"Morgana. Our next enemy is the Ash Hound. We need to hold out against the first advance."
"Understood."
The Ash Hound was poorly named — there was something deliberately understated about the name, the kind of denomination that reduced the expectation of those who hadn't read carefully. There was nothing of a hound in it beyond the locomotor structure. The size and musculature resembled a prehistoric wolf more than any modern canine, and the power came not from brute force but from the resilience that allowed the body to reconstitute after damage that would kill any other creature of the same level. Beyond that, the spectral resistance made conventional physical weapons ineffective — the body dispersed at the point of impact like mist that decided to exist somewhere else, and reconstituted itself a few meters away with the naturalness of something that had learned that continuity didn't depend on location.
There were theories that it felt no pain. I didn't believe that. I believed it had learned to operate through it — which was substantially worse, because pain as a monitoring tool had been removed from the equation.
"They've appeared."
Two. I had expected two — the mission scroll hadn't mentioned it, but this creature was known for not traveling alone. Two was the number that made the fight elaborate without making it impossible. The Infernals had chosen well.
"Morgana — stay behind me. Shoot freely."
I didn't give time for strategy. I advanced before they calculated their angle — I drove the sword into one while the shield absorbed the impact of the second, using the momentum to ensure I arrived before they finished processing that I was arriving.
The sword passed through the first one like mist. It looked at the blade with the expression of something that had encountered an inconvenience, not a threat. The second creature tried to tear the shield from my arm with the force of something that had concluded that biting was the most direct option available.
Arrows began to enter the bodies.
Many arrows. At a constant rhythm.
The creature that had given up on the sword bit into my thigh. Blood flowed warm — warmer than the surrounding air, with the specific temperature of something that had been inside the body and had come out. The pain climbed with the urgency of a nervous system doing its job: informing, insisting, demanding attention I couldn't give without cost.
I was glad for my new stats.
It was those that kept my leg in place — and above all the bone intact. That animal was easily a meter tall, and with my old body the limb would have been torn off with that bite. But I needed to keep them occupied. There was something at stake larger than the pain.
It was the strategy. I needed to survive. Not win — survive, hold, be the ballast while the arrows accumulated.
Of course some simply passed through them. But not all.
My theory was simple, and I had bet my life on it: the spectral form of those creatures couldn't be infinite. The Oasis would never allow a creature to have total advantage over something — there was always a cost, always a limit, always the point where the power stopped being an advantage and started being a dependency. A totally spectral creature that could hurt something physical had necessarily traded something for that capacity. For me, it could only mean one thing: the spectral factor was real magic, and real magic wasn't infinite. Being coupled to a physical form while still using that power would have a cost — and the cost would accumulate.
The few but constant arrows embedding themselves in the bodies were the confirmation I needed.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHH — DIE, YOU SONS OF BITCHES—"
Shouting helped. Not for the pain — for the awareness. While I shouted I knew I was awake, and while I knew I was awake I could continue. It was the kind of logic that didn't withstand cold analysis but that worked in the heat, and in the heat was where I was.
The arrows continued. The creatures' bodies accumulated darts until they looked like something different from what they had been — less predators, more surfaces covered in metal, the accumulation transforming the appearance before transforming the capability.
Time forced me to act.
Even with the body holding out, the blood wasn't infinite. I activated the healing magic discreetly — enough to keep functioning without revealing what I had. The absence of spectators helped. This card would stay hidden a little longer.
After what seemed much longer than it was, the bites began to grow weaker and more spaced out — first from one creature, then the other, the limit being reached differently in each but perceptible in both. Morgana's darts had interfered with the spectral capacity, making them something more tangible and therefore woundable, confirming that there was a cost to the power and that the cost could be exploited.
The creature biting my thigh released as it fell inert to the ground from the accumulated damage.
I advanced. Pulled out the sword. Placed it in the skull of the second while it was still forcing the shield from my arm — without adjustment, without hesitation, with the precision of someone who had calculated the point of arrival before beginning the movement. This time I didn't feel the sword pass through like smoke — I felt the skull split, the resistance yielding until the blade passed through flesh and mass.
It fell inert.
I breathed.
Without the healing magic running through my body, I would have died at least ten times before them. They were creatures of strong jaws in theory — more frightening in practice, and that difference was all the difference. The shield was deformed from the bites. My thigh had held only because of the incessant healing while it was being ground. I was still weak. Even with the elevated status and magical capability, I had depended exclusively on the resilience of not falling before them — accepting the damage, absorbing, waiting for their limit to arrive before mine.
In the end it worked. But it had been the hardest fight in that arena — not for strength, but for type of threat. And type of threat was exactly what I couldn't always calculate in advance. Only make theories and hope they worked in practice.
[ Ding. Ding. Unknown Quadrant — Arena 7523 was the last to win, no casualties. ]
Morgana ran toward me — with the urgency of someone who had watched the damage accumulate and had needed to contain the response to not reveal what we had.
"I'm coming, my Lord—"
"No." — I said, with more firmness than I had planned. — "Save it. Not yet."
I began healing myself slowly. Enough so the damage wouldn't become limiting. For all other competitors, my hero was an excellent crossbow archer — precise, efficient, useful. Nothing more. While I was a human, unusual and resolute, but a human. The less they knew of the rest, the greater the advantage when the rest became necessary.
When the gate opened again, I leaned on Morgana and we left — with the posture of someone who had fought more than they should have and was paying the price, which was partially true and completely useful as communication.
I had won four battles in sequence, without rest, without revealing anything beyond what was necessary. Four completed. Six remaining before the Griffin — and each probably harder than the previous, the Infernals having calibrated the escalation so that nobody reached the end without having revealed everything they had.
Using the cards early was what the organizers wanted. It was the spectacle they had built the arena to produce.
The question was when to yield and when to hold.
✦
When we crossed the battle gate, we were transported to a place I hadn't expected.
A room. Refined, of Victorian and ancient character — with furniture that communicated another era, another place, another construction logic. No windows, but with a balcony wide enough to comfortably hold ten people.
"Where are we, Morgana?"
"In the rest area, my Lord. It's in rooms like these that competitors rest between battles."
I advanced toward the balcony. In the sky, three suns were still visible — small, disappearing with the slowness of end of day that communicated that this place, despite everything it was, still knew night.
But when I reached the edge of the balcony and looked at the horizon, what appeared wasn't landscape.
It was a wall.
Enormous. The kind that isn't measured in meters because meters wasn't the right unit — it had kilometers of height, smooth and dark, erected with the seriousness of something built not to impress but to contain. There was no decoration, no variation in texture, nothing that communicated it had been built by anything beyond absolute necessity.
"What the hell is that?"
Morgana seemed to know the answer. But it wasn't her voice that reached me.
"That wall is what protects us from the Vriseus."
The voice was quiet but potent — the kind that didn't need volume to carry. When I turned, there was a girl nearby. Clearly human in essence, but with small caprine horns budding timidly from her forehead, red skin that communicated different origin, and what appeared to be a tail moving slightly with the independent life of something that had learned to express itself regardless of the body it was attached to.
"An Infernal."
"Yes." — she said, with the care of someone who had learned that first impressions were work. — "Forgive the intrusion. My name is Paprini — I'll be your host while you wait between battles."
My doubtful expression didn't go unnoticed. It was Morgana who filled the gap.
"All competitors receive an attendant to help with the most common things. At bottom it's someone to supervise while we're on their planet."
"Wait — you're saying that here is…?"
"Welcome to my planet." — Paprini said, with the contained pride of someone who had said that many times and still believed in what she was saying. — "In the Oasis you call our planet Cancri. We are on the main moon of the mother planet — the main trading post for visitors, merchants and competitors of our culture."
She crouched slightly as she spoke. And I noticed her mouth wasn't moving — the voice arrived another way, some mechanism I couldn't locate but which had clearly been calibrated not to hurt whoever was listening. I appreciated that. The last thing I wanted was to be hurt by conversation before fighting.
"Unfortunately, according to our records, our food is toxic to your species — so I have nothing to offer beyond the physical structure. Is there anything you'd like to use? We have the baths."
✦
Before she finished, Morgana stepped forward and grabbed her by the neck.
"Are you trying to kill us?" — Morgana's voice came out low and precise, the kind that didn't shout because it didn't need to. — "You know the gravity of this planet is one of the greatest in the universe. Only this place keeps us alive. What are you gaining from this?"
The girl's eyes went wide. Genuine shock — or a very good representation of it.
"Morgana. Release her and let her explain."
Morgana released. Paprini fell to the ground — and what ran from her eyes wasn't common tears. It was red. Intense, like diluted ink, with the quality of a fluid that had been produced for another function and had found this one by accident.
"I beg your forgiveness, visitor. It's my first time. I didn't know."
"Paprini, you're dismissed. We're fine."
She didn't wait for a second response. She ran toward the door and disappeared.
"Lord." — Morgana said, as soon as the door closed, with the tone of someone who had made a decision and had been bypassed without explanation. — "She certainly knew about the planet's own gravity. Why did you let her go?"
"Morgana." — I paused. — "It's too early for children to die."
She didn't respond immediately. There was something in her silence that communicated she disagreed but had calculated that disagreeing out loud was different from disagreeing in silence, and had chosen the latter.
"By the way." — I said, before the silence became a conversation about something else. — "She mentioned the Vriseus. What are they?"
The question seemed to surprise her differently — perhaps not for the attitude, but for my ignorance.
"The Vriseus…" — she went to the balcony. She rested her arm on the railing overlooking the wall and looked at that structure for a second, as though using the time to organize what she knew and what had been told to her, because there was a difference between the two. Then she turned and looked at me. — "Honestly I've never seen one, Lord. But I know what my race says about them."
"And what does your race say?"
"They are the most powerful race in our universe." — she said. — "So powerful that, for some reason nobody explains completely, they were never permitted in the Oasis."
The silence that followed was the kind that didn't need more words.
I looked at the wall.
Suddenly it made sense in a different way.
Even the Infernals — one of the strongest races in the known universe, who used the arena as entertainment and their own planet's gravity as a natural filter against unwanted visitors — had built that.
Not to impress.
To contain.