With so many races present in the Oasis, it wasn't to be expected that a few would have the luck of summoning a Unique hero. But even among those who did, it was common knowledge that it meant more problem than solution — the power gap between a Lord and a Unique summoning was abyssal in a way that made the relationship naturally unstable. Unique summonings were strong because they were unique even among the most powerful races in the Oasis. And where there was too great a disparity, there was risk of things spiraling out of control before anyone realized they were.
If that was the problem with Unique heroes, what would be expected of a Mythic?
I needed to resolve that. Not the way Morgana had suggested — destruction was waste. But leaving it undefined was equally unacceptable. There was a conversation that needed to happen, and I had postponed it long enough.
"Zeus. Temporarily release Zaridan from his imprisonment."
[ Understood… Limiting Mythic hero Zaridan's access to the hero's temple. Please wait. ]
While I waited, I looked at the Status with the attention of someone still processing what the numbers meant in practical terms — not just as reference, but as a map of what had happened to my body in the previous days.
[ STATUS — Leonidas Aquiles | Lv. 1 ]
[ Strength: 18 ]
[Intelligence: 12 ]
[ Dexterity: 16 ]
[ Agility: 12 ]
[ Magic: 4 ]
[ Aqrabuamelu — Zaetar (Unique) ]
[ Archons — Superior Healing (Legendary) ]
[ Blood Magic (Rare) ]
[ Mark of Bordlands (Mythic) ]
The Mark of Bordlands.
The Mythic ability I had obtained from Zaridan — and that I was still trying to fully understand, not because the visible part was complex, but because I felt the visible part was only the surface of something much larger. The capacity to transform the tattoo into a weapon was what appeared immediately, what any observer would see and catalogue. But in the tests I had done over the previous days it became clear it was much more than that. The tattoo could become anything — weapon, shield, even armor, although the available volume limited the pieces to something between torso protection and helmet, never a complete covering. As though there were a finite amount of material and the form depended on how I distributed it.
What had left me in silence when I first saw its characteristics was something else.
The Mark had doubled my Status.
Livina, being almost Unique, had given me ten points — eight in strength, two in agility. Morgana had given me eight. Zaridan had doubled everything I already had — not added, doubled, with the logic of something that didn't sum but multiplied. It was bizarre in a way I couldn't fit into any known logic. I had a faint suspicion that any points I gained from here on would also be doubled — but I hadn't yet tested it in a controlled way. What I knew was that the difference was absurd and completely disproportionate to anything the system should allow at level one.
It was the kind of power that shouldn't exist in the format it existed. To the point of understanding that Zaridan perhaps truly wasn't from this universe — because his power was illogical in ways that didn't fit into any structure the Oasis or the Codices I had read had ever presented to me. As though the rules that governed everything else simply didn't apply to him, not by deliberate exception but because they had been written after he had existed and hadn't been calibrated to include him.
After almost a minute while still immersed in that new power, the temple door opened by itself.
✦
He came out different from how he had gone in.
The hair, previously tied in a bun with the precision of something intentional, was loose and disheveled — matted to his face and torso by the sweat of someone who had been fighting the imprisonment every second since the door had closed, not because there was hope of winning but because the body had refused the possibility of stopping. The body communicated the accumulated effort of days of constant resistance against something that didn't yield — not just tiredness, but the specific tiredness of something that had spent strength continuously without result, which is more exhausting than any battle because it lacks the compensation of progress.
This time, unlike the first, he carried no visible weapon. But I knew the tattoos were the weapons — and for the first time I could see the difference between his and mine with the clarity of someone who knew what they were comparing. His covered far more surface of his body: neck, shoulders, descending along the arms to the hands, climbing up the torso in patterns I couldn't catalogue but which communicated more density of information than mine — concentrated mainly on my forearm. Mine were a fragment by comparison. A piece of something larger that I had integrated without having access to the whole.
"My dear Lord…" — the voice arrived with the specific tone of something that had decided sarcasm was the only language worth using, the only one that didn't imply ceding ground while communicating. — "What brings you to my humble prison?"
He brought his hands to his head and tied his hair back again — with the automatic movements of someone who had done that so many times they didn't need to think about the gesture. Then he advanced and sat at the foot of the temple stairs, with the posture of someone who knew exactly how far they could go and had chosen that specific point with deliberation — close enough to communicate he wasn't retreating, far enough not to provoke what he knew held him.
"I'd like to talk about your abilities."
"My dear." — the tone was patience built over contempt, the structure of something that had learned to endure what it couldn't change without letting the endurance show. — "I am very strong. I don't need to show you — just ask your beauties beside you and they'll tell you everything. Besides, I don't need to tell you anything. Once you die, I'll be free. And even not knowing your race well, I know that won't take long."
There was something revealing in that — not the arrogance, which was expected, but the reference to my death as imminent and inevitable. He had done that calculation. Had arrived at a conclusion and had built his strategy around it. It was the posture of something that had decided the best way to deal with imprisonment was to wait for the imprisoner to disappear on their own.
"Funny to think about that." — I said, with the tone of someone who had anticipated the response and had prepared what would follow. — "Perhaps you don't know, but if I die with you imprisoned in there — what do you think will happen to your body?"
The smile ceased.
Not gradually — all at once, like a conviction that had been sustained by a flawed premise he knew about but preferred to ignore, until realizing he couldn't anymore. Zaridan's deep and irritated eyes confirmed what I had presented as theory. He had calculated that possibility. Long ago. And had arrived at the same conclusion I had, and had found in it the same problem I had, and had stored that problem somewhere he didn't need to look at constantly — believing I wouldn't know — until finally realizing that everything he had been leaning on had been lost in just a few words and suspected and confirmed truths.
I had just opened that place.
"What do you want from me, boy?" — he said, with the tone of someone who had recovered composure, but not calm. There was a difference between the two: composure was surface; calm was structure. — "I am very strong. In this region, I can't smell anyone stronger than me. If I'm freed, I can guarantee your survival. Why don't you simply free me and we make a deal."
He had a point. Having him imprisoned was a loss of resource — and he knew that with the clarity of something that had had too much time to think. What he didn't know was that what I needed from him, I already had. The integration had happened. The Mark was in my body. The rest was negotiation about what would come after.
"Zaridan. I'd like to know how you control the swords you summon from nowhere."
"Boy." — the voice carried the weight of millennia of exhausted patience, the specific fatigue of something that had explained things to creatures far below its own level repeatedly and had arrived at the conclusion that explanation wasn't possible — not from lack of capacity in the interlocutor, but from lack of common vocabulary. — "Unfortunately that is something of my nature — something none of you from this universe will ever be able to under…"
Before he finished, I summoned the same weapon.
Smaller. Less refined — with the edges that communicated recent learning rather than ancient mastery. But undeniably the same form, the same principle, the same origin — emerging from the tattoos on my arm with the familiarity of something that had been integrated and not merely observed from the outside.
Zaridan went silent.
It was the kind of silence that wasn't a pause, but a reorganization — the moment when a certainty had been removed and the system needed time to map what existed in the space where it had been.
"How…" — the word came out quieter than the previous ones, without the tone of someone who had chosen the volume. — "You were supposed to have died."
"You consider yourself the strongest creature that has ever existed." — I said, with the calm of someone who had come to that conversation with what they wanted to say already calculated, each sentence occupying the place that had been reserved for it. — "But time passed while you were imprisoned. In the end, you — like all who came before you who thought the same thing — no longer exist." — I paused for exactly the right amount of time. — "Do you know what your problem is?"
He looked at me with eyes of rage and hatred. Said nothing — not because he had nothing to say, but because he had understood that saying was confirming the question had reached the right place.
It was my cue.
"Your pride imprisoned you. And that same pride will bury you with this temple when I'm gone."
The reaction was immediate — and it was the reaction I had expected but that still surprised me in its speed.
Zaridan rose with a speed I hadn't followed — and the weapon struck the barrier at eye level before I finished processing the movement. The barrier held.
Honestly, I hadn't even seen when the tattoo had reorganized itself. The way he used the power was something I understood only as concept — in practice, there was a gap between my intention and execution that in him simply didn't exist. Intention and execution were the same thing, collapsed into a single moment. He knew exactly how to do it. I had only scratched the surface of what that could be — and there was a part of me that fell silent thinking about how much was out of reach, and another part that stirred thinking about how much was within reach if I found the path.
But his reaction had confirmed something important.
He wasn't ready to teach me. Perhaps he still saw me as someone weak enough to despise — or perhaps he saw me as someone intelligent enough to fear, which produced the same result, but for a different reason. That I could resolve — but it needed time.
Fortunately, there was a balance there: he understood his only way out was to submit to me, even if only to earn his own freedom; and I understood that to reach the power I wanted, I depended on his wisdom. As far as I knew, he had lived countless ages with that power we now shared — if he could teach me, it was all I needed.
Besides, he had a love for survival that would, invariably, do the work for me. I needed to demonstrate power — while he needed to be shaped by the possibility of losing everything. In the end, it wasn't the moment yet but the seed had been planted.
"Let's go, Morgana."
"Yes, my Lord."
We left. The bizarre arm emerged again from the temple gate, grabbing Zaridan before he could understand what had changed — emerging with the certainty of something that had done that before and had learned that speed was more efficient than warning. I could still hear his voice as I walked away — first rage, with the volume and quality of something that had decided volume was the only resource available at that moment. Then something that sounded closer to despair — a different frequency, deeper, the voice of something that had processed what imprisonment meant in concrete terms and had found the uncomfortable conclusion.
"Go to hell, you worthless human… I'm still going to kill you… Nooo… Noooo—"
The voice faded with the distance — not because I was walking away fast, but because there was a relationship between despair and the capacity to sustain volume, and despair had won. The sound of the door closing ended any other sound except the territory moving forward with the indifference of a system that didn't pause to process what had happened inside one of its structures.
"Morgana." — I said without turning, with the tone of someone who had finished one thing and was transitioning to the next without ceremony. — "Let's give him a few months to understand what being together means. If it doesn't work, we simply summon another."
The loss would be enormous — I knew that with a clarity that didn't need to be verbalized. Zaridan was power of a category that had no equivalent available to me beyond knowing how to use the power spectacularly. But I wasn't willing to invest time in something that wasn't willing to invest in me. Besides, I had already obtained what I needed from him — the Mark was integrated, the Status had doubled, the tattoo obeyed when I asked. The rest was refinement, and refinement could come from practice beyond instruction. I would lose time but it was still better than losing my life.
"I understand, my Lord." — she paused, with the interval of someone who had something more to say and was evaluating whether it was the moment. — "Are you going to the Colosseum?"
"Yes." — I said. — "We need the materials for the Griffin Aerie."
✦
Fortunately all the items were either things I had or possible to buy in the market for the right price — with one exception.
[ 1 — 2 Level 5 Workers ]
[ 2 — Griffin Feathers ]
[ 3 — Griffin Scales ]
[ 4 — 2 Unfertilized Eggs ]
[ 5 — 2 Exceptional quality Stones ]
[ 6 — Freshly extracted Griffin Blood ]
"The freshly extracted blood will have to come from us, Morgana."
The "freshly extracted" was the detail that eliminated any possibility of purchase — Griffin blood lost the specific magical properties that made it usable in construction within a few hours of its death, which made any market stock useless by definition. It was material that only existed as the direct result of confrontation. The Oasis had been deliberate about that — there were ways to obtain all the other items on the list without fighting, but not this one. This one required action.
"Arena?"
"Arena." — I confirmed. — "Unfortunately."
The Colosseum was a place where many things happened — incursions, collection missions, loot trading, area defense, exchanges that the conventional market didn't allow due to regulation or simply due to supply. But its name had come from the arena. The arena was where challengers chose to fight something or someone available — not as a mission structured by the Oasis, but as a chosen confrontation, with rules established by the organizers and not by the system. Unlike the market, where price dictated the rules, in the arena only blood was the currency — for the great races it was the simplest way to obtain something they wanted without spending resources they preferred to keep.
Of course, that was only true if you won. The benefits and prizes that made the fights greatly appreciated by the strong races were also what made it strictly not recommended for any race that wasn't at least in the top five hundred of the rankings.
"Should we bring Livina?"
I took a second before answering — not from uncertainty, but to verify whether the conclusion I had reached had the reasons I thought it had.
"Unfortunately, someone has to defend the territory while we're in the arena."
I wanted to bring her — her summons made everything easier in ways I had learned to depend on without noticing. But there were reasons not to, and they went beyond territory coverage. First, I wasn't certain whether the summons would create complications in the arena — there could be specific rules I hadn't fully mapped yet, and an unknown variable in a hostile environment was an incalculable risk. Second, any intelligent creature in the arena would immediately focus on her — destroying the summoner meant eliminating at least three threats at once, and there were arena creatures that were intelligent in ways that open field creatures didn't need to be. In my territory, however, with the towers and the stationed army to protect her, what would be her greatest disadvantage in the arena became her greatest strength staying behind — she was safer surrounded by structure than exposed to tactical choices she hadn't made.
"I understand. I'll let her know."
The castle was completing construction — the counter had reached the final hours, and there was something significant about being days from the Portal after everything that had happened. The time I needed to stay in the Oasis was running out, and I didn't want to leave Morgana and Livina alone without being certain the territory would survive without me — not because I doubted them, but because there was a difference between surviving and thriving, and I needed it to be the latter.
"Zeus. How long until the end of the Beginner Lord period and permission to build the Portal?"
[ 2 days, 12 hours and 28 seconds. ]
Two days.
After so long, I still caught myself thinking about everything that had happened — the fights, the decisions, the things I had done wrong and survived to correct, the things I had done right by accident and those I had done right by calculation, and the difference between the two that had become clearer with time. I wasn't naive enough to believe I had become strong enough for what was to come. The Lords I had encountered along the way had made a point of treating me as incapable — and their presumptions had become pavement for my growth. But growth had limits I couldn't ignore, limits that existed regardless of how much effort I put in, and recognizing those limits was part of what allowed me to work around them.
"I will be better." — I said out loud, to no one beyond myself. — "I need to stay firm and always seek to grow."
It wasn't empty motivation — it was a declaration of intent that I needed to make out loud so it would exist outside my head, where it was only thought, and enter the record of things said, which were harder to give up on.
✦
"I'm here, Lord. I spoke to her and—"
Before Morgana finished, I saw Livina running toward us at full speed with the specific determination of something that had made a decision and was executing before anyone had the opportunity to present counterarguments.
"Hey, hey, hey!" — she shouted as she ran, her voice arriving before her body. — "What do you mean you're going to the arena without me?"
"Livina, you're more important here protecting the territory."
"To hell with what you think." — she said with the frankness of something that had decided diplomacy was a waste of time when the time available for the conversation was limited. — "I want to go. I'm dying here without any action — and you're going to leave me here alone, without my only sparring partner?"
The last part was directed at Morgana with the kind of accusation that presupposed complicity — as though Morgana had agreed to something that hurt her without consulting her.
It took almost an hour.
An hour of arguments, of counterpoints, of Livina finding angles I hadn't anticipated and me closing those angles with reasons she recognized as valid but didn't like. It was the kind of conversation I had learned to have — not to win, but to reach a result that didn't destroy what existed between us in the process.
In the end, she stayed — but only after I promised to bring her next time. A promise made sincerely, because it was exactly what I wanted to do and exactly what made sense to do when the moment was different from this one.
Just not today.
"Are you ready?"
"Yes, my Lord."
"Give me your hand."
Only the Lord and former Lords had access to the Colosseum — but even the latter would still need some kind of permission from the former. Since I had no one in my territory, I didn't know exactly how it worked; I only knew that it existed — that was the system's rule, with no documented exception.
The only way to bring heroes was through physical contact during transport: the Lord's body functioning as an anchor that dragged whatever was in contact with it. Most Lords probably placed a hand on the shoulder or back — professional distance, minimal contact, functional without being more than necessary.
I didn't even notice when I asked for her hand.
It was warm. Slender. Something I loved the moment I touched it, in a way I hadn't calculated and that arrived before I could process what was arriving.
Our eyes met.
I turned red — with the involuntary speed of something the body does without consulting whether it's the appropriate moment.
"Sorry—"
Before I finished, our bodies were transported. The system had resolved the awkwardness with the efficiency of something that had no opinion about the moment, but had a schedule.
✦
The great hall of the Colosseum. The enormous board with its colored scrolls in the arrangement I had learned to read as text — color indicating type, position indicating urgency, border indicating origin. And below it, a jar — almost full, with the bluish liquid approaching the top with the closeness of something that was a few missions from overflowing.
Evolution near.
"Lord, the arena missions are here."
Morgana pointed to a corner of the board where scrolls of reddish colors — darker than common mission ones, with the specific hue of something that communicated risk before opportunity — indicated the available arenas.
"Look for any combat involving Griffins."
What I needed was a Griffin. In practice, to kill one — not out of sadism, but by the logic that freshly extracted blood needed a recent Griffin, and recent Griffins existed in one of two conditions: wild, which were unreachable in open territory without preparation I didn't have time to arrange, or arena, which were controlled enough for the confrontation to have parameters. Griffins were as strong as Chimeras — and on top of that they actively used magic and flew, which made them creatures for which land strategies only partially worked. But I had something now that I didn't have before — the doubled Status, Zaetar, and the understanding that I had survived things I shouldn't have, which was a twisted but functional way of calibrating what was possible.
"Lord, there's a progressive battle mission in the arena — and the best classification is reserved only for newcomers."
I took the scroll with the care of someone who had learned that the devil was in the details of missions — in the footnotes, in the smaller print, in the conditions that appeared only when you looked for them, and especially in not letting others make decisions before I had correctly seen where I was getting myself into.
Competitors at maximum level one and two, limited to newcomers. Gradual battles until only one remained. Prize: Owlbear cub — B+ or A-, intelligent, specialized in earth and wind magic. It wasn't what I was looking for — an Owlbear cub was a significant prize under other circumstances, but it wasn't Griffin blood.
But the tenth fight was.
"The tenth battle is against a Griffin." — Morgana said, with the tone of someone who had found what they were looking for and was verifying before declaring. — "And it says here that if you defeat the creature, you have rights over the body."
It was exactly the crumb the system had placed there. For any other competitor, the Griffin was an obstacle on the path to a larger prize. For me, it was the objective — and the rest of the progression was the price of entry.
"It says here the fights started two days ago."
"And what does that mean?"
Morgana had experience in the arena — not just from direct participation, but from observation, the kind of knowledge that accumulates when you spend enough time in a place to learn its unwritten rules. She explained: it was possible to enter late — the system didn't exclude latecomers, there was interest from the organizers in keeping the battlefield populated. But, as punishment for absence in the previous rounds, the competitor would have to face all the creatures the others had faced in the correct time, without the rest between them the others had had.
"So we're four creatures behind."
"We'll have to fight the four in sequence." — Morgana confirmed, with the neutrality of someone presenting fact and not opinion.
Four battles in sequence, without interval, without recovery between them — each beginning immediately after the end of the previous, with the physical state of what had finished being the starting state of what began. It was a structure designed to reveal limits in a way that intervals didn't reveal.
I analyzed what I knew about each — the names of the creatures were presented in the scroll with enough detail for competitors with access to the Codex to prepare a strategy, which was probably deliberate: the organizers preferred competitors who survived long enough to be a spectacle.
The Shadow Rat — level E-. The size of a large cat, no eyes, sharp claws and a bifurcated tongue with mild venom. Alone it was weak with the frankness of something that had been designed to never be alone. The problem was it rarely appeared that way — groups of three to six, with the instinctive coordination of creatures that had evolved to operate as a unit. The venom caused temporary numbness, which was more dangerous than it seemed in the middle of several of them at once because temporary numbness in the wrong place was a sentence.
The Walking Fungus — level E+. Humanoid of about one meter, slow, almost no intelligence I could detect in the Codex. Only attacked when threatened, releasing paralyzing spores around the body in a radius that made direct approach costly. The problem wasn't the strength — it was that in an arena with no space to retreat, briefly paralyzed was too long when there were other competitors or when there were more of them waiting.
The Shaggy Shadow — level D-. Human silhouette covered in black fur that moved as though underwater — not with the wind, but with its own current, suggesting something alive inside. No face. Two points of yellow light where the eyes should be, which functioned as eyes with the precision of something that had evolved to deceive. It didn't attack directly — it immobilized through fear with prolonged eye contact, then moved in to strangle with the methodology of something that had discovered that fear did half the work before contact. The fur dampened light physical blows. It was the most psychologically disturbing on the list.
The Ash Hound — level D+. Spectral canine of ash and dense smoke that moved like an animal but wasn't an animal in the way the term implied. It couldn't be cut with common weapons — the body dispersed at the point of impact and reconstituted itself a few meters away, continuity maintained by something that wasn't physical. Magic was needed for real damage. Speed above average for the level, which made the damage application window small.
"We'll have difficulty with the Fungus and the Hound." — I said, aligning the variables in order of risk. — "I'll bring some additional items."
Taking the escalation as a basis, I knew approximately what would come after — at least two creatures of each level up to B-, then slower escalation before the Griffin. The arena went up to level fifteen in total, which meant there were creatures far beyond the Griffin waiting further ahead for those who wanted or needed to continue. But I wouldn't give myself the luxury of advancing beyond the objective — the arena was still a place of life and death with the efficiency of something that had been designed to eliminate, and without the doubled Status, Morgana and Zaetar, I would never have thought of setting foot there.
The reason for so much difficulty became clearer when Morgana pointed to the footnote of the scroll — the part I had left for last because footnotes of arena scrolls tended to contain the information the organizers preferred you find late.
"The mission wasn't generated by just any race." — she said, with the tone of someone who had found something that changed the conversation. — "It was generated by the Infernals."
The Infernals were extremely strong creatures in the Oasis occupying third place in the rankings solidly — they were also one of the few races that found genuine pleasure in the arena, using it not just for trade or resource acquisition but primarily for entertainment, with the kind of pleasure that only exists when someone is suffering in a sufficiently elaborate way to be interesting. The Infernals fed on fear as much as on blood — and designed their arenas with that diet in mind.
What that meant in practice: nothing would be easy in the sense that easy implied the absence of surprise variables. Strange creatures, situations designed to maximize discomfort before maximizing danger. It was my greatest risk — not the strength of the creatures individually, but the unknown that the Infernals inserted into each phase to ensure no plan survived completely intact upon contact with reality.
"We complete the objective and leave. Nothing more."
"Yes, my Lord."
I checked the items I would bring one last time — not out of insecurity, but for the specific verification ritual I had learned was more valuable than it seemed:
[ Mount Figurine (Swamp Abomination) ]
[ Mana Potion — x2 ]
[ Bronze Sword and Bronze Shield ]
[ Rations for 10 days ]
This specific arena prohibited more than two potions per competitor — which I interpreted simply as the Infernals wanting to see desperation arrive faster, the reduced margin making each decision about when to use them more loaded, more visible, more interesting for those watching. Fewer resources, less margin. Less margin, more fear. More fear, better spectacle. It was the Infernals' logic applied to arena economics.
My weapon would be sword and shield — not the Mark of Zaridan, not Zaetar, not anything that communicated what I really had. Hold the cards as long as possible — appear weaker than I was, let the Infernals calculate wrong and pay the price of the error. It was common strategy, and the Infernals either didn't know or didn't care. In the end, everyone pretended in the arena, and the spectacle was discovering when the pretending ended and the desperation began.
"Let's go."
I tore the scroll in half with the gesture I had learned to associate with the point of no return. The gate changed color — between red and orange, the specific shade of confirmation that communicated the system had registered the intent and had prepared the destination. I extended my hand to Morgana. She had already extended hers before I realized — with the automatism of something that had learned to anticipate the gesture.
This time I didn't turn red.
Or at least, there were other things to think about.
Our bodies were transported.
When I opened my eyes, a large wooden gate with metal plates stood before me — built to the scale of something that had been designed to impress before threatening, to communicate that what was on the other side justified an entrance of that size. Through the cracks, what was on the other side was visible in fragments — sand, stone, the geometry of a space that had been built to contain confrontation in a way that made the confrontation visible from all angles.
An arena that would make the Colosseum of Earth look like a backyard — not through direct comparison of dimension, but by the quality of what had been built around it: the tiered stands that disappeared at the height where the light became diffuse, the gates in equal number and style surrounding the space like a clock with more hours than it should have, all closed, all waiting, each containing something that hadn't yet been revealed, but that had been placed there with intent.
A voice arrived — robotic, without urgency, with the specific indifference of something that had said those words many times and had never needed to care about who heard them or what hearing them meant for whoever was about to enter:
"Welcome to the arena."
A pause that wasn't for drama, but produced drama regardless.
"Survive."