Speed, strength, dexterity, and even intelligence — everything seemed to have doubled. Perhaps tripled.
Even using every capacity Blood Magic gave me, even with Affinity with Magic amplifying every fiber of my body beyond what should be possible, it still didn't seem to be enough. Incredibly, in that form, that human managed to be stronger than the Burman I had faced just a few months before — and that was strange in a way I couldn't even measure. A human. Stronger than Dioscuros. Humans weren't meant to be strong like that. Each movement I made to dodge or counterattack demanded the greatest effort I had ever made — and my body screamed every second that, despite managing to keep up with Viego's blows, the price of keeping up was too high.
And then I noticed something that, like the quick exhaustion, I should have understood since the fight against the Burman brothers.
Magic could let me be faster. Stronger. More intelligent. But that didn't mean my body would have more muscles, more tendons, more structure to withstand what I demanded of it. My body was like a cup — and the power was the water I poured inside. With every second I exceeded my limits, the cup overflowed. The liquid ran down the edges in the form of pain, of fibers tearing, of bones creaking under pressure they weren't built to withstand. It wasn't only the exhaustion of demanding energy that didn't exist — it was demanding that the body also be capable. And clearly, it wasn't.
The arena around us paid the price alongside us.
Each deflected blow exploded whatever it touched. Each counterattack shattered limestone like glass. In a few seconds, the arena where we had begun became nothing more than a heap of destroyed white marble — and our bodies flew to the next arena, and to the one after that, leaving a trail of destruction that extended like the mark of something nobody there had seen before and that everyone prayed to never see again.
The silence around was sepulchral. The explosions of our bodies clashing were the only thing that could be heard — dry thunderclaps that shook the ground and made the castle walls tremble. Many who had been watching now fled desperately through the exits, pushing one another to escape something that had ceased being a sparring and transformed into something that had no safe name.
"Getting tired yet, you farm piece of shit? I haven't even started!"
"You talk a lot for someone who isn't managing to do anything besides destroy the entire place."
He was right — and so was I. The term "fight" implied the exchanges were equal, and they weren't. The few opportunities I had to land on Viego came from a single thing: his incapacity to stay cold. His rage was my advantage. It was what made his blows — despite being fast and heavy — predictable. He hit with emotion, not with calculation. And emotion, at the level we were at, was the same as shouting to the enemy where the next blow would land.
"Seems the secret card of your family is nothing more than something even a farm boy can handle."
If destabilizing that young man was my only advantage, I would use it to the bone.
Viego grew redder. The provocation struck exactly where I wanted — the pride, the weakest point of someone who built their entire identity on being the strongest in the room. The scream that came out of him was animal, and the blows that came with it were even heavier.
Heavier.
Stronger than the ones before.
"Son of a bitch, how long is he going to keep getting stronger?"
The thought struck me like a punch I didn't see coming — because that was exactly what was happening. Viego's blows weren't maintaining. They were growing. With each passing minute, each impact carried more weight, more speed, more everything. As though his body were feeding on the fight itself and converting each second into additional power.
I didn't understand the mechanism. But I understood the Oasis. And what I knew about the Oasis was that it gave nothing for free. My Blood Magic charged sanity. My Affinity with Magic charged mana. Vo'ruun's powers gave me the strength of a dragon, but my body didn't have the structure to withstand it. Everything I knew came with bonus and burden.
The question was: where was his burden?
Twenty minutes.
After nearly twenty minutes of fighting, Viego's power didn't diminish. On the contrary — somehow, it kept getting stronger. There was no decline. No visible exhaustion. No moment when the body begins to charge and the performance drops.
What frightened me was that perhaps the rebound wasn't his.
"GO FUCK YOURSELF! I'M GOING TO KILL YOU IN HONOR OF MY FAMILY, YOU INSECT! AHHH!"
The punch came.
I saw it. I raised both arms to block — and was launched anyway. The impact crossed my guard as though it didn't exist. My body flew backward, spinning in the air without control, passing over destroyed arenas and fleeing bodies, until it hit the castle wall well above the arena level — and very close to the suspended platform where the elders watched.
I stayed embedded in the stone for a second.
And from there, for the first time, I saw with clarity what distance hadn't let me see before. The elders. Seated in their enormous chairs, before the panoramic glass, with faces that carried interest and astonishment and — at the corner of the mouth of at least two of them — almost a smile.
I gave a smile back.
Teeth red. Blood running down my mouth. The taste of iron filling my palate like the flavor of a world I already knew far too well. But even so, even bleeding, even with my body screaming, I shouted to be heard by everyone — by the elders, by Viego, by the hidden nobles, by every person in that arena who thought I was merely a farm colonist.
"SO THIS IS HOW YOU TAKE CARE OF YOUR CREATURES?!" The voice tore my throat. "SHE'LL PROBABLY BE DEAD BEFORE THIS FIGHT IS OVER!" I spat blood to the side and looked down, at Viego, who had stopped. "WILL I BE TOO?"
The smiles on the faces of the two elders froze.
I had noticed.
After fighting for so long, after feeling each of Viego's blows getting stronger without any sign of wear, I finally understood. The advantage of that power — the fusion with the Unicorn, the transformation that made the body grow and the strength multiply — was that the rebound didn't go to the user.
It went to the creature.
The Unicorn that Viego had absorbed hadn't disappeared. It was there inside him — trapped, fused, serving as battery and lightning rod at the same time. Each minute Viego stayed in that form, each blow he dealt, each explosion of power — everything was charged. But not to him. To the creature he carried inside and that, somewhere in that transformed body, was paying the price the owner refused to pay.
That was why there was no decline. His body didn't tire because the one who tired was someone else.
It was genius.
And it was monstrous.
Viego seemed shocked by my words. The golden color of his body faded for a second — returning to the normal, human, vulnerable tone — before he screamed and forced the transformation back. But I had seen. And he knew I had seen.
"GET DOWN FROM THERE, YOU RAT!"
He ripped an entire block of marble from the floor and hurled it in my direction with the fury of someone who wants to bury not just the enemy, but what the enemy had just exposed. I dodged — fast, by reflex, the body obeying before the mind — and launched myself in his direction.
In the air, I was vulnerable. Without support, without direction, without the possibility of dodging whatever Viego did. And what he did was bring his hands together toward the small horn on his forehead and charge a ball of fire that grew as I approached — fed by the same energy that had no end because the end was charged to another life.
But I wasn't an idiot.
"DAUGHTER! NOW!"
Arachne.
My daughter had remained still throughout the entire fight. Motionless in the same place, twelve meters of chitin and silk surrounded by destruction she didn't even register — strong enough to withstand the shrapnel of our exchanges without a single leg moving. She wasn't the target. So she didn't react. But being still didn't mean being inactive.
It meant waiting.
The instant I called, Arachne fired three silk projectiles. Two for Viego's legs — webs that wrapped around the ankles with the speed of something that already knew where to hit before being fired. The third went for his face.
Viego reacted late.
The shock came first — the surprise of someone who didn't expect me to use a summon in a fight that was supposed to be hand to hand. Being caught off guard cost dearly: the webs on his legs locked him in place, and instinct did the rest. He dropped the ball of fire and raised one hand to defend his face — and it was only when the web stopped on his hand, common, harmless, just silk — that he realized he had fallen into the trap.
But it was already too late.
My body had already gotten too close.
The explosion shook everything that was still standing.
I felt my hand break at the instant of impact — the metacarpal bones giving way like twigs under the force I poured into that punch. But the fist didn't come out. It stayed where it was: buried in Viego's face, who now lay fallen on the ground, his body trembling involuntarily, as though his head had hit the stone too hard and shut him down, but willpower kept him awake by stubbornness alone.
I stayed on top of him.
With my arm extended, the broken fist still pressing his face, refusing to remove it. I had used every ounce of strength I had left combined with gravity to cause that damage — and I didn't know what would happen if I lost this position. Arachne as a trump card would work only once. And if there was one thing I had learned: if you're going to hit, hit until the enemy can't get up anymore.
The fight was over.
✦ ✦ ✦
"NOOOOOO! MY SON!"
The scream caught me off guard.
I was still on top of Viego, my arm trembling with pain and exhaustion, every cell in my body begging me to stop, when I felt — before seeing, before hearing, before any sense registered — a presence advancing in my direction with a speed and an intention that weren't of someone who wants to separate.
They were of someone who wants to kill.
I was ripped from on top of Viego like an insect being swatted from a table.
The force that struck me wasn't quantifiable. It wasn't the kind of impact you measure. Arachne entered in front to hold me — her body interposing between me and the second impact — but the two of us were sent backward together, destroying walls, crossing through at least two or three rooms in which I could see, from the corner of eyes that barely functioned, the faces of Viego's defenders hidden and afraid.
I couldn't move.
My entire body had been broken and ground up. The sensation was of being inside a bag of bones someone had shaken — every piece in the wrong place, every joint screaming at frequencies I didn't know the body could produce. The healing magic I cast only soothed the pain without solving anything, and I made sure to apply it to Arachne too, who seemed to have absorbed the greater part of the damage while protecting me.
While I lost myself between healing myself and healing my daughter, a silhouette crossed through the enormous hole our bodies had opened in the wall.
The man behind the curtain of smoke was fat. But tall. The visible belly made him grotesque, but I could feel — just by looking, just from the pressure he radiated as he approached — the same level of power I had felt in the patriarch. When his face appeared through the shadows of the curtain of smoke and dust that the destruction of my body had caused, I recognized him. His appearance, despite being hidden beneath much flesh and fat, was clearly similar to Viego's. The same features buried in an older and wider version. The pieces clicked in my mind as I realized this was one of those who had been laughing while I bled.
"So the rebel called for daddy." My mouth gushed blood while I spoke. But the rage I felt gave no room for pain. Gave no room for anything that wasn't the absolute refusal to seem weak before someone I despised.
"How dare you!" The man's voice came out with a gravity that didn't match the belly — the kind of voice that comes from a place the body hides and that only appears when something real is at stake. "Your death won't be enough to wash the pride of our family!"
He advanced.
Fast. Absurdly fast for the size. I felt the intention before the movement — the same reading the Oasis had taught me, the sixth sense that told me when something was coming to kill and not to hurt. I acted in the only instant I had: I stored Arachne in the Vivarium and called Prince.
The griffin appeared at the exact moment the great man buried his entire arm in the floor — exactly where I had been half a second before. The impact opened a crater that swallowed the entire floor of the room. If I had taken a fraction longer, there would be nothing left to save.
"Let's go, Prince! NOW!"
I shouted while more blood gushed. Prince grabbed me by the back with his claws — gentle and firm at the same time, the creature's instinct knowing the difference between holding and wounding — and beat his wings trying to take flight.
"So you still have cards up your sleeve…" The man's voice came from below — and the tone wasn't of admiration. It was of a hunter who sees the prey run and decides the chase is part of the fun. "You think that's going to work here?"
When we were nearly reaching open air, something blocked the path.
A golem.
Enormous. Materialized from nothing, filling the opening through which Prince was trying to escape like a cork of living stone. The fist descended upon us like a hammer — and flattened us against the floor like insects being crushed by something that didn't even see them as a threat.
My back hit the floor with a force that tore more blood and what remained of air from my lungs. Prince screeched in pain beside me — wings twisted, body trembling. And I lay there, sprawled, looking at the destroyed ceiling with my vision blurring at the edges and the taste of iron so strong in my mouth it seemed like I was chewing coins.
The rage returned.
I wasn't to blame for what was happening. I hadn't invaded anything. Hadn't attacked first. Hadn't threatened anyone. And now I was close to being killed by a son of a bitch who didn't know how to control his own son and who used power to protect arrogance instead of protecting what mattered. Finally I understood where so much presumption came from — not from Viego. From his father. The man who created the monster and now defended the monster and killed whoever dared show the monster that it was merely that.
"Come on, you fat piece of shit." I spat blood to the side and raised my head from the floor. My entire body screamed for me to stop, but my mouth didn't obey the body — it obeyed the rage. "If you think I'm going to lower myself to a mere noble who can't control his own offspring, you're mistaken."
A red smile filled my face — teeth and blood and the insane certainty that I would rather die there than bow my head to someone like him.
The man's fury grew. I saw it in his eyes — growing darker, the body contracting for the advance, the decision already made. He was going to kill me. Not as a lesson. As an example.
But I was too tired to fight back. Mana at zero. Body destroyed. The mark's armor was the only thing keeping my joints in place. My mind flew to the moment I accepted getting into that vehicle, and the only thought I had left was:
"Damn. If I'd known… Fuck this world."
The feeling of inferiority I hated came rushing back. I wanted to be strong. Wanted to give my best. But I couldn't feel strength for anything anymore. The cup had overflowed long ago and was now dry.
The fat man advanced.
He appeared a few meters from me like a flash — the absurd speed of that flaccid body defying every law of physics I knew. I raised my arm to withstand the blow. The broken arm, with the destroyed hand and the bones out of place.
It was all I had.
The blow never came.
"I believe we're done for today, aren't we, Elder José."
The voice cut the space between us like something that wasn't sound — it was pure authority, distilled, concentrated in a sentence that didn't need volume to weigh more than any blow José could deliver.
"You've already had your revenge. Now stop embarrassing our family."
José stopped.
Not slowly. All at once. As though someone had cut the strings that moved him. The arm that was centimeters from my face hung suspended in the air — trembling, not from effort, but from something I could only call involuntary obedience. His entire body contracted as though it wanted to continue but couldn't.
While my destroyed and battered face turned in the direction of the voice, I saw.
A woman.
Standing in the middle of the destruction, with the posture of someone who arrived walking and not running — because haste was for those who weren't certain they would be obeyed. The face was square, mature, with features I recognized before processing from where: the same structure as Verônica and her sister, the same lineage, but with decades more and an authority Verônica would still take a lifetime to reach. The hair was purple — not violet, purple, dark and deep like the color of something that absorbs light instead of reflecting it — falling over her shoulders with a naturalness that made everything around it seem excessive.
She was beautiful.
With a beauty that didn't compete with youth, that didn't try to seem less than it was, that existed on that face with the permanence of something that had always been there and that no war, no destruction, no furious fat man could tear away.
She noticed my eyes.
And I, looking at that face — with blood on my teeth, broken bones, my body collapsing and consciousness escaping through the corners — wanted to say something. Anything. An intelligent phrase, a provocation, a thank you, something that proved I was still there, that I was still me, that I wasn't going to disappear into the dark without—
My mind went out.