One of the most important constructions of a kingdom is, without a shadow of a doubt, the DNA Alteration.
In truth, the simple fact that it was an expensive construction — and one that would be used no more than three or four times — was, yes, something to question about the cost-benefit. And, even so, it was still the most important. And the reason was simple.
It was in it that it became possible to leave human fragility behind and pursue things that a human, however strong he might be, would never reach. It was there that one managed to level power — not with other humans, but with the races that dominated that era.
Of course, the DNA Alteration had a very clear problem: the limitation of the heroic sample.
That meant that it didn't matter how lucky you were with the randomness of the power acquired through the hero's DNA — before, you needed the luck of managing to get a hero capable of offering relevant powers. One lottery on top of another. And that sum of difficulties made the capacity to have power something as difficult as it was rare. In truth, the probability of a human getting a decent power bordered on the impossible, and it was for this reason that powers that didn't involve visible genetic mutation were already considered a victory in themselves.
And, unfortunately, there was no other way to get powers except through the construction of the DNA Alteration.
That was an unshakable concept of the Oasis — and not for lack of contrary tests. Despite the concept being clear and simple, it apparently only functioned correctly inside the Oasis. At least, that was what I had read in everything that existed about the subject.
It was, in the end, the Oasis's answer to the oldest question of all: how to make a mouse compete with lions.
But that dragon seemed to have a different conception.
✦ ✦ ✦
"You want… to merge your DNA with mine?"
I was in shock at that dragon's proposal.
Because what he was asking was something impossible in concept — one of those absolute truths on which the entire Oasis rested. And, even so, in his hands, it seemed something… easy. Ordinary. Like asking a small favor.
"HAHAHA… There are things few races know about this world, and methods that died many millennia ago. It may not seem so easy, but there are specific ways to make it happen. Of course… the cost is high. But it's something I'm willing to pay."
The dragon spoke in a tranquil way — and, meanwhile, something bothered me beneath the skin.
It was as though that evolved serpent still carried, embedded somewhere, all the snake's malice of its lineage. The words were meek. The tone was generous. And it was exactly for that reason that it was clear, to me, that the cost was much higher than he made it seem.
"Why would you be willing to do this…? What do you gain?"
The dragon was surprised.
It was clear that this wasn't the answer he expected to receive — and I knew exactly why. Greed for power, in the Oasis, was the universal currency. Everyone wanted to become stronger, no matter the cost. Everyone would sell anything for a crumb of what that creature offered on a platter.
But I didn't care about that.
Of course I wanted to be strong enough to stay alive and return home. But I didn't have the greed, nor the pretension, to dominate that world. I just didn't want to die — which was very different from wanting to be the top dog. In the end, I didn't need to be the strongest. I just needed to be stronger than whoever was trying to kill me.
And that meant a lot. One of those things was having the awareness that there are things whose cost can be much higher than the benefit they bring. Distrust wasn't a defect of mine. It was an organ. And it was that which had kept me alive until here.
On Earth, distrust was a defect of character. In the Oasis, it was life expectancy.
"HAHAHAHA… Splendid! You speaking this way, I have even more desire to do this. Don't you understand? There's something in you that tells me the Oasis favors you. I can't understand why… but it doesn't matter. I want to leave here. And, honestly, no one in a radius of millions of kilometers has the capacity to do this. As I said, there's a way. Forming a symbiosis with your DNA."
His words were confusing.
Nothing he said seemed to make sense — the Oasis favored me? Symbiosis? Leaving there? But the enthusiasm behind each sentence said one thing with absolute clarity: this was much deeper than it seemed.
And one sentence, among all of them, stayed lodged: the Oasis favors you. I nailed that sentence to a wall of my mind, to return to it when — if — there was an afterward.
"Sorry… I can't understand anything you're saying. What will merging our DNA mean? You… leaving this place?"
And, finally, I saw something that truly looked like a sinister smile.
That creature's lips widened — and long serrated teeth, each one my size, appeared under the light that came from nowhere.
"Hmm… how interesting. Very well — allow me to explain what this means."
✦ ✦ ✦
The dragon raised its enormous claws — the dark metal of the chains jingling with the movement — and pointed the tip of one of them at my head.
I didn't move.
After all, even if it were something capable of killing me, I felt I wouldn't have the slightest capacity to do anything against it. But, even without knowing what it was, I would still question. Asking was free. Dying without asking, no.
"What do you intend to do?"
"I'm going to show you something surprising… Prepare yourself."
A ray came out of the claw pointing at my face — and entered my forehead as though there were no barrier at all between us.
The moment it hit, I felt a knowledge fill my mind. A river running backward — entire libraries being poured into a glass. And it was clear, from the first instant, that that knowledge didn't belong to me.
But, when I realized what it was… I didn't block it.
It could be a trap. It probably was — knowledge poured by an enemy directly into the mind is the kind of gift that comes with a hook. But I had already done that math: if he wanted to destroy me from within, he wouldn't need tricks. So, if that river was going to pass through me anyway… I would drink the sea.
On the contrary: I tried to extract the maximum possible. In the beginning, it was just useless information — races so ancient they no longer even existed, faceless names, mapless wars. But, even being something with no apparent meaning, I absorbed each drop. To me, nothing was superfluous. All knowledge inside the Oasis was something that could mean my life or my death — and I would make use of every drop of it.
Entire civilizations passed through me in glimpses — forms, colors, downfalls. Nothing had immediate utility. Everything was gold.
And it was then that the specific knowledge finally arrived.
It was something ancient. Simple in essence — and complex in result. That was, clearly, something like the DNA Alteration… but it came from a time when the Oasis didn't yet have this kind of technology in its constructions.
For an instant, the idea fascinated me: so even the Oasis went adapting over time. Adding things. Improving others. As though it were updating a patch, version after version, in search of the best way to level power — and, mainly, competition.
While the DNA Alteration didn't exist, that method was much used by a powerful race that captured its own enemies.
The process was simple — because it needed only the permission of the two to happen.
And it was complex — because the result meant the incorporation of one into the other.
That was sinister in a way I couldn't measure. And, finally, it made me understand why the Oasis preferred to include a construction to abolish that method: because it was cruel. Cruel in the cleanest definition of the word. After all… one of the two died in the process, and normally it was the weaker one.
And then everything became clear to me.
That deal wasn't something advantageous. It never was. That son of a bitch just wanted to leave that place — and I was, in his opinion, the perfect receptacle.
"Wow… you learn things fast. Such knowledge would take hours, even for me. What a perfect receptacle."
I fell to the floor while I heard that dragon's voice.
I didn't know how long I had spent absorbing all that information. I felt the taste of blood in my mouth, and my mind throbbed — like on the days when I would spend hours and hours studying without rest, before entering the Oasis. It was raw knowledge. And, even there, seated, trembling, my mind still worked on its own, separating the useful from what wasn't.
✦ ✦ ✦
"You just want to leave here. Isn't that right?"
"HAHAHAHA… I see that, besides intelligent, you're shrewd."
That would never be a deal.
It was just a pretty way of saying he would take over my body. I would be there, trapped inside my own flesh, unable to control it — a puppet in the hands of that creature, watching my life through the window of my own eyes.
"And if I don't want to do this?"
"That's a good question. And quite brave… Look at this."
Again the dragon moved its arms — and a new body appeared before us. Unconscious, but alive.
"An Orghaal…?"
The dragon seemed to feel something while displaying the creature. And I knew exactly who it was: the same Orghaal who was with Bestaria.
"You understand that you aren't the only option here… In truth, I myself feel some, out there, much more powerful than you — and, even so, it's in you that I have interest. Don't be hasty. Think of your girls."
His eyes turned to Livina and Morgana, still lying on the floor — and he seemed to know exactly who they were.
And then I understood: that power to show memories, probably, wasn't a one-way street. While he poured knowledge into me, he had read everything I was. Every face. Every bond. Every weak point.
Knowing that son of a bitch was trying to bribe me disgusted me. But it also told me something extremely important: despite that new factor — the Orghaal, who in many aspects was stronger than me — I was still, for some reason, more interesting. I didn't understand why. But I needed to reach the heart of that question as fast as possible.
"Well… I think this Orghaal will wake up in less than a minute. What do you think of me giving you this time to think?"
And there was the final play.
The pressure of the badly-made choice due to the short time. It was clear that malicious creature had something in mind — and wouldn't give me time to find the answer.
One minute. Sixty seconds to comb through the memory of a being that existed before my planet cooled. It was like searching for a specific needle in a haystack the size of a galaxy — with a candle going out in my hand.
✦ ✦ ✦
My eyes flew to Morgana and Livina while I tried to organize everything that was happening with the memories I had acquired from that creature.
The material was raw. I would hardly manage to catalogue it in a few days — much less in seconds. But I knew one thing: if there was an answer somewhere, it was in there that I should look. So I stopped searching for answers to things I had never seen… and went after a memory that could tell me who that dragon was.
And my mind found something.
"Tiamat… Why are you doing this…"
"How dare you share something with such beings…"
The memory was confusing — and a large part of it seemed hidden in layers that had been buried with force.
I couldn't see the whole. Only parts that, added together, gave less than the entirety. The information was too spaced out. But one thing was clear, cutting through all the mist: that place wasn't a nest.
It was a prison. And, from what it seemed… eternal.
For a creature that lives forever, "eternal" wasn't an adjective. It was the worst word in the universe.
But what crime did a creature like that commit to receive a punishment worse than death?
I could feel that being's despair. But, mainly, I felt the sadness — the specific, unmistakable sadness of someone betrayed by someone they loved. It wasn't an answer. It was a feeling I couldn't get out of my mind: as though all that remained of that great being was an enormous pain… and an enormous regret.
"Come on… what else do you have to show me?"
I sank even deeper into the memories while time ran.
I could feel the dragon's impatience on the outside — his curious eyes following what I did — while the Orghaal's body, at my side, showed signs of an awakening at any moment. I dove again. Deeper. Hunting for anything.
Until I finally reached a small memory. And a very well-hidden one.
Buried not like someone who keeps a treasure — but like someone who hides a wound. Layers and more layers of deliberate forgetting, scar over scar, protecting a single instant.
In truth, I would never have noticed it if I weren't looking, specifically, for something related to that enormous creature. In it, the dragon seemed to be talking to someone… and it wasn't a dragon. It was a bipedal creature — that I couldn't recognize, however much I tried.
But the strange thing wasn't the contact.
It was the feeling. Sharp and clear, impregnated in every fiber of that memory. It wasn't fear. It wasn't rage. It wasn't loneliness. It was something purer — and more beautiful.
Love.
But… how?
"Time is passing, human. You need to make your choice."
I awoke from the memory at the exact moment the Orghaal seemed to wake from sleep.
"Where am I…"
The words came out in his dialect — but I knew what they meant. I was out of time.
What did that mean? Why did that memory seem so important — and, even so, was so hidden? I felt that was the answer. But I still couldn't find the correct question to use it. It was confusing. I lacked reference. And time was too short — my mind could only reach a certain point on its own.
I needed help.
And then, finally, I understood: I could ask the question directly to the source of the answer.
It was a bet. Calling a god by a name he didn't give me could kill me in the same second. But safe questions don't buy expensive answers.
"Who was she…? Vo'ruun."
The dragon seemed shocked.
For just a second. Then something more primal took the place of the shock — rising up the colossal neck like a storm that decides to be born.
"HOW DARE YOU?!"
✦ ✦ ✦
The moment he screamed, our eyes met — and we were torn from the exchange of gaze by a desperate scream that came from the unconscious one at our side.
"AHHHHHHHH, A DRAGONNN… NOOO, DON'T KILL ME… AHHHH… HELP… THIS IS A DREAM! IT'S IMPOSSIBLE… YESSS!"
The Orghaal had woken — and screamed, laughed, and pinched himself at the same time, desperate, trying to convince himself that none of it was real.
The dragon seemed to become irritated. And I didn't blame him: those screams hurt even in my human ears — imagine in a dragon's. He made the same gesture he had made with me… but, this time, the ray that came out of his fingers carbonized the Orghaal's body in the middle of a laugh.
The smell arrived before the silence.
"Well… this is a more normal reaction."
The dragon spoke, still irritated — and, again, the odds seemed to tip to my side. His only other option had just turned to ashes from the impatience of its own owner.
"You're a very irritating creature, human."
He pointed his finger at me.
I didn't move — honestly, even if I wanted to, I don't know if I could. But what came out of his fingers, this time, was something softer. Finer. And, even so, my scream was of pain: it was as though someone were rummaging inside my mind with their own hands, turning drawers, tearing out pages. It lasted a few seconds. And it was enough for me to nearly lose consciousness.
When it ended, I no longer remembered anything related to him — except what I had seen.
In truth, it was as though that memory had become just a static picture. With no certain beginning. With no ending. A single frozen image, torn from a story someone made a point of burning.
✦ ✦ ✦
"I think my other option is gone. What do you think of just accepting what I have to offer, and ending this? After all… it's this or death. Which do you prefer?"
And, finally, I felt that Vo'ruun had dropped the complicated, slippery words — and revealed his true intentions.
It was clear that doing what he asked was, very probably, my ruin. From what I had understood of the process, upon accepting, he would give me the power — but also part of his soul, which would enter into direct conflict with mine. And only the victor would take over the host. I still didn't understand what would happen to his original body. But I knew one thing with absolute certainty:
The conflict between the soul of a human and that of a dragon was not the best choice I could make in life.
While I thought about that, I turned my eyes to the two girls — who kept their eyes closed, as though they were in a deep sleep.
Morgana, who was always at my side supporting and protecting me when I still had nothing beyond a few towers and a handful of soldiers. Livina, who even disobeying my orders always went to fight at my side. If the price of my bet were paid by them… then it wasn't a bet. It was betrayal.
"What will happen to them… if I'm gone?"
"Hmm… A Lord who cares about his heroes. I thought that had ended some ten million years ago… Very well: they will still be under my command. But, if you wish, I will free them. Honestly, with my power, I won't need them for my objective."
The words were consoling. And also arrogant.
Because, to that dragon, it was already clear who would win the merging process. He already knew, in the tranquil certainty of gods, who would be the loser between a human soul and a dragon's soul.
And the worst part was that I also knew there weren't many options beyond accepting.
After all, if the Orghaal had entered that place, then everyone out there had already discovered that there was an illusion right in the middle of the gallery. It wouldn't take long for others to come — and for me to stop being the best available option.
Even though, by the way he spoke, even with thousands of kilometers of perception… I was still the best option.
Of course I had a quite capable kingdom. But I was still new — and without support, without money, without contacts. I held my own against a middling kingdom, but there were ancient and enormous kingdoms that would win the fight through sheer smothering. Even the Tyrin, weak as they were, nearly brought me to ruin — a card different from the planned one, and the whole castle fell. I knew that my kingdom, however interesting it might be, was still a young kingdom. And, for that reason, weak.
Even so, that dragon seemed not to care.
What did he see in me that I myself didn't see? The question kept itching — the same question as always, deep down. Since the mark. Since the box. Since the Purge. Why me?
"And if I win…?"
The dragon's smile seemed genuinely long. And without measure.
He really found it funny, the simple fact that I even conceived the probability. But I felt that, despite being extremely difficult, there was a way out — I just didn't yet know what it was. And tearing the words from that mouth, even if they came out in the form of a joke, was still the best way I could conceive of searching for it.
"HAHAHA… You really are of a very funny race… Of course, of course. If, for some reason, you manage to conquer your body, I will grant you much power — and a few things more… What do you think? Shall we?"
The words, in the end, came out almost like a plea.
A crazy, urgent desire to finalize the process — and I couldn't conceive the reason. I still tried to understand while I turned over, for the thousandth time, the process and the ways to win. But, with what had been torn from my memory, everything seemed a photo with no beginning nor end. I would have to understand the entire process seeing only one stage — which wasn't, necessarily, at the beginning nor the end.
But hesitating wasn't an option that existed at that table. In the Oasis, whoever doesn't choose… is chosen.
"Very well…"
I saw the expectation grow in that enormous creature while my mouth formed the words.
But, if that creature believed I would accept to lose… it was very mistaken. I wouldn't hand over even one percent of my soul to it.
War for war, that one would be waged on the only battlefield where I never lost: inside my own head.
"I accept."
✦ ✦ ✦
As soon as my words ended, the dragon had already touched the colossal tip of the claw to my forehead. And closed its eyes.
The immense pain invaded me in the same instant — as though my entire body were going to tear at the seams.
I felt the same thing I had felt when I incorporated Zaridan's DNA. Only, this time, I wasn't comfortably lying down. And, in the same way, I couldn't black out. If I blacked out, I would be finished.
I would have to face that monster with my mind.
The mind that brought me here. The mind that built a kingdom from nothing. If it wasn't enough now… nothing else would be.
"AHHHHHHHH… AHHHHHHHH!"
"That's it, little sheep… scream… Scream… SCREEEEAM!"
I could see Vo'ruun scream with joy — as though victory were already within reach of those claws.
I bit my own teeth until I felt them crack. I wouldn't give him the taste of winning easy.
But, suddenly… everything went black.
✦ ✦ ✦
"That's the second time in less than a year… Are you wanting to be our friend?"
I recognized that immensity of void as my eyes glimpsed the place.
The same nothing with no floor and no echo. The same cold that came from no temperature.
But, mainly, I knew who was speaking to me.
"Hello, Zaridan… How are you?"
In the immensity of that darkness, Zaridan remained exactly the same.
The giant behind him, however, was different. This time, the creature seemed asleep — the head low, motionless, plunged into a deep sleep while its horn seemed to hang outward like wings open but fallen. And there was something else: that being, which was already bizarrely gigantic, seemed to be… larger.
I registered the two details. And didn't ask about either.
"Seems you're the type who makes the impossible look easy… Irritating even a dragon, and one of the great ones at that. What the hell was going through your head?"
Zaridan didn't speak with seriousness.
He spoke with that tone of scorn and inconsistency as always — as though he didn't care about anything, and even found it all funny, even if the words that came out of his mouth were exactly the same ones any serious person would say.
"Is there any way… out of this?"
And, for the first time since I met him, I saw Zaridan seem genuinely happy about something.
It was strange. That situation was bad for both of us: me losing my soul meant, for him, being trapped in the incapacity to leave where he was for all eternity — and, for me, it meant virtually dying. Neither of us gained anything from my defeat.
And, even so, that creature seemed strangely happy.
Happy like a salesman who waited his entire life for the right customer to walk through the door.
"What do you intend to do with my situation, if I help a brother? You know… here, beside the big guy, it's not as nice as it seems."
The giant creature kept its head low, as though it were in a deep sleep — very different from the last time, in which its face, however much I couldn't see it, seemed to look directly into my soul.
"What do you desire?"
"What else does a poor prisoner desire… if not freedom?"