"Alright, this part is more delicate. Focus. Wait — what?"
BOOM.
My chest hurt before I understood what had happened. The shock came along with it — the kind that doesn't filter, that arrives before thought and only afterward organizes itself into something comprehensible. When something flammable explodes near the body, that's exactly what happens: the present is interrupted and what existed before the explosion and after are different places.
I patted my own body by instinct — with the movement of someone verifying before anything else, who needed the data before any interpretation of the data. Smoke. Charcoal on my face — not from intensity but from proximity, from the heat that had arrived before distance could make the proximity irrelevant. A ringing in my ears that was diminishing.
Intact.
I thanked myself mentally for having completed each step and stored it in the ring before starting the next — with the habit I had developed not from paranoia, but from calculation, from the awareness that a process that wasn't compartmentalized had failure points that a compartmentalized process didn't. Being considered superhuman didn't mean being capable of absorbing a point-blank explosion without consequences.
It only meant the consequences would be smaller than for anyone else in that situation.
"LORD — did something happen?"
I strained my eyes through the smoke — with the effort of someone trying to see before the smoke had dissipated enough for seeing to be possible without effort, who was producing vision before the condition for vision was completely available. I knew who it was before seeing — by the tone, by the speed at which the question had arrived, by what was beneath the question that the question was trying not to show. But I wanted to look her in the face when I answered.
"Don't worry, Morgana. It was just a scare."
That wasn't entirely true. The scare had been real. The damage had been real too, just smaller than it should have been given what had happened.
I had mastered the gunpowder manufacturing process to a level where error had become almost impossible — each step catalogued with the precision of someone who had repeated enough for repeating to be data and not effort, each variable controlled with the attention of someone who had learned that an uncontrolled variable produced results that hadn't been calculated. Each pattern identified and repeated with enough consistency to make an accident a statistical exception — not impossible, but sufficiently improbable.
The variable that had made me commit that gross error still blinked in the upper corner of my field of vision — persistent, refusing to be ignored. It was the kind of data the Oasis designed to be impossible to ignore: brightness that didn't diminish, a position that didn't leave the peripheral center regardless of where the eyes moved. The system knew how to distinguish urgent information from noise, and when it decided something required attention before anything else, it ensured that was the case.
"The Oasis generated a race mission."
Silence.
The kind that existed when what had been said had arrived and what should come after what had been said hadn't yet arrived — when processing was happening, but hadn't yet finished producing a result that could be communicated.
"What?"
"How?"
Livina arrived just after Morgana. She stood with the expression of someone who had heard something that shouldn't be possible.
Race missions were rare — not from system limitation, which was technically capable of generating them for any race, but from the rarity of conditions that justified them. For low-ranking races they were practically nonexistent. Not because the system ignored them, but because the trigger required something that justified attention at that scale — and races that still hadn't proven they existed, from the system's point of view, rarely came close to that. Most were concerned with not dying to the Oasis's own creatures before considering picking a fight with other races.
If I were to summarize that type of mission in one sentence, it would be: exclusive brawl for the big players.
In two: arrogance with an address.
However much I pressed my memory, I couldn't recover any record of a mission involving races below rank five hundred — and humans were well below that threshold.
"What does it say?"
Morgana pulled me from the stupor with the right question.
I had been so focused on the fact of its existence that I had forgotten to read the content — which was a specific error of someone who had prioritized the meta-data over the primary data, who had stayed at what the mission was instead of going to what the mission said.
"Let's go to the market. We'll find out together."
"Can't you read it now?"
"The mission seems restricted. But I'm included in it."
[ SPECIAL RACE MISSION — THE CHALLENGE HAS BEEN ISSUED AND BOTH PARTIES HAVE AGREED. THOSE SELECTED MUST REPORT TO THE MARKET FOR SCROLL DELIVERY. YOU HAVE BEEN SELECTED. THE GROUP WITH THE SELECTED WILL BE GENERATED IN 23:53:47 ]
I wiped my face. The charcoal didn't come off completely — but enough to see without effort. I advanced toward the market.
The cleaning would come later. First, the information.
✦ ✦ ✦
The market was different from any time I had entered it.
It wasn't just the volume — which was higher than normal in ways that communicated there were more people than normal. It was the mixture — two states that normally didn't coexist in the same space existing side by side with the kind of tension of things that don't belong together, but that meet before the space separates them.
On one side, people celebrating — loud voices with the quality of voices that had been contained and had found reason not to contain themselves anymore, the kind of relief that expresses itself in shouting because it doesn't fit in a normal tone. On the other side, heavy silence — the kind that wasn't the absence of sound, but was the presence of something that had arrived too large to produce immediate sound, that needed time before any reaction was possible. Closed faces. Some crying without making noise, like those still trying to process before reacting, like those who know that reacting will confirm that what is being processed is real.
Those close to the counter were the ones who shared the call — it was visible before it was communicated, not by what they said, but by what they didn't say. By the way they looked at nothing with the expression of someone who received information too large to fit all at once, that was being divided into smaller parts, but that was still larger than the smaller parts could contain.
"Wait here while I identify the mission."
I advanced through the group. Some people could barely move — with the specific immobility of shock that had paralyzed systems before any decision to paralyze was made. Some looked more frightened than I could imagine — too young to have seen something like this before, without the context that made what had arrived fit into place. Old enough to understand what it meant — and because of that, perhaps, even more frightened.
[ Selected. Would you like to obtain the terms of the summons? ]
"Yes."
The scroll that appeared was different from any other I had seen — with the difference that came before the content, that had been communicated by the appearance before any word was read.
Black. The golden letters on the dark background gave the document a visual weight that matched what was written in it in a way that made sense as design before making sense as text. I began to read.
[ GROUP PURGE — Unique Mission — Decree of the Scroll
Humans and Infernals, in unanimous and irrevocable agreement, commit to presenting themselves in the consecrated domains of the Purge — the stage where the fate of the weak is sealed and the strong prove their worth before death.
The rite falls upon all newcomers registered in the current cycle, without exception, without mercy — 732 souls enrolled, 732 souls obliged to appear.
The confrontation will continue until one side is completely annihilated. There is no surrender. There is no mercy.
Terms and Limitations: The battle is restricted to the human newcomers of the period in question. No external influence will be tolerated. The participation of heroes is strictly prohibited. Each human Lord may lead up to 50 of their finest summonings onto the field. Attendance is mandatory and automatic. There are no appeals. There are no postponements. Absence does not exempt — it only hastens the end. Competitor numbers will be proportional. There will be no additional summons from either side.
May death be with you. And may the worthy survive to tell of it.
Deadline 719:22:32 ]
"I see. So it's a death sentence."
The tears of some and the numbness of several around me began to make sense — not as an overreaction, but as a proportional response to what had arrived. A document that sealed fate without consulting those to whom the fate belonged had a specific weight that other documents didn't — the weight of something that had been decided before you were included in the decision.
I returned to Morgana and Livina. We left quickly — with the speed of someone who had received data that needed space to be processed, that couldn't be processed in the same place where it had arrived.
"What happened, my Lord?"
"This happened."
I threw the scroll to Morgana — with the transfer gesture of someone passing data to whoever needed to receive it, without context elaboration that the text would provide better than any context I could provide. Both read together, in silence, with the speed of someone trying to find the part where things improve — and with the deceleration that happened when it became clear that part didn't exist.
"How did the Oasis allow this? It's impossible."
"It wasn't the Oasis that allowed it. Look at the signatures."
On the scroll, two signatures — with the visual weight of things that had been placed there with intent and that communicated who had been on each side of the decision. The bottom one I recognized by the Infernals' handwriting — with the specific strokes the race had developed over enough time for the handwriting to be a unique characteristic. The top one — the one that had initiated the agreement, that had arrived first and had made what came after possible — was from a human.
Morgana looked at me.
"You're saying they proposed the agreement?"
"The agreement came from the humans. I thought this could happen. I didn't think it would be this way." — I sighed.
"Cowards." — Livina fumed, with the rage of someone who had arrived at the conclusion before finishing processing and had communicated the conclusion before verifying whether more conclusion was available.
I wasn't angry. I could understand the logic that had produced that document — losing the Oasis was a loss the humans weren't willing to risk as long as any exit existed that wasn't that loss. That exit had been more extreme than I expected, with the specific extremity of a solution that had traded certainty of defeat for possibility of survival.
Diplomacy with the Infernals was almost impossible in any circumstance I had calculated — and an agreement like that was, probably, the most acceptable they had managed to negotiate given what was available to negotiate. The indignation I felt wasn't at the agreement. It was at what the agreement revealed about whoever had signed — who had chosen to save the majority at the cost of a part, and that part included me.
I returned to the scroll. I read the clauses more carefully this time — not for understanding what was written, but for understanding what was implied, where the text had left space that hadn't been specified.
"Perhaps this isn't as bad as it looks."
"How can you say that? We're talking about a fight that only restricts the humans."
"Not necessarily."
I understood both their doubt — it was the reasonable doubt of those who had read and arrived at the obvious conclusion, which was that restrictions on one side without equivalent restrictions on the other was structural imbalance. But the text, despite being restrictive, left something clear at the end that I had read with the attention of someone looking for what lay beyond what was being said.
"If you read carefully, you'll see that neither side will have a numerical advantage. The Oasis wouldn't permit confrontation with structural imbalance."
"Forgive me, my Lord. But we're talking about the Infernals." — Morgana said, with the tone of someone presenting an argument they considered irresistible. — "A single one of their warriors can kill dozens of humans with ease — and a newcomer Lord even more so. I can't see how that would be equality."
"And the pathetic amount of time they gave for preparation," Livina added, with the voice of someone adding problem to problem, building the case alongside Morgana, "is far too short to change that."
Both had a point — with correct internal logic, the kind that would be conclusive if there were no variable. But the fifty-summoning limit per Lord created a margin I could work with. Not because fifty was a large number. But because what I had built over the past months had been built so that fifty would be sufficient in ways that fifty of any other Lord wouldn't be.
I knew where to find her.
I advanced without explaining further — the girls would learn when there was something concrete to show, and at the moment there was only direction.
✦ ✦ ✦
The main stable was unrecognizable.
Threads covering almost everything — walls, ceiling, the gaps between the troughs that had been built to breathe and that now no longer breathed. The passage was tight enough to require care, not impossible, but different from what had been designed. The creature that inhabited there had decided the space belonged to her. And the space had agreed.
It was the kind of environment Arachne had built around herself with the naturalness of someone who doesn't consider that the space belongs to anyone else — not from hostility, but from the absence of the concept of shared space that social species develop and that more solitary species never need to develop.
"Arachne."
"Hello."
She was different — with the difference that had arrived over time but that I hadn't fully calculated because I had been calculating other things.
She wasn't the creature that had emerged from the cocoon months ago — the cocoon creature was a memory that required effort to recover, that was distant from what was before me in a way that time normally didn't produce in that interval. The colossus that turned to face me was nearly six meters tall — and by the rate at which she had been growing, with the curve I had traced mentally over the months of observation, she still hadn't stopped. The ivory with opaque black markings seemed more defined than before — not just larger, but more consolidated, each segment of the body carrying a solidity that hadn't existed at the beginning, the form being more unequivocally what it was.
She lowered herself slowly until her face was at my level — with the deliberate movement of something that had learned that scale created distance that intent needed to compensate for, that had learned to come down to the other's level before initiating communication.
And something I could only interpret as a smile appeared — with the quality of an expression that had been developed to communicate internal state in a way that whoever received it could recognize, that had learned that recognition was part of communication as much as what was being recognized.
"Father."
I didn't know exactly when the name had begun. Perhaps she had found in the bond between us the word I myself would have used to describe what she was to me — using my own reference as a mirror before I needed to articulate it. Either way, I didn't mind. I would protect her life as a father would, and in the end the distinction of the name was less surreal than it had seemed the first time it arrived.
But that was not the moment for affection.
I let the name pass without answer.
"Something happened."
It wasn't a question — it was the bond functioning before I opened my mouth, the channel that had been created by the agreement between us communicating state before state was declared. It was the data arriving before the communication of the data, which was the part of the bond I was still learning to calibrate.
"Yes. We're going to war. Are your children ready?"
The smile disappeared — with the speed that communicated that what had arrived had arrived with the weight the smile couldn't contain at the same time.
She struck a leg on the ground — with the impact that echoed through the stable like a call, with the specific frequency that had been developed to pass through the threads and reach any corner the threads had reached.
The sound echoed through the stable like a summons — and was answered with the speed that communicated the call had arrived before it needed to be repeated. From inside the troughs — which had become something different from what they had been designed to be. From the gaps between the webs. From the back of the space she had transformed into her own territory.
The offspring began to appear — with the movement that had the coordination of something that had learned to respond together, that had developed the collective behavior that Yokais developed by nature and that was being expressed here in a way that nature produced even far from the environment that had generated it. Fifteen nearly three meters tall — with the size that communicated they had grown faster than any parameter I had established as reference. Five still smaller, between a meter eighty and two meters, with the dark grey of their coat still not completely defined — still in the process of becoming what they would be, the definition arriving throughout the growth that was still happening.
Twenty creatures. Lined up with the arrangement that hadn't been taught, but had been developed — Arachne had transmitted something along with existence, had passed to the offspring the colony behavior she had carried. Waiting — with the quality of active waiting that wasn't passivity, but was readiness.
"Try to reach thirty before the confrontation." — I said, with the objective tone I had calculated before communicating. — "And rest — you'll be coming with me, Arachne. The blood of our enemies will be the feast for all of us."
She raised her head — with the movement that had preceded every significant response she had given, that I had learned to recognize as the moment before something worth hearing.
The sound that came from her throat was something I couldn't classify with the vocabulary I had — it was between a cry and a call, between celebration and warning, with the quality of sound that had been produced before language and that therefore existed at a frequency that language couldn't completely contain. The other offspring responded with the same kind of energy — a collective movement that was simultaneously disciplined and wild, that had the coordination of training and the intensity of instinct, both things existing in the same moment without one canceling the other.
"Before I go — I need to know if you mind one thing."
"What would it be?"
"I had an idea. What I thought was…"
✦ ✦ ✦
Forty minutes later, I left the stable.
I went to the second — Pegasus, the Urskra, FireWood. Each one with the specific state of a creature that had learned to read the environment before any direct communication — that knew something had changed before knowing what had changed.
The Owlbear was calm — with the calm of something that had made peace with what existed before being informed about what was coming. He wouldn't be in the confrontation, and I informed him of that first.
Then I said what needed to be said: that if something happened to me, he was free. No obligations — which were those that had been created by the agreement between us and that had been fulfilled in ways I was still fully verifying. No bonds.
He was silent for a moment.
Then signaled he had understood — with the specific gesture he had developed to communicate states that the language we shared couldn't completely reach.
I cast a healing on him before leaving. It was the minimum — I knew I had taken that creature beyond what the agreement between us had anticipated. He had honored every part of what he had promised. He never said that out loud. He never demanded I say it.
But I knew. And he knew I knew.
But that was a problem for after the confrontation — with the specific condition of a problem that depended on there being an after the confrontation, that depended on a variable I couldn't guarantee.
I stood still for a moment in the gap between the two stables — the noise of Arachne's offspring still echoing from one side, with the specific energy of a group that had been activated and was still processing the activation. The tranquil silence of FireWood and the others from the other — with the quietness of creatures that had reached the state where the environment didn't produce agitation before there was a specific reason for it.
Two worlds separated by a few meters, each with its own weight.
I breathed deeply and advanced toward the market.
✦ ✦ ✦
The market had normalized.
The humans who hadn't been summoned were at the tables, in the usual conversations, with the lightness of those who had received good news and had returned to their natural state — the state interrupted by the extraordinary and that returned when the extraordinary had passed. For those outside the agreement, the confrontation was a relief.
No newcomers were visible — which was data communicating the state of those who had been summoned. They were probably preparing, or trying to process what they had received before beginning preparation, or both in a sequence that varied by person.
Leaving the Oasis wasn't an option. The mandatory attendance was written in the clauses with the clarity of someone who had anticipated exactly that attempt and had closed the exit before it could be found.
"I'll have to wait for the group to form to understand what the other newcomers are planning."
I reached the counter without a queue.
"I want to know if mounts are counted as separate units, or if rider and mount count as one."
It was the only variable I needed to confirm before closing any plan — with the specificity of a variable that had been identified as a pivot, as the point around which what was possible changed significantly depending on the answer.
If rider and mount counted separately, my fifty-summoning limit would be consumed by half with mounts — which was unacceptable not because the mount wasn't worth it, but because it reduced the field of possibility in a way that made certain configurations impossible before being attempted. If they counted as one, I could double the effective force without breaking any rule — and it still opened space for what was growing in my mind as a possibility that had started as a vague idea and had become a hypothesis that needed to be verified before being discarded or developed.
[ Mounted mounts count as a single unit. Creatures restricted under this rule: ][ Dragons / Cockatrices / Typhons / Leviathans / Phoenix Quetzalcoatls / Bahamuts / Yamata no Orochis / Kraken Charybdis / Fenrirs / Lamassu / Ammits — and 87 more S-rank or higher creatures… ]
I read the list carefully — not for the content of the entries I knew, but for the logic of the list as a whole, for what the organizational principle of the list communicated about the inclusion criterion.
Arachne wasn't on it.
The restriction was directed at S+ level creatures — the absolute top of what existed in the Oasis, the level where the difference between what was on it and what was below it was a difference of category and not of degree. Arachne was powerful — with the potency that had grown over the months in ways I had registered and that was still surpassing the records. Growing faster than any parameter I had found for comparison, in ways I was still calculating the implications of.
But she hadn't yet crossed that threshold. At least not officially — which was the data the system registered, which was the data the rules used, which was the data that mattered for what was being planned.
"Thank you."
With the rules confirmed, the pieces fell into place — with the fit of things that had been waiting for the missing data and had found the data and arrived at the place they had been waiting. I left before the counter could offer me anything else — time was short and the idea that had formed needed to be evaluated before the thread connecting it to what was possible got lost in what was happening around me.
"Zeus, stop the production of warriors."
Morgana and Livina followed me in silence — the kind of silence of those who want to ask but know the answer is still being built, who had learned that interrupting the construction process causes more than waiting for the result of the process.
They would have to stay out of the confrontation — it was the rule of the agreement, which had left no room for alternative interpretation and which I couldn't change regardless of what I wanted to change. But there was something that reassured me about that restriction — not the restriction for them, which was a real cost, but what the restriction communicated about the field. The field would be brute force against intelligence, without external variables I couldn't calculate in advance. The kind of confrontation where every detail I had prepared over the past months would have the chance to make a real difference — where the preparation and what had been built and what had been learned over time would be tested in the way that testing is always more honest than any simulation.
I needed to get back to the iron and steel house. The new variable that had opened with the rule confirmation changed what was possible — and I needed to discover how far the possible went before the deadline made the discovery too late to be used.
"What are you going to do now, Lord?"
I looked at both of them.
"Stay calm. You'll see."
A pause — with the quality of pause that existed between what had been said and what was to follow, that wasn't hesitation but was deliberate separation.
"Wait."