me push forward. What if I create a rough floor with some spikes?" he wondered.
Somehow, he managed it. He wasn't quite sure how, but he focused on shaping protruding spikes outside the barrier and, thanks to the traction they provided, he was able to advance. Wandering across the lakebed now, with several luminous orbs floating around to light the way, the boy saw two things that caught his eye: a golden chalice resting on an altar, and some kind of sunken boat farther ahead.
Rey tried to take the chalice. But as soon as he brought it into the core, within seconds a torrent of water flooded the inside of the sphere. With no other choice, Rey expelled the goblet from his core along with his arm, sending it back to where it belonged, and then drained nearly half the water that had almost drowned his furry companion.
Looking on the bright side, the water that remained inside wasn't nearly as filthy as the sludge outside. It was clear and lukewarm, pleasant enough that it almost invited a bath. Rey cupped some of the clean liquid in his hands and began to wash himself, scrubbing away grime and dried blood.
White stared at him like someone watching a culprit trying to cover up a mistake by making it look intentional. If she could talk, she would definitely have said, "Try not to drown me next time."
Once the boy finished bathing and cleaning his clothes, he gave the small feline a bath too. She glared back at him with accusatory eyes, but he rinsed her anyway. With everything finally clean, Rey got rid of the remaining water by splitting the barrier into two sections, expanding the half filled with air while opening the compartment that contained the water. The liquid rushed out and disappeared into the depths below.
Now, only the second thing that had caught his attention remained: the sunken boat. So he continued on.
As Rey and White drew near enough, they saw a human figure rise from within the boat's interior. Like a moth drawn helplessly toward a flame, the figure moved forward and stretched out its hands toward the light, ignoring the damage it caused to its own body. Rey couldn't overlook the fact that down here, beneath all this water, there was someone who didn't seem aggressive.
He approached and allowed the naked man, long-bearded and hunched, to enter the barrier.
At first glance, the person barely qualified as "living" at all. His skin was that of a corpse hauled back from the grave. He had no eyes, no lips, no ears, no eyelids. Anyone would have assumed this was someone who had spent an eternity dwelling in the heart of hell itself. He had lived so long in the abyss that he had become part of it; there were barely any human traits left in him beyond a head, two hands, two legs, and bones to hold them together. His teeth were sharpened, and though he retained two lungs, he also had a stomach and a digestive system. It wasn't hard to imagine how he had survived: most likely by feeding on the corpses of his own kind.
A ghoul.
Letting a creature this repugnant and hideous into his barrier could easily have consequences, but Rey didn't see it that way. Whoever he was, whatever he looked like, he didn't radiate any hostile intent toward him. And if he wasn't an enemy, then he could be a friend.
Rey looked him over from head to toe before asking:
"If you can speak, then tell me… who are you?"
Tears of blood welled up and spilled from the hollow sockets of the eyeless skull. The man pulled his arms around himself, covering his mouth and trying to hide his hideous appearance, as if afraid his ugliness might offend the kindness in the voice that had just asked his name.
"Ah… how good it feels to breathe, to see, to hear again. I'm so grateful for this small relief you've given me. Even more grateful that you can speak and understand the language of the ancients," the man said, dropping to his knees and pressing his forehead against the inner surface of the barrier. "And how could I ever forget those eyes of yours, my master and lord? Even if all that remains of me is the body of a ghoul… my mind is still intact. My name is insignificant before your presence and does not deserve space in your thoughts, my kind lord. I… I am nothing more than one of your convicts, and not because I resent my work, but because my boat has worn down so much that I have been unable to continue the penance I was ordered to carry out."
Rey, unconcerned with the man's appearance or what he looked like on the inside, judged him instead by his words and actions. Choosing to return the respect and courtesy he was being shown, he answered:
"In this life, my name is Rey. I have no memories or knowledge of my past incarnation… Where am I? What is this place? And how can I get to Heaven?"
Still in his humbled posture and careful not to stain the place where his voice reached, the man replied:
"My lord, we are within the fifth circle of Hell, at the very bottom of the river of hatred. Its current springs from a sacred source in Arcadia and flows through the golden chalice that lies in the deepest part of this place. Since the body of the daughter of Oceanus and Tethys rests here as well, the lake is known as the Styx, and this is where those who hate and detest are made to suffer. I see that you are still alive—and that you bathed in these waters. Waters that strengthen the bodies of the living and render them invulnerable."
Rey was intrigued by the name Arcadia, and now by the word invulnerable. Those were terms used whenever someone spoke of his father.
"If you wish to reach Heaven, you must keep going forward. Where the rivers converge, a vast marsh of many colors is formed. There you must follow the waters that burn with fire and a thousand flames. They will lead you to the entrance of the seventh circle. From there, you must continue on foot through the three planes of the circle of the violent, cross the trenches of the eighth circle, and then deviate from the path until you can reach the Ever-Changing Forest. Be extremely careful not to touch the waters of the river Lethe. There lies the body of the goddess Mnemosyne and, even though you are alive, it will make you forget, just as it made her forget…"
"You're very well informed about the structure of Hell," Rey said, thinking how the Lethe itself originated in Purgatory, but finding the warning believable.
"My lord, perhaps in this new life of yours you do not remember, but my purpose is to guide souls through these lands. It is an honor to be of service to you… But… if you would allow me a favor…"
Rey, feeling the weight of another's grief as if it were his own, asked:
"You're tired, aren't you?"
The man fell silent and clenched his hands weakly.
"On my way here, I met Cato. He had a question to ask, and only I could answer it. Tell me… do you want to stop existing?"
The man lifted his head, mouth hanging open, but still did not dare to speak.
"I come from Heaven, the first circle of Paradise beneath the nine skies. I was born there, and I have not seen anything particularly extraordinary there, nor a God my eyes could behold… Purgatory is not the doorway to Heaven, and I don't believe Paradise is a place humans will ever reach, even if they deserve it."
As if learning there was no better world waiting beyond Hell stripped him of whatever purpose kept him enduring suffering, the guide drew in a deep breath.
"Ah… my lord… Thank you for helping me understand the meaning of it all," he said, grateful for this knowledge. "Of all the things that ever existed in this world of torment and suffering, there have always been those that depend on me and those that do not. Torment and suffering have always depended on me… haven't they? Ha-ha-ha…"
Before those white eyes, the body that scarcely looked human dissolved into a single bubble, then burst apart into thousands of tiny, imperceptible explosions.
With the directions fixed in his mind, Rey set White on top of his head and set out on his way, walking forward as he read from the floating book and ignored everything around him. As soon as he emerged from the flaming waters and stepped onto a shore of red sand, thick with people screaming and tearing each other apart, Rey focused his gaze on the distance. Ahead, he saw several tiers of rocky relief and, at the farthest edge, a dark mountain that looked very much like the Ever-Changing Forest.
With a clear point of reference on the horizon—but with many giants roaming the land between—he decided it would be wiser to continue on foot. To the boy's pale eyes, this place looked like the home of violent beings: champions of bloodshed and warriors stripped of honor, all of them beating each other senseless and screaming with no reason or excuse. Those who couldn't stand boiled in the red liquid pooled on the ground.
Rey could feel that his wings were far from in top condition, not nearly enough to dodge the giants with their hundreds of heads and thousands of arms. Their bodies were hunched, straight hair falling from their main heads, countless hands layered one over the other, stomping through the landscape and crushing anyone in their path.
Flipping back through a few pages he had already studied, Rey raised a circular protective barrier just in time to block the attack of the nearest raging giant. With that nearly unbreakable defense established, he summoned hundreds of floating swords pointing upward and arranged them around himself until they formed a ring, like a crown resting atop the sphere.
The blades came in different sizes and designs, but all of them struck at anything that drew near, without distinction. Step by step, the little boy with no last name advanced, relying on basic, precise summons to strike his enemies. He had to be careful; his core, the same one he used as a protective barrier and that originally served as his energy storehouse, couldn't be refined so much that it risked being destroyed by a mere physical blow.
Dodging the footsteps and sweeping paths of the giants roaming there, Rey pressed on across the red sand of that steaming circle until he finally reached the end of the place, where the ground gave way to towering stones. Massive blocks, stacked and clustered in a strict symmetry, touched each other at some points only to separate again at others, over and over, shaping what was unmistakably a labyrinth.
Rey knew this kind of place from the books he had read. He understood that if he followed the natural rules and went in through a proper entrance, he could get inside easily—but getting back out would be quite another matter. Wanting to spare himself unnecessary trouble, he climbed the walls instead. After a few well-timed jumps, he managed to reach the far side of the structure.
There stretched a vast blue forest—dark, cold, shadowy, and eerie—made up of trees covered in countless faces. Up close, the trunks looked rough and dry, with leafless, jagged branches jutting harshly toward a sky they could never reach. Rey sensed that the trunks weren't made of wood, though they felt just as solid. Thanks to the faces, he recognized them as branched individuals. He didn't understand why they couldn't move, or why they had hardened that way, but he was intrigued by their expressions.
The tree-imitations filled the place in dense clusters, yet none of them showed any hostile intent. Curious, Rey ran his hands over the trunks of these branched human bodies, where only faces and vague silhouettes could be distinguished in the curves of skin turned to bark. "Their expressions," he thought, watching the many eyes—some closed, some open—gazing with vacant stares, pupils dilated, looking at everything and nothing at once. Uncountable empty windows, stripped bare, were bathed in trails of salty water that also dampened the ground below. Others wore expressions of indifference, lost and far away, souls who had already forgotten their deaths and let their sorrows bleed out in silent sighs.
"What do you feel?" Rey asked each one he saw and could reach.
"Feelings of…"
Those who could still speak answered, even though their mouths cracked painfully as they tried to move them. "Love. Generosity. Joy. Affection. Jubilation. Compassion. Hope. Freedom. Gratitude. Acceptance. Companionship. Kindness. Admiration. Benevolence. Warmth. Relief. Pride. Empathy. Integrity. Attachment. Approval. Harmony. Honesty. Humility. Focus. Tolerance. Happiness. Steadfastness. Strength. Serenity. Optimism. Satisfaction. Safety. Peace."
One by one, those who had something positive to say simply ceased to exist before the boy's eyes. Those who remained silent, or answered with negative feelings, stayed rooted where they were.
Why would anyone lie when there was no room left inside them to harbor anything but negative patterns? Rey stopped in front of a particular tree whose gaze was unmistakable—the only one he hesitated to question. Standing there, he realized he had been in one spot so long that he had almost sunk into the tear-soaked soil. Then he finally lifted his head and asked:
"What do you feel?"
"Disappointment. That's what I feel," replied the face—the face that had Wulfgang's same gaze.
Rey's heart went dark for a second, as if his father himself had spoken. Questions attacked him all at once. Did he really want to go back, now that he was outside and had the chance to escape? Turning his back, he reminded himself of the words he had spoken to Edith: "The only way out is through the very situation I'm trying to flee from."
He turned back around and kept walking through the false forest, weaving between the trees. Eventually, the air shifted—he began to hear a growing chorus of guttural snarls like wild beasts, war cries and battle shouts, a whole symphony of blows and assaults raining down on others. He quickened his step. A blinding yellow light finally struck his face. Beyond that dazzling glare, a desert of scorching sand spread out, where hundreds of thousands of bodies fought each other with even more violence than on that earlier plain of red sand. It took the boy's eyes a moment to adjust to the brightness, but his defensive barrier rose instantly as the damned attacked him with their spears.
The sand was a radiant yellow, and what looked like trees were in fact towering white crosses rising across the landscape. Advancing and clashing with the furious souls who threw themselves at him in blind rage—and, of course, learning from them as he went—Rey made his way to the end of the circle without much trouble. Under the stomping steps of the giants moving back and forth, he cut down every enemy in his path until he could no longer see a single giant between his position and the mountain that looked to be the Ever-Changing Forest.
The boy spread his wings and told his furry companion to hold on tight. Taking flight into the crimson-stained sky, Rey soared over the chaos and landed precisely where his parents had appeared earlier, teleported in. The moment his feet touched the ground, he raised his eyes—and met the gaze of the Great Wise Mage, who stood there like someone patiently awaiting the arrival of a specific guest.
…
Once the training time for Maryam's other two children had ended, the moment came when all three little ones were supposed to return to the warmth of home and rest with the rest of the pack.
Or, that's what some of them thought…
Dante Lobato De Heaven – point of view.
As he always did in the mornings, after sleeping in the same bed as his master, Dante woke up, yawned wide, and stretched his muscles. But unlike other mornings, today the wolf pup was so excited that, eyes blazing, he couldn't stop himself from exploding out of the sheets like a storm.
"Finally, I'll get to show off my strength and my knowledge," he thought, picturing his brother Rey. "Yeah, I'll go grab him so he can show me the way before the adults try to make a decision."
Already on his feet, he pulled fine garments over his naked body, clothes meant to protect him from cuts and blows. When he opened the window, Dante noticed Miján starting to get up too, and before the other boy could ask him anything, he bolted out the door, shouting a quick, clipped goodbye over his shoulder.
Finding his brother—the only one who had ever gotten out of the Ever-Changing Forest—was his top priority and the final piece of his plan to "escape" a possible sentence from their parents. "I have to reach Rey before he gets to the house. My master told me he was dangerous and that I should stay away, but I don't buy it. If he really is a De-Bastador, then he's also a tool that can be used easily. I'll just have to prove to him that if we're going to form a group, I'll be the leader!"
Running and jumping, zipping between branches, sliding over roots, Dante burst onto the main path and saw someone ahead of him, a little shorter than he was. The figure was dressed in liger pelts and walked in the direction of the Great Wise Mage with a slow, unhurried gait. But from the description his master had given him, Dante had no doubt that this had to be Rey himself—"the black sheep of the family, the one nobody in the clan wanted because he caused so much trouble," he thought, eyeing the only one of the three siblings without a last name, the one who didn't even sleep with his master.
"If I show him a bit of acceptance, he'll be grateful and stay by my side. Just like this furball my master brought me to look after."
Dante glanced down at the tiny Guardian of Paradise who had just climbed onto his shoulder.
"My plan is flawless: it's in his best interest to run away, and there's no way he'll say no once he finds out Katherine wants to kill him… she's terrifying. Ever since I broke the sword she lent me, things with Mother, Father, and my master have gone from bad to worse. I'm afraid it won't be long before they get rid of me too," the little wolf thought.
Just as he was about to leap out and make his grand entrance, Dante slammed on the brakes.
"Don't you dare get in my way, nuisance."
Rey didn't say a word, but that's what Dante felt his brother's body language was shouting at him, as the boy walked forward with firm, unshakable steps.
All Dante's confidence in his carefully planned introduction evaporated. The creature in front of him wasn't his brother—it was an obstacle he couldn't reach. "What's wrong with him?" Dante wondered, fear creeping up his spine, as if he were watching a starving beast prowl the path in search of prey. "My master and Katherine weren't completely wrong about him," he admitted to himself.
If that ravenous beast he called a brother was searching for something to sink its teeth into, Dante did not want to be the one it chose; he wasn't ready for that. The situation caught him off guard, just like the sweat beading in his palms and the pounding rush in his chest. Deciding there was no reason to take unnecessary risks, he chose to keep his distance and approach more gradually.
Studying his brother from afar, Dante muttered under his breath:
"So that's why he's such a problem. But he can't be stronger than me. I'm taller and more muscular… He might give off that feeling, but that's all it is. Just a feeling, nothing more."
He stopped for a second, glanced to the side—and found himself staring into a pair of blue eyes that had already noticed him.
…
Jhades – POV
That same morning, Jhades narrowed his eyes in bad temper. He rarely spoke more than necessary, and when he did, it was to spit out shameless remarks or complaints. Since the brightness annoyed him so much, he wrapped himself in the sheets and muttered through thin, pale lips, "Why does there have to be light when I can see perfectly in the dark?"
Hearing and feeling his mentor stretching beside him, he remembered that the time to return home had come—it was time to see Mother and Father. With a bit more motivation, he slipped out from under the covers and, after getting dressed, left the room as he always did. Katherine usually didn't get up until later; she preferred to sit and meditate on the day before moving.
Jhades walked quickly, eager to get home and see his parents. He assumed that if he was the first to arrive, they would praise him for it. He also thought there was no point wasting time talking to his siblings. None of them, in his mind, had anything useful to offer him. Once he crossed through the trees and stepped into the glow of the main path, he was forced to stop abruptly and, in a matter of seconds, sank back into the shadows along the edges of the road. Not because the light felt threatening, but because he felt safer hiding from his brother Rey, whom he had just spotted walking down the path.
"So that's the De-Bastador of the family. A beast without a collar, ready to unleash his aggression on anyone who provokes him."
To the blue-eyed vampire, Rey had the same way of looking and walking as the elders of the pack—people who walked with no cracks in their guard, maybe because they'd always been fighting just to survive. Not a dumb brute lashing out at anyone, but something colder than that. To Jhades, his brother didn't quite match the descriptions he'd heard, but that didn't mean he was going to doubt his mentor's words. Katherine seemed especially pleased every time she heard that Rey had done something wrong.
Even so, the intimidating expression in the hybrid's eyes dragged certain phrases from his mentor back into Jhades' mind. If anyone could be called cautious, it was him—the most cautious of the three brothers, and the one who wasted the least effort. Picking a fight with a "problematic" brother, as Katherine liked to call him, would be anything but smart.
"His eyes are sharp. You can see arrogance and pride in them, just like Katherine says. I get why she feels the need to kill him during the initiation. But what kind of environment do you need to create a person that arrogant? How is it possible that, all of a sudden, he knows so much and fights better than I do? If he knows he's going to die, why is he still here?" he wondered, intrigued, then added a cynical thought. "I don't think I could kill him and keep the credit for it…"
…
Halfway down the path, between the Ever-Changing Forest and the house, stood the Great Wise Mage, once again inspecting the depth in Rey's eyes. His opinion of the situation was very different from the conclusions Jhades or Dante might have reached.
This was Paradise—the only place across the three planes where the currents of time flowed abnormally—and Rey, in particular, had already eaten from the fruit of knowledge. The old man had no doubt that one more night would be enough for the nameless boy to figure out how to control something no one ever should: the flow of time.
The Great Wise Mage, ignoring the presence of Jhades and Dante, gave a half-smile that lit the wrinkles on his face as he returned Rey's greeting. In the old man's eyes, he still saw someone arrogant and proud.
A little taller than Jhades, Rey was different from his brothers. His hair was long, as if he'd let it grow wild and unattended. His eyes were sharper and more distrustful. Most of his body was left exposed, covered only by the white-and-black-striped pelt of one of Paradise's guardians.
More specifically, Rey wore the fur of White's father. How? Good question. The feline who had been missing a fang, who had died on the very first night by Rey's hand, now lived inside him. Using his mother's inherited skills, Rey could summon the feline's pelt at will. Summoning only the skin of a being was nothing more than the first sign of an incomplete ability, but it wouldn't be long before Rey could bring the creature back entirely.
With those sharp, prideful eyes, Rey said:
"Long time no see."
He spoke after returning the old man's greeting and analyzing the suspicious way the Great Wise Mage was acting. Rey remembered that the Great Wise Mage always appeared whenever a problem needed to be solved—and now that he had shown up right in front of him, the problem might very well be him.
The Great Wise Mage thought to himself:
You never stop surprising me… The last time we spoke and you left, even after my second warning, I didn't expect you to still be here. But the way you adapted over the following nights was not what I anticipated. Keeping you alive is a problem when you still refuse to "act normal" in front of the others… You cling to acting arrogant and proud to stay in control, when you're the only one who's being rational. Precisely because you're so distrustful, you make it hard for anyone to put an end to your life. I need to make you vulnerable and unstable so that, in your collapse, you might actually become useful…
Then, out loud, he spoke as he turned and started walking in the opposite direction:
"Come with me. There's an urgent matter you need to be aware of. Jhades, Dante, you too. Don't lag behind…"
When the two brothers realized they'd been noticed—and that having their names called by the Great Wise Mage caused no visible reaction in Rey—they approached, though carefully. As a precaution, they made sure to keep their furry companions close. If a fight broke out, it was always better not to be alone.
They each had their own liger cubs, the same kind of feline their masters had gone to get for them as soon as they found out Rey had his own. Both of their cubs were males, but their coats were matted and unkempt. It was as if they had never learned how to groom themselves from their parents—or as if they carried some kind of illness. They stared around with the constant look of someone too warm, radiating a stale stink, caked in dirt, with hyperactive eyes that constantly flicked back to their owners, as if terrified of being abandoned at any moment.
Along the path, the three boys walked in silence. Neither Rey nor Jhades made any sound with their steps, unlike Dante, who strode like he wanted to shake the earth with every footfall.
"What would be a perfect topic of conversation for a leader?" the wolf pup wondered.
Just as Dante was about to toss out a sarcastic remark, he was cut off by Ehimus' shrill voice. The moment they ran into the green elf, all three stopped.
The Great Wise Mage kept walking while the elf, with a playful tone, said:
"Doesn't it feel good to be back?!"
She spoke like someone trying to break the tension in the air. For her, it was normal for three children to be jumping around, playing, and arguing. What felt wrong was seeing them so serious and silent.
"You're telling me!" Dante shouted back.
With his voice raised to full volume, it almost sounded like he was trying to intimidate the others—and, by extension, his own feline. He went on:
"Miján's training made me invincible."
He glanced aside and spotted his "prey." What better way to shine than by putting his brother beneath him? So he didn't hold back from asking:
"Did you do better… Jhades?"
Rey, silent, restricted himself to studying the way his red-eyed brother behaved while he talked. Dante stood with one foot planted forward and the other back, lips pressed more tightly each time he breathed out. He cast fierce sideways glances, ears twitching whenever some unusual sound caught his attention. His hands were restless, overexpressive—opening and closing as he gestured. Among those present, the loudest heartbeat belonged to the wolf pup. Rey doubted his brother even realized it, but his body language was overflowing with inner fears, constantly growing, forced into the shape of fury and aggression.
Jhades, the shortest of the three, was forced to answer:
"If nobody's insulted you, why are you yelling so much?" he replied, refusing to be intimidated.
The moment Jhades answered Dante's question, Rey shifted his gaze away. It had been only a handful of words, but the microexpressions on the vampire's face did not escape the hybrid's sharp white eyes.
Defeated features, a discouraged posture—the vampire looked as if he were belittling his own life just to avoid threatening the one questioning him. Few words were followed by a funereal silence from someone whose image was immaculate and who managed his effort perfectly. All of it made the conversation deeply uncomfortable for the wolf pup. Turning his face away, Jhades broke eye contact entirely, slipping out of the trap of showing just how shaken he was. Calmly, he breathed, fighting in his own way to hold some upper hand, holding inside him an abyss of insecurity pressed down by low self-esteem—one not born from himself, but from everyone around him.
Dante, deciding to rename Rey with something that mashed together "bastard" and De-Bastador, said:
"And what about you, Basty?!"
The competitive wolf pup's fired-up voice rang out again, clearly searching for something.
Rey stayed silent, stared straight at Dante, then went back to ignoring him. Dante didn't seem to realize he'd tossed out an insult as a nickname, which was exactly why Rey refused to answer. Still, in spite of the cold shoulder, Dante's curiosity burned hotter when he noticed the liger pelt woven into his white-eyed brother's clothes. He decided to push harder:
"Answer me. I had to put up with Miján's scoldings because on your second night you crossed the limits of the training grounds, and that caused me trouble. Even if you keep quiet, you're probably the one who has the most to tell. So tell me… Did you try to escape because you know Katherine is going to kill you?"
Ehimus, ignoring the last part of Dante's baseless remark, said:
"Rey, now that I really look at you, Dante has a point… Are those pelts from a Guardian of Paradise? Did you defeat one?" she asked, curiosity lighting up her eyes.
Hearing his name from the elf's lips, Rey answered with a gently serious air, projecting calm more than anything else.
"It's… a long story."
He paused, then turned his gaze to the curious elf who reminded him so much of Edith.
"The pelts covering my body are the symbol of a victory I'll never be able to forgive myself for. They belonged to a noble animal that gave me everything I now have. Its flesh, its blood, its bones, its own home, its offspring… and a second chance for me to stay alive."
That seriousness and gentleness did a good job masking the guilt, regret, and depression the nameless boy carried inside and stubbornly refused to let win.
Despite her usual immaturity, Ehimus caught something the other two missed entirely. The pelt of a dead beast, the motives behind it, and the persistent look in Rey's eyes reminded her of the tragedies of necromancers. Necromancers' stories were always sad—the greatest among them were usually those who never managed to bring back the one person they truly needed, and time only made that task harder.
Ehimus remembered, from the books her brother used to give her to read when she couldn't move, that there exists a kind of residual life force that survives after death. That vitality lingers in the corpse in a dormant state and can be used to bring it back, but time steadily devours that fragment of life more and more.
Dante, on the other hand, felt his brother was hiding something by refusing to speak to him directly. There was no way he could believe that was all the "problem child" of the family had to say—especially to Ehimus.
"So he didn't try to escape? There's no pride in defeating a Guardian of Paradise? And the guardian is still alive?" the wolf pup thought, needing more answers.
He stepped forward, shoving Ehimus aside when she looked like she was about to say something, and stood face-to-face with his nameless brother, trying to force him to admit there was more to tell.
Rey's eyes did not react like Jhades'. Instead of avoiding the clash, they met the wolf's challenge head-on.
Ehimus and Jhades both flinched inwardly at the sharp, cutting look Rey used—it nearly froze the air. As if fire and the edge of a blade had slammed into each other, the wolf understood that his own brother was confronting him for the role of leader. At the same time, the young hybrid peered deep into those red eyes until he literally saw a vivid flame blazing in the dark well of Dante's pupils. A flame that was nothing like his father's… yet still stirred the same memories.
Rey remembered Wulfgang's words in a similar moment: "You've noticed the decaying flame that my gaze gives off, haven't you?" That was at dawn on the fourth day, when Wulfgang came by out of habit to visit him. The red-eyed father with the sad stare would sit and talk to his son.
"Every time you look into my eyes, you seem to be asking yourself why. I applaud your curiosity, and I know you don't mean anything bad by it. Still, you should understand that if you stare into someone's eyes too long, it can be taken as a challenge instead of curiosity. Let me tell you this: every person carries their own world inside, and they show it outwardly through their eyes."
As Dante spoke, complained, and questioned in the present, Rey was still half-drowned in the past.
"It's not hard to see it. They say the flame is the gateway guarded by darkness, but it's also the perfect mirror of the will and the heart. If you pay attention, you can see how feelings can dim something that was once pure. In my case, it's sadness… and I'm very aware of it."
Rey remembered asking his father a question, and Wulfgang answering:
"Good question. The flame in my eyes is the result of living to meet the expectations of others. They all called me God. Ironic, isn't it? If I truly were one, the reflection of my will and the feelings in my heart wouldn't be in such a pathetic state, would they?"
Another question Rey had fired at his father came back to him:
"Where is happiness?"
"I'm afraid the answer won't point you in a very useful direction to find it. It's better if you ask yourself: what's taking you away from it? Growing up also means learning that happiness is as simple as smiling. We go looking for happiness when we're sad, and that's why we overcomplicate something so simple. I'm telling you this so you don't repeat my mistakes and walk my path. Keep your spirits up in the face of failure, my son. Even if you're wrong, don't stop trying. Don't be afraid to lose when you act for good, and do good things trusting the outcome, without letting doubt paralyze you."
Dante, veins bulging in his throat from yelling so much, shouted:
"I tried to escape lots of times, but I couldn't get very far! I was still weak back then, but I'M NOT THE SAME ANYMORE!"
The wolf pup puffed out his chest, exaggerating his gestures as he tried to impress someone who only seemed to be watching him in silence.
"I learned so many ways to survive! I became the fear of everything that tried to scare me. I changed the constitution of my body and kept going however I had to. You can't be better than me… I refuse to believe you're stronger just because you tried harder. Argh… What? Is there nothing inside that head, bastard? Answer me when I'm talking to you!"
Then, all at once, Dante's volume dropped. He stopped and fell silent, scowling and lowering his chin as he braced himself for a fight. Jhades and Ehimus both took precautions in the face of the wolf pup's direct challenge, shocked that he had dared insult his brother a second time, as if the insult alone might force Rey to respond.
Rey stayed quiet, but he had already returned fully to the present and could clearly see how the flame in Dante's gaze flared, shrank, and flared again like a storm of fire. As he allowed a small smile to creep in and set aside the sadness tugging at him, he also noticed something else in the air: a thirst for acceptance. He realized his brother was desperate to be seen. That he, Rey, hadn't been acting the way he should. He hadn't made any effort to fit into this social circle, even though he was the one who had once said, "I hope I get to see you all again…"
Knowing he needed to act more naturally, Rey decided to ask a question to go along with his brother's need for contact:
"What is it you want to know?"
Dante, as if he had suddenly gained control of a dangerous weapon, asked:
"Why didn't you try to escape?"
Calmer now, he smiled and turned his head slightly.
"You beat your mentor on the second day of training. That makes you strong—if it's true. So why didn't you escape, if you're so strong? You don't actually think Katherine is weaker than Heroclades, do you?"
Ehimus, relieved by Rey's composure in the face of the insult, asked:
"Why would he do that? Why are you assuming Katherine is going to kill him?" Her tone was genuinely curious.
The little wolf stayed silent at the elf's question. Rey answered instead:
"As far as Katherine is concerned, I have no reason to be afraid. And just because I passed the trial Heroclades set for me doesn't mean I could beat him in a real fight. I didn't try to escape simply because I have no reason to—and Mother forbade it. Father made me understand that running away doesn't equal freedom… In a world this vast and fascinating, I'm still nobody. If there's one thing I learned, it's that things are not what they appear to be. Emotions take control of your thoughts, erase them, and make you act irrationally… Take that as a warning."
As he said the last line, his hand brushed over the garments he wore.
Dante, uneasy, pushed on:
"Lies! That's just a fancy way of saying you're weak… weaker than me. What, you think I don't notice?"
He was trying, once again, to crown himself as the leader.
"A fancy way of saying I'm weaker than you?" Rey repeated, softening his expression as if genuinely curious about what Dante hoped to get out of this conversation.
Dante clenched his fists—not because he was about to strike, but because he felt in danger. Every cell in his body screamed at him to stop provoking this sharp-eyed beast he called a brother. Jhades quietly put a bit more distance between himself and the others—far enough that no one would blame him if things went wrong.
Ehimus knew fights and quarrels between siblings could happen, especially when they were this young, but for some reason the tension between these three felt different. Heavy. Trying to calm things down, she spoke up:
"Please. This is the first time you've been together after so long. This isn't the time to fight…"
She raised her hands in the air, as if physically trying to push the hostility down.
Dante, grudgingly, and ignoring someone he considered beneath him, said:
"I beat my master's trial before the thirtieth day of training! It took that long because I'm sure Miján is way stronger and stricter than Heroclades! That means I'm stronger than you, and you're going to help me escape…"
"Why are you so fixated on escaping?" Jhades asked, intending to throw his brother a lifeline—to give him a chance to hear just how stupid he sounded.
Dante answered without thinking, like a wounded dog snapping at the hand that tried to help him:
"Someone like you, Mama's favorite, will never understand!!! Bastard, you follow me or I'll make you…"
Before Rey could answer, Heroclades appeared on the path with White at his side.
"Oh, you frightened little lamb. Miján told you about the fate that awaits unwanted children and those who aren't accepted by the clan," he said.
Then, with almost the same level of disinterest his disciple often showed, he asked:
"So, do you want to run away because you're planning to make your own pack? Find an accomplice and try your luck somewhere else?"
Both Dante and Jhades turned their heads, suddenly intimidated—not by Heroclades himself, but by the Guardian of Paradise walking beside him. A majestic feline nearly twice the size of the others, with short fur and defined muscles, padded along with a presence almost as intimidating as his master's.
Ehimus' eyes widened in astonishment as she finally realized why Dante had been acting with such desperation and why he'd stopped everyone before they reached the house. Jhades and Rey drew in the deepest breaths they could manage. With his persistence, Dante had put his foot in it—and landed himself in a terrible position.
The wolf pup had no words left.
Someone knew his secret.
"Basty's master is a threat," Dante thought, wiping the sweat from his hands onto the sides of his clothes. To him, Heroclades could pass everything he knew straight to Wulfgang and Maryam—and that meant walking into initiation already three points down.
Jhades, meanwhile, was impressed. Little by little, without drawing attention to himself, he shifted his demeanor, becoming a bit more alert. The fact that he hadn't sensed his brother's master when he arrived—not Heroclades, not the medium-sized liger—only reinforced Rey's abilities in his mind.
"Have you already met with Father and Mother?" Rey asked his mentor, reaching down to stroke White while eyeing the explosive wolf pup from the corner of his eye. Dante was a bomb about to go off, and no one seemed to know how to defuse him properly. Burning up on the inside, the red-eyed boy was experiencing the full weight of losing control. Aware of how little he understood, fear began seeping into his system.
How does a wolf pup react to fear?
The way he was taught: by charging straight at it.
Like an anger attack given physical form, Dante screamed as he launched himself off the ground, revealing five intimidating claws aimed to tear through the bronzed man standing before him.
"It seems they're not at home," Heroclades said, continuing the conversation he'd started with Rey. Just as Dante's claws were about to cut him in half, the man released a powerful shockwave. It surged outward, forcing even the nearest trees to bend and recoil; the wolf pup's claws snapped under the pressure.
Paralyzed, Dante hit the ground and clawed at anything he could reach just to avoid being hurled away. Wide-eyed and shaking, he watched the old man he had tried to attack—a man who was still very much alive and who knew his secret.
For a brief, almost imperceptible moment, Rey let his killing intent slip free, then voiced a warning:
"Dante, if you ever attack my master again… I'll be the one to end your life."
Dante couldn't make sense of any of it. Heroclades hadn't even moved. He hadn't done anything obvious to defend himself. Dante was sure—so sure he'd have bet his eyes on it—that what he'd just seen was real. But the only one who had openly radiated murderous intent had been his nameless brother.
"Was it Rey who repelled my strongest attack…? No, impossible. It had to be Heroclades. I trained for so long to make my claws nearly indestructible. A bastard like him can't wield that kind of power, but… in the unlikely case that he can… then his warning is real."
On the verge of tears from sheer frustration, Dante was yanked out of the abyss by the sound of his parents' voices:
"Heroclades! There's no need for you to lower yourself to a child's level."
Maryam spoke with an even harsher tone:
"Your offense against a member of the clan is unacceptable. Hostility against your brother's mentor—are those the manners Miján taught you? And where is all the respect I instilled in you? If you're good to people, they'll be good to you… So what are you waiting for to apologize?"
She walked toward them with Wulfgang at her side. He tried to soften his wife's fury, urging her not to make such a big deal of the situation.
"Don't worry. He's still just a child. You don't have to scold him like that. He probably just wanted to test his strength against Hero."
"I have to say, he's rather bold," Heroclades said. "He definitely got that from his father, don't you think?" He laughed, glancing at the boy who refused to apologize.
Jhades felt the same unease as his lycan brother. The more he thought about it, the less sense it made. For the trees to shake and Dante's claws to break, something had to have happened—something like one of his mentor's moves. The vampire remembered how, whenever Katherine swung her sword, the strength of the wind and the residual edge of her strike could make the trees tremble. But how could Rey possibly land a blow that powerful without being seen?
Through gritted teeth, Dante muttered an apology and lowered his head. He felt utterly powerless. Maybe his mind was playing tricks on him. "Yes, that has to be it. Father and Mother didn't say anything about Rey being the cause. No matter how strong he is, Rey couldn't have done it… Wait—why did he call him by his name? It doesn't matter. The best option is to get rid of the old man, the elf… and maybe Jhades too. Once I'm done with them, Rey will have no choice but to follow me. I just need to push him—then he'll be just as responsible as I am for not stopping me."
Heroclades spoke, respectful, as if addressing one of his own:
"I forgive you. And I apologize for being so harsh and provoking your anger."
After the bronzed man threw those words of apology at him, Dante twisted his body and marched forward like a storm. The wolf pup felt he had no choice but to forgive; after all, when someone apologizes, they claim responsibility for the blame. "If someone asks for forgiveness, the sensible thing is to forgive and not hold a grudge," his mother had told him. That was the lesson he'd been raised with.
Jhades, in a clear attempt to win his parents' favor, felt tempted to say something to Dante, who had just acted so poorly toward Rey's mentor. But the moment the young lycan realized his vampire brother was about to call him out for his mistake just to look good, he snapped, shouting and swatting his hand aside:
"If you value your life… don't."
Jhades lowered his accusing finger and thought twice before pushing it further. Dante was scary. He was more than capable of attacking him the same way he had gone for Heroclades. It wasn't that Jhades believed he couldn't win—but he had no interest in reliving a fresh round of bruises or injuries in the process.
Maryam, realizing how fragile things were between her children, assumed it was due to all the time they had spent without seeing each other, each one growing up independent and competitive. With her usual smile, she left her husband's side, gathered all three of them in close, and wrapped them in a warm, maternal hug.
"I'm so glad it's over. How long has it been since I've seen you all together? I never got used to being without you three for so long. It hurts to see you treating each other with indifference and always competing. You need to learn to set competition and indifference aside. Those things don't belong between siblings. You have to love each other—you're all you've got," she said, squeezing them all at once before continuing, full of affection. "Looks like the 'reunion' of the group and the welcome for the three new members can't be delayed any longer…"
"I have something to say…" Heroclades announced, making the wolf pup instantly tense.
…
The Great Wise Mage looked down the stretch of road he had already walked alone, watching as the parents reunited with their children and started talking among themselves. Raising his hand, he shouted as loud as he could to get everyone's attention and remind them how urgent the matter they needed to discuss really was.
Dante, masking a competitive air as he cut off Heroclades, burst out like a lightning bolt:
"LET'S SEE WHO GETS TO THE OLD MAN CALLING US FIRST!"
The moment the wolf pup lowered into a runner's stance and looked toward the supposed finish line, he realized the old man was no longer alone. Heroclades, carrying Ehimus over his right shoulder, White, Rey, Wulfgang, and Maryam were all standing beside the elder. The only ones still missing from that spot were him, Jhades, and the two skinny, exhausted little felines. The adults' competitiveness had ignited; they laughed and muttered among themselves about how amusing the whole thing had been. Maryam, cheerful and bright, turned to encourage those who were still behind:
"Come on! Let's go!"
Dante spoke to his brother Jhades in a disappointed tone, as if considering an alliance with his own enemy:
"So it's just you and me… Mommy's little boy."
The two ligers were already nearly halfway there.
"Let's run the other way while we still can. Let's give up on all of this… Follow me as your leader."
Waiting for an answer, Dante knew his blue-eyed brother was quiet, but when he glanced to the side, hoping at least for some kind of visual agreement—
Jhades was gone.
Grinding his teeth as hard as his fists, the wolf pup looked toward the others and realized that his brother was already there, hidden in the shadow of one of the ligers that hadn't quite arrived yet. Jhades reached the adults with a grin stretching from ear to ear, like a child desperate for his parents' approval. And it worked: with that face, the adults chose to praise the little one who had come in second-to-last in the "race."
On the other side, even though the wolf pup tried not to show it, he was shattered—too scared to run away alone, failing to become the group's leader, and convinced that he would probably be the first of the three brothers to die. Fear crawled across Dante's skin.
Using the race he himself had proposed as a reference, he imagined he was the weakest, precisely because he had arrived last. He couldn't fully understand it, and, in truth, he didn't want to. For him, it was impossible.
"Heroclades and Wulfgang are allowed to win—but not Ehimus, Maryam, Jhades, or Rey. They don't have as much muscle as I do. Sure, Jhades only won because he slipped into the ligers' shadow the way Katherine always does, out of that annoying vampire habit of hers whenever she comes and goes. Ehimus got carried by Heroclades, she didn't have to run at all. Who knows what tricks the others used… but one thing is certain: tricks don't matter when you're up against real strength. If it weren't that way, Father wouldn't be the leader of the pack. I've got no choice. I have to find another chance," he told himself.
With no better options, he took off running, desperate not to give Heroclades any time to say something inconvenient to his parents. He needed his eyes on the sorcerer, and he'd interfere with the man's conversation with Wulfgang and Maryam as much as he could—at least until his moment to escape finally came.
Running as hard as he could, to the point of having to partially transform his body, Dante finally arrived, just in time to hear Wulfgang, Maryam, and Ehimus applauding in an effort to cheer him up. As he let his body return to normal, the wolf pup wore the expression of someone disappointed in himself, which pushed him to blurt out:
"You cheated! That wasn't a fair race…"
"Excuse me?" Maryam asked, genuinely surprised by the word "cheated."
Jhades' eyes went pale for a moment. Heroclades crossed his arms and let out a few hearty laughs. Ehimus chuckled, Wulfgang pressed his lips together, and Rey chose to focus on feeding the two starving ligers that followed him everywhere—or rather, followed White.
Nearly on the verge of tears from sheer anger, Dante pointed straight at Ehimus. After his brothers, the elf was the smallest and weakest-looking of the group, so she didn't feel like a threat to use as an example.
"She didn't run using her muscles like everyone else. That's cheating."
Ehimus, unusually serious for once, replied:
"In this case, cheating would be breaking the rules that were actually set. You said, 'whoever arrives first,' not 'whoever runs the fastest using their muscles…' Even so, if this was about using muscles, I'd say the race wouldn't be fair anyway, because I'm not allowed to use mine if I can see another clan member nearby. It's too dangerous."
Dante was genuinely confused.
"This little green thing isn't allowed to use her muscles… Why?" he wondered.
Seeing the wolf pup's puzzled expression, Rey threw in a remark:
"Members of the clan keep several abilities restricted when they're too close to each other. In terms of brute strength, she's the strongest of all of us. With just the tips of her fingers, she tore one of the trees in the Ever-Changing Forest out from the roots."
As he said it, the white-eyed boy couldn't help remembering how his barrier had been shattered into a thousand pieces from a single tap Ehimus had made, flicking her index finger with her thumb.
Dante, as if personally insulted and treated like an idiot, shouted in rage:
"You're lying!!! Are you making fun of me?!"
Wulfgang, his voice warm but weighed down by a sad expression, added:
"Don't worry about losing. Sometimes victories are hollow and end up becoming a real defeat instead."
Looking his son in the eyes to drive the point home, he continued:
"You just need to work harder. Nothing stops you from giving your best until you finally win," he said, speaking from experience.
Enraged, Dante's eyes burned like embers, he stomped on the ground and snapped back:
"'Work harder,' you say? I refuse to believe any of my siblings have worked as hard as I have! And there's no way she's stronger than you!!!"
Wulfgang's gaze flared in turn, a scorching look that made the feet of his most similar son tremble.
"Fool. When will you stop lying to yourself and giving me reasons to get angry? Do you still think rage and fury will prove you right? Maybe you believe that nonsense because Miján still hasn't taught you what true power is…"
Dante was left gaping. His father's words cut deep. The young wolf's ego was a massive bubble—and just as fragile. If Miján hadn't fought him seriously, it meant his mentor had let him win the trial. But… was his father right?
It was easy for Wulfgang to talk like that when he hadn't been there for the training or the endless failed attempts it took before Dante managed to beat his master.
The Great Wise Mage was forced to step in and break the family tension.
"As your steward, I tried to let you be, but we truly are running out of time… Brace yourselves. We need to teleport if we want to make it before it's too late."
A magic circle appeared beneath their feet. Both Dante and Wulfgang calmed down, pulled out of their argument by the sudden shift. They were forced to set their differences aside and focus on what was happening right now.
The eight of them, plus the three small Guardians of Paradise, were wrapped in white light rising from the spell circle on the ground. The moment the green plains vanished from sight, they found themselves at the very top of the highest mountain in the area.
Wulfgang asked, more worried now:
"Where have you brought us? What's this urgent matter we needed to know about?"
Ehimus echoed him, angry:
"Yeah, you crazy old man! Where did you drag us off to?"
"I hope Miján and Katherine are in the loop," Heroclades commented, sounding as disinterested as ever.
The Great Wise Mage, as if everything were unfolding exactly as he'd planned, replied:
"Don't worry about those two. Silvia went to get them and brought them here. But I need your attention before I answer why I brought you all."
Confirming the old man's words, the pair emerged from the bushes, their previously naked bodies now covered in hastily thrown-on clothes. Miján and Katherine walked forward grudgingly, straightening their garments as they fixed their eyes on the old mage, clearly waiting for a very good reason to justify all the inconvenience he had just caused them.
Once everyone was paying attention, the Great Wise Mage spoke:
"We're under attack. From below, countless damned souls, along with the bounty hunters who were teleported here with you, have forced their way up through the lower circles of Hell. By following the trail Rey left behind, they reached the gates of this place and, determined not to get trapped in Purgatory, they're using the giants to move above the treetops… I brought you here because, as your steward, it's my duty to protect you. This mountain is the midpoint—and the safest place in all this realm. Silvia will be protecting the house. We must hold out until nightfall."