I felt my body and throat burning — but it was the taste of blood in my mouth that woke me.
My eyes took a while to focus on what was happening around me. The strange floor. The sourceless light. The memories coming back in disordered blocks: the deal, the fire, the two suns, the pain. It didn't take long for me to realize where I was and to look for Morgana and Livina — still unconscious, but apparently fine. Breathing. Whole.
I let out a breath I didn't even know I was holding. Whatever that dragon had done to me… he had spared the two of them.
I looked at my own hands. The skin was new — too new, without the burn marks that should have been there. The process that nearly killed me had, apparently, reassembled me completely. A terrible method of healing, and honestly one I'd prefer never to go through again.
"Damn… how much time has passed?"
I felt my body creak as I tried to move — each joint complaining like old wood, as though I had gone rigid in the same position for hours.
And "hours," in that place, was a dangerous word. Out there, time ran faster — and each minute I spent unconscious in here could be costing an entire day in the real world. My kingdom was out there. Without news. Without me.
And then I remembered the dragon.
I turned my face at once, my heart accelerating even before my eyes found the target. But, unlike the first time I saw him… now he seemed to be in a deep sleep, and I say this because I could still see the colossal body moving slowly, in the rhythm of the heavy breathing of someone submerged too deep to dream.
Each exhalation from those nostrils still displaced the air around — but the weight was gone. The oceanic pressure that crushed the entire place… simply no longer existed. The god was still there. Only now, he was just a giant body breathing in the dark.
I didn't know how it worked, for him, what he had done.
Zeus said the incorporation was a success — and I knew exactly what that would have meant for me if it had been the other way around. But I didn't know whether the rule applied to the dragon in the same way. In theory, his soul should be destroyed. Or, at the very least, damaged. Only, something in me said that a creature like that didn't enter a game like this without a countermeasure to survive.
And I wouldn't stay there waiting to find out whether it existed.
"Damn… I need to get up."
My body creaked in protest, the pain covering every centimeter — but I advanced to Morgana and Livina anyway. Their serene faces reassured me… and, at the same time, made it clear that waking them wouldn't be easy at all.
I called. Shook them gently. Nothing. Their sleep wasn't that of someone resting — it was that of someone who had been switched off. And that bothered me more than I wanted to admit; after all, if it were something caused by the sleeping giant, it should have ended the moment I won.
✦ ✦ ✦
It was while I observed Morgana that the sensation arrived: something was watching me from behind.
I turned by instinct — and found one of the creatures that had been with Bestaria.
It was clearly a Lycan. Tall, gray, the long claws hanging at his sides — nearly two and a half meters of muscle and fur, standing in the middle of nothing like a forgotten statue. But the strange thing was that he seemed simply not to see me there. His yellow eyes were focused on the dragon — and only on the dragon — with the expression of someone who found something fascinating and frightening at the same time.
Of course, with Vo'ruun unconscious, everything in that place seemed simpler. Less suffocating. The air could be breathed without asking permission. But, even so, that Lycan remained static, observing the enormous sleeping creature — perhaps calculating, in silence, what he could do there.
And it was exactly that kind of calculation that worried me. Because, before a treasure of that size, the ideas born in the head of any creature always follow the same order: first, how to take possession. Then… how to erase the witnesses.
"Damn… I need to heal myself. Otherwise, this son of a bitch is going to be a problem."
My concern was simple — and enormous.
Because now it was discovered that there was a dragon there. Imprisoned. Asleep. Subject to anything, from any race. And that would be too tempting for anyone. The dragon had never explained what losing that battle meant for him — it could be that he would stay in that state forever; it could be that he was merely weakened. The only thing I was certain of was that there had been a cost for what he did. And, most certainly, it wasn't low.
The fact is that creature had stopped being an immediate danger… to become a treasure in itself.
A treasure the size of a mountain, defenseless, at the bottom of a hole that half a dozen races knew about. Scales worth kingdoms. Blood worth wars. Knowledge of entire eras locked in a sleeping head. There didn't exist, in all the Oasis, a better bait to turn allies into enemies. And I was there. I knew. Which, very probably, made me an uncomfortable piece on the board of anyone who wanted that prize all to themselves.
✦ ✦ ✦
"Come on, girls… it's not time to stay sleeping."
I held Morgana firmly while I tried to cast healing magic.
I knew I was weak — the price of having held a dragon's fireball with my own arms didn't disappear by sleeping. But I needed to try.
And then came the surprise.
The power came out as always… only, this time, I felt as though I could do it without any effort at all. No weight. No drag. In truth, I felt I could cast that power for hours — like breathing.
It was like spending an entire life carrying water in a leaking bucket… and, suddenly, discovering that the river ran inside you.
"Wait… Zeus. Show me my status."
The cold voice answered immediately — and, for the first time that night, brought good news.
[ Understood… Analyzing… Analyzing… Compiling. ]
[ STATUS — Leonidas Aquiles | Lv. 4 ]
[ Strength: 36 ] +100
[ Intelligence: 6 ] +100
[ Dexterity: 8 ] +100
[ Agility: 6 ] +100
[ Magic: 2 ] +100
[ Aqrabuamelu — Zaetar (Unique) ]
[ Archons — Superior Healing (Legendary) ]
[ Blood Magic (Rare) ]
[ Mark of Bordlands (Mythic) ]
[ Incorporated soul of Vo'ruun: ]
[ — Voice of Command (Legendary) ]
[ — Hard Skin (Legendary) ]
[ — Blood Trail (Legendary) ]
[ — Affinity with Magic (Unique) ]
[ — Power of Inheritance (Unique) ]
I was completely in shock.
Because I hadn't just managed to incorporate the dragon. I had incorporated his powers.
And not one. Several.
Five new lines shone on my sheet as though they had always been there — plus those hundred points, repeated beside each attribute, transforming my ridiculous human numbers into something I didn't even know how to measure. I read the list twice. Three times. Each reading seemed more unreal than the last.
My numbers, before, were those of a human who fought for each point like someone digging a well with a spoon. Now, each line carried a "plus one hundred" — as though the Oasis had decided to rewrite the definition of what I was.
Voice of Command. Hard Skin. Blood Trail. Affinity with Magic. Power of Inheritance. Five names I had never seen on any sheet — and that didn't come with a single line of explanation. Typical. The Oasis handed out gifts the way one hands out bombs: wrapped, without a manual, and with the fuse lit.
✦ ✦ ✦
And, unfortunately, while I was still in shock at what I saw… a voice finally addressed me.
"Hey, you… human. You really wanted all of this just for yourself, didn't you?"
Maybe it was the simple fact that my healing magic seemed much stronger now — the colors more vivid, more contrasting, impossible to hide. I couldn't say what alerted him. I only knew one thing: the Lycan was advancing in my direction.
Of course I was shocked at the power I had just discovered. But, honestly, I had no idea whether I was a match for that creature — which, most certainly, was quite ancient in the Oasis. Numbers on a sheet were one thing. Using them was another entirely.
But his eyes said there was no room for conversation.
I stood up, leaving Morgana where she was, and advanced in his direction too. The bloodlust exuded from that creature like heat from a furnace — rage, maybe. Or simple irritation. But one thing was clear: he hated me.
And hatred, coming from a creature with retractable claws and a meter of reach, was a problem of logistics. Mine. The question wasn't beating his hatred. It was surviving his first five seconds.
"You got what you wanted. Why do you need to go so far?"
I was genuinely confused.
Because, with a sleeping dragon right there as a prize — the greatest treasure any race could dream of — that creature's eyes wouldn't come off me.
It was like watching someone ignore a mountain of gold to step on an ant. It made no sense… until it did.
"You don't understand, do you, human? Do you really think something like THIS can leak to the outside? You're a side effect. Nothing more. Feel happy to die by my hands. After I get this creature's power, I myself am going to kill that Burman bitch. You know everything I had to endure to survive this shithole with that bitch — I myself am going to leave her in pieces."
Of course I knew this was going to happen. If there was something I could count on, it was greed — that was something everyone in the Oasis seemed to share like an infectious disease.
I just thought I would have time. Maybe he wanted to take advantage of my heroes being unconscious. Maybe he simply wasn't in the mood to seem polite. In the end, it came to the same thing: that would be settled the old way.
And, deep down, I couldn't even blame him. In his place, with a secret of that size breathing right there beside me… I also wouldn't leave witnesses. The difference is that I didn't intend to be one.
✦ ✦ ✦
When he was a few meters from me, his claws began to extend — growing, growing, until they reached nearly a meter of living blade.
The air whistled around them — the thin, specific sound of something too sharp existing too close.
And I formed a shield with the mark.
Only, this time, I felt something different. A slack where before there was a limit. A space where before there was a wall. So I didn't stop at the shield: I formed a sword — and, pushing the sensation to the end, I tried to form an entire armor.
My body began to close around the black mark.
Plate by plate, the black went covering every part of me — arms, chest, legs, shoulders — until the entire world gained the contour of a helmet. Honestly, my thought was to form a hoplite helmet, but it managed to go further, giving a form as beautiful as it was secure, contouring the neck and even with a closed visor. The mark didn't weigh. It didn't squeeze. It molded itself to me as though it had always been my skin — and only now had received permission to return to its place. I flexed my fingers inside the black gauntlets, and my body responded without delay — faster, even, than without it. If it weren't for the situation I was in, discovering in the middle of a fight that I could now use the power on my whole body… I would be jumping with happiness.
"Hmm… what an interesting armor. Let's see what a mere human is capable of doing with this."
He brought the claw down casually.
The blow of someone who has an approximate idea of the opponent's power — and sees no reason to make an effort. And it was exactly for that reason that the two of us were surprised at the same time.
The claw stopped on the shield. Without causing any damage.
In truth, the force of the blow seemed even… soft. A touch. If it weren't for the surprise on his face, I myself would have thought he'd merely let gravity bring the blow down.
"How?"