There was once a philosopher who said that human capacity is tied directly to indulgence and perseverance — and that being strong and fearless has more to do with overcoming fear and not giving up than with simply being born with the unique capacity of feeling no fear nor knowing failure.
For a long time, that phrase was always something I saw as a charming and flowery way of dividing the haves from the have-nots — and of demonstrating, with pretty words, that willpower overcomes any adversity, even the one you were thrown into without a choice.
I didn't know whether I believed in it.
✦ ✦ ✦
"Gentlemen, when you're ready, you may prepare."
The judge's voice came out thin and hurried — the voice of someone fulfilling a function and wanting to get out of the way as fast as possible.
The blond-haired man before me seemed more serious than at any moment since I met him. The arrogance that before seemed permanent on his face had yielded space to something more contained — not fear, not yet, but the awareness that what had happened changed things completely. I could feel the regret stamped on him, the reticence of someone who realizes too late that the game had become something else.
But things had gone too far for words to solve.
I wasn't there out of hatred. I didn't hate that man — didn't even know him enough to hate. What moved me was something the Oasis had taught me with blood and repetition: if you're going to hit, hit hard. Always. Hard enough that the enemy doesn't have the capacity to get up and want revenge. What I needed to show the man who commanded the military arm of humans was simple: despite his capability and his strength, he was nothing next to what existed out there.
I wasn't certain of the extent of his power. But I believed, sincerely, that if he were as capable as he claimed to be, the other noble and distant families would be helping us. The fact that we were alone already said a lot — not about the cowardice of others, but about how much the Unicorns' power wasn't enough to inspire confidence.
"Go!"
The judge's hand descended.
Neither I nor Viego moved.
The small man who acted as referee ran out of the arena with the urgency of someone who knows the ground where he stands is about to become something else in a few seconds. Perhaps he knew that sparring would be much more than a few simple exchanges. Perhaps he was simply afraid of Viego. Or of Arachne, who observed from outside the arena with the lazy interest of someone watching pups play.
My daughter didn't seem to have any interest in dealing with humans. Perhaps she had the capacity to measure each one's power and conclude that nobody there deserved the energy of moving a leg. In truth, her interest remained more on what was happening up above — on the platform suspended over the arena — than where I was. Perhaps she also understood that what was in that glass hall was truly what mattered.
"I hope you don't regret not fighting with your beast."
Viego's words came out choppy — a mixture of nervousness and rage he tried to disguise as provocation. But the only thing it did was pull me from the torpor. I still caught myself thinking about what I should do: killing him wouldn't be the best path, but honestly I didn't know what would happen if I went all out.
Maybe I needed to feel that battle before understanding who my ally would be.
"Okay."
The mark began to close over my body.
The armor rose slowly — up the arms, over the torso, down the legs — with the familiarity of something that was already part of me. And over the right forearm, the glaive was born. The curved blade extended centimeter by centimeter, growing until it nearly touched my back. The dark metal shone beneath the artificial sun with a light that didn't come from outside.
I saw on the faces of everyone around that that power was something they had never seen. The silence lasted half a second before exploding into screams.
"Hey, that's unfair! He's using armor!"
"HEY, HEY! Stop the fight, this is wrong!"
"How can someone be so shameless!"
The screams rose in pitch while I saw the anxiety on Viego's face give way to a presumptuous smile — he loved it, the audience defending his honor, the nobles indignant in his name. It was more fuel for the spectacle.
But I wouldn't allow that to interfere.
"HOW STUPID CAN YOU BE!"
The shout tore from my throat with a force I didn't plan — and that carried something I felt too late: remnants of Voice of Command.
It wasn't my intention. It shouldn't have happened. But the rage, the mixture of blood, the pressure of hundreds of hostile voices screaming against me — as though the enemy would do less than I was doing, as though the world revolved around justice and equality. Humans were many things, but equal wasn't one of them. At least not when compared to what existed out there.
"Do you think the Infernals are going to fight fair?! That they'll let you draw your swords calmly?! We're going to a war, you animals! KNOW YOUR PLACE, YOU USELESS FOOLS!"
The effect was immediate.
People fell. Not all — but dozens. Some vomited, the body rejecting the pressure the voice had thrown over them. Others staggered as though the floor had tilted. The faces that seconds ago screamed in indignation were now white, empty, with the expression of someone who took a punch to the stomach without seeing where it came from.
Viego stumbled.
Just once. His body wavered for a fraction — the knees flexing involuntarily, the eyes blinking fast — before stabilizing. He held. Standing. And that was already more than most there could manage.
In the background, the group in red and black reacted differently. The majority staggered like the others — but at least five held standing, firm. And a sixth — in the middle of them — didn't even seem to register that something had happened. Just stood there. Watching. With the indifference of someone watching rain through a window.
I stored that face.
"What… did you… do?"
Viego's voice came out broken. Not from fear — from shock. The kind of voice that comes after taking a blow you didn't know existed.
"I'm training someone who doesn't yet know what true terror means."
✦ ✦ ✦
I advanced.
The young man drew from his ring what seemed to be a sword of singular beauty — the blade broad, polished, adorned with gold and a crest in the shape of a unicorn engraved at the base. An heirloom weapon. A weapon that cost more than everything I had ever possessed in my life. A weapon he raised with both hands while trying to find his guard.
"Wait… I—"
I didn't go for his body.
I went for the sword.
I wanted to teach a lesson, not kill him. The opening he gave me was pathetic — the guard out of adjustment, the weight on the wrong foot, the entire body telegraphing the next movement before making it. Honestly, I saw myself the way Zaridan perhaps saw me: pathetic and misshapen, trying to grope for something close to excellence and managing only mediocrity. It was strange being on the other side. It was clear that man had never put his life at real risk. Had never fought knowing that one mistake meant not coming back. Had never felt the enemy's blade passing close enough to know that the difference between living and dying was a centimeter and half a second.
The fact that he had withstood my altered Voice of Command already surprised me. He was strong. Genuinely strong — the foundation was there, solid, built with years of investment and many nectar stones I couldn't dream of having in that quantity.
But fear was still missing.
Fear of dying. Fear of losing everything. Fear of being run through by a blade and having to kill the enemy before healing yourself. Everything I went through in the Oasis made me capable not because of my ability, but because of the fear of dying — and for having learned to deal with that fear every day without falling into despair. The Oasis, for me, was always about falling and getting up. Much more than about never having fallen. Training against someone weaker never made anyone stronger. It's in adversity that iron is forged.
My glaive struck his sword with everything I had.
The impact threw him backward. His feet dragged on the limestone, carving white furrows in the stone, and his knees gave way. He fell to his knees with the sword still in his hands — trembling, but holding.
"Get up, noble Unicorn." My voice came out low. Controlled. It wasn't provocation — it was instruction. "Do you think the Infernals are going to let you breathe?"
I advanced again.
The glaive descended upon the sword. Once. Twice. Three times. Each blow heavy, rhythmic, relentless — the sound of metal against metal echoing through the arena like the tolling of a bell announcing something nobody wanted to hear. My breathing grew heavy. Each impact cost me — and that also said a lot about me.
I couldn't sustain a long fight.
It was something I already saw as a fundamental weakness. All my abilities were explosive — the mark, Blood Trail, Affinity with Magic — each one consumed me quickly, draining mana and energy at a speed that transformed any prolonged combat into a countdown. A quick fight had always been my best way to use what I had: hit with the greatest possible force and pray it worked.
So that sparring, despite being meant to teach that arrogant man about the world, was also to push my body to the limit. Not through extreme power, but through continuous and prolonged effort. It was exactly what I needed: someone who could endure long enough to force me to maintain the rhythm when everything inside me screamed to stop.
Of course, to anyone watching from outside, what I was doing looked more like humiliation than training.
And perhaps it was. I was still angry. The mixture of blood intoxicated me, pushed me to go further, made me want to hit harder when I was already hitting hard enough. Time was short. I needed to grow more. Much more.
"Wait—"
I could see the astonished eyes of everyone watching my glaive descend upon their commander while he remained on his knees, taking blow after blow. Viego had activated abilities — one of them very similar to my Blood Magic, a structural reinforcement that hardened the body and distributed the impact. That was what kept him on his knees instead of on the ground. But even that wasn't enough.
"Show me your secrets, young man." My glaive descended one more time. "Otherwise, this won't be a fight."
My words weren't arrogance. I felt that until that moment he still hadn't shown what he was capable of — honestly, what he was showing me couldn't be the best that existed. I knew that man hadn't reached where he was with high stats alone. There was something he was hiding. And what I wanted wasn't to humiliate — it was to show my ally that keeping secrets from those who fight at your side brought no benefit and created a dangerous habit. He needed to learn that hitting hard was always the best solution. Always.
"GO FUCK YOURSELF! YOU LOWBORN SON OF A BITCH!"
I deactivated the glaive on the right arm.
And threw a punch.
In his face. While he was still talking. The closed fist struck the jaw with everything Blood Trail gave me in speed — and one of Viego's teeth flew in an arc toward the audience that was still stunned, bouncing on the limestone with a small and absurd sound that nobody dared comment on.
"If you have time to say irrelevant things, then you have something to show." I shook my hand. His blood on my fingers. "Show me."
Viego's sword came.
Fast — faster than I expected, faster than anything he had demonstrated until then. The blade passed centimeters from my face, the displaced air scratching my skin. I dodged at the last moment — and saw the opening. His body was stretched, committed by the blow, the flank exposed.
Another punch. In the stomach.
Blood gushed from his mouth and spread across my armor — hot, thick, with the metallic smell I knew from worlds that weren't this one.
"Show me what you're capable of." My voice came out between heavy breaths — because I was also paying, each second of it costing me mana that wasn't coming back. "Do you think the other families are going to care about someone as weak as you?"
My suspicion was that he was afraid of showing his true power to the strangers in red and black — perhaps revealing what the Unicorns could really do before outsiders was a taboo he didn't dare break. But I had no time for politics. If he was holding back because of that, to me he was just an idiot who preferred to lose rather than reveal a card.
"Go fuck yourself! You don't know anything!"
Another punch. On the other side of the face. This time I made a point of not holding back.
His head spun. Another tooth on the ground.
"You intend to die here to save what?" I looked into his eyes. "Pathetic."
I saw his eyes change.
What was there was no longer rage. It was something deeper — more visceral, more ancient. The kind of thing that lives at the bottom of someone who was raised being taught they are strong and who now, for the first time, is being forced to accept being humiliated by another's strength. His blood boiled. I could feel it — not metaphorically, literally feel it, from the heat that radiated from his skin like a furnace opening.
If he intended to take this to the end without showing what he had, to me he was just someone who knew nothing about risking his life for something he wanted to protect.
"Who's the rookie here?"
I undid the armor.
The mark withdrew. The glaives disappeared. I stood there, in the middle of the arena, with empty hands and the body back to normal — a human in tight clothes, sweating, panting, with blood on my fingers that wasn't mine.
I turned my back on him.
And started walking.
✦ ✦ ✦
"Hey… Where do you think you're going?"
The voice came from behind. Hoarse. Soaked in blood and wounded pride.
"This isn't over."
I was already a few meters away when I felt it.
Something different. Something that wasn't there before — a new pressure, being born behind me like a rising tide. It wasn't hostility. It wasn't rage. It was something more fundamental than that — it was power coming out of a place where it had been locked for a long time and finally deciding that the door no longer mattered.
I turned.
And what I saw made me stop.
Viego had summoned something I recognized as that family's trademark.
Beside him, materialized in some silent manner very similar to how Arachne came out of the Vivarium, stood a chestnut stallion. Enormous. Nearly three meters tall at the withers, with musculature that made the animal look sculpted from living stone. The coat shone with a golden tone that didn't come from the sun. And on the forehead — raised like a lance pointed at the sky — an ivory horn the size of my arm.
A Unicorn.
At least twice as large as any I had ever seen.
Viego placed his hand on the creature's body.
And screamed.
The sound that came out of him wasn't human. It was something between a roar and an invocation — a call that came from within and that the Unicorn answered not with movement, but with dissolution. The stallion's body began to glow. The form undid itself — not into particles, not into light, but into energy that flowed directly into Viego's body like a river finding the sea. The Unicorn was being absorbed.
And Viego was growing.
His body expanded. A meter more in height in a process that lasted seconds but seemed to happen in slow motion — the muscles redrawing themselves beneath the skin, the shoulders widening until they tore the shirt, the legs thickening until the pants split at the seams. The blond hair grew visibly, falling down his back like a mane that didn't exist before. The skin grew denser, more luminous, with that golden tone that seconds ago belonged to the Unicorn.
And on his forehead — small, almost discreet, like something still being born — a horn.
Ivory.
Arachne, who until that moment observed with the lazy disinterest of someone watching pups, hissed at me. Loud. Urgent. The sound she made when something before her stopped being play and became threat. She was asking permission to enter the fight.
I knew what that meant. If Arachne — my daughter, my twelve-meter Yokai Queen — considered that dangerous enough to intervene, then what stood before me was no longer the arrogant noble from before.
It was something else.
"So you've finally decided to show the secret." I said, and the adrenaline I felt wasn't fear. It was something else — something hotter, more addictive, more dangerous. "Come."
I activated Blood Magic. Affinity with Magic exploded inside me, maximizing everything. The mark closed over my body again. And at my side, Zaetar materialized — his presence filling the remaining space with a gravity that made the limestone around us crack.
No secrets. If he was going to give everything, I would answer with everything.
A shout came from above — someone in the suspended hall trying to stop what could no longer be stopped.
Viego advanced.
The arena floor came apart beneath his steps. It didn't crack — it came apart. Each stride of the transformed body destroyed the limestone as though it were thin ice, crater after crater opening in the path between us while three meters of Unicorn human came in my direction at a speed that didn't match the size.
And as he approached — as the air trembled with the pressure of that impossible body, as the ground opened and the audience fled and someone up above screamed to stop — I noticed something on my face.
A smile.
Not of confidence. Not of arrogance. The smile of someone who found something they were searching for without knowing they were searching — and who now, in the middle of the chaos, feeling every fiber of the body ignite with the proximity of the collision, understood a simple and terrifying truth about himself.
I was becoming addicted to it.
Battle.