There were few things the Oasis hid from everyone's knowledge.
And most of them had more to do with the creatures that hid them than with any will of the Oasis itself not to show. Maybe the strongest creatures had something against exposing their own world. Their own customs. Or — maybe — their own weaknesses.
Honestly, I didn't much care.
It was the minimum one expected from a creature capable of destroying everything in the blink of an eye. The simple fact that they were capable of remaining in one place, without the greed to expand and increase their own influence, was already, to me, a victory in itself — something very different from what many races would do in the same position. Including humans.
But curiosity was another story. Curiosity moved nearly all the races. And I wasn't outside that.
Of course, most of the studies focused on the exceptions — a few strong races that allowed their habits and territories to be exposed. The Ammit, for example. But that came from the total comprehension of creatures that knew nothing could hurt them — tied to the simple fact that they were known as level S not for intelligence, but for the incapacity of being pierced by anything that wasn't their own age. To me, that was exactly what made them flexible and tolerant: inviolable colossi don't need secrets.
But that was rare among level S creatures.
And rarer still when it came to dragons — who were almost a myth. Something that exists, but that no one has the capacity, or the knowledge, to even conceive.
Because there was a difference between reading about a myth and standing at the front door of one's house.
My entire life in the Oasis had been built on information — knowing more, predicting more, understanding more than the enemy. And, for the first time since I crossed the first portal, I was about to enter a place about which there existed no information at all. No record. No account. No advantage.
Maybe that was why I was so nervous.
✦ ✦ ✦
"My Lord… are we going in?"
Morgana and Livina — the latter still pale from the rebound, but firm on her own legs — seemed confused.
In both their eyes, I found something like doubt about what I really wanted to do. And it was no wonder: I myself caught myself swallowing my saliva, standing before something no book spoke of — and that no living person had the audacity to describe out loud.
We passed the guardian's frozen statue — the bronze hand still extended in the air, grasping a target that no longer existed — and I forced myself not to look up while we crossed its shadow.
"Sorry… Let's go in."
The first step inside was harder than any step of the entire night. Not because of the body — because of the weight. Because, as far as any record reached, no living creature had ever described the interior of a nest. Which meant that either no one had ever entered… or no one had ever come out to tell about it.
Honestly, I expected a lot from a nest.
Maybe the lack of information filled the gaps with what my mind simply created, without a coherent pattern. A giant temple, adorned with gold and precious stones? That was a stereotype — and one of the bad ones. Of course dragons liked riches. But gold was something that only mattered to humans. To the vast majority of races, gold was nothing more than an easily fabricated object — aluminum foil with shine. There existed metals in this universe that would make all the gold on Earth incapable of buying a few handfuls.
The stereotype did come to my mind, yes. But it was quickly replaced by even more confusing images.
Giant plains flayed into the earth. A world apart, with its own biome and life. An infinite vein of clouds and dangers. After all, what kind of treasure justified two guardians capable of exterminating armies? What kind of wealth needed a lock that only opened with the voice of its own owner? In truth, the only certainty I carried crossing that gate was that I would be shocked.
So, when we finally entered the place and an artificial light came on above us…
I was shocked. And disappointed.
Because, instead of being received by something magical and unbelievable, what I was presented with was an enormous stone gallery. Empty.
✦ ✦ ✦
"This is… a nest?"
Livina was the first — as in so many other times — to transform into words what all of us were merely thinking.
And it was truly shocking, the fact that there was nothing interesting there. Nothing beyond stone and more stone, cut into the earth by hands that left no signature. Of course, thinking about it now, it was idiotic to expect to find some dazzling magical terrain or an infinite wealth piled to the ceiling — that place had been abandoned for who knows how long. But, after everything… after the guardians, the mechanics of the gate, the key… I expected something more.
Something, at the very least, interesting.
The only sound in the entire gallery was the echo of our own footsteps — multiplied by the empty space until it seemed a small army walked with us. A place of that size shouldn't sound so… hollow.
"Let's split up to see if we find anything."
"Do you really think we need to do this? Clearly there's nothing here… Nothing beyond earth and more earth."
Livina seemed irritated — and even Morgana, always contained, exhaled discontent from every pore. I understood. We had been through too much to be received by that emptiness.
"There could be some kind of unknown mechanism… I think."
We split up and searched for a good while.
I ran my hands over the stone walls in search of cracks, symbols, anything resembling the carving on the gate. Morgana studied the floor, looking for patterns in the packed earth. Livina kicked a few stones. And the result was the same for the three of us: nothing. Not a mechanism, not a mark, not a single sign that that place had been, one day, the home of anything.
I was frustrated. That was undeniable.
But, beneath the frustration, something insisted on telling me there was something I was letting slip. While I crossed the enormous empty gallery, the sensation only grew — the sensation of wrong. The floor of packed earth seemed different from the place we came from. And everything I looked at seemed right and wrong at the same time. Right, because it was exactly what it should look like: a heap of earth and stones. Wrong, because none of it seemed to belong to that place. Under no hypothesis.
"My Lord… there's nothing anywhere… Actually, I have a feeling I don't know how to explain. It's as though…"
"It weren't real."
I answered, cutting off Morgana's line of thought — only to see her smile and agree with me in silence.
I knew exactly what she was feeling. Because it was the same thing with me.
"What the hell are you two talking about? There's nothing here — and I doubt very much that this is an illusion. We would have noticed."
Livina had a point; after all, we had split up precisely to analyze every part of that place.
But I also knew that illusion magic was far more complex than simply hiding things. And, fortunately, there existed a very simple way to test it.
✦ ✦ ✦
"Livina… could you go to the middle of this gallery and shout my name?"
She looked at me with a curious face — but advanced without saying anything, while Morgana and I watched.
"My Lord… why does she need to do this?"
I let the question hang an instant, my eyes running over the place.
The gallery was enormous. Tall. A few square kilometers of extension, with at least a hundred meters of ceiling. Everything there was too megalomaniacal to simply have nothing. A hall of that size, protected by two guardians and a gate with a dragon's lock… to guard packed earth? It made no sense.
"Don't worry. Probably, nothing will happen. But… if something happens, it's going to be right about now."
While I spoke, the two of us focused on Livina, who advanced in a straight line across the hall.
And then it happened.
About three hundred meters from the center of the gallery, Livina began to curve her path. Softly. Naturally. Her steps drew a wide arc around the middle of the hall — a perfect circle around absolutely nothing — until she emerged on the other side, still convinced she had walked in a straight line. When our eyes finally met at a distance, she shouted.
"Lord! Can you hear me?"
And she laughed. She was laughing, finding it funny, her own voice echoing through the hall — completely oblivious to what she had just done. Beside me, Morgana's mouth was hanging open.
I, on the other hand, already suspected what it might be. So I asked her to come back — again, in a straight line.
And, after a few steps, there it was: her body curving once more, veering in a circle around something invisible that prevented her from crossing the center — without her registering a single step of the detour.
"This doesn't make sense…"
It was hypnotizing to watch — and profoundly disturbing.
There was no hesitation in her steps. There was no stumble of someone skirting an obstacle. Livina's body simply decided, on its own, that the straight line passed through there — and her mind signed off on it without reading the document. That was what the magic did: it didn't hide the path. It rewrote the will of whoever walked it.
Morgana seemed shocked. I calmed her with a gesture — and, after a few minutes, Livina finally arrived at our side.
"So? Did you notice anything? Because, if you didn't see anything, I myself didn't feel anything — which proves there's simply nothing here."
Livina spoke puffing out her chest, with the absolute certainty of someone who has just proven a point.
She was the living proof of the opposite. And had not the slightest idea.
"You really didn't notice anything?"
Morgana spoke indignantly — genuinely shocked by the fact that Livina hadn't noticed her own body disobeying her.
"What happened?"
Without delay, Morgana explained what we saw — even without properly understanding, herself, why Livina had done that.
"How is this possible…? I mean… illusion magic shouldn't be capable of THAT."
Livina seemed indignant. Morgana, confused. So I decided to answer.
✦ ✦ ✦
"There exists a very rare illusion magic, capable of changing the senses and confusing the mind — to the point of creating a shortcut in the mind of the abducted. I think that, the moment we entered, the magic activated over the three of us."
The magic in question was extremely strong — but with one of the worst cost-benefit ratios that existed.
It was capable of completely confusing the target, yes. But it was easy to break for someone who managed to have awareness of it. And, mainly, it was a magic that couldn't reach many people at the same time. The simple fact that the three of us had been abducted at once, without noticing, already said a lot about the caster. It wasn't impossible to break.
Just difficult. In the worst possible way.
And there was another detail that gave me chills just thinking about it: that spell had been cast centuries ago — maybe millennia. The caster was far away, in some sea on the other side of the world, without renewing it for generations. And, even so, the magic captured three minds the instant we crossed the door, without any of us feeling absolutely anything. That wasn't a spell. It was a leftover of a spell. And still it swallowed us whole.
"What do we need to do to get out of this illusion?"
Morgana questioned, her eyes studying my face — and I realized she had already understood, from my expression, that the answer wouldn't be good.
"Actually, to break this curse, the only thing we need to do is cause damage to the abducted. The problem is that the amount of damage depends on the potency of whoever cast it."
And that was exactly the problem.
Because the caster of that magic, very probably, was the owner of the place. A dragon. Which meant the magic was probably strong enough to demand an amount of damage that would take me straight to death — and even then, it's doubtful anything would break before that.
"Wait… but doesn't that mean it's practically impossible to undo this illusion?"
Livina got straight to the heart of the problem.
To undo that magic, it would take someone capable of suffering an absurd amount of damage — and resisting it — just to manage to see what existed there, hidden in the center of that hall, behind the shortcut in our minds. And none of the three of us had that capacity. Not even close.
My mind ran down the list, and the list was short.
Arachne — wounded, unconscious, and outside — was out of the question. Morgana and Livina would die before the magic even cracked. I, then, didn't even enter the count. Exactly one name was left. A single being, in that entire valley, with resistance enough to swallow the damage of a dragon's spell and remain standing to see what was on the other side.
In truth, I could only think of a single person capable of enduring such an amount of damage and remaining standing to see what really was there.
But, before I could speak her name, a voice shocked the three of us.
"Well, well, well… who would have guessed you had the key this whole time. You have a unique capacity to surprise everyone. Isn't that right… human?"
My entire body locked.
Morgana raised the crossbow in the same instant. Livina placed herself half a step in front of me, out of pure reflex. And I didn't move — because my brain was too busy processing two pieces of information at the same time.
Because I knew that voice. And, by the filthiest irony of fate, it belonged to exactly the only person I could think of as being capable of undoing that illusion magic.
The three of us turned at the same time. Bestaria was standing at the entrance of the gallery, her feline smile open from ear to ear.
And she wasn't alone.