The night in that place was quiet in a way I hadn't expected.
It was ironic to think that even the afternoon was night there — the enormous wall took from that people a large part of what should have been day, compressing into a few hours of light everything they needed to produce, build and learn. The entire culture of the planet had developed within that restriction — not despite it, but through it, shaped by it the same way water is shaped by the vessel that contains it, assuming the form of the limit until the form and the limit became indistinguishable.
And in a way I couldn't stop processing, there was something admirable in that. Not for the wall, which was a prison regardless of how it had been presented. But for what had been built despite it — the specific capacity of races that had learned to thrive within conditions that had been designed to contain, not to favor.
My only request had been a book about the history of the planet and its moons.
Paprini had seemed puzzled — with the expression of someone who had expected a different request and was reconciling what she had received with what she had anticipated. The most common requests probably had nothing to do with what her race had been through. Visitors wanted comfort, wanted resources, wanted information about what came next in the arena. They didn't want context. But I wanted context — it was the kind of thing that made me understand where I was, and understanding where I was meant understanding what was at stake beyond the surface.
"So the Infernal race has been living inside these walls for almost ten thousand years."
It was shocking in a specific way that I needed a moment to identify. It wasn't hard to imagine a powerful race being defeated — there was always something stronger, that was the logic of the universe the Oasis taught with insistence and without gentleness. But imagining that race — which used the arena as entertainment with the naturalness of something that had transformed pleasure into culture, which possessed hypersonic vocal cords that turned their own voice into a weapon, which occupied a position among the strongest in the Oasis in a way that was verifiable fact and not exaggeration — fleeing to their own moons to survive, not through malevolent expansion but out of pure necessity to continue existing, and even on the moons still losing part of what was rightfully theirs saved only by the Oasis's benevolence.
"Why did the Oasis interfere by building this wall for the Infernals?"
"That's a question nobody has ever managed to answer completely, my Lord." — Morgana said, with the tone of someone who had considered the question before and had arrived at an uncomfortable place. — "The most accepted theory was that the Oasis felt sorry about losing a race of such potential and strength. But honestly I wouldn't bet on that."
I wouldn't bet on it either. The Oasis didn't make decisions out of pity — it calculated, with the coldness of a system that had learned emotion was an inefficient variable. The calculation that had justified the wall was probably more specific than any theory any race had ever built around pity and compassion — more pragmatic, more utilitarian, more honest in the way cold things are honest: without needing to be beautiful to be true.
The book I was reading was written in a visibly biased way — with the internal perspective of a race that had had too much time to process what had happened and had arrived at conclusions that protected it more than they informed it. The Infernals had come to believe, over time, that the wall wasn't to protect them, but to protect the Vriseus from them. Which was, in my opinion, either the most sophisticated form of self-deception I had encountered, or a kind of collective madness that had become culture through sufficient repetition — the line between the two being thinner than it appeared.
There was something unsettling about reading the history of a race from that race's own perspective after having been in its arena, after having heard the Infernals' voice calibrated to hurt with intent to kill, after having seen how they treated the spectacle of others' pain as entertainment with the naturalness of something that had stopped asking whether it was acceptable because the answer had been given long enough ago to have become a given.
"It's ironic to think that one of the strongest races in the Oasis is not the dominant race of its own planet."
Morgana didn't respond. There was something in her silence that said she had thought the same thing and had arrived at conclusions she preferred not to say out loud on that specific planet — not out of fear of being heard, but from the awareness that certain truths, spoken in the wrong place, had a cost that wasn't worth the moment.
The night passed quietly. But the tension of the battle didn't let me rest properly — perhaps it wasn't meant to.
✦
Paprini returned the following morning, while we were still in the room.
This time she brought something that truly mattered — not for comfort, not for historical context, but for direct survival. The paper arrived with the formality of a document that had been prepared carefully, not hastily printed on a mission scroll.
"My Lord, forgive the intrusion — but the list has been released. Here are the three creatures you will face before reaching the main event."
"Thank you, Paprini."
The relationship between Morgana and Paprini was still tense — with the specific tension of two presences that had been through something and hadn't finished processing what that meant for how they would treat each other going forward. Which was understandable, considering one had tried to strangle the other a few hours before. I didn't blame either of them — different logics were operating, and when different logics collide, the result is rarely immediate. What mattered to me now was on the paper.
I read.
The Cave Brute — level C. The creature closest to what I would call an Ogre — it lived in deep Oasis caves, without water or sun, in an environment that had eliminated any competitor that hadn't managed to survive in it long enough to reproduce. The adaptation had been complete: near-zero vision compensated by other senses, dense bone structure that had traded elegance for resistance, accumulated muscle mass that was the product not of training but of constant physical necessity. Overwhelming strength. Dumb as a post — with the specific stupidity of something that had never needed intelligence because strength had resolved everything before intelligence was necessary.
But with unmatched regenerative capacity — fatal wounds closed in minutes, with no specific weak point beyond the head. It was the kind of enemy that killed through exhaustion: it kept coming, kept absorbing, kept existing until the opponent simply stopped — not wanting to fight, but being able to. The escape strategy didn't work because it didn't give up. The strength strategy didn't work because it regenerated. The only path was the head, and reaching the head of something that size that kept moving while being wounded was a problem of intelligence and endurance, not of strength.
Fire Tongue — level C+. A creature very similar to a prehistoric emu with the capacity to glide — not fly with the wings few races had, but leap and remain airborne for minutes, which combined with strong legs made its attack range three-dimensional in ways that land enemies rarely prepared a response for because land enemies rarely encountered anything that required thinking in three dimensions. As the name described: it spat fire with the precision of something that had used that capacity as a hunting tool for long enough to refine it. It fed by melting what it found. One bite and everything would be carbonized before there was time to react — the heat preceding the contact, the warning arriving too late to be a warning.
Cannibal Fae — level C+. Physically it was the weakest of the three — in any direct comparison of strength or resistance, there was no competition and no attempt to simulate that there was. But what made it more dangerous than the lower-level creatures was what no other creature in the Codex I had read used with that mastery: illusion magic and mind control. Rare powers in the Oasis were powers for which few countermeasures existed — because rarity guaranteed that most opponents would arrive at the fight without having developed a specific defense, without having learned to recognize the moment the power had been cast, without having the reference of how the mind itself felt when it stopped being completely its own.
That was precisely why it was the one I feared most. Not for the direct damage it caused — but for the capacity to make the damage come from a direction I hadn't chosen.
"Honestly, the Cannibal Fae will be the hardest."
"Perhaps not." — Morgana said — with the tone of someone who had arrived at a different conclusion by the same path, and had arrived there before I finished presenting mine.
She had faced each of these creatures before. I was still learning — she was remembering. And there was a difference between the two forms of knowledge that went beyond time: body memory was more reliable than mind memory when what was at stake was reflex.
"Why do you think that?"
"My theory is that if we know the exact moment she cast the illusion or mind control, if you summon Zaetar immediately he'll be able to kill her before the illusion completely consumes us."
The theory was plausible, and there was an elegant logic in it that pleased me. Using an illusion or mind control of sufficient quality to be dangerous against multiple targets would require a large amount of magic — not from inefficiency, but by nature. That kind of power was extremely costly because it was too powerful, and for that reason it would be difficult to sustain, let alone cast multiple times in succession.
If I could identify the moment — the instant between the casting and the illusion becoming total, the window where the power had been invested but hadn't yet produced a result — and summon Zaetar in that window, he would do the work with the specific brutality of something that had no mind to be fooled.
The problem was the window.
If I summoned before, Zaetar would enter the illusion along with me and would most likely become a more dangerous enemy than the Fae itself — which, beyond the magic, had little direct offensive capability. Zaetar's strength redirected was a different danger from any external creature. If I waited too long, I would already be under mind control and the decision to summon would no longer be mine — or worse, would no longer be a decision.
"We'll have to take that leap of faith."
There were situations that had no calculable solution before the moment — and this was one of them. What I could do was be as prepared as possible to recognize the moment when it arrived, so that the reflex had the smallest possible gap between perception and action. The rest depended on timing, trust, and some amount of luck I preferred not to call luck because calling it luck was admitting there was a variable outside my control.
For the other two enemies, the approach was more direct. Blood Magic would fill what I lacked in brute force against the Cave Brute. For the Fire Tongue, my mobility and Morgana's shooting ability would have to be enough.
✦
"Unfortunately I'll have to go without a shield — the one I have is deformed."
The Ash Hound had done what creatures with that kind of power did to equipment that hadn't been designed for that type of contact. The metal had given not from impact but from constant pressure and biting, deforming in a way that made balance impossible.
"Lord." — Morgana said, with the tone of someone who had thought of something and had calculated whether it was worth saying — the specific hesitation of someone who has an opinion about something that belongs to another's decision. — "Why don't you use Zaridan's power? Honestly, if you enter the arena with the shield molded, I very much doubt anyone will notice the difference — when the object is transformed, even I can't sense any magic in it."
"You have a point."
The idea opened more than she had proposed, expanding in directions I hadn't considered because I had been thinking within the category of replacement and not within the category of improvement. If I could mold any form and nobody could detect the origin, I didn't need to replicate the shield I had lost. I could think differently — I could arrive at what I wanted instead of what I had had.
I closed my eyes and began to work.
First I discarded the round shield — it was good for mobility, allowed quick rotation, but was limited in coverage: protecting a point instead of an area. Against a creature that attacked from multiple angles, the point became insufficient. Then I discarded the teardrop-shaped shield — greater protection, more covered surface, but still depended on constant positioning to cover what needed to be covered, making each adjustment a cost of attention I preferred not to pay in the middle of combat.
What I wanted was something that would let me use the coverage passively while keeping one hand available for efficient attack — and that, when necessary, would function as a hiding place for the weapon before a surprise strike. Coverage that didn't need to be thought about, that existed and protected without a cost of attention.
The answer lay in something far older than anything I had considered.
When I wished for the form, the tattoos slid down the arm with the speed I had begun to recognize — the movement that wasn't just a transfer of material but something more like comprehension, as though the Mark understood what I needed before I finished articulating it. What materialized was a tall rectangular shield as black as night, which closed around the body covering from the knees to above the shoulders — not hiding, but protecting, with the difference that separated the two. Light enough to move without sacrificing position, solid enough to absorb whatever came without negotiating.
"What is that black shield?"
"A Roman shield." — I said. — "Very old. But designed for exactly the type of situation we'll be in — maximum coverage with sufficient mobility, and space to attack from below or the sides without exposing what is being done until the moment of the strike."
There was something satisfying in realizing that the oldest solution was sometimes the most appropriate — not because antiquity guaranteed quality, but because what had survived so long had survived for a reason, and the reason was that it worked.
Morgana was silent for a second — the kind that wasn't an absence of response, but verification, the mind passing through what it had received and looking for what it had missed before confirming it had missed nothing.
"I think it'll work." — she said.
The day passed quickly — with the specific speed of days that have enough content to occupy every hour without leaving space for time to seem slow. Simple strategies confirmed out loud so they would exist outside each of our heads — because an unspoken strategy was a strategy that could be interpreted differently at the decisive moment. Positioning confirmations, agreements about when to summon and when not to, the kind of preparation that didn't eliminate the risk, but reduced the number of decisions that would need to be made under pressure, when pressure made each decision more costly than it should be.
When the sun was directly overhead and the shadow of the wall had changed angle enough to communicate that time had passed without me noticing how much, Paprini returned.
"Are you ready?"
"Yes."
She gave a smile — small, contained. Then left through the door asking us to follow. When we crossed the gate we were transported again, we were back.
The same wooden gate with metal plates — with the weight I had learned to anticipate, with the specific sound of hinges moving more than they should have to move.
The same heat of the three suns that didn't consult whether those below them had rested enough.
The first thing I noticed looking through the cracks of the gate was something easily perceptible from the geometry of the space — there were fewer gates than the day before. Not as a different arrangement, but as a real absence: some of the gates that had been there were closed in a way that communicated they wouldn't open again.
It was clear the Ash Hound had taken its quota of competitors. The arena was difficult — and even creatures considered weak by the catalogue had advantages that, well exploited, could kill races considered strong by the same reference. That was what most underestimated: it wasn't the strength of the creature that killed in most cases, it was the distance between what the opponent had expected and what they had found. Expectation was fragility when the environment didn't consult the expectation before acting.
The arena had shrunk. Those who remained were those who had managed — through strength, through strategy, through luck, through some combination of the three that was rarely possible to separate after the fact.
The gate opened the same way as the day before — with the deliberation of a system that wasn't in a hurry because the result didn't change with the speed of the opening. This time I advanced quickly, without waiting for the environment to present itself completely before positioning. Sword and Roman shield in hand, Morgana beside me in the position we had confirmed the day before. I wanted to be in the right place when the enemy appeared — not reactive, not adjusting, but already there.
There was another reason for the haste.
I quickly dropped the sword and completed most of the Blood Magic ritual while the environment was still empty of threats — the part that required divided attention was exactly the part I didn't want to do with someone trying to kill me at the same time. When I finished, I picked up the sword again and began paying attention to what was around me.
"Which enemy do you think they'll release first?"
Morgana and I suspected the same thing — that the advance information about the enemies had been given precisely so it would be used, and that using it with confidence was the trap. On the first day they had inverted the expected order with the ease of those who had done that before and had learned that inversion produced more spectacle than logical sequence. On this one I had no way of knowing which of the three would come first — and each required a different approach. Brute force for the Cave Brute, with Blood Magic ensuring the strength would be available when needed. Mobility and precision for the Fire Tongue, the Roman shield absorbing what I couldn't dodge. Reflex and timing for the Cannibal Fae — the most unpredictable of the three, the one that depended most on the moment and least on prior planning.
Preparing for all at the same time was impossible — not from lack of capability, but by the nature of preparation. Being ready for everything was being completely ready for nothing. Prepare for the hardest and adapt was the only real strategy, the only one that didn't undo itself before beginning.
"We focus on whatever appears."
"Yes."
This time the arena wasn't completely empty. A few scattered figures in the stands — spaced out, apparently uninterested with the posture of those who were present for a reason that wasn't the spectacle but what the spectacle allowed them to calculate. There was something calculated in that apparent inattention that I recognized as disguised attention — the posture of those who were watching, but had decided that not watching was more informative. Bets, probably. Infernals looking for opportunity to make money on whoever survived long enough to be interesting, transforming others' survival into a product they had an interest in seeing last long enough to be profitable.
I didn't focus on them. I didn't focus on the other competitors. I focused on the gate in front of me — which, without warning and without ceremony, began to open.
I didn't need to see the creature to know what it was. The smell arrived before the image — rotten flesh with the density of something that had stopped noticing it was rotten flesh because it was the only smell it had ever known, that had inhabited a sufficiently closed environment for the smell itself to become a neutral reference. The smell of something that existed where decomposition was the natural state and putrefaction was merely a condition, not an anomaly.
"It's the Cave Brute. Get ready."
✦
The creature that emerged was irritated before it was disoriented.
The suns hit it immediately with the specific brutality of luminosity encountering something that hadn't been calibrated for it — and the reaction was instinctive, from the eyes to the posture, the entire body communicating that that brightness was a personal offense, the very existence of the glare being an affront to something that had evolved in the dark. The eyes partially closing, the arms rising in a defensive gesture that hadn't been decided, the great mass contracting slightly as though the sun were physical pressure and not merely light. It was clear that all that luminosity irritated that creature in a way that wasn't merely sensory.
Unfortunately, the frustration needed somewhere to go. And I was in the most convenient direction.
"Only shoot if you're certain." — I said to Morgana, without taking my eyes off the creature that was finishing orienting itself with the slowness of something that processed the environment at a different speed than mine. — "As we discussed, focus on the joints. I just need you to create an opening. We need to separate its head from the rest."
The head was the only documented weak point — not from structural fragility, but because it was the only point where regeneration couldn't recover before the damage became irreversible. Everything else regenerated. The head regenerated more slowly — and more slowly was the only available window.
I advanced.
The creature raised its arms — and I saw what resembled a cleaver. Enormous, rusted with the specific rust of metal that had been in constant contact with blood long enough for the rust to become part of the surface and not just a coating. Clearly not a new item — and very likely had been given to maximize risk with a touch of irony: it had the proportions of a tool, not a weapon, something that seemed deliberate, as though the Infernals wanted the spectacle to have an air both exotic and absurd. It wasn't sharp. It didn't need to be — with that mass behind it, with that torso and those arms, what it hit didn't need an edge to cause irreversible damage. Mass was sufficient when mass was of that scale.
It charged. Slow, heavy, with the specific rhythm of something that had learned that speed wasn't necessary when size and strength resolved — that had stopped running because everything that had tried to run had lost before speed mattered. The cleaver came down in a wide arc, with the kind of arc that covered more space than I had calculated when looking at the arm at rest — because the arc depended on the shoulder and the shoulder was larger than I had registered on first reading.
I rolled to the side.
The metal embedded in the ground with the sound of an impact that communicated how heavy it had been — not just the sound of contact, but the sound of the earth yielding below, the vibration coming through the ground to my feet as information about what I had avoided. The creature tried to grab me before recovering the weapon — the enormous fingers closing toward where I was, with the speed of arm movement that was greater than leg movement, the upper being faster than the lower with that proportion of mass.
I drove the sword into its hand before the fingers closed.
The cry that came out was more of rage than pain — with the quality of something that had been surprised. The rage of something that had stopped calculating opposition, the absence of resistance becoming expectation long enough that any presence of it sounded like an affront.
My war of attrition had begun.
It wouldn't be quick. There was no way for it to be — not against something that regenerated the damage at the rate the damage arrived, that kept moving even when wounded, that existed within a logic where stopping had never been a necessity and therefore had never been an option. My fight was one of accumulation, of constant pressure directed at the only point that didn't close as fast as the rest, waiting for the moment when the opening would exist without needing to be forced.
Morgana began shooting — at the joints, as I had asked. Each arrow didn't kill, but each arrow annoyed, and annoying at sufficient scale created rigidity of movement that created angle openings that created possibility of reaching what needed to be reached.
It was patience. It was the fight most contrary to my nature — I preferred to resolve, preferred the clear period, preferred the moment where the variable had been eliminated. But I had learned, in the previous months, that the Oasis rarely offered what I preferred.
It offered what there was.
And what there was was the fight — me against something that regenerated, and me that didn't, waiting for the accumulation to arrive before the exhaustion did. There was no shorter path. There was no angle I hadn't already tried. It was that, and it was the only truth available in that moment — and if I wanted to shape what came after, I needed to accept it without reservation.