On the Path of Eternal Strength.

Chapter 110 108 The Realm of Law

The training hall of the mansion, inside the Veil, preserved the general shape of the place, but no longer its order. The floor was sunken in several points, the walls opened by grooves of aura, and the ceiling pierced by long cracks that continued releasing dark dust. There were no signs of random destruction. Every mark had direction, intention, and weight, as if the room had been forced to record, one by one, the ways in which Virka had tried to reach Narka.The traces of her techniques were written in the space without needing to be repeated. On one wall remained three straight, deep channels, opened by a frontal offensive that had sought to pierce and break without stopping: the echo of the Fang of Total Rupture. On the floor, several circular craters revealed the falls of the Foundation Breaker's Stride, stomps capable of breaking reinforced surfaces and sinking the enemy's stability before full contact. Near a cracked column, crossed marks and angled pulls showed where the Claw of Internal Tearing and the Trench of the Limb Ripper had tried to tear away defense, energy, and balance.

Higher up, an ascending fracture cut through the ceiling, the remnant of a blow that had risen from below with the intention of breaking internal balance. In another area, the floor was not split outward, but sunk inward, as if a silent pressure had exploded beneath the surface without leaving spectacle. Long curves of aura remained on the walls, traces of spins, charges, lateral pressures, and internal bites that had not been launched to look good, but to destroy in the most direct way possible. The manifestations of beasts appeared only as incomplete residues: a suspended jaw that faded as it formed, two lupine heads dissolving into the wall, insectoid legs folding between cracks, a faceless shadow imploding in silence. They were not active techniques. They were the remains of a session that had lasted long enough to tire even the Veil.

Virka was at the center of that ruin.

She wore her black dojo tunic, marked by dust, superficial cuts, and remnants of aura. The lines ran across the torso with firmness, the skirt panels fell to the ankles, and the red edges continued burning under the spectral light of the plane. The golden embroideries, alive upon the dark cloth, still shone with tense symbols, and in the center of the chest the red circle with the fist remained intact, as if the garment remembered the oath even though the body was already at its limit.

Her breathing was heavy. Her black hair clung to her face from sweat, and her red eyes remained fixed ahead with a ferocity that exhaustion could not extinguish. The aura around her ignited and failed at the edges; sometimes it formed a claw, sometimes a canine skull, sometimes a larger silhouette that broke before aligning with her. Her fingers opened and closed by instinct. Her body was asking her to stop. Her gaze was not.

In front of her, Narka remained in his complete form.

He had no wounds. He had no new marks. His black and gray shell remained whole, crossed by incandescent red veins that pulsed calmly beneath the mineral plates. The dark quartz spines were not chipped, and his golden eyes, ancient and without pupils, observed Virka without mockery or compassion. He had received her techniques, had deflected them, endured them, or nullified them with the precision of one who did not need to move more than necessary. There was no exhaustion in him. Only attention.

That was what weighed most in the room.

Not the destruction of the floor. Not the cracks in the walls. Not the echoes of beasts still dying in the air. What weighed was the difference between Virka's effort and Narka's stillness. She had emptied strength and will against him; he remained there, intact, like a measure she still could not reach.

Virka swallowed air and placed one foot back. The stance came out less clean than before, but it came out. The aura responded with difficulty, gathering around her arms in an unstable form, red and dark. It was not enough for another complete technique. Not yet. But it was enough to prove that she was not willing to lower her gaze.

Narka watched her for a few more seconds. The destroyed room kept silence around them both. In that silence, what the training had revealed was clear: Virka had strength, instinct, and techniques capable of leaving scars in the Veil, but against enemies like Lucien, that would not be enough. She needed control. Endurance. Depth. She needed each beast to appear not only as violence, but as an obedient will.

Virka breathed again, deeper, and kept her eyes on Narka.

She was tired. Very tired.

But she was still standing.

Virka's rear foot found support between the cracks in the floor.

She did not wait for the air to finish settling. The aura ignited again around her legs, irregular but fierce, and her body shot forward with a direct impulse, more like a decision than a clean technique. The black tunic opened with the movement, the red edges vibrated under the light of the Veil, and the fist emblem on her chest seemed to burn for an instant as she crossed the distance against Narka.

She did not arrive.

Narka's Qi appeared around her before the attack took full form. It did not fall like a chain or like a visible barrier, but like an exact pressure that closed the space around her and left her suspended in the air, with her arm extended, her fingers tense, and her aura struggling against a force that did not need to crush her to stop her. Virka clenched her teeth. Her impulse was still alive inside her body, but it no longer had a path.

Narka lowered her without roughness.

Her feet touched the broken floor of the room, but the layer of Qi did not disappear. It remained over her, stuck to her outline like a second atmosphere, forcing her to feel every point where her posture lost stability, every poorly distributed tension, every excess of strength she had put into the advance. Virka tried to regain margin with a turn of her shoulders, but the Qi closed one degree more and nullified the correction.

Then Narka launched her.

The projection was straight, dry, without rage. Virka's body shot toward the rear wall like a line torn from the center of the room. The floor opened beneath her trajectory from the pressure dragged by the layer of Qi, leaving a rough groove between remains of wood, reflected stone, and dark dust. The wall approached too quickly. Virka did not lose her gaze. She gathered the aura in her torso, in her arms, in her back arched against the impulse carrying her, and released it just before the collision.

The explosion was short.

The aura burst from her body outward and broke the layer of Qi into fragments of brown light and pale orange sparks. It did not completely nullify Narka's strength, but it gave her enough margin to twist the fall. Virka turned half her body, touched the wall with her back and feet almost at the same time, and remained supported there, with her legs bent, one arm against the wall and the other trembling beside her side. The wall creaked behind her. A crack climbed up to the ceiling, but did not open further.

Virka breathed with difficulty.

She had escaped the full impact, but the price was noticeable in the way the aura came undone around her shoulders. The exhaustion was no longer just weight in the muscles. It was a slow bite at the root of every movement. Even so, she raised her head and looked at Narka from the wall, sweat on her face, red eyes lit, jaw tense.

Narka did not advance.

—Before continuing, you will recover your body —he said in a deep voice.

Virka did not answer. The heavy breathing was enough to fill the silence.

—I will give you a medicine. It will restore physical exhaustion and provide vital strength to stabilize your aura. It is not a reward. It is a tool. If you are going to learn anything else tonight, you need a body capable of withstanding it.

A minimal opening appeared between the plates of his shell. From there emerged a small, round pill, the size of a marble, held by a thread of Qi. One half was green, deep, with a soft glow of contained life. The other half was red, denser, as if it held compressed heat inside a perfect sphere. It did not give off a strong smell or excessive light, but the nearby air changed slightly, becoming heavier and cleaner at the same time.

Narka's Qi carried it to Virka.

She extended her hand. Her fingers trembled when she took it, not from doubt, but from exhaustion. She observed the pill for a second, as if measuring the weight of accepting help without confusing it with weakness. Then she brought it to her mouth and swallowed it.

The effect was not immediate like an explosion. First, a firm warmth descended through her throat; afterward, the green opened in her chest like new breath, and the red spread toward her extremities with a slow pressure, returning stability to the aura that still crackled at the edges. Virka closed her eyes for an instant, supported against the wall, and let the medicine begin to work.

Then she slid down until she sat on the floor.

The tunic fell around her legs. Her breathing remained heavy, but no longer broken. In front of her, Narka remained motionless in his complete form, observing her without haste, while the destroyed room kept the brief silence that exists between one phase of training and the next.

Virka remained seated against the wall while the medicine finished opening inside her body. The red heat settled into her muscles like an ordered ember, firm, without outburst; the green half extended beneath the fatigue, repairing her breathing, cleaning the accumulated weight in her bones and returning stability to the aura that before broke at the edges. The room remained destroyed around her, but the internal noise of exhaustion began to fade little by little.

Narka observed her from the center of the room, motionless in his complete form. He said nothing while the medicine took effect. His golden eyes remained fixed on Virka with an ancient, patient attention, as if he could read the exact moment when the body stopped being exhausted and became a tool again.

Virka lowered her gaze toward her hands. Her fingers no longer trembled. She closed her fist once, then opened it, feeling how the aura responded better. She was not comfortable. Being in front of Narka could never feel comfortable when the difference between them was so clear. But she was no longer empty.

—Narka —she said at last, in a low voice.

He barely inclined his head.

—Speak.

Virka raised her eyes toward him. There was no challenge in the question. There was respect, closeness, and a doubt that had been growing in her since the training began.

—How is it that you are stronger than I remember? —she asked—. In Draila, in the Bloody Mountains… you were powerful, but not like this.

Narka remained silent for a few seconds. His black and gray shell occupied much of the room, and the incandescent red veins beneath the plates seemed to breathe with a deep calm. When he answered, his voice did not sound proud. It sounded like an old truth, simply put into words.

—In Draila I was limited by Draila itself. That world imposed its own restrictions, even on creatures like me. There I could not deploy my entirety without paying a useless price or altering the balance of the place too much.

Virka listened without looking away.

—Outside that limit —Narka continued—, I can use my power with more freedom. It does not mean I have no restrictions. Every living being has them. But Draila's chains are no longer over me.

Virka let out a small sigh. It was not relief nor complete frustration. It was acceptance. Understanding that Narka had not suddenly changed, but that now he was less contained, made the training weigh in another way. She was not failing against an ordinary version of him. She was striking a measure much closer to his true nature.

She leaned on the wall and stood up.

Fatigue no longer dominated her face. The sweat was still there, the tunic was still marked by dust and superficial cuts, but her breathing had recovered rhythm. The aura responded when she called it, first like a low layer over her shoulders, then like a pressure that descended through her arms, torso, legs, and feet. It did not appear broken. This time it covered her whole body with a more complete form, still wild, but less scattered.

—Then let's continue —she said—. Now I can give it my all again.

Virka adopted a stance.

One foot remained forward, the other back. Knees bent. Torso firm. Both arms rose to cover her chin, closing the central line of her body. It was not a showy stance. It was compact, direct, made to receive, advance, and break when the opening appeared. The aura clung to her like a beast contained beneath the skin, awaiting an order.

Narka also prepared himself.

He did not need to change too much. It was enough for his Qi to become denser around the shell for the air in the room to sink one degree. The next phase was going to begin.

Then both of them felt the tremor.

It was not only one.

The first came from one side of the basement, deep and contained, as if another room had received an internal pressure too great to remain still. The second came from above. Weaker in force, but much more urgent because of its direction: the upper part of the mansion. The area where Valentina slept.

Virka reacted before thinking about it.

Her red eyes sharpened and the aura beneath her feet compressed immediately. Narka turned his head toward the side of the basement, measuring the lower tremor with the gravity of one who recognized the probable origin without needing confirmation.

—Upstairs —said Virka.

—I will go to the basement —Narka replied.

They did not argue. There was no need.

Virka shot toward the exit of the room, propelling herself with aura in a short explosion that lifted dust from the broken floor. Her black, red, and golden tunic opened behind her like a martial shadow as she crossed the threshold toward the upper part of the mansion. Narka advanced in the opposite direction, toward the other training room, his colossal body moving with an impossible speed for its size.

The session ended without closure.

The night had just divided into two alarms.

Narka reached the other end of the basement without reducing his complete form.

The Veil covered that part of the mansion with a stillness heavier than that of the common world. The reflected corridors seemed longer, the walls darker, and the air denser, as if the night had also descended underground and had become trapped between concrete, metal, and energy. The tremor he had felt from the training room was no longer a distant vibration. There it had body. It could be perceived in the floor, in the reinforced panels, and in the pressure that still continued expanding from the adjoining room.

The bunker door was open.

Narka crossed the threshold and found a space that before had been empty of human presence, but not of purpose. The room was wide, reinforced, prepared to withstand concentrations of energy that would have deformed an ordinary room. In the center was Sebastián, standing, motionless, with his back straight and his body surrounded by a silence that did not match the magnitude of what had just occurred. In front of him rose the Qi Mother Core.

It measured approximately one meter sixty high and forty-five centimeters wide. Before, its whiteness had been dense, alive, almost impossible to look at without feeling that energy was accumulating inside a matter too pure. Now that white was dimmed. Not dead, but drained, like a moon covered by ash. The surface of the core still preserved depth, although its glow had lost strength, reduced by an absorption too intense to go unnoticed.

To the right of the Qi Mother Core was the controlled fission reactor. Its indicators remained active, projecting cold lines over the measurement panel. Narka did not need to get too close to read the central data: thirty percent of the stored energy was missing. It was not a minor loss. Sebastián's advance had consumed a real portion of the system, as if the young man's body had turned that bunker into an open throat to swallow energy until breaking the previous limit.

But what held Narka's attention was not the core nor the reactor.

It was Sebastián.

The pressure emanating from him did not correspond to the same state with which he had entered there. His cultivation had crossed the threshold. Narka perceived it clearly: Realm 9, Law Cultivator, initial stage. Sebastián's crimson Qi did not scatter in a disordered way. It was more contained, firmer, with a different density in its center, as if the internal currents had found a new structure upon which to sustain themselves.

And even so, that was not the only thing.

The spiritual energy coming out of him had an abnormal strength for his cultivation realm. Narka evaluated it in silence, without showing visible surprise. It was comparable to that of a cultivator in the Middle Patriarch realm, initial stage, but even within that equivalence it felt heavier, sharper, less common. It did not extend like a simple pressure. It remained around Sebastián with an uncomfortable depth, concentrated behind his stillness, as if something had just awakened enough to make itself noticed without yet revealing its form.

Narka advanced a few steps.

The floor of the Veil responded beneath his complete weight, but Sebastián noticed it before the distance was reduced too much. He turned his head toward him. The movement was slow, not because of weakness, but because of forced control, as if every gesture had to adjust itself to a body that had just changed inside.

Their eyes met.

Sebastián's red irises still had that crimson tornado shape that always seemed to spin toward an impossible center. But now there was something more inside that movement. A deeper red flash, almost dark crimson, crossed by black touches that appeared and disappeared in the spiral like fragments of shadow dragged by a living current. It was not a complete transformation. It was not an activated technique. It was a small change in appearance, but too precise to be ignored.

The visual contact lasted little.

A sharp pain pierced Sebastián.

His face tensed immediately. He did not scream. He did not step back. He only narrowed his eyelids a little and looked away with a dry breath, as if looking directly at Narka had forced something inside him to brush against a weight he still could not sustain. The crimson pressure around his body stirred for an instant and then contained itself again.

Narka stopped in front of him.

He did not seek to force another visual contact. His golden eyes remained grave, ancient, attentive, but diverted enough not to push that pain further. The room fell silent: the dimmed Qi Mother Core in front of Sebastián, the reactor marking its energy loss to one side, and between them the exact distance of an advance that had borne fruit, but not without leaving signs that still could not be treated as something normal.

Sebastián kept his gaze lowered for a few seconds.

Narka remained before him, immense within the Veil, evaluating without yet naming what he had just seen.

__________________________________________

END OF CHAPTER 108

The path continues…

New chapters are revealed every

Sunday, and also between Wednesday or Thursday,

when the will of the tale so decides.

Each one leaves another scar on Sebastián's journey.

If this abyss resonated with you,

keep it in your collection

and leave a mark: a comment, a question, an echo.

Your presence keeps alive the flame that shapes this world.

Thank you for walking by my side.

If this story resonated with you, perhaps we have already crossed paths in another corner of the digital world. Over there, they know me as Goru SLG.

I want to thank from the heart all the people who are reading and supporting this work. Your time, your comments, and your support keep this world alive.

If this story resonated with you, I invite you to support me — your presence and backing make it possible fo