"Do you think there'll be enough time?"
"Of course there will. They spend hours on this."
"Do you think he's bleeding? I get so… worked up when I see him sweaty. Even more so when he's bleeding."
"Liv, wipe your chin and run faster than me."
From a distance it was possible to see two figures cutting through the territory — fast as shadows, weaving around workers, passing the evolved houses, leaping structures built with the intention of being challenges, with the agility of those who had learned the nuances of that place better than its own builder. The kingdom was unrecognizable. Many months of peace, rational management and investments that most Lords would never dream of had done more than years of battle would have — the structures had grown, the workers had been developed to the point of carrying quantities of supplies that no human, even the strongest, could manage. What had begun as a newcomer's territory had acquired the solidity of something that had decided to last.
THOOM... THOOM.
"Did you hear? They're still fighting."
"Phew. I thought I was going to arrive late."
The two continued advancing until they passed through the main wall and entered the enormous plain outside. And there they found what they were looking for — amid enormous craters, fallen trees and burned grass.
"Come on, Zaetar — you're better than that. Give it your best."
"Don't underestimate me, my Lord." — the Primordial's deep voice echoed across the plain with the solidity of something that had forgotten what it was like to speak at normal volume. — "I destroyed worlds when your ancestors were still drawing on walls — HRAAAH!"
The ground exploded. The enormous scorpion-man's pincers tore the earth with each step, trying to drive the stinger into the figure before him — but the figure was fast. Too fast for anything Zaetar tried to calculate before executing.
"He's so masculine." — Livina murmured. — "Look at those muscles."
"Liv, you need to learn to control yourself." — Morgana said without taking her eyes off the combat. — "I'm still the favorite."
"Shut up. That muscular and virile man will never be content with just one bipedal woman like you."
Morgana looked at Livina — who was running her hand along her own pincer legs — and fell silent, evaluating whether that creature was aware that she was half scorpion or was simply blind to the subject. Before she could respond, a word cut through the air. Impossible until a few weeks ago. More frequent now.
"I yield, Lord."
"Of course you do, my friend." — the voice arrived calm, without lost breath. — "Thank you for the training."
The sword was resting against the great creature's neck, which was immobilized on the ground in a way that Morgana still hadn't been able to fully understand — only that it had happened. Complicated for anyone else. Simple, when it was him.
"That's insane. He doesn't even get hurt anymore." — Livina murmured. — "I wonder if Zaetar is going easy on him?"
"Shut up, Liv." — Morgana said with the tone of someone who had had that conversation more than once. — "He trains every day since the Colosseum. Hours and hours. That man can no longer be compared to what we knew. If he was human when we were summoned, today he's more like… something different. A demigod, perhaps."
"Shut up yourself — then you go and say I'm the one obsessed with him."
Morgana genuinely felt something for that man that she couldn't quite name. But it didn't blind her — on the contrary. She saw in him something that even she didn't believe was possible: evolution that didn't follow the logic she had learned over centuries of existence. Exponential. Almost without sense.
Her race, like Livina's, had always been strong — disproportionate, in fact, in relation to almost anything the universe had produced. In part, she understood that this generated a kind of lethargy — and that it was one of the reasons why both races had lost so much over time. Her Lord, on the other hand, was human. While she was conquering planets and taming entire species, humans were still nothing more than mere bipedal baboons on the scale of the universe. But if there was something she saw in that specific man, it was that he managed to make the impossible feel tangible.
"He's coming. Focus."
The man advanced in her direction. Morgana still remembered what it had been like before — handsome with white hair, but of ordinary build. Now, with the body reshaped by months of training and mutation, almost two meters tall and shoulders that communicated strength before any movement, he looked like something else entirely. And the smell… the smell of the Aqrabuamelu mixed with her own race had intensified over time, and she had stopped pretending she didn't notice.
"Morgana. Livina." — he said, without the upper part of his obsidian clothing, without hurry. — "I see you've finished your tasks."
"Yes, master. We finished as quickly as possible."
"Perfect. Come with me."
✦
I knew where he was going before he turned.
The purge was approaching — and the temple had finally completed its evolution. But even when it was ready, he had set it aside. I understood why — the day after the Colosseum, when he came out of his room, he was different from when he had entered. Not just more resolute. Different in the way he looked at what was in front of him. He seemed to have understood that in the Oasis all preparation is insufficient and that only the peak matters. His worldview had become one single thing: get there. And every time I looked at him, I saw someone who would.
Today was one more step in that direction.
Of course I was nervous — it was the moment to bring the last companion into the group. It didn't matter what came — the two of us were enough, even if he decided not to summon. But I felt he was counting on it.
I only felt it.
When we arrived at the location, he didn't waste time. He advanced straight to the temple door.
"Did you place Tauros's stone?"
"Yes, Lord. The temple accepted it."
"Perfect. Wait for me here."
I was nervous in a different way from the previous time. The pain — everyone who had been through it remembered. It didn't matter how much strength one had. The thorn had to penetrate and tear before rebuilding, and the temple charged in blood what it delivered in power — and charged more with each new summoning activated. My anxiety grew when I saw him taking long to open the door. Perhaps he was anxious. But no — he wasn't like that. After a few seconds standing still, I finally saw him act — he grabbed the handle resolutely as the thorns pierced his hand, the cry of pain came but also the firm turning of the handle. When the door finally opened completely and I could see my new companion, my ground disappeared.
"I don't believe it."
That was my reaction. But Livina's came first, and it was closer to what I actually felt.
"What the actual fuck."
✦
I felt prepared.
In the end, what I needed was to take beatings until I fell — and get back up. Take another beating, fall again, get back up again, until my body screamed louder than my mind and I understood the difference between the two. I did that. I sharpened myself like someone who picks up a dull knife and spends hours on the whetstone with the sole intention of cutting even the wind — not to impress, but because cutting the wind was the standard I had chosen.
Things wouldn't be easy. Luck alone wasn't enough. I had to sweat more, scream more, bleed more. So I challenged myself to exhaustion — dodging Morgana's darts during the day, destroying Livina's summons in the afternoon, fighting Zaetar at night, until I finally felt there was nothing more to do at that stage.
I sold all the stones I won. Used the supplies to make my territory relevant even for the oldest human Lords in the region. After feeling prepared, I finally felt the moment had come.
I had what I needed.
Tauros's stone was already linked to the temple. But I would use much more than that.
After all, I had with me the item that had been my prize for being the first human to complete an A+ level mission at level 1, on the first incursion.
[ Wheel of Fortune — Active item
When activated, by randomness maximizes the summoning by 0, 1 or 2 rarity levels.
0 levels — 80%
1 level — 9.99999%
2 levels — 0.00001% ]
"Zeus. Activate the Wheel of Fortune."
"Activating… Calculating probability."
Facing the temple gate, what appeared before me was an enormous circle — almost entirely red, with a small yellow band at the edge, and within it a green mark so imperceptible that I had to strain my eyes to locate the yellow first, and only then understand there was a green within it.
While I was still analyzing, the wheel began to spin.
Fortunately this only happened for me — it would have been difficult to explain to Morgana and Livina what was happening. They seemed calm outside, simply waiting for me to open the door.
I would wait for it to finish.
It was the only chance I had.
When it stopped, there was no green. But there was yellow.
Ten percent. It was enough.
[ Congratulations — you will summon a creature one level above what was calculated at the end of the summoning. ]
"Yes… now we're talking."
The pain came before I finished smiling.
My hands were violated up to the wrists — as though I had placed my hand inside a grinder and decided to keep it there. The pain crossed the entire body, making me tremble in a way that wasn't weakness but an involuntary response to a stimulus the nervous system hadn't been designed to ignore. Even so I couldn't stop laughing. Even when my body screamed by instinct, the smile continued — because now there was a chance of getting something as good as Morgana, or better.
The colors spun again. Purple. Gold. Red. They oscillated with the instability of something still being calculated.
Until they stopped.
Red.
This was a color I didn't quite understand, at least until Zeus spoke.
[ Unique Summoning granted… Identifying available improvement. ]
[ ERROR ]
[ ERROR ]
[ Summoning ERROR ]
[ Mythic ERROR ]
[ ERROR, ERROR, ERROR, ERROR… OVERRIDE. ]
[ Mythic Summoning granted — Uncharted — Bordlands]
I was in shock.
That wasn't supposed to exist. But there it was — glowing, no longer in vivid red, but in black. Black like the abyss before anything had decided to exist.
The creature emerged.
Despite knowing all the catalogued races that participated in the Oasis, it was impossible to know them all — with intergalactic expansions and the occupation of new planets, new races constantly appeared. But even those always carried some resemblance to something known, some pattern that betrayed the origin even if slightly distorted by the environment of a different planet. In the end, everything had patterns clear enough to identify where it came from.
My difficulty wasn't in the absence of references. It was in the excess of them — I saw several, but none entirely correct.
The long hair, tied in a bun, contrasted with the muscular body covered in tattoos that climbed up the neck and reached the face. It had human characteristics — but the greyish skin, the bull's legs and the pointed and folded ears made the form bizarre in the right way: not grotesque, but definitely unclassifiable in anything I knew. The eyes were blindfolded by a bandana that had been white at some point and was now red faded by time. In his arms, two long glaives of heavy appearance, carried with the ease of someone who had forgotten they were heavy.
Clearly male — but at the same time a unique creature. With nothing entirely right about anyone, but with a little of several things at once.
He didn't advance.
He didn't submit.
He simply stood still — with an expression I could only describe as contempt.
"What the actual fuck." — Livina shouted, shocked, her voice smaller than I had heard in a long time.
"The king who never was." — Morgana said quietly, just enough for me to hear.
"Zeus. Who is this?"
[ Analyzing… ] [ Summoning — ERROR — granted. ]
Before I could process the error, Morgana and Livina advanced and pushed me back — stepping in front of me into a defensive position with the speed of something trained by instinct, not by decision.
"What's happening, girls?"
"Lord… this can only be a mistake."
"What are you talking about, Livina?"
While I was still questioning them, a deep and somber voice cut through the space. It wasn't loud. But it arrived like a whisper directly in the ear, with the quality of sound that didn't need volume to fill everything.
"Interesting." — he said, without moving his head. — "So the banishment… has finally… ended."
Each pause carried its own weight.
"Who are you?"
The creature, even blindfolded, turned its face in my direction with the precision of something that didn't need sight to locate what it was looking for. And it began to descend the stairs while instinctively the three of us retreated.
"I am the first — but also the only." — each word arrived at the rhythm of someone who had said it before and had never needed to hurry. — "I am the perdition, the war, the hatred and the destruction. I am everything, and nothing came before or after me. My name is Zaridan. The eternally living."
When he finished, he was on the last step.
He didn't advance.
And the reason appeared before I asked for it.
[ Error in summoning — suggestion: destruction or imprisonment. ]
Before I spoke, it was Morgana who stepped forward — with the voice of someone who had stored that anger for longer than I could calculate.
"You were banished many ages ago and still had the audacity to accept returning." — she said. — "You are nothing but a cruel and soulless killer."
The face that had been staring at me turned slowly toward Morgana. She was cornered — but with anger, not with fear. As though what was in front of her was the reincarnation of something she had spent her entire life trying to forget.
"I see my name still lives on the lips of the Archon race." — he said, with the specific smile of something that had discovered something pleasant by accident. — "It's a shame I never had time to visit your homeland. You all seem quite… delicious."
"That's enough." — I said, louder than I had planned.
It wasn't a calculated decision. It was anger — the kind that arrives before thought.
"Zeus. Imprison him until I know what to do."
The door that had closed opened again and distorted, growing in size. What emerged was neither recognizable figure nor form — it was a dry and grotesque hand, immense, in raw flesh, with giant nails buried in every centimeter as though the punishment had been applied to the limb itself and not to what it had done. It grabbed Zaridan with ease.
The creature's face contorted. It screamed words I couldn't understand — in a language that hadn't been spoken for a long time, with the quality of a curse that had lost its intended target but hadn't lost its force. Its feet scratched the ground peeling the stone as though it were loose earth.
The door closed.
The silence that remained was the kind that isn't an absence of sound, but the absence of something that had filled the space and had left taking part of the air with it.
"What the hell was that."
Finally I could see Morgana and Livina's legs give way — causing them to sit on the ground without there having been a decision to sit.
"You two… We need to talk."