Issack's leg sank into my abdomen like a living sledgehammer, hurling me against the wall.
BOOM.
The sound echoed, sharp and dry, the impact tearing through the air. The floor spun, the world spun, and for an instant the only thing that existed was pain. The air fled my lungs, and the metallic taste of blood rose in my throat.
I forced myself to move, sliding down to the floor.
I lifted my face on reflex, but the ringing in my ears drowned out everything, even the sound of another body cutting through the air. I threw myself to the side.
The boy who had been near me wasn't so lucky: the crash against the wall was brutal, and the crack that followed silenced every other sound.
'Damn it…' I didn't dare stay still.
Every second spent standing still, death drew closer. I threw myself toward the lunatic again. According to Damian, the longer we fought him, the better our chances of survival got. How and why, he didn't know either. All we knew was that keeping our distance was a death sentence.
At first, I doubted it. But the scenes in front of me didn't lie. The man moved fast, too fast to be human. He was a living shadow, a blur between spaces, a presence that appeared and vanished like a recurring nightmare.
The farther away from him, the less we saw him, and when we did, it was already too late. But up close… up close there was still a thread of a chance. Up close, we could react. He left openings. Small, calculated ones, as if he were testing us.
Those who tried to hide were the first to fall, and those who stupidly tried to run, who knows where to, were now keeping company, down below, those who had died during the first phase of this torment.
Those who attacked him bravely managed, at times, to touch him, a scratch that felt more like a caress on his skin, a grazing blow, a spark of hope.
Those who hesitated… became fertilizer for the floor stones.
As he explained, Damian had said, with that nervous half-smile:
"He's not fighting. He's playing with us. Have you ever seen a cat hunt a mouse just to watch it run in circles? Well. We're the mice."
And at that moment, I understood what he meant.
Issack spun among us with a cruel calm, dodging blades, crushing throats, moving as if he knew every step in advance, every fear, every failure of courage.
The sound of bodies falling mingled with the echo of his footsteps, a slow, rhythmic beat, almost deliberate.
And I ran toward him, aware that the mere act of backing away would be the same as kneeling before death.
"What the hell do you want from us?!" I shouted, my voice tearing through the air.
Adrenaline had already wiped out any sense of self-preservation. I stepped on the back of a half-conscious boy, using the push as a springboard. My fist cut through the air with the weight of desperation, the blow tracing an arc toward Issack's chest.
He dodged with insulting ease.
Axel, down below, advanced crawling like a wounded beast, trying to sink his teeth into the old man's heel.
All around, a dozen bodies hurled themselves at him, each in their own way, each believing they would be the next to land a hit.
Oswin, with nails and fangs too long to look human, leapt onto Issack's back, roaring.
Elaine came along the flanks, moving among the human shadows that remained, searching for an opening. The tension in her shoulders gave away her fear; she knew a single mistake would put her among those lying on the ground.
And in the middle of the confusion, Beatriz, or what was left of her, lay motionless, her body still trembling, the aura she had awakened long since faded. She had been the only one to force him to use a little more strength, and for that reason, perhaps, the price she paid had been far too high.
"That bastard…" I murmured, spitting blood, the metallic taste clinging to my tongue.
Issack wasn't looking at anyone.
He, who in my mind should have been the talkative type, the man who insulted, laughed, and taunted, while moving in absolute silence. But now? It was the complete opposite. He didn't speak, didn't breathe hard, showed no fatigue. He simply flowed, like a predator bored with its own prey.
But what irritated me most was the smile. That damned veiled smile, drawn at the corner of his mouth, as if to say that nothing we did would have any effect. And it was a fact: it really wouldn't.
But then why did we keep going? Why was I still moving, even knowing that every step toward him was suicide?
At the time, I still didn't know.
I only knew that, even if I tried to stop, my body wouldn't obey. It was as if something primal inside me were screaming to keep going, a blind instinct that refused to die quietly.
Issack dodged blows coming from every direction with a precision that defied logic.
His arms and legs traced impossible trajectories, in a rhythm that was almost beautiful, if it weren't so brutal.
A crack, a broken nose.
Another, a dislocated jaw.
A dull thud, crushed ribs.
And even so, the air seemed to wrap around him, moving in his favor, pushing away anything that dared to touch him.
But it wasn't luck. It wasn't carelessness.
He was choosing. Who lived. Who didn't.
I saw it in his eyes, that cold, calculating gaze that settled on a body like someone studying a rare insect before crushing it.
The reddish-skinned boy, for example. Issack watched him like someone evaluating a prototype. The boy held out longer than the others, blocking two, three blows before being thrown far away, bleeding, but still conscious.
And then there was Damian. Of all of us, he was the only one who not only survived, but in rare moments even reached the level of dancing with Issack. Every dodge was measured, every movement a calculation of millimeter precision. He seemed to predict the next instant before it happened.
"No!…" Issack dodged my attack, twisting his body with the fluidity of someone changing his mind. His heel cut through the air and struck Axel on the snout; I heard a dry crack and saw his body spat backward.
"There's something more…" I murmured, focusing all my attention on the two of them.
And then I saw it.
Whenever Issack threw a truly fatal blow at Damian… something distorted the space. The fist crossed the air and… missed. Not for lack of precision, but because Damian slipped away by a hair, as if reality itself pushed him aside at the last second.
"Magic…?" I whispered, disbelieving, still trying to understand what I was seeing.
Even so, Issack still had the upper hand. Distortion or not, Damian was only reacting, or rather trying to, and Issack finally hit him square in the face, sending him crashing into a random boy who was trying to attack from hiding.
Issack controlled the rhythm, like a conductor leading a chaos only he understood.
That was when I understood, once again. He wasn't fighting. He was playing.
Issack was toying with us, and we, unconsciously, danced to the rhythm he set. This wasn't a fight. It was a demonstration. A violent, meticulous lesson about the difference between strength and helplessness.
Between a man… And a heap of ants trying to bite him.
✦ ✦ ✦
"Huff, huff..." I was out of breath, the impact had knocked all the air from my lungs.
Before going back into the fight, I looked around me.
Within that parapet, with just enough room for all that chaos to unfold, a bloodbath was taking shape.
I looked to one side: Beatriz, unconscious. To the other: Axel, 'poor pup', also out cold, though air still moved in and out of his snout.
"Thank goodness..." I sighed, an unnatural calm settling over my body.
I turned my gaze to where Issack should be. I only saw Damian's bloodied face, his body kneeling, with no sign of consciousness.
Farther ahead, Elaine and the reddish-skinned boy also lay fallen, one with an arm in a grotesque position, and the other on top of a small mountain of five bodies, her own body turned upside down.
But there was still the sound of blows.
Clink, clank. Clink, clank.
"Where is it coming from?" Up here, nothing else moved. So I advanced, with difficulty, to the edge of the parapet and looked down.
There, among incinerated bodies, pierced with arrows and spears, lying amid the destruction, were three figures.
A girl, with light brown hair, almost blonde, with a silvery sheen; deep green eyes; skin pale as porcelain. From her hands, arrows of wind flew toward Issack.
"An archer?" I thought, until the realization hit me. "Wait... where's the bow? Why did I think she was an archer?"
Yes, she was in a firing stance, but there was no bow in her hands.
The more I concentrated, though, my eyes dilated, and at last I saw: a greenish, ethereal bow, formed from interwoven lines of wind, adorned with translucent spirals and curved blades of compressed air, which fluttered as if breathing.
The arrows emerged from the bow itself, shaped by the wind, and flew immediately after.
The bow didn't move, steady as if it were part of her.
Following the trail of the arrows, two figures.
Issack dodged with absurd precision, redirecting the projectiles with the palm of his hand. And in front of him, a boy, thin, too frail for the chaos surrounding him, with silver hair and cyan-blue eyes.
Clank.
He blocked an arrow. A metallic sound rang out.
"Another one?" I murmured, gripping the parapet and ignoring the pain in my arms. "No... it really is a sword."
It was an ordinary sword, double-edged, neither long nor short, the mass-produced kind. But in that boy's hands, it looked like a lethal weapon. So lethal that Issack was bleeding. Yes, there were small cuts on both his arms.
"How?" my jaw dropped. "We had barely managed to scratch him," my mouth hanging open in astonishment.
And on the blade, a silvery glow appeared. More than a flame. More than a simple light. The energy flowed around the sword like living water.
That was Aura.
I didn't move, or rather, I couldn't.
All my senses were fixed on that clash.
Issack, clearly, wasn't using all his strength, but even so... it was a beautiful scene. A duel of opposites, the knight and the archer, the blade and the wind. The perfect harmony between close-range attack and long-range support.
But Issack made that strategy look useless.
What unsettled me most, though, was the contrast between the two.
The girl, eyes closed, veins pulsing in her neck, as if in a trance.
The boy, eyes open... but his pupils were disappearing, fading, until they vanished completely.
"Don't tell me..." I murmured, gripping the parapet. "Both of them are unconscious!?"
At that same moment, Issack's lips moved. I didn't hear what he said, I only felt something change.
He advanced.
In a single strike, he broke the boy's sword and hit him in the stomach. The body fell, lifeless.
The girl barely had time to react. Issack appeared in front of her, and with a simple flick to the forehead, she collapsed.
Before I could think, my body acted on instinct. A gust of wind exploded out of me, launching me backward.
But Issack was already there. On the parapet. In front of me.
"Ah... there was still one awake?" he asked, in a light tone, almost amused.
"Impressive..." he smiled. "But—"
He raised one hand in a gesture of farewell. The other closed into a fist, coming straight down on the top of my head.
The blow was sharp and dry, the world spun. My vision, distorted.
The last sound I heard was his voice, echoing amid laughter and darkness:
"Buenas noches."