"Eris… So you came back. Why?"
My question was simple.
After all, I myself believed Eris had fled — and I didn't blame her for it. But the army behind her, and the figures accompanying her, seemed to tell a different story. Alongside Eris and Bestaria, I could see two enormous Orghaal, four-armed, with armor worth more than entire kingdoms. Two FairyWood hovering at mid-height, their wings buzzing low. And even a Lycan — tall, gray, its yellow eyes sweeping over everything.
The Lords of the belt. Or what remained of them.
It wasn't the complete envoy — but it was much more than enough to finish us off ten times over before I even finished shouting an order.
And, despite being stopped in front of us, none of them seemed truly interested in me. Everyone's eyes slid over my shoulders, hungry, hunting the interior of that enormous gallery — as though each one were already counting, in silence, their own share of the treasure.
It was almost possible to hear the divisions happening behind those eyes — who would keep what, who would betray whom, and in what order. The entire belt had marched all the way here moved by the same story as always. Only, now, the story had an open door.
"Cool, right? Imagine my surprise when my pupil went to fetch help. Sometimes, you need people you trust… even if they're from other races."
Bestaria seemed genuinely happy, licking her lips with the pride of someone who not only managed to return to that place — but returned on top.
Eris, on the other hand, didn't look at me.
Her eyes fled to the floor, to the walls, to anywhere that wasn't my face. And that told me more than any explanation: she hadn't fled. She had gone to fetch reinforcements — and come back with an entire pack of predators, not with the intent of helping, but of managing to gain something from it.
And the most irritating part was that I couldn't hate her for it. In a zero-sum world, seeking the stronger side wasn't betrayal — it was survival. I would have done the same.
✦ ✦ ✦
Bestaria's happiness, however, soured fast — the exact moment the Orghaal began to speak.
"Bestaria, cut the stalling and take the ring from this thieving human."
"Yes. How dare a mere human steal something we've sought for years?"
"Death to this stinking human!"
The words of rage began to spread like fire through dry grass.
And even the other races seemed irritated — because, just like me, all of them must have been frustrated to see that, contrary to expectations, there was nothing, anywhere, in that giant hall. Frustration looks for a culprit. And the cheapest culprit in the room was always the human.
"Shut your mouths, all of you. Maybe you haven't noticed, but everything in here is MINE. You just need to stay back and kill the guardian when it starts moving again."
Bestaria didn't speak with rage.
In truth, it sounded more like venting than anything else — the bored tone of someone repeating an obviousness to slow children. But, if there was one thing I believed, it was that her race was brutally sincere in its own words. However gentle the speech.
"How dare you… Wignall would never allow—"
The sentence never ended.
A dagger crossed the fairy in the middle of the word. And, even being just a dagger, the FairyWood was too small — the blow was fatal. The fairy stayed there, impaled in the air, spitting blood and looking frightened at everyone — as though it expected someone to explain what had just happened to it — before dropping to the floor.
The small body hit the packed earth with a sound that didn't match the violence of the moment — light, almost delicate. The other fairy didn't move. Didn't scream. It just rose half a meter into the air, silent, and stayed staring at its dead partner, its wings vibrating too fast. Grief and terror sharing the same beat of wings.
"I think you didn't understand. Wignall is dead. And this here is no longer a democracy, gentlemen. Should you wish to die, I myself will take you to meet your whore mothers. So shut the fuck up."
The shock of the words — now with all the ferocity out in the open — froze everyone where they stood.
No one moved. No one answered. Not even the four-armed Orghaal, each one nearly double her size. And, watching that, I understood something with an icy clarity: if there was any kind of good sense in that group, it had died the exact moment Bestaria glimpsed the open nest. The lioness before us was no longer a leader negotiating with peers.
She was an heiress taking possession.
And newly-crowned heiresses were the most dangerous creatures that existed — because they still needed to prove, to others and to themselves, that the crown belonged to them.
✦ ✦ ✦
"Very well… where were we? Give me the ring, human, and let's see what this place has provided us."
I did have a ring, yes.
But I knew that, in that moment, the ring was the least of my problems. Because, just like all of them… I had nothing.
"Well, Miss Bestaria… maybe we have a problem here."
Bestaria's smile of scorn died with my words.
"Don't take me for a fool, human. Just because you healed me, don't believe I wouldn't kill you simply for speaking so informally."
I raised my hand slowly, showing there was no trick in it.
"I think you need to see for yourself."
I took the ring off my finger and tossed it to her.
Bestaria caught it in the air with a sharp movement — and I saw, out of the corner of my eye, all the covetous stares of the envoy follow that little piece of metal like dogs following a scrap of meat. But no one there seemed to have the courage to contradict that Burman. After all, if there was anyone capable of fighting her… that someone was dead, his chest caved in a few meters away.
The silence while she rummaged through the ring lasted a small eternity. I knew that kind of silence. It was the same that precedes verdicts.
It didn't take long for Bestaria to raise her eyes. And they came loaded with rage.
"What the fuck is this, human…? There's NOTHING here."
The revelation ran through the envoy like a collective shiver.
Everyone went into shock — probably thinking I had gone completely insane, handing an empty ring to an armed Burman.
"I think you didn't understand, Miss. I entered shortly before you arrived. There's NOTHING in there because there was nothing anywhere here to be put into this ring."
And that was when something strange happened.
My sentence left everyone… anxious. Restless in a way I couldn't explain. I didn't understand why — until Bestaria began to laugh. Frantically.
"HAHAHAHA! You really are crazy! You killed a few Infernals and already think everyone's as idiotic as they are. If you say there's nothing in here… then WHY have you been here for almost a WHOLE DAY? Were you playing with your whores, is that it?"
The shock of the revelation caught me completely off guard.
A day? A WHOLE day? I had clearly been in there for a few minutes. An hour, at most, stretching it a lot. I remembered every step, every conversation, the test with Livina — none of that added up to a day.
I redid the math in my head, step by step. The entrance. The disappointment. The search along the walls. The test with Livina — two laps, a few minutes each. The explanation of the magic. Adding it all up, with room to spare… one hour. Maybe an hour and a half, being generous. There wasn't a lost day anywhere in that memory. Or there was — and I simply didn't have access to it. And that second possibility was much, much worse.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
My question was valid. After all, I myself couldn't understand what that giant lioness was talking about.
This time, however, the one who answered me was Eris — placing herself in the way.
"For the love of God, Leonidas. We're not playing here. My family won't be able to protect you if you don't hand over what you had in here. Your mission already ended the moment that Tyrin queen was killed. Don't get yourself killed over something bigger than us."
And it was her eyes — that genuine fear, that confusion without theater — that finally made me believe Bestaria wasn't lying.
"Your mission already ended." Her words kept echoing. The contract that brought me here, the borrowed troops, her family's protection — all of that had an expiration. And the expiration had run out along with the Matre Queen. I was no longer the belt's contracted defender. I was just a human standing between the greatest powers of the region and their treasure.
My mind began to fly through the possibilities of what had happened. Maybe that place wasn't just an empty hall, after all. Maybe it was a place outside the reality we were in — with its own time and, probably, its own rules. That would be inconceivable in any normal aspect of the Oasis. But, when it came to dragons, things got clouded and confusing. Maybe it was possible.
Either way, I had a gigantic problem on my hands.
Because the fact that I had spent "a whole day" in there made everyone believe I was hiding whatever existed in that place. Maybe that was even a kind of trap of the nest itself — a way of planting intrigue among those who stayed outside. Maybe it was something simpler. In the end, I was as confused as it was possible to be. And the real problem came down to a single sentence:
It didn't matter what I said. A Burman who understands only war would never believe me.
"Sorry… but what I'm saying is true. Only, honestly, I don't know how to prove it to you."
✦ ✦ ✦
My mind raced after a way out.
Fighting was out of the question — I wouldn't beat even one of those leaders, much less all of them. Letting them search me also wouldn't solve it: most of the races there were intolerant with whoever they considered an enemy, and none of them had psychic capacity enough to verify whether I was lying. An empty search would only confirm, in their heads, that I had hidden everything somewhere else.
Suddenly, a bitter thought crossed me: what monumental bad luck of mine. Of all the possible outcomes of that fight down below… the one who survived was precisely Bestaria, and not Wignall.
Wignall was an Aquamarine, known for their coldness and calculation — but also for being a being of rules and mental powers. With him, there would be negotiation, logic, investigation. Bestaria was another kind of problem: a huntress with decades of hunger from the search, standing before the greatest prey of her life. And if there's something you don't negotiate with a Burman, it's hunger.
But that wasn't the moment to chew over what had already happened. It was the moment to find a way out.
And the only thing I could think of was the space where we couldn't enter — the forbidden center of the gallery. The only thing capable of saving us. Or, at least, of giving us answers. The problem was the same as always: the only known way to break that illusion was to inflict an absurd amount of damage on the abducted… or to modify the mind itself to escape it — something my body would never allow. Under no hypothesis.
Unless…
My mind finally spat out a solution. Crazy. Idiotic, maybe. But it was the only thing that could work.
"Livina. Create three Treebeards. Now."
Livina opened a smile from ear to ear.
"That's it! If we're going to die, I'm taking at least one of these sons of bitches with me!"
While she summoned the wooden giants — and announced war to the audience — Bestaria began to laugh, and Eris went into a panic.
"ARE YOU CRAZY?! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! YOU'LL NEVER BEAT BESTARIA!"
Eris shouted while Bestaria drew, from inside her ring, another enormous axe — identical to the one she had left buried in the guardian's heel. Behind her, all the other leaders did the same: blades, hammers, claws, wands. An arsenal capable of bringing down a small kingdom, aimed at three people and three trees.
And I just smiled.
Because I didn't need to fight.
Bestaria stopped. Her smile wavered — and the feline eyes began to run to the sides, hunting for traps, mechanisms, hidden reinforcements, anything that would explain my confidence. It was just a bluff, of course. I would never have the capacity to fight against any of the leaders present there — the mere power their weapons exuded already said enough about their capabilities. But I needed them to think I had a card up my sleeve.
At least until my idea worked.
"Who do I shoot first, my Lord?"
Morgana approached me, her crossbow already aimed at Bestaria's face, her voice low and firm as always.
"No one, Morgana. We're not going to fight."
I spoke quietly, and her face filled with confusion — but I had no time to explain.
"Let's fall back to the point where Livina made the curve. Livina! Retreat with your Treebeards. We're falling back."
And my bet on confusion worked.
Bestaria preferred caution — advancing slowly, her eyes still hunting for the invisible trap, and placing Eris in the vanguard while she herself stayed a step behind, uncomfortable with an enemy who smiled while retreating.
"Please… give yourself up… Please."
Eris begged while advancing, and I honestly felt sorry for her.
But I knew exactly what would happen if I gave myself up: that bitch would dissect me alive, just to make sure I hadn't swallowed anything. There wasn't the slightest possibility of me giving up.
And there was something almost comic in the scene, if someone could watch from outside: a girl begging in the vanguard, a crowned lioness advancing in fear of an unarmed man… and the unarmed man betting his own life on three trees and a theory.
"My Lord… we're at the point."
Morgana spoke without stopping her retreat, her eyes fixed on the enemy advancing carefully, searching every shadow.
"Perfect. Livina — ask your Treebeards to grab us and throw us backward, with the maximum force they can manage. Then, undo the summon."
And, finally, something gleamed in Morgana's and Livina's eyes at the same time.
"HAHAHAHA… I get it!"
Livina smiled upon understanding the idea — and I almost smiled along, because, deep down, it was too simple.
Illusion magic, at the end of the day, was magic that only obscured a place. It didn't make it vanish. That center was forbidden to my mind — but not to my body. The illusion rewrote the will of whoever walked… so all it took was removing the will from the equation. No one manages to veer around a place when they're flying through the air with no control at all.
The Treebeards would break the rule for us.
Of course there was an obvious problem in the plan: I had not the slightest idea what existed on the other side. We could be throwing ourselves into a treasure. We could be throwing ourselves into the mouth of something. But, between the certainty of Bestaria's dissection and the mystery of the forbidden center… the mystery won easily.
"HAHAHAHA! So you're going to throw yourselves at me? Fine — I myself will cut you to pieces."
Bestaria and the others stopped upon seeing our bodies being lifted by the giant wooden hands.
Probably, everyone believed we would try to flee — or set up some last-minute trick with the summons. But, to the general surprise, it was nothing like that I intended.
The Treebeards turned toward the center of the gallery.
And hurled us.
The world became wind and vertigo. The floor vanished beneath me, the ceiling spun overhead, and, for a whole second, I was just an object — with no control, no will, no direction of my own. Exactly as the plan demanded.
At the last instant, I still managed to see the confused smiles of the Orghaal, trying to process what the hell that crazy human was doing — and then, before I could turn my eyes back…
They vanished.
In truth, everything vanished. The gallery, the leaders, the light. And only a total darkness filled my eyes.
✦ ✦ ✦
I didn't feel my body fall anywhere.
There was no impact. There was no floor. It was as though I were floating in a dark, infinite sky — suspended in the vacuum, with no up, no down, no reference at all. I didn't hear the wind. I didn't hear my own movements. The silence was so complete that it seemed to have texture.
"Morgana…! Livina…! Are you there?!"
I shouted, trying to reach the girls — but my voice died a few centimeters from my mouth, swallowed by the nothing. And the sensation that remained was the worst of all: that of being completely alone.
How long did I stay there? Minutes? Hours? In that place, the question had no answer — and, after what Bestaria had said outside, I no longer trusted even my own internal clock. Time, in there, was one more rule that belonged to someone else.
"Very well… Zaetar, come to me."
I tried the summon.
And nothing happened. No light, no familiar weight materializing at my side, no answer. It was as though, there, in that place, I were nothing more than a common human — stripped of everything I had built, conquered, and bled to have.
I thought of other ways. Discarded them one by one. Until, finally, I remembered the box.
"Damn… if I had it with me… maybe it would work."
The box had been left behind — fitted into the gate, fulfilling the role of key. And, before the rage at my own lack of options could grow…
I felt something appear in my hands.
I didn't see it. I didn't hear it. I only felt it — the weight, the straight edges, the corners. I couldn't say what it was, nor how it had gotten there. But, by the shape, I could understand.
So I opened it.
The scream filled the entire environment all at once — the millenary growl, immense, the same one that always tore me apart inside. Only, this time, the pain didn't come. Not a drop of blood rose up my throat. On the contrary: the darkness began to come undone with the sound — dissolving at the edges like smoke in the wind, layer by layer, until the light returned.
And what the light revealed was no longer the stone gallery. The floor beneath my feet had another color. The air had another taste. Whatever that place was… we had crossed into it.
And, when the dark was completely gone, I could finally look to the side.
Morgana and Livina were fallen, unconscious.
"Morgana! Livina! Are you okay?!"
I ran in their direction with something squeezing my heart — fear, probably, that something had happened to the two of them in that vacuum. I couldn't say whether they had arrived like that… or whether they were still trapped in some corner of that darkness, without a box to open a path. And not knowing was worse than any answer.
✦ ✦ ✦
"How interesting… What race are you?"
The voice came from behind me.
And, along with it, came a breath — strong, hot, immense — from something gigantic, beating against my back like a tidal wave. My mind was still trying to check how Morgana was. My hands still held her shoulder. But my entire body had already understood, before me, that none of that mattered anymore.
I turned.
And my knees trembled and folded on their own, placing me on the ground without asking permission.
Before me was the most majestic creature I had ever seen in my life.
A face that seemed to be dozens of meters wide, covered in scales that shone with a light of their own — blue and silver alternating with each breath, like the reflection of the sun on the surface of an ocean. Eyes the size of houses, vertical, ancient, studying me with a calm curiosity that was a thousand times worse than any fury. Each exhalation from those nostrils displaced the air around me. Each second before that thing crushed a little more something inside me that I didn't even know existed.
I knew what that was.
Anyone, in any corner of the universe, would know what that was. You didn't need a book, a study, a legend. It was a knowledge that came engraved in the flesh — the most ancient instinct of all, the one that exists only to tell a small creature that it stands before a god.
The pressure that emanated from that existence resembled nothing I had ever felt — not the Matre, not the guardian. It was like being at the bottom of an ocean: the weight coming from all sides at the same time, calm, uniform, and absolutely indifferent to my capacity to withstand it.
And the creature simply waited. Without hurry. Without threat. With the patience of someone who has all the time in the universe — and knows it.
My stomach clenched until it hurt. And I felt, with no shame left over to prevent it, my bladder let go.
"A Dragon."