My head still hurt.
It wasn't an ordinary pain. It was as though my mind had been crushed, rebuilt, and crushed again — a cycle the healing couldn't interrupt because the damage wasn't in the body. Even after everything Morgana's magic had mended, it remained, lodged somewhere deeper than flesh or bone.
Perhaps it was something the Oasis wanted me to feel.
There was a legend — one of those I collected in my days of study, when useless information was my favorite pastime — that said dragons were so powerful they could cause damage directly to the enemy's soul. Not to the body. To the soul. Something no healing reached because no healing had been made to repair it.
Of course nobody really believed that. The Oasis wouldn't allow a creature to be so strong as to break the system's own rules.
That was the theory.
But I had opened a box that contained the echo of a dragon, had seen a fifteen-meter Drake tremble before that sound, and now carried a pain that the healing didn't touch. Theories, I was learning, had the inconvenient habit of being realistic when you tested them up close.
"Hey. Don't try to get up. You're still not alright."
The room hadn't changed.
Morgana and Livina took turns caring for me, bringing summaries of the territory and a bit of joy to the days — but even with both their presence, everything was still tedious. The ceiling remained the same, and I had already counted every line, every imperfection, every tiny crack as the torturous pastime of someone who had spent days unable to leave that bed. I knew that ceiling better than I knew my own face by that point.
I wasn't happy.
Or not just sad. There had been losses — and they still tormented me in ways I had no way to avoid.
✦ ✦ ✦
In my mind, I felt Arachne crying.
Every day. For the loss of her children.
At first, I had consoled myself with cold logic: she could generate many. Hundreds. Thousands, with enough time. The loss of a few would be, in theory, something distant for a creature capable of replacing what it lost.
I was wrong.
It didn't matter whether she could have one child or a million. She loved each individual as though it were unique — because to her each one was unique, in the way only a mother understands and that I, with all my collected intelligence, had been dumb enough not to foresee. And that forced me to face something I had been avoiding since I woke up.
I had been cruel to her.
Arachne was a baby. She had months of life. She didn't know what war was. Didn't know what death was. And when I finally showed her what those words meant — pain, fear, hatred and, above all, loss — she didn't know how to react in any way other than to cry. There was no repertoire in her for that. I had thrown a child into the deepest abyss of existence and had expected her to swim.
The only thing I didn't do was forbid her from feeling.
It was the minimum. And the minimum, in that case, seemed pathetic next to what I had taken from her.
The Prince was different.
More centered. And it made sense — he had probably seen more death than I ever would. Kin. Companions from the flock. The creature carried the kind of grief that had already been processed so many times that it had learned to coexist with the pain without being paralyzed by it. He was sad, that was clear. But, unlike Arachne, who didn't leave the stable, paralyzed by the feeling, the Prince channeled the grief into care — he spent his days watching over the two young Griffins that flew across my territory, the only survivors of the brood I had left behind.
They were the future.
A distant future, unfortunately. Unlike Arachne, whose offspring grew at surreal speeds, the Prince was a Griffin — and Griffins, like every mammalian creature, took years to mature. The ones I had taken to battle were too young. Too young to be used in that war. Too young to die the way they died.
My tears ran down.
It wasn't the first time since I woke. It wouldn't be the last.
I felt I could have done better. That there was a version of that battle in which I used the red chest right from the start, before the offspring fell, before Arachne learned what loss was. A version in which I had been faster, less proud, less confident that my intelligence would be enough.
However.
However I didn't know, in that moment, what the box would really do to the Infernals. Didn't know if it would work in the open air. Didn't know the price. And decisions made with the information I had couldn't be judged by the information I acquired afterward. It was a rational truth. It didn't make the pain pass. But it was true.
✦ ✦ ✦
"How is she?"
I finally found the courage to ask what had been tormenting me — directing the words to the two girls who had taken turns at my side during the days I had been lying down.
It wasn't often that I saw them together. Usually one cared for me while the other kept the kingdom running — and the only moment they coincided was after the combat training the two still maintained religiously, even after all this time, even after everything.
"She's still sad. And wounded. But she's finally eating."
"I see."
I could feel, through the bond, what Arachne was experiencing. The pain on the outside — the wounds from the Drake and the Vorthari that were still healing. And the pain on the inside, which wasn't healing. I still hadn't managed to see her in person. Part of me feared the moment. Not because she would blame me — she would never do that. But because I knew that, when I saw her, I would have to face what I had done to her in her eyes.
"How long?"
"Almost twenty days, my Lord."
Twenty days.
Five of them unconscious.
The fight had taken the most out of me — perhaps the rebound of the blood magic I used far beyond the safe limit, perhaps simply the accumulated effort of hours resisting what shouldn't be resistible. In the end, staying alive seemed less a victory and more a miracle, even now that I had enough distance to analyze everything I had been through.
And there was a complication that weighed more than the exhaustion.
In the battle, I had lost consciousness. Which meant my identity had been revealed — the helmet served no purpose in the end, because I had removed the mask with my own hands before the Vorthari. That was the main reason why the idea of going to the market to find out what had become public made me anxious.
But, after everything, there was at least one piece of good news.
"And the chests?"
A smile finally appeared on both their faces.
"They're still there, my Lord. Waiting for you."
Of course they would be.
The Oasis could be many things — cruel, cold, indifferent to the suffering it distributed. But unjust wasn't one of them. And that mechanical justice, which knew no mercy but also knew no favoritism, had offered me what Morgana had described as three chests. None equal to the red one I still carried in the ring — that was of another category. But three reward chests for a victory that nobody in the universe believed possible.
"I'm still shocked by the fact that you managed to get another legendary. I mean — I had to join an expedition with dozens of other Lords just to get a rare one. And you won an epic as a bonus."
There was genuine admiration in Livina's voice. And something more — the recognition of someone who understood, better than I did, how absurd the reward I was about to open was, and above all what I had to go through to receive it.
Yes. Three chests.
Arranged the same way as the others I had already won. That was the prize for the victory we had — not a congratulations, not a ceremony, not a word of recognition from whoever governed that system. Just the power to be stronger than I was before.
The Oasis didn't celebrate survivors.
It only re-equipped them for the next time.
✦ ✦ ✦
"I think it's time."
I tried to get up. The body protested — every muscle still carried the echo of the battle, and my head throbbed with the movement.
"My Lord, rest a little longer. Everything's fine with the kingdom."
I rose from the bed with difficulty anyway.
"Morgana, the rest period is over. I'm a human, at the end of the day. And today I'm a human who caused real damage to the Infernals. You know what that means."
I wasn't naive.
Even if the Infernals could no longer lay a finger on me — because that was the Oasis's agreement, and the Oasis enforced its agreements — that didn't mean safety. It only meant the threat would change its face. There were dozens of races that would act at the Infernals' command. And there were hundreds of others that would do the same for free, just to fall into the good graces of the third strongest race in the Oasis. Killing the human who humiliated the Infernals would be a valuable bargaining chip in more negotiations than I could count.
The only thing I didn't have was time.
And Morgana knew that as well as I did.
"I understand."
A pause.
"At least let me help you."
Morgana and Livina approached, each from one side, supporting me as I left the room for the first time in twenty days — toward what really mattered.
✦ ✦ ✦
"What a beautiful afternoon."
I had few reasons to appreciate a sunset.
But being alive after everything I went through gave a new meaning to things I had barely noticed before. The light spilling over the territory I had built from nothing. The constructions that were still standing. The distant sound of the two young Griffins cutting across the sky under the attentive gaze of the Prince. It was little. It was everything. It was more than many on that battlefield had taken home.
"You know, honestly, I'm still pretty curious to know what happened after I blacked out."
The truth was that what happened after my collapse remained a mystery to me.
Arachne probably knew. The Prince too. But each was dealing with their own pain, and I hadn't had the courage to demand memories from creatures that were still crying. There would be time for that. What I knew, for certain, was that somehow we had won — and I say that because, even with the Infernals reduced to debris, the Drake and the great Vorthari still remained when my consciousness went out.
Two colossuses. And me, unconscious.
I was honestly curious to understand the role of my summonings in that outcome — and, even more, how exactly we had survived the two of them. But that was for another moment.
Now, what I needed was to collect the spoils.
✦ ✦ ✦
"Which one are you going to start with, my Lord?"
In front of me, three chests aligned.
The rare one had a bluish color and was the largest of the three. I knew size meant nothing — the Oasis had a habit of hiding the greatest power in the most modest packaging. But, even so, it was beautiful. The second was a little smaller, a deep purple that announced its epic category before any text confirmed it. And the third — the smallest of all — was exactly the same size as the chest I had opened once before, with the same golden color.
Livina was visibly anxious.
She knew what I had won the last time I opened a golden chest. She knew what that color could contain. But that would have to wait — I had decided to leave the best for last, the way one does with things worth the anticipation.
"Let's start with the most common one."
My mouth went dry just thinking about the prizes.
Even the rare one was something Morgana and Livina had fought hard for — entire expeditions, dozens of Lords, real risks — to get a single chest. And there were three, arranged as though they were the change from a transaction I had paid with blood, with creatures, with pieces of myself that healing wouldn't give back.
Finally, the pain would yield some fruit.
I extended my hand toward the blue chest.