On the Path of Eternal Strength.

Nothing moved. And yet, everything was beginning to transform.

Narka remained still, with his legs rooted in the earth like roots that hesitated whether to grow or resist. His eyes stayed closed. Not out of weakness, but for something deeper: for having chosen to be a witness from silence. From the absence of ego. From the fissure left by having wanted to belong… and not being able to.

The Valley listened. Not with ears. With cracks. And in each one, something pulsed. Not like a heart. Like a judgment.

The bodies of Sebastián and Virka remained inert on the colossus's shell. Not asleep. Not awake. Suspended in a kind of in-between: between wound and healing, between collapse and root, between question and silence.

And then, something changed.

First, a faint tremor in the minerals that held them. It wasn't a threat. It was rhythm. As if the crystals understood that the moment had come… not to show them more, but to ask something of them.

Sebastián's breathing grew heavy. Not because of the body, but because of memory. Each inhalation dragged the residue of what he had seen. Each exhalation, the weight of what he had not been able to say.

And Virka… Virka did not breathe the same. Her chest rose and fell as if two different species still struggled within her: the beast that did not understand pain… and the human who could not stop feeling it.

It was Narka who sensed it first. Not with his eyes. With his back.

The two of them were beginning to react. But not like someone waking from a dream. Rather like someone beginning to inhabit their own collapse.

The Valley no longer offered visions. Now it invited them to choose.

And that choice was not simple. Because to accept the damage, one must first accept that one can never again be who they once were.

Sebastián opened his eyes. Slowly. Red. Not with fury. With weight. The same weight carried by memories when they cease to hurt and begin to mold.

He said nothing. He only turned his face. Beside him, Virka also stirred. A faint tremor in her fingers. A subtle contraction in her jaw. And then… a breath. Deep. Different. As if the air were no longer foreign to her.

And in that exact instant… the Valley spoke.

But not with words. With body. With environment.

The landscape began to pulse again. Not as before. Now it was clearer. More defined. The shadows folded. The shapes outlined. As if the world knew they were no longer victims, but matter ready to be reforged.

And then it happened.

From the ground, right in front of Narka, black roots emerged. Not as a threat. As arms. Slow, rough, fibrous. They did not want to trap them. They wanted to touch them. To read them. To invade them not from without, but through the fissures they themselves had opened.

Sebastián knew it.

—It's… assimilating us.

His voice was a whisper, but in the Valley every echo had a body.

Virka did not answer. But her hand—still joined with his—tightened.

And that gesture… that small gesture… was enough for the world to understand they were ready.

Ready not to fight. Ready to fall again, but this time… with eyes open.

Sebastián closed his eyes. Not to escape. But to allow.

Because something—not a thought, but a pulse—told him the Valley was no longer an enemy to defeat, but a voice to be heard.

And then he did not fall. He dissolved.

It was not a descent as before. It was an opening. An inner tear, not caused by the Valley, but by the will to be reached.

The spiral in his eye, the one that had turned for days, for lives, for all that remains unnamed, at last found fissures. Not in the world. In him. And it entered. Without violence. Without permission. Without hope of return.

First, the name. "Sebastián."

It sounded foreign. Like a misremembered echo. Like a word spoken by someone else. By someone no longer there.

Then, the body. Its weight, its texture, its musculature forged by blows and hunger vanished. He was no longer the child hardened by the mountain. No longer the survivor of Draila. He was no one. Only consciousness.

Bare consciousness. Vulnerable. Open like a wound exposed to the wind.

The space where he found himself was not a place. It was a reflection. A precise point between the past that haunted him and the future that still refused to reach him. A threshold that cannot be crossed with feet. Only with surrender.

There, thoughts were not thoughts. They were voices. Fragments of himself. Loose pieces of versions that never fully lived or died.

—What use are you, if you don't know whom to protect?

—What is your strength worth, if you can't prevent losing yourself?

—What do you build, if everything you touch ends up bleeding?

—What do you love, if love forces you to become something weak?

They were old voices. Red. Some childish, others recent. And a new one: One without age. Only truth.

—You haven't fought against the Valley. You've fought against yourself. Because if you ever accept who you are… you'll run out of excuses to keep surviving the way you do.

Sebastián did not defend himself. He couldn't. He didn't want to.

Because every phrase had the exact shape of his fissures. Every word fit into a wound he had never been able to name.

And then, he understood.

Not all at once. Not as revelation. As gradual acceptance.

The Valley didn't want to destroy him. It didn't want to show him who he had been. It wanted to leave him before what he could become… if he did not decide. If he did not choose. If he did not assume.

It wasn't a vision. It was the prelude to the last trial. The real one. The one not fought with blood or bone, but with what one decides to build with the ruins that remain.

And that terrified him more than any creature, more than any blow. Because there was no one left to blame. Not the world. Not his past. Not the ghosts that pushed him to harden. Only him. Him, before himself. Him, before the possibility of having no purpose. Him, before the ultimate question:

"Who are you, when pain is no longer necessary?" And in that moment… he knew.

The Valley would impose nothing else on him. It would no longer give him enemies, nor visions, nor inner monsters. It would leave him only with a seed. One that would germinate only if Sebastián chose to water it. One that, if ignored, would die with him.

And in that thick silence, full of shapes not yet formed, it was heard one last time:

—Here begins the true fall. Not downward. Into you.

—

Virka did not close her eyes. She never did. Because for her, closing her eyes was surrender.

But this time… she blinked.

Only once. And when she opened them, the world was no longer the same.

The color had not changed. The center had.

She was no longer on Narka's shell. She did not feel the vibration of minerals, nor the earthy heat that sustained her flesh. She did not feel Sebastián either. She was alone.

Naked. Not of clothing. Of certainty. Of origin. Of limits.

Her human body did not disappear. But it lost texture. She was no longer skin, muscle, bone. She was a barely defined contour, as if the matter that formed her began to wonder if it still wanted to be what it was.

And the beast… did not return either. It did not roar from the depths. It did not fight for its place. It only stayed silent. As if it, too, doubted.

And then she felt it.

The Valley did not look at her. It sniffed her. It roamed over her like an ancient animal that no longer bites… only memorizes the scent of what is about to be born.

And that new "her" still had no shape. No name. No past. Only a soft tremor, a pulsation that did not come from her chest, but from a deeper center: the center where nothing yet exists… but everything could be.

She did not fall. But her legs gave way.

Not from weakness. From fracture. Because the bridge between the creature and the girl was breaking… but not into emptiness. Into a third path. One neither of them understood.

And there, in that non-place where there was no ground nor sky, only a whiteness vast as the waiting of a god, a voice emerged. Not as word. As need. As if the world were finally asking her:

—What are you… if you no longer want to be what you were… and you're not sure you deserve what you are?

The silence answered with its own echo.

The roar did not return. But neither did it leave her.

She felt it, sleeping beneath her tongue. Like a fossil memory. Like an atrophied muscle that still throbbed.

And the girl… that fragile figure, with thin arms and eyes red as burning coal… looked at her own hands.

They were no longer claws. But neither were they only fingers. They were something in between.

They were the fissure through which something new could seep.

Virka remembered the cold. Not the wind's. The one she felt when her human form awoke for the first time.

The nakedness that was not physical, but emotional. The terror of not roaring when Sebastián bled. The pain of having eyes… and using them only to watch him be destroyed.

And yet… she also remembered something else.

The way her chest hurt when he took her hand. The warmth was not protection. It was belonging.

And that was why she trembled. Because now she knew that to protect was not only to kill. It was to stay. To see without fleeing. To hold without roaring.

And then, the fissure in her essence opened wider. Not like a wound. Like a channel. A crack beginning to become a path.

One through which she would no longer be beast. Nor completely child. But something yet undefined. A seed. A root about to sprout.

Not upwards. Inwards.

And she understood. Not with ideas. With flesh.

—I am being born —she said, without mouth, without voice.

And that affirmation did not free her. It broke her.

Because what is born… must also die.

And in that birth without blood, without body, without cry… the idea that she might ever again be whole died.

The only thing left now… was becoming.

And in that absolute fragility, a tear—the first—descended. Not of sorrow. Not of rage. Of will.

And the Valley, for the first time, did not respond. It only waited.

Because even the world that reflects… must learn to observe when something new begins to exist. Narka did not speak. But he felt. With an intensity that did not rise from the chest, but from stone. In the plates of his shell. In the minerals that grew like old bones. In the crystals that vibrated with every thought that did not belong to him… but that he carried.

And now… they vibrated stronger. Not like bells. Like warnings. Like ancient echoes resonating from within.

Something was moving. Not outside. In them.

Sebastián, lying on his back, no longer burned with rage. He burned with decision. With that silent fire known only to those who are about to embrace their shadow without shame.

And Virka… Virka trembled in another way. Not from fragility. From sacred rupture. Like a cocoon that does not split by mistake, but by necessity.

Narka knew it. Because he too had been stone before becoming form. He too had been born without wanting to be part of anything, until the silence of others made him into earth.

His legs sank half a centimeter deeper into the ground. Not from weight. From respect.

Because what was happening on his back… was sacred.

And the Valley felt it too. It no longer responded with attacks. It no longer raised shapes, nor screams, nor mirrors. It only observed. Not like a god. Like a wound. Like a place made of trauma… that at last watched two creatures choose not to repeat it.

The crystals on his shell began to pulse. Slightly. Slowly. But with a rhythm they had not known in centuries.

It was not physical pulsation. It was synchronicity.

As if his own memory—that buried beneath layers of time and death—recognized what was being born upon him. Not warriors. Not beasts. Not survivors. But souls. Without form. Without purity. But finally… real.

And Narka, old as the mountain, strong as denial, for the first time in a long time… wanted to speak. But not with voice. With action. With step.

And he moved forward. Not north. Not toward the exit. But toward the next threshold. One that cannot be crossed by will, but by transformation.

And the Valley… yielded.

The ground grew firmer. The mist thinner. The air heavier. As if the world recognized that the struggle was not against it… but against what they carried within.

And Narka, crownless colossus, carried them as if they were his lineage. Not because they belonged to him. Because he had chosen them.

And in his mind, where thoughts were not linear, but minerals spinning in spirals of memory, a phrase grew without tongue:

—They no longer walk alone. —And I… am not so alone if I hold them.

And for the first time, the Valley did not roar. It only opened a path.

Because it understood that something, in those three fractured bodies, was beginning to resemble the future. One no longer born of fear… but of fusion.

Sebastián breathed. Not air. Not oxygen. He breathed fragments. Pieces of himself that the Valley began to return, not as punishment… but as mirror. One without frame, without bottom, without mercy.

And there, in the silence that was no longer silence, he knew that the true battle was only beginning. It was not with swords. It was not with screams. It was with the parts of himself he had learned to silence.

—

First came rage. Not the uncontrolled fury that uses fists. But the kind that hides in restrained smiles. In curt gestures. In silence when he should have screamed.

He saw it before him: a figure with his eyes, but without pupils. With teeth bared in a smile that he could not tell if it hurt or killed.

"Why did you always pretend you were fine?" murmured the figure, with a voice of ash.

And Sebastián, for a moment, wanted to deny it. But he couldn't. Because that rage had accompanied him since Draila. Since before… since the moment he understood the world would not save him.

He accepted it. Like one who opens a wound to let it breathe.

—

Then came loneliness. Not the kind of being alone. The other. The kind felt even when surrounded. The one that grew in him when no one knew how to touch him, how to speak to him, how to understand what was rotting inside.

It took the form of a child. The same child who embraced his dead mother in his mind. Who wandered mountains screaming in silence.

It drew near. It said nothing. It only looked at him… and Sebastián wept. Not tears of pain. Tears of recognition.

"You were not wrong for feeling lonely," he finally said to his reflection. And the figure… smiled.

—

The third was guilt. It had no face. It was a shadow dragging itself across the ground, with chains in its hands. And each link bore a name: "Mother." "Draila." "Virka." "Myself."

Sebastián tried to back away. He felt the weight of every step he had taken. The times he chose to kill. The times he chose not to die. The times he wished to be something else… and failed.

— I don't deserve to go on —he whispered.

But the shadow stopped, and for the first time, spoke:

—And yet… you continue.

And that was the worst. Because it was true. Because even if he carried it all, he could not—and did not want to—stop.

He accepted it. Like one who carries a corpse knowing it was the only one he ever wanted to save.

—

After… came fear. A distorted reflection that trembled, with immense, hollow eyes. It was Sebastián… before hardening. Before killing. The one who doubted. The one who dreamed. The one who wanted to love, without knowing how.

And fear spoke with his five-year-old voice:

—If you let me in… will you be weak again?

Sebastián knelt before him.

—No —he said—. I will be complete.

And he embraced the child. And the child dissolved into light.

—

Lastly, came oblivion. A mirror without reflection. A promise he no longer remembered.

And there… Sebastián fell to his knees. Because he did not know what to do. He did not know what part of him had been lost forever.

And then he understood: Not all parts are recovered. Some are only buried with dignity.

He lifted his gaze. Accepted that absence as scar. As limit.

And in that instant… he stopped fighting. And began to be reborn.

Not as hero. Not as monster. As someone who, at last, could see himself whole… and not run away.

Because every part he once rejected… was now part of the whole. Of himself. Of Sebastián. Virka was descending. Not to the ground. But to a core. To a nameless center where the ideas of being human or beast no longer mattered.

There, the silence was almost maternal. But not an embrace: a dissection. A way of showing her, without violence, everything she had wanted to avoid.

Before her, her original form reappeared. It was no hallucination. It was her. True to the image sealed in her memory:

A low, robust creature, with a dense body, forged more by gravity than by speed. With short, jet-black fur, broken in places by exposed skin that glowed with incandescent red like living lava.

There was no elegance. No slenderness. Only rawness.

Her face was broad, with a solid, almost square muzzle. Not that of a stylized beast; it was that of an animal made to endure, to break, to devour.

The eyes, two circles of red light without pupils, were fixed abysses that did not blink. And from its neck, venous markings spread across its flanks like roots glowing beneath the skin, pulsing with every breath as if they carried fire instead of blood.

That was the true Virka. Without human voice. Without morality. Without history. A being that had never learned restraint because it had never needed it.

And now it looked at her with disappointment.

—Why did you seal me? —it said, not with words, but with presence—. Why did you give me this skin that cracks? Why did you accept fragile hands when once we had claws that tore even darkness apart?

Virka did not respond. She could not. But within her, something trembled.

The contradiction was not between being human or beast. It was in accepting that perhaps… she wanted to be something else. A new entity. A third state that had never existed before Sebastián.

Because when she met him, she followed him by instinct. But now… now she wanted to accompany him by decision.

And that choice, that damned freedom, hurt more than any chain.

—I am not you —she thought. She did not say it. But the beast felt it.

And it stepped back half a step. Not from fear. From respect.

Because it understood that that silent girl—that human form still in process—was not a weakness. It was an attempt. An experiment.

And the Valley, in its cruel wisdom, allowed that to manifest.

Virka's skin glowed faintly. Not from heat. From friction. As if the two versions of herself brushed against existence.

The beast roared one last time. But not as a threat. As a farewell.

And then it sank. Not in defeat. In possibility.

It left a hollow. A space. And that space… was not filled by the human. Nor by the creature. But by something being born.

A consciousness under construction. A desire not to roar or speak. But to choose.

Virka opened her eyes. Her gaze was no longer that of a lost child. Nor that of a stalking beast. It was something in between. Unstable. Bright. And alive.

—

Narka felt. Not as the living feel. Not as flesh feels. He felt from stone. From memory that has no form, but has weight.

From a place so ancient, he no longer remembered if he had been created to move, or simply to endure.

And now… in that shell full of minerals that murmured without mouths, he carried more than bodies. He carried transitions. Mutations. Truths newly born, still with mental blood in their fissures.

Virka was no longer beast. Nor human. She was something without name. A concept made flesh. A contradiction in the process of blooming.

She was her past roars colliding with her desire to belong. She was a creature once pure fury… and now doubt. Now intention. Now tenderness that bleeds.

And what did that make her? A mistake? An evolution? A calling?

Narka did not know. He only perceived that beneath his shell, Virka pulsed not with a heart… but with a struggle.

And on the other side… Sebastián. Not the boy. Not the warrior. Not the emperor of scars. A void learning to fill itself with new syllables.

Because he no longer thought to survive. He thought to understand. And that change… was brutal.

Ideas within him were blades, but not philosophical blades. They cut. They were daggers of awareness that did not heal… but carved.

—Who am I if I stop hurting? —What part of me is real if all the masks are gone?

Narka felt these questions as weight. Not because they came from him, but because they were being born upon his back.

And so… every step he took was more than movement. It was a ceremony. A ritual act. A prayer without a god.

The rock beneath his feet did not crack from fragility. It cracked from respect. As if the earth itself bowed before the process occurring upon his back.

The minerals that covered his body—black, red, veined—vibrated with a language that needed no translation. A tongue made of raw existence. Of formless truths.

And they spoke. Not with words. With faint light, with pulses, with heat that did not burn, but transformed.

And amid it all… Narka desired. Not power. Not destiny.

He desired something more primitive. More pure. Belonging.

Because for eras he was rock. He was wall. He was support. But he was never part.

He walked through worlds where no one spoke to him. Where all used him. Where his size was synonymous with usefulness… but never with bond.

And now, he carried two beings who did not yet know how to name themselves… but who held each other up.

And that was enough for something within him… to vibrate.

Not like crystal. Like bone remembering it was once root.

—I don't want to be their path —he thought—. I want to be their home.

The Valley heard it. Because the Valley does not only reflect. The Valley absorbs. Remembers. Testifies. And responds.

And in that response, everything became denser.

The air around him did not smell of dampness. It smelled of transition. It smelled of thought burning. It smelled of bodies that were no longer bodies, but containers of questions that did not yet know how to hurt.

And Narka, with his feet sinking deeper into the earth with every step, did not feel fear. He felt kinship. For the first time.

And with that, his gait grew slower. Heavier. Not from exhaustion. From intention.

Because he was not walking toward a place. He was walking toward a moment. Toward a point where three creatures—a rock, a shadow, a spark—would decide if they still deserved to burn.

And as the Valley's mist began to slide along the edges of time, like a veil reluctant to fall… Narka thought something else. A phrase without owner. A voiceless promise.

—If they break… I will too. Not because I must. But because at last… I want to.

And in saying it, without lips, without breath, without voice, the Valley accepted him.

As one accepts a sacrifice not yet demanded. As one accepts a fissure that is not failure… but beginning.

And so, Narka kept walking. No longer as bearer. As part. As witness. As seed.

Because they were no longer two souls upon his back… They were three. The Valley stopped speaking. Not out of clemency. Not out of limit. But because it had said enough.

Now it was their turn.

Sebastián breathed. But not like one who lives. Like one who emerges. Not from water. But from himself.

The echo had withdrawn. Silence had returned. And in that abyss where everything had broken… something began to fit.

His scars began to glow. Not with light. With meaning.

What had once been wound… was now map. And not a map for escape, but for return. To himself. To that place where there are no lies yet. Where pain is not a prison, but a language.

The marks on his skin burned, but not as punishment. As paths freshly drawn over sacred earth.

Each one of them lit at the touch of his fingers, as if, by touching himself, he remembered what he had been.

A line on his shoulder: the night he chose to kill to keep walking.

One on his abdomen: the moment he wished to no longer be a child.

One on his chest: when he wanted to embrace… but was taught to clench his fists.

And so, scar by scar, Sebastián began to read himself.

Not as victim. Not as hero. But as story.

And in doing so, he understood.

He did not need to heal. He needed to understand himself. Not to mend. To live without shame for what he was.

And then, the body ceased to weigh. Because it was not his body that hurt. It was judgment. And judgment… had surrendered.

—

Virka did not roar. But her throat vibrated. Not with fury. With rhythm.

With something older than violence. Deeper than instinct. A new vibration. Not born of muscle. Born of soul.

Her roar had changed. It was not a scream. It was form. It was root.

And in her chest, where once only the beast could fit, there was now space.

Space for contradiction. Space to be without defining herself.

And she understood.

She was not human. She was not creature. She was something more.

A new kind of being birthed by love, fed by violence, and sustained by choice.

Her fingers clenched. Her eyes trembled. And in that trembling… she discovered herself.

Not because she chose a form. But because she accepted not having to choose.

She was not dividing. She was merging.

The roar that rose now was not to frighten. It was to announce. To mark the end of the fear of feeling.

And for the first time, the roar did not come from her mouth. It came from her eyes. From her back. From the way she remained alive.

—

Narka walked.

But this time, his steps did not drag weight. Not because Sebastián's and Virka's bodies had lightened, but because pain was no longer burden. It was part of the path.

The crystals of his shell began to move. Not by impulse. By response.

As if the Valley were no longer testing them, but listening to them.

And in that mineral silence, Narka spoke within. Not in words. In memories.

He remembered when he was only rock. When his only function was to watch. To be the mute altar of those who fell.

And now, he felt them burn. Not from punishment. From rebirth.

—You… are no longer the same —he murmured.—And I… no longer want to be stone.

His crystals pulsed to the rhythm of the two he carried. One full of fissures he had learned to read. The other covered in fire, learning not to fear itself.

And he, the old colossus, the guardian of nothingness, at last understood what it meant to be part.

Not by force. By desire.

—I am not here to watch you rise. I am here… to not let you fall again.

And with that promise, Narka became more than guide. He became earth. Root. Home.

—

The Valley… stirred.

Not like a monster. Like a harvest that can no longer contain its sprout.

The forms that had shown their ruin, now showed their choices.

And from the ground, no enemies emerged. Versions did.

Possibilities. Faceless fronts that represented what they could become if they accepted to act, not only to accept.

And then they understood.

The final trial was not to resist. It was to move with what they knew. To respond. Action.

Sebastián lifted his gaze. The scars on his skin still burned, but no longer hurt. They were guiding lines.

He rose to his feet. Virka too. Her pupils now embers. Neither beast's eyes, nor human's. Eyes of something that had no name yet.

And Narka, between them, looked at them without moving. And murmured, with the voice of sacred stone:

—Now… respond.

And the Valley watched. Not to judge. To witness the first step of the new being burning in its ruins. The Valley stopped breathing. And it was not silence. It was a waiting suspended in the invisible.

A primitive, ancient pause in the very structure of the world. As if everything surrounding Sebastián, Virka, and Narka… were holding its breath just before the scream.

The earth did not move. The air did not tremble. The mist did not waver. But everything, absolutely everything, was about to overflow.

Sebastián opened his eyes, and for the first time did not try to understand what he saw. Because he did not see. He recognized himself. Not as image. As fracture.

The scars on his body were no longer wounds. They were not history. They were routes. Paths carved with the blade of memory.

Each line engraved in his flesh glowed like a map to what he was not yet… but intuited.

And then, the Valley responded.

From the distance, a figure emerged. Made of flesh, shadow, and possibilities. It was him. But not him.

It had his eyes, but they did not blink. It had his mouth, but it did not speak. It had his form, but was stripped of all pain.

A version of Sebastián if he had never loved. If he had never feared. If he had never bled for another. A version… without scars.

And it walked toward him. Not as threat. As decision.

—

Virka felt the change, not in the environment. In her chest.

A pulse. An ancestral vibration that did not come from the mind. It came from the throat. From the core.

It was not fear. Not memory. It was roar.

A different one. Not like the beast she had been. Not like the cry of one who attacks. It was a new roar. Tighter. Deeper. More human.

And when she released it, the world did not tremble. It recoiled.

The Valley, before that roar, formed a figure. It descended from above. A creature made of cracked crystal and shadowed skin. With Virka's exact shape, but without eyes. Without voice. Without heart.

It was not a copy. It was a possibility.

A Virka that had not chosen to feel. That had never learned to protect anyone out of love. That remained only claws, only fury, only instinct.

It stood before her. And did not move. Because it did not need to attack. It only waited. For her to choose.

—

Narka did not advance. His feet rooted into the earth like the roots of a tree that knows the ground will not be the same tomorrow.

The crystals on his shell levitated. They did not vibrate. They floated. Like fragments of a heart that finally accepted not being only shield, but presence.

He looked at Sebastián. He looked at Virka. And in his gaze rested a certainty:

They were deciding what to be. And he… was no longer only the one who carried them. He was the one who saw them. Who contained them. Who would remember them.

—I no longer carry you —he said, like one singing from the fissures—. Now I accompany you.

—

Sebastián did not speak. His feet advanced. One. Two. Three steps toward his soulless reflection.

The other did not react. It only waited.

Each step of Sebastián was a renunciation. Of the mask. Of the armor. Of the identity built from shields.

—And if I am not what I created to resist?

The reflection raised a hand. And Sebastián accepted it. Not as embrace. As farewell.

And on touching it, the reflection shattered into a thousand red lines… that returned to him. Not to dominate. To integrate.

—

Virka too took a step. And then another.

The roar still trembled in her chest, but it was no longer rage. It was definition.

The crystalline creature before her cracked. But not from fragility. From internal pressure.

The pressure of what she herself could no longer deny:

That she was not only beast. Nor only human. Nor only shadow. She was a crossing point. A living contradiction. A being that did not exist in the extremes, but in what united them.

The crystalline creature imitated her. Step by step. Not with hostility. With synchronicity.

And then, without touching her… it crumbled. As if recognizing it no longer made sense to exist separately.

And Virka, without crying, felt something inside her settle for the first time.

A new inner voice. Not beastly. Not human. Her own.

—

And the Valley… at last roared.

Not with sound. With structure. With fire that did not burn, but marked. With wind that did not blow, but guided. With earth that pulsed.

A last wave of pressure fell upon the three. Not as punishment. As sealing. As rite. As baptism of those… who were no longer the ones who had entered.

—

Narka looked up. And spoke, not as rock. As living root:

—I am witness. Of what is born when one stops pretending to be only what they were told. Of what emerges when decisions hurt… but are made.

—

And the Valley… did not expel them. It let them go.

But every step they took from then on… would carry the memory of the soil that had seen them depart.

Because pain had been turned into footprint. And the decisions made… now walked with them. Narka advanced slowly, feeling beneath his feet the final vibration of what had been a cycle.

But something changed. The weight was no longer the same. Not from relief. From transformation.

Sebastián opened his eyes. Not with the violence of one waking from a nightmare… but with the heaviness of one who has been born a second time.

The air was still thick. The statues still twisted. But something in him, beneath the scars, beneath the muscle, was no longer the same.

His back—the one that once curled over Narka's mineral shell—now straightened, not as an act of pride… but like someone remembering what it was to walk on his own feet.

He rose without hurry. His hands still stained. His iris still spinning like a spiral that never ends. But there was firmness.

And in that gesture, without words, without ceremony, he slid to the edge of the shell, and descended.

Not like one abandoning a refuge. Like one who no longer needed to be carried.

The ground received him without trembling. And his steps were soft, not for lack of weight, but because guilt no longer dragged. Now, he bore it head-on.

Virka watched him. Still kneeling. Still broken. But not incomplete.

She too moved. Not with strength. With slowness. As if each vertebra needed to remember what it was to hold a form.

Her feet touched the earth behind him. And this time, it did not feel strange. She did not feel beast. She did not feel human. Only… present.

And being there, at Sebastián's side, something in her chest opened.

It was not love. It was not rage. It was existence, bare, raw, nameless.

Narka looked at them without moving his neck. Only his eyes. Slow. Ancient.

And though he said nothing, his body spoke for him.

Because the rock that carries… also knows when to let fall without breaking. And he had carried them just this far. No more. No less.

The crystals on his shell flickered. And went dark.

—

The Valley, seeing them on the ground, did not roar. Did not distort. It only adjusted.

As if its very form responded to them. Not to test them. Not to break them. But to… witness.

And in that witnessing, the mist receded. Not as if fleeing, but as one who makes space for the inevitable.

—

Sebastián's steps were slower. But they no longer stumbled.

Each footprint he left was firm, and each scar on his body burned with new meaning. They were no longer wounds. They were directions.

As if every blow he had taken now marked a route. A destiny. A promise.

At his side, Virka walked. No longer as shadow. No longer as guardian. She walked as… something else.

Her eyes glowed red, but not with fury. Nor with blood. It was that inner light lava holds before being born as fire.

She was not a girl. She was not a beast. She was the incomplete sum of both. And that imbalance… for the first time, did not frighten her.

Because she no longer wanted to return to what she was, nor hide in what she pretended to be.

And in that walking, they did not seek each other with hands. They sought each other with steps.

With breath that, in synchronizing, said:

"I am here. And I no longer need you to carry me. But I want to walk with you."

—

The ground did not tremble. It was subtler. Deeper. As if the world had inhaled for the first time in centuries.

The air grew denser, but not with threat. With attention. The Valley… was watching them.

Sebastián stopped. No longer like one who fears what comes. But like one who knows the awaited moment has arrived.

At his side, Virka also stopped. Her back straight. Her human body steadier.

The faint veins beneath her skin still glowed, not with energy… but with belonging.

The Valley spoke without voice. It did so through the environment. Stone roots emerged slowly. Not as weapons. As fingers.

And at the center of the terrain, a form began to build itself. It was not shadow. Not vision. It was a presence. Complex. Mutant. A faceless body, made of fragments of all they had once feared to be.

From Sebastián: his bleeding mouth, his lost gaze, his fist deformed by guilt.

From Virka: the open jaws, the uncontrollable beastly body, the hollow eyes incapable of understanding what she felt.

But all distorted. Blended. As if the Valley did not wish to return their past to them… but to show them what they might become again if they strayed from the new path.

The creature rose. Tall. Unstable. Twisted like a statue melted with pain.

And it did not attack. It only existed. In silence. Sebastián stepped forward. Not with rage. With decision.

His body no longer bore a blind impulse. It was a directed structure.

The muscles were still there. The scars too. But his face… was clear.

It was not fury. It was understanding.

—I am not what I was —he whispered.

And in saying it, the ground beneath him opened in lines of light. Not fire. Path.

As if the Valley accepted the word as action.

Virka also advanced. Her bare feet left reddish marks that were not blood, but essence.

Her gait was hybrid, like her soul. A creature no longer broken by feeling. One that had learned to inhabit her form without renouncing her instincts.

She did not speak. But her gaze said more than any tongue.

It was not obedience. It was certainty.

And then, the creature formed by the Valley reacted.

It did not roar. It did not lunge. It only imitated.

Its arms rose. But instead of attacking, it reproduced the gesture Sebastián and Virka had just made.

A step. Another. Advance. Encounter.

But its body cracked with each movement. As if it could not hold coherence. As if it could no longer exist in a world where they had ceased to be what fed it.

And then… it collapsed.

Not with violence. With resignation.

Like a clay figure that recognizes its mold no longer fits the new life growing before it.

—

And the Valley… kept silent.

A different silence. Not like before. Not expectant. But respectful.

For it had been witness. And witnesses, when they behold something real, do not judge. They only accept.

The Valley did not roar. Nor whisper. It simply opened.

It was not a portal. It was a wound.

A thin line traced itself in the air, not with light nor shadow, but with something denser: intention.

And from that fissure that did not move but breathed… she appeared.

Draila.

Dressed as always. Not by choice. But because the Valley could not strip her of what she was.

But she no longer walked as queen, nor as specter. She walked as the end of a long question.

Sebastián saw her before anyone. And he did not tremble. But his chest—that still carried the echoes of the roar—felt something settle. Not as peace. As place.

Draila advanced through the mist as if she had never ceased to belong. As if every particle of that world knew her name… and yet, dared not speak it.

—You have crossed more than you can count —she said. It was not a question. It was a sentence.

Virka rose slowly to her feet. Her legs still trembled, but her gaze was no longer animal. Nor human. It was a flame learning to become river.

—Yes —said Sebastián—. And we still don't know what we are. But we know what we don't want to be again.

Draila did not smile. But her silence was more eloquent than a smile.

—That is enough —she replied—. The world does not need more certainties. Only decisions that withstand the storm.

And in saying so, she turned toward Virka.

The woman's eyes—black, deep, heavy with worlds extinguished—met those of the girl who had once been beast. And the Valley… held its breath.

—Tell me… who are you now?

Virka did not speak right away. She breathed. As if taking in air were a way of gathering centuries. And then, with a voice cracked by having just been born:

—I am not the form. Nor the memory. Nor the wound. I am what remains… when one no longer needs to choose between what they were and what they wish to protect.

Sebastián looked at her. That voice… that word… was the first.

Not as sound. As affirmation of existence.

And the Valley seemed to accept it. Not with fire. With stillness.

Draila nodded. Not as authority. As one who sees her children and recognizes the journey was worth it, even if it cost them their skin.

—And you… Sebastián —she said—. Do you still want to know who you are?

The boy—the weapon—the echo—breathed deeply. Not to respond. To cleanse. To let the voice rise from a new place.

—No. Not anymore. Understanding myself is not my task. It is the work of those who may one day watch me. I… I only want to walk.

—Toward where? —asked Draila, not with judgment, but with curiosity.

Sebastián lifted his gaze. His eyes—no longer ignited by rage, but tempered by purpose—held something different.

—Toward an eternal strength. But not as conquest. Not as punishment. I want my strength… to be a way of life. Not a weapon. Not a goal. A way of existing… where the world can no longer tell me how I must burn.

Silence turned to stone. Narka, from the background, lowered his head slightly. His crystals pulsed with a faint light. Not of energy. Of acceptance. Draila extended a hand. Not for them to approach. But as a bridge between eras.

—Then, this world is not ready for you —she said—. But it no longer matters. Because you were not born to fit in, but for others… to break apart upon seeing you walk.

Sebastián lowered his gaze to his hand. The one holding Virka's. And for an instant, the entire journey passed through his fingers: the echo, the blood, the silence, the scream, the fall.

—And now? —he asked.

Draila looked to the horizon. There was no form there. Only a line opening like a scar in the distance.

—Now… you walk. Toward the next wound. Toward the next mirror.

And before leaving, she turned once more.

—But remember this: There is no home to return to. Only ruins where you must choose whether to build… or set fire.

And then she disappeared. Not like someone departing. Like someone who no longer needed to be.

—

Virka squeezed Sebastián's hand tightly. Not from fear. From promise.

And Narka, without saying a word, advanced a step. Only one. Like one who marks the rhythm of the world.

The Valley no longer responded. Because it no longer needed to. It had witnessed.

And what remained now… was the beginning of a story without end.

END OF CHAPTER 10