Sakolomé, eyes closed, remains motionless. A strange resigned peace seems to envelop him.
Bakuran steps back, paralyzed.
Even Kai, usually impassive, clenches his jaw. Those colossal eyes in the sky… it's not normal.
This is no longer a fight.
Jin Muleo, his throat tight, stares at Sakolomé.
— We can't let him go. He's going to be crushed... It's suicide.
He steps forward. Just one step.
Just enough to show he intends to cross the ring of fire.
But a hand appears: Lingyin.
— Wait.
— Let me go, Lingyin! I can't... just stand there!
Lingyin trembles too. But he holds firm.
— I know… I want to shout and run there myself. But… look at him. He hasn't said a word, nor moved an inch.
He knows. He knows what he's doing. So trust him... Jin.
Jin growls through clenched teeth, eyes dark fixated on Sakolomé, still frozen in the arena, alone.
He clenches his fists. He swallows hard.
In the burning silence, Sakolomé feels a shiver crawl up his spine. But… it's not fear.
It's warm. It's soft. It's… alive.
He furrows his brow.
Sakolomé, internally:
— What is… this?
It's not mana.
It's… pleasant. As if… something inside me is awakening.
Inner voice – Rivhiamë:
— Did you really think I'd let you die there without doing anything?
Sakolomé:
— Rivhiamë...
Rivhiamë:
— Listen. We need to talk.
This fight… it's not for you.
Zelongue is not a normal warrior. He's a Draconic Heir.
He is made to crush entities. Not humans.
Even I… am visible to his eyes. And I dwell deep inside you.
Sakolomé remains silent. He listens. Every word is a slap.
Rivhiamë:
— His attacks are meta-conceptual. He strikes beyond flesh. He can break the very idea of you.
If I inject the energy you need to respond… your body explodes. Literally. Your being would be devoured before you even move a finger.
A heavy silence.
Sakolomé swallows with difficulty. He understood.
Rivhiamë:
— I know you want to save your sister. But there… there is no path where you win. None.
Even with my help, you won't last the first minute.
You want to die before her? Is that your plan?
Sakolomé lowers his head. His fist trembles. But he remains calm.
Sakolomé:
— So… what? I run away? I surrender?
Rivhiamë:
— No. You think.
You give up this particular fight.
We go back up to Ysolongue. She might be able to stop him, or even… summon the eleventh Heir.
There are forces more balanced than you for that.
No answer.
Nothing.
Rivhiamë, in a more urgent tone:
— Sakolomé... don't tell me you're going to be stubborn. Do you hear me? This isn't about honor. It's impossible.
You don't even have 1% chance. Not even a speck of victory.
One beat.
Then another.
Sakolomé slowly raises his eyes. The sky watches him.
Silence stretches. Even the wind seems to hold its breath.
The eyes.
They don't move, yet they see everything.
Infinite. Imposing. Incomprehensible.
Two immense mana globes, formed in the black skies, fix the earth as if the will of the world had just been summoned there.
Their vertical, reptilian pupils spin slowly like inverted spirals, radiating a pressure so ancient it seems to come from another time — a chasm of draconic memories the universe itself wanted to forget.
Sakolomé stood frozen, short of breath.
His fingers trembled. Not from cold.
But from lucidity. From a nameless terror climbing up his back like a mental poison.
__ These eyes... they truly see me. Me. My being. My sin. My weaknesses... They strip me bare.
— "What is this…" he whispered, almost inaudibly.
Zelongue still stared at him, but this time with a smile tinged with dark irony.
Around them, the spectators no longer moved. The slightest cry had died out. Some had instinctively stepped back, legs shaking. Others no longer dared blink, as if risking the wrath of those in the sky.
Then…
Sakolomé gritted his teeth.
__No. Not now… Not here…
He closed his eyes for an instant, a memory violently forcing itself upon him.
He reopened his eyes. His gaze was no longer that of an overwhelmed man.
It was the gaze of a brother. Of a survivor. Of a protector.
— "I know…" he said, inhaling deeply, heart tight.
His voice trembled slightly, but it resonated with naked, brutal sincerity.
— "I am not enough…"
A silence.
Then his eyes hardened, his gaze narrowed, vibrating with desperate will.
— "…but I cannot leave her. I cannot abandon my little sister."
He did not shout. He did not scream his revolt. He let it flow through his legs, his arms, his breathing.
Then he bent.
And rushed forward.
One footstrike against the ground, and the wind exploded.
The ground cracked behind him under the pressure. His body, twisted by tension, shot straight, right at Zelongue — like a projectile hurled against an indestructible wall.
In the sky, the colossal eyes seemed to watch him with an almost… amused attention. The pupils contracted slightly, as if adjusting their focus on the moment.
Zelongue did not move.
Not one step back. Not a shred of tension.
Just… that smile.
Predatory smile.
The smile of a hunter watching prey struggle in a web whose threads it does not even perceive.
— "Interesting…" he murmured.
Then he laughed.
A dry, controlled, almost gentle laugh — but one that rang like a death knell in the mana-saturated air.
Colossal eyes, formed of pure mana, radiated above the arena like silent judges. Their bottomless pupils fixed on Sakolomé, dissecting him down to his soul. An unreal white glow began to slowly flow from their celestial eyelids.
Zelongue did not move. He smiled, calm and almost mocking.
And suddenly…
FWOOOOOSH!
A breath swept the air. Sakolomé's magic dissipated instantly. The mana in the air froze. He tried to draw from his reserves, to summon even a spark… but nothing. As if the world itself had rejected his magical existence.
Sakolomé (gritting his teeth): Tsss… Impossible…
Rivhiamë (inner voice, impassive): It's too late. You can't turn back now. Those eyes have already forbidden it.
Sakolomé felt cold sweat run down his neck. But he clenched his fists, his gaze hard. He was out of magic, but he still had his muscles, his rage, his will.
Sakolomé (loudly): Fine… then I'll smash you the old-fashioned way!
KILLER MAN PUNCH!
A roar accompanied the blow, condensing his last reserve of vital energy into a destructive fist. The impact streaked like a meteor toward Zelongue, tearing the ground along its trajectory.
Zelongue did not flinch. He simply looked up.
And then…
BOOM!
Sakolomé's attack warped, coiling upon itself, and mutated into a sphere of white, pulsating energy, almost unreal.
Sakolomé (losing balance): What…?!
The sphere exploded back toward him with supernatural speed. He tried to dodge.
Too late.
But just before impact:
KRA-SHHH!
A translucent, crystalline barrier sprang up around him, blocking the explosion with a crash of folding realities. Sakolomé straightened, eyes wide.
Sakolomé: That barrier… I didn't create it. What is it?!
Rivhiamë (grave, solemn voice): Your attack, being reflected by those eyes… was altered. It became a meta-conceptual form of pre-destruction.
Sakolomé (incredulous): What?!
Rivhiamë: In other words… this reversed version of your own blow was designed as destruction anterior to your very self.
An attack that would have struck you at a time when you didn't even exist yet, when you hadn't even been conceived in the universe.
And yet… it carried the intent to destroy you as if you had always existed.
Sakolomé: That's… insane!
Rivhiamë: I had to place a barrier of the same meta-conceptual plane to cancel its effect. Otherwise… your body, your name, and even your memory would have been reduced to nothing, with no possible trace.
Sakolomé (stepping back): He reflects my attacks… with a power that utterly surpasses them?!
Rivhiamë (dry): It's no longer even a matter of power. Your attacks become inferior in nature.
Those eyes… they redefine the intention of your assault, and invert it into a higher state. You cannot parry, dodge, or counter.
Even the laws of causality no longer protect you.
Meanwhile, Zelongue lightly raised a hand, amused.
Zelongue: You're beginning to understand, aren't you? The "Gaze of the Abyss" doesn't just watch. It rewrites. It condemns.
Sakolomé, internally, addressing Rivhiamë:
— You said… it's an attack that strikes me at a time when I didn't even exist yet. So it's a kind of temporal attack, right?
Rivhiamë:
— No, it goes far beyond time. It's not a temporal attack, nor even causal. It acts on the very foundations that could have defined you in any reality.
If it had struck you… not only would you have disappeared. All alternate versions of you, all memories others might have kept of you, even the idea that someone like you could have existed… all would have been erased.
It's an attack of absolute pre-destruction. It denies you before you are even a possibility.
Sakolomé, eyes wide, voice trembling:
— So… even my defenses would have been useless?
Rivhiamë:
— No. Because this attack is prior to all your defenses. It ontologically precedes them. It denies all that could protect you, even before such things could be conceived.
This kind of meta-conceptual attack cannot be dodged or intercepted. What is prior to everything cannot be perceived or anticipated by what is posterior to it. You would have had no chance.
Sakolomé, stunned:
— But… you used a barrier to protect me.
Rivhiamë (calm, almost solemn):
— Yes. But it is not a conventional barrier. It's a meta-conceptual barrier—that is, a structure resting on the very conditions of all things. It does not protect in reality; it protects the very possibility that there is a reality where you exist.
Such a barrier can only be broken by an attack that denies even deeper the conditions of all things.
And even then, it would be a struggle between absolutes. Premises against premises.
Sakolomé (hesitant, throat tight):
— I… I don't understand anything anymore…