Silence, heavy and deafening, hung over the scene. Salomé's lifeless body lay on the ground, her long hair scattered like strands of extinguished light. Everyone held their breath. Lingyin, Jin Muleo, Bakuran… all watched Zelongue's gesture in astonishment. As for Sakolomé, fists trembling, he stared at his sister.
Lingyin turned to him, eyes filled with worry.
Lingyin: "We can't leave her! But we can't fight him either…"
Sakolomé (in a firm tone): "We have to find a weakness."
Lingyin: Exactly, we'll find a challenge where a mortal could defeat him!
Sakolomé seriously: No… I want to attack him, confront him in battle!
Lingyin: "You want to attack him? Against Zelongue? Do you know what he is? He's a Red Dragon, a guardian of the Sacred Fire… he is literally the incarnation of the idea of war."
Sakolomé remained silent for a moment, then murmured:
Sakolomé: "Precisely. His ego is surely built around combat. We need to aim there."
Lingyin raised an eyebrow, puzzled.
Lingyin: "You want to… provoke him?"
Sakolomé: "Not just that. I want to hit him where it hurts. Not with strength. With pride."
Lingyin let out a deep sigh.
Lingyin: "This is completely crazy… but fine. You don't intend to win. You just want to hit his ego."
Sakolomé nodded with a glance.
Then, he stepped forward toward Zelongue, who still maintained his royal posture, arms crossed in his glowing red energy cloak, impassive before Salomé's unconscious body.
Sakolomé: "Zelongue. Let's talk."
The dragon raised an eyebrow, vaguely amused.
Zelongue: "There is nothing to say. She belongs to me. You are free to leave."
Sakolomé: "Nothing belongs to the one who takes without being challenged."
A gleam passed through Zelongue's eye.
Zelongue: "I do not fight for what is already mine."
Sakolomé (smiling slightly): "Are you afraid? The great Zelongue, Protector of the Sacred Fire, incarnation of war… fears the challenge of a mere mortal?"
Zelongue's laughter echoed in the air like the thunder of a laughing volcano.
Zelongue: "You play with fire, human. But I see what you are trying… I could crush you like an insect."
He took a step, the ground cracked under his foot.
Zelongue: "Very well. I accept."
Shouts erupted around them.
Bakuran: "This is madness!"
Jin Muleo: "Sakolomé! You've lost your mind!"
But Sakolomé remained still, arms hanging, gaze fixed on the dragon's, calm like the surface of a lake before a storm.
Kai, standing back, observed in silence, his face closed, unreadable.
Zelongue (snickering): "Very well. To balance this farce, I'll do you a favor: you don't need to beat me. You only need… to touch me. One hit. Even ridiculous. And you will win."
A chilling murmur ran through the assembly.
Sakolomé traced a calm smile.
Sakolomé: "As you wish."
He added inwardly: I expected exactly this kind of challenge. Your pride will lose you.
Zelongue stretched his arms, and his body slowly covered itself with crimson scales, sparkling like molten rubies. His aura exploded in a wave of red, golden, scarlet flames.
The pressure in the air became unbearable. Even the ground seemed to bend under the dragon's invisible force.
Lingyin (whispering, worried): "You have no chance, Sakolomé. You know that? He sees every intention, every movement, every idea before it is born…"
Sakolomé: "I know. But he does not see my intention. Because I do not want to win. I want to force him to see himself."
Lingyin lowered his eyes. He understood.
Lingyin: "Then do it well. If he crushes you… you won't have a second chance."
Sakolomé (calm): "That's precisely what makes it real."
Zelongue raised his hand. A ring of flames instantly rose around them, separating the two fighters from the rest of the world. The setting changed: a field of burning ashes, a sky torn by magma cracks, and one rule: one strike landed, or annihilation.
Zelongue: "Come closer, tiny one."
Sakolomé stepped forward, and everything stopped.
The wind ceased. The fire hung suspended in the air. Even the ashes, carried by the heat's swirls, seemed frozen in a moment outside time.
Sakolomé moved forward.
One step.
Then another.
His gaze locked on Zelongue's, without hatred, without apparent fear. Just… resolve. A strange peace, drawn not from strength, but from total lucidity.
Zelongue watched him, chin slightly tilted, arms still crossed in his energy cloak. An almost affectionate smile stretched at the corner of his lips.
Zelongue:
"You take a step… to touch me? Or to die?"
Sakolomé did not answer. He leaned slightly forward, like an animal ready to pounce.
Then he did it.
He jumped.
But Zelongue… sighed.
And the sky tore apart.
Literally.
A crack of strange nature, between the crash of thunder and the groan of a world too old, split the atmosphere above them. The sky fractured like black glass, letting loose a torrent of raw mana.
And through these breaches… eyes appeared.
Colossal eyes.
Made of pure mana, shimmering, solar, yet frozen in their stillness. Their hue oscillated between the deep red of magma and the incandescent gold of a stellar core. At the center of each, a vertical pupil, like that of a divine reptile, slowly contracted, as if searching for a target in reality.
A sky of gaze.
The entire world — to the horizons — seemed covered with these celestial pupils. The battlefield became an altar of display. A naked theater.
Sakolomé, in his momentum, stopped abruptly.
He did not want to, but his body had stopped on its own, paralyzed by what had just risen above him, inside him, against him.
A vertigo ran down his spine. His breath caught. He felt… a weight. An invisible burden. As if a consciousness pressed on his shoulders, on his neck, on the depths of his soul.
He raised his eyes.
And saw the eyes.
And the eyes saw him.
Not his body. Not his face.
Him. Entirely. His memory. His regrets. His fleeting thoughts. His very will.
The silence was so complete that one could hear fear breathe.
Bakuran, Jin Muleo, Lingyin… all backed away. Even the stones seemed to retreat.
And Zelongue… burst out laughing.
A deep, charcoal laugh, vibrating like thunder in an infinite cave. It was not a mocking laugh. It was a laugh of inevitability. The laugh of the unavoidable.
Zelongue (softly):
"You thought… you could approach me? With what? Your heart? Your courage?"
He slowly opened his arms, as if to embrace the world.
Zelongue:
"Look. Here is the Eye of the Abyss. Ōculus Vorago.
Eyes formed from draconic mana.
They do not only watch… They strip bare."
The pupils in the sky contracted in unison. A strange light flooded the plain.
Not a visible light. A light of meaning.
Zelongue (with a grave, slow, unshakable voice):
"They see everything.
Your weaknesses. Your breath. Your thoughts. Your invisible shields.
Your hopes, even if you do not admit them."
Sakolomé staggered a step.
It was not physical fear, it was worse: a feeling of spiritual nakedness.
He felt exposed to a cosmic tribunal, judged by an army of eyes whose mere existence seemed to say: "You were never ready."
Zelongue:
"And if there is no flaw in you…
I will put it there."
He slowly raised his hand, palm open toward Sakolomé.
Zelongue:
"The eye can force a contradiction in your being.
Suggest to your existence that you should not have existed as such.
Inject an anomaly.
Create a weakness where there was none.
Like a bug in a perfect program."
Sakolomé faltered. A dull pain rose in his skull, like a deep, existential doubt.
What if… he was not real?
What if… he was not meant to be the one who wins?
What if… he was just a parenthesis in someone else's story?
Zelongue:
"You feel it, don't you? This oppression?
It is your essence doubting.
It is your being wondering if it is allowed to believe still."
He stretched out his hand, and the eyes in the sky blinked together.
Zelongue:
"As long as they are open… no more lies.
No more invisibility.
No more hidden plans.
Even your dreams are no longer safe."
Then he tilted his head, softly, his gaze piercing Sakolomé's.
Zelongue (lower, almost tender):
"I could even… make you forget.
Forget how to fight.
Forget why you got up this morning.
Forget that you have a chance."
An immense silence fell.
Then he stepped forward, the ground cracked beneath his sole, fire climbed up along his legs.
Zelongue (coldly):
"Now that you know what this draconic skill is capable of…"
He slowly opened his mouth, and his tone became that of a judge, a king, a god.
Zelongue:
"Do you still think you have a chance to win?
You are still free to say you give up…
Because as soon as I start to attack…
I will massacre you."
And the eyes in the sky opened a little wider.
And Sakolomé, at the center of it all… closed his own.