On the Path of Eternal Strength.

The city had not yet fully awakened.

But from the heights of the Caelis building, everything seemed…

too quiet.

Helena held a cup of black tea between her fingers,

though the steam had stopped rising minutes ago.

Her eyes were fixed on a projection suspended in the air:

graphs, maps, private security reports.

The pulse of the city.

Or, at least, what was left of it.

Behind her, the automatic curtains drew back at the presence of Selena.

Silent, impeccable, with a physical folder in hand.

"I don't trust data that only exists in the air," she said as she placed it on the table.

Helena did not respond.

She opened the folder with the same precision with which a surgeon opens anesthetized flesh.

What she saw… was not new.

But neither was it routine.

"Another settlement collapsed," she murmured. "Zone C-19. Three days without power. No surveillance.

Five corpses in the river. Three women missing."

"And the cameras…" added Selena, "were blocked. But not by common interference.

As if… there was nothing to record."

Helena closed the folder with a single finger.

"Is this happening by coincidence, Selena?"

"Nothing happens by coincidence.

And much less when the sewers boil."

For the past six months, the criminal networks had moved like blind insects.

Lost territories, redistribution of routes, the appearance of drugs that belonged to no known laboratory.

And something more.

Bodies without organs.

Children born with opaque eyes.

Adults with tongues torn out and symbols marked on their backs.

The system classified them as "cultural anomalies."

But neither Helena nor Selena believed in euphemisms. "The fabric is tearing," said Helena, rising to her feet.

"First the holes.

Then the cracks.

Then, what comes from below."

Selena kept her eyes on a point in the hologram.

Zone D-7. A neighborhood under the control of a supposedly dismantled gang.

Last night, five men died in a confrontation.

They left no traces.

Only trails of blood.

And a partial video, recovered by one of the security drones.

She projected it.

The footage was blurry.

But the figure…

the man who walked among the bodies as if the concrete itself recoiled at his steps…

"Is it him?" asked Helena, barely a whisper.

Selena did not answer.

She enlarged the image.

In the instant before the camera burned out,

the figure looked at the drone.

He did not smile.

But his silence… screamed.

"We cannot contain him," said Helena.

"Nor predict him."

"But we can observe him," said Selena, unblinking.

"And if necessary…

learn from him."

The sun was beginning to filter through the window,

but the city remained gray.

Beneath the concrete, something was growing.

And it had no name.

Selena shut down the hologram without altering the rhythm of her breathing.

The gesture was soft. Almost reverent.

But her gray eyes remained fixed on the memory of that blood-stained face.

Sebastián.

That thing in the shape of a man.

"We are not going to be able to contain this through traditional means," she said at last.

Helena did not reply immediately.

She sat with her back straight, crossed one leg over the other, and lifted her gaze toward the overcast sky beyond the glass. The city, still warm from its own nocturnal breath, seemed to ignore what was brewing in its entrails.

"And what is your proposal?" Helena asked at last.

"To use him.

Just as he is.

As a weapon that needs no calibration."

Silence fell like a heavy cloth between them.

"Are you serious?" Helena turned her face, her voice barely sharpened. "Do you think that… can be controlled?"

"No.

But it can be directed.

And sometimes, Helena, that is enough."

The words were not a challenge.

They were an anatomical statement.

Precise.

Cold.

Like everything Selena was.

Helena held her gaze for a few seconds.

She remembered the scene at the overlook.

The corpse opened like an impious altar.

The pregnant woman, trembling, not knowing whether she had been saved or postponed.

And Sebastián's figure…

standing in the middle of the massacre.

Calm.

Empty.

"He is not a weapon, Selena," she said at last, without softness.

"He is a catalyst.

What he touches… changes.

It does not obey him."

"That doesn't make him any less useful," the other replied.

"Only more costly."

A fleeting grimace, barely a shadow, crossed Helena's face.

"And how do you propose we use him?"

"I don't know yet.

But the world is losing its rules.

And if we are going to survive…

perhaps we need a new kind of monster." The word hung in the air.

Not because of its brutality, but because of its accuracy.

"And what will you do if he decides not to cooperate?"

Selena lowered her gaze to her own fingers.

Pale. Impeccable.

Hands that had signed contracts.

And, in silence, also ended lives.

"Then we will watch him.

And if we can…

we will understand him.

Because if we do not understand him…

he will destroy us."

Helena finally drank from her cup.

The tea was cold.

"And you, Selena," she said slowly.

"If he offered you his hand, would you take it… as an ally?

Or as a woman?"

Silence was the only answer.

But it was enough.

The city, down below, was finally awakening.

And with it… what should not awaken.

Selena did not respond immediately.

The silence was not doubt: it was calculation.

Helena's question still floated, not like a dart, but like an unpolished mirror.

"I would not take it in any way," she said at last, without emotion.

"Because one does not take what cannot be possessed.

And he… is not a man.

He is a frontier."

Helena turned her eyes toward the opaque glass, where their reflections overlapped with the sky of the city.

Two women. Two architects.

And in between, a crack growing.

"Then," she murmured, "it is not about convincing him.

But about making him coincide."

Selena nodded slowly.

There was something ritual in that movement.

As if she accepted that the game had changed boards.

And they no longer moved the pieces.

They only tried to predict which piece would be the last to fall. "The territory he chose is favorable," she continued.

"Isolated. Elevated.

Difficult to register by civilian satellites."

"And the military scanners?"

"We can redirect them. For now."

Helena walked toward the central table.

She touched the surface.

A new map unfolded: the terrain, the mansion under construction, the blind spots of the global surveillance system.

Beside it, another panel displayed raw information:

temperatures, minor tremors, energy fluctuations, anomalous heat signatures.

All of it surrounding Sebastián.

"This is not just land," she said.

"It is a center.

A vortex.

And if he decides to stay…"

"…he could redefine the local laws.

Or attract what hides."

Helena closed her eyes for a second.

She remembered her body healed.

Not by machines.

Nor by miracles.

But by something older and exact: destruction that renews.

Void that cleanses.

"We are going to make him an offer," she said, with a calm that hurt.

"Not to domesticate him.

But to align ourselves."

"With what argument?"

"With the truth.

We don't want to control him.

We want to survive what is coming.

And if it is true that his strength is hunger…

perhaps we can feed it with enemies."

Selena did not smile.

But something in her gray eyes ignited.

"And if he decides to ignore us?"

"Then at least he will know that not all humans are blind." She took her coat without haste.

It was not an armor.

But it looked like one.

"We're going to the construction site," she ordered.

"Not as executives.

But as emissaries."

Selena picked up the folder.

Her step was as firm as it was silent.

The city was already alive.

But what walked within it…

was not humanity.

It was shadows disguised as order.

And high above, two women descended not to save it,

but to become part of the new dominant species:

the one that does not need compassion,

only strategy.

The limousine advanced unhurriedly along roads increasingly less paved.

Outside, the world was shedding its concrete.

And inside, the silence was an antechamber of calculation.

Helena did not look through the window.

She looked beyond it.

As if something more than humidity could be read in the mist.

As if the road itself knew where they were going… and did not like it.

"The numbers don't add up," said Selena, without raising her voice.

"Disappearances, increase in human trafficking, entire zones without state surveillance.

But no scandal. No formal complaints.

Just numbers in forgotten folders."

"Are they cleaning?"

"They're covering."

She slid a map across the tablet.

Red zones. Blinking.

Nameless streets.

And behind them, reports buried under five layers of encryption.

"Minor cartels vanish.

Neighborhood control groups disintegrate without conflict.

But consumption levels rise.

And the routes are reactivated faster than we can monitor."

Helena crossed her legs with surgical precision.

She was a woman who could sit as if she were sharpening a sword. "Who is behind it?"

"We don't know.

But it's not the State.

It's not common crime.

It's something else."

"A fusion?"

"Or a replacement."

The road took a sharp turn.

And for a second, the world seemed misaligned.

As if everything straight had bent.

"And in the middle of all this," Selena continued, "we have him.

Sebastián.

Isolated, without a record, without a trace.

With an impossible body and a presence we can no longer ignore."

"Are you afraid to use him?"

Selena shook her head.

"No.

I'm afraid he won't want to be used."

Helena closed her eyes.

For an instant, she remembered the touch of the void.

The silence without science.

The cure without a scalpel.

"We don't even know what he is," she said, more to herself than to Selena.

"What we saw in that place…

cannot be explained.

And if it cannot be explained, it cannot be controlled."

"But it can be induced."

"Induced?"

"Given direction. Not control.

Channeled toward something the system cannot cleanse."

"And what would that be?"

Selena slid an image forward.

Not of maps.

But of faces. Men. Women. Uniforms without insignias.

Plastic smiles.

Empty stares.

"Front companies.

Corrupt NGOs.

Private security agencies with access to military-grade weapons.

They are recruiting youths in marginalized areas.

Without contracts. Without records.

And no one stops them."

"Because no one wants to see."

"Or because someone has already sold the eyes."

The forest began to open before them.

The ground was becoming real.

And the air… heavier.

Helena drew a breath.

Not for pleasure.

But for preparation.

"We are going to propose something to him," she said.

"Not because we need it now.

But because the future is already pressing.

And we have no more clean weapons."

Selena nodded.

"And he… is anything but clean."

"That is precisely why he is useful."

The limousine slowed.

In the distance, the construction rose like a monster of stone.

Still without skin. Still without eyes.

But with form.

The door opened.

And the two stepped out.

Not as businesswomen.

But as specters with unsettled accounts.

And before them, the land kept silent.

But its silence… was not emptiness.

It was the pause before the pact.

Helena advanced first, as if the earth belonged to her.

Selena did not follow her—she escorted her.

Both crossed the still-fresh stone path, carved between roots and rock, until they reached the heart of the construction:

a sanctuary of water in the midst of rising steel.

The artificial lake was not large, but it carried the calm of ancient places.

A milky light —filtered between beams and branches— rested upon its surface with the respect of one who does not wish to disturb a secret.

There was Sebastián.

Sitting on the flat stone, eyes closed, back straight, arms resting on his knees.

He was no meditator.

He was a threat at rest.

A beast that knew when to breathe… and when to devour.

At his side, Virka.

She did not speak.

She did not need to.

Her mere presence was enough for the air to understand that Sebastián was not alone.

Legs crossed, eyes half-closed.

A creature dressed as human, tamed only by love, never by submission.

And at the center of the lake, barely visible, Narka.

Submerged to the neck, eyes closed, scales moving slowly with the rhythm of the water.

Like a monolith that had chosen to rest… but never to lower its guard.

His thoughts, perhaps, already mingling with Sebastián's.

Or simply… with the silence of the world.

Helena did not speak a word.

Neither did Selena.

For an instant, they observed the scene as one witnesses a forbidden ritual.

That was not power.

It was something older.

More exact.

More lethal.

"They are at home," whispered Selena.

"A home still without doors," Helena replied.

Sebastián opened his eyes.

He did not startle.

He did not change posture.

He only looked at them.

Red, spiraled.

Black, abyss. The calm of a hunter who had already seen everything… and was still searching for something.

"Are we interrupting?" asked Helena.

Sebastián shook his head slightly.

Virka turned her face.

She did not smile.

But neither did she growl.

For her, Helena and Selena were presences to be tolerated. Not accepted.

"We want to talk," said Helena.

"Not about houses.

Not about roofs.

About another kind of structures."

Sebastián tilted his head just slightly.

Narka emerged a few centimeters more, his beastly eyes fixed on the woman who spoke with the tone of diplomatic war.

"The city is rotting," Helena continued.

"Not from above.

Not from below.

From the sides.

From the cracks."

"The fissures," added Selena, her voice neutral.

"Where rules no longer matter.

Where pain is recycled and sold."

Helena took a few steps closer.

The water of the lake gave back her deformed reflection.

But she did not look down.

"You do not belong to this world," she said, without fear.

"But you are here.

And we… are trapped inside."

"And what do you want from me?" asked Sebastián.

His voice was not hostile.

Only direct.

Like the edge of a knife without blood… yet.

"We want to know if you would be willing," Helena said,

"to put your strength in the service of a cleansing.

Not of the system.

Not of the laws.

But of the trash."

Selena did not avert her gaze. "Groups that devour.

Networks that abduct.

Human beings who feed on others, without metaphors."

There was a silence.

And then, Narka's deep voice, speaking only to Sebastián through the bond.

"It would mean exposing your power.

It would mean announcing that you are no longer just a specter…

but a force others will try to use.

Or destroy."

Sebastián did not answer immediately.

He looked at Virka.

And she held his gaze.

"What do you think?" he asked her.

"If we do it," she said, "it won't be for them.

It will be because you want to."

Helena watched them.

Not as one studies an enemy.

But as one contemplates a fire:

with the exact mixture of fascination and fear.

"We don't want to control you," she said.

"We want you to help us cut off some heads.

And if in the process… you also take advantage, we won't complain."

Sebastián rose to his feet.

His silhouette was pure tension at rest.

A mountain deciding whether to roar… or not.

"I will listen further," he said.

"But I am not a weapon."

"No," said Helena, smiling faintly.

"You are something worse.

And that is why… you are useful."

Helena stepped away from the lake.

Not out of fear.

Only to think with the cold mind that had led her to build empires.

Selena followed in silence, measuring her steps with surgical precision.

Helena never spoke immediately. She never did.

She weighed each word as if it were a knife.

"He is not a weapon," she said at last, in a low voice. "No. He is an answer.

To a question we do not yet know how to ask," added Selena.

Helena nodded. She observed Sebastián from a distance.

Not as a mother looks at a son.

Nor as a leader at a subordinate.

She looked at him as a new factor.

A living crack in the walls of the world.

"If he agrees," she said,

"it will not be like our covert operatives.

He does not make bodies disappear.

He does not erase traces.

He leaves scars."

"Scars that will serve," said Selena.

"Sometimes, fear is more effective than bullets."

Both returned to the edge of the water.

Sebastián awaited them in silence, still standing.

Virka at his side, arms crossed, eyes like sustained embers.

And Narka, barely visible beneath the surface, only his eyes shining like submerged lanterns.

"We want to draw a route," Helena began.

"Places where rot needs no excuses to exist.

And where human laws only feed the scavengers."

Sebastián did not respond immediately.

But his gaze grew more intense.

Not from anger.

But from a clarity that unsettled.

As if he already knew… whom he was going to kill.

"And what do we gain?" he asked.

It was Virka's voice—dry, raw.

She was not negotiating.

She was demanding reasons not to rip off heads.

Helena did not blink.

"You have a home.

But you lack access.

To everything."

"This world," Selena intervened, "functions through structures.

Energy, food, transport, information.

Everything has a price.

Even silence." "We can activate the bank account your mother left," Helena added.

"And move it under your name.

A legal identity.

Linked to the child who disappeared ten years ago…

who has now returned."

Sebastián narrowed his eyes.

"Money?"

"Resources," Selena corrected calmly.

"So you can do as you wish.

Buy food. Tools. Information.

Or simply so Virka… can taste more flavors."

The silence was brief.

But within that space, something broke.

Not in Sebastián.

But in the air.

Virka turned her head, surprised.

Only for a second.

But in her world, that was a confession.

"For me?" she asked softly.

Sebastián did not smile.

But his words carried a different cadence.

As if gravity itself had tilted toward her.

"This world is new to you.

If we are going to walk it together…

I want you to have more than blood to taste."

Helena did not speak.

But she lowered her gaze.

As if she had understood something deeper than a simple acceptance.

"It will be as you say," Sebastián concluded.

"But you will not drag me into your game.

I will only move… when I see a beast.

Not a person."

"Perfect," said Helena.

"Because the ones we will show you… stopped being people a long time ago."

The midday light spilled like an open wound upon the earth.

It did not burn. It did not caress.

It only existed…

as a reminder that even clarity can feel heavy. From the distance, the echo of tools, the shouts of workers, and the relentless pulse of construction formed a background murmur.

But it did not reach the core of that silent sanctuary.

Sebastián sat at the edge of the water.

He was not meditating.

He was only breathing.

As if learning how to inhabit this world without breaking it.

Virka, beside him, crossed her legs on the rock, her chin resting on her bare knee, gaze lost in the reflection of the sun upon the lake.

She seemed still.

But every muscle beneath her taut skin spoke of an alert that never slept.

"I don't understand why you did it," she said at last, without turning her face.

"What?"

"Accepting the deal with the humans."

Sebastián lowered his eyes to his own hands.

The same hands that had torn flesh, ripped bone, sculpted death.

Now they rested on his thighs, stained only with light.

"It wasn't for me.

I don't care about this world… or its coins."

Virka shifted slightly, without smiling.

"It was for me," she said, as if she didn't need to ask.

He nodded.

Not like someone confessing.

But like someone affirming what is natural.

"I want you to eat new things.

To see more colors.

To have more than hot flesh between your teeth."

"I already have that," she murmured. "I have you."

Silence.

Narka emerged slowly from the water. Only his head, framed by wet strands, broke the surface like a sleeping idol.

His eyes, always sunken in ancient wisdom, fixed on the two.

"A home is not a roof," he said, without theatrics.

"It is where you choose to bleed… and to heal." Virka arched a brow without breaking her posture.

"And this place—will it be that?"

"This place," Narka replied, "will be what Sebastián decides.

They are building it for him… but it will be his spirit that consecrates it."

Sebastián lifted his gaze toward the rising structure.

Where metals were anchored, stones arranged, and the lake enclosed within new lines.

It was not a prison.

Nor a palace.

It was… an affirmation.

"Sometimes," he said, more to himself than to them,

"…the monster also needs a nest."

Virka moved closer.

She leaned against his side, her arms encircling him without tightening, her forehead resting on his shoulder.

Her hair, like strands of shadow, mingled with the wind.

"As long as you're here…

I don't care what this world is."

And Narka, still within the water, closed his eyes.

"Soon more shadows will arrive.

And when they do, they will have a place to die."

In the distance, inside the limousine waiting under the shadow of the trees,

Helena and Selena watched the moment without intruding.

There were no signals.

No words.

Only the certainty that something deep and unbreakable lived within those three beings.

And that any plan… had to begin by respecting that.

The water was left behind.

So was the serenity.

Sebastián walked with steps that did not make the earth creak, as if his body had learned not to disturb what did not deserve his fury.

Virka did not follow. She remained by the lake, with Narka floating nearby, both wrapped in a silence that spoke of absolute trust.

The black limousine waited in the shade, like an elegant raven with folded wings.

The doors opened without a sound.

Inside, Helena and Selena waited without words. "Let's go," said Sebastián as he stepped inside.

No drama. Just an affirmation. A sentence.

Helena nodded with a slow gesture.

Selena shifted her gaze toward him, as if measuring every change in his presence.

The vehicle started with the smoothness of a shadow gliding through the city.

The tinted windows concealed the outside world, while inside the air smelled of leather and control.

"We'll go first to a specialized store," Helena informed, without fully turning.

"You'll need proper clothing.

Something that lets you move freely, without losing presence.

Something that speaks… without you needing to open your mouth."

"And that can withstand blood," added Selena with surgical tone. "A lot."

Sebastián did not respond.

He only let his reddish eyes—the eternal spiral slowly turning in his iris until it fused with the black abyss of his pupil—rest on the reflection in the glass.

He did not need a uniform.

But he understood the value of a symbol.

Helena, as if reading the silent tension, continued:

"The city is… rotten.

Not on the surface. We cleansed that years ago.

But in the corners everyone pretends not to see.

Small circles of power. Nests of human trade, drugs, flesh, eternal debts.

Corruption accepted as routine."

"And the law doesn't go there," said Sebastián.

"No," confirmed Selena.

"Because many of those circles are protected by politicians—or worse… by corporations."

"Then what do you expect from me?"

This time, Helena did look at him directly.

"To do what no one else can do without consequences.

To go in.

And destroy them."

Silence.

The engine was a whisper.

The city slid by outside, unaware of its own agony. "Not all of them are mere humans," added Selena.

"Some use drugs that alter their bodies.

Others… are something else.

Meta-humans, mutations, remnants of programs forgotten by governments that denied everything."

"Rats with claws," murmured Sebastián.

"And you are the right predator," said Helena.

The limousine turned smoothly toward the center of the commercial district, moving away from the upper neighborhoods.

The lights were beginning to glow, faint, as if anticipating the arrival of a heavy night.

"And where will I begin?"

Selena pulled a small tablet from her bag and activated it.

On the screen: maps, faces, numbers.

But she did not hand it to him. She only spoke.

"First: the underground club Blue Naraka.

A brothel disguised as a bar.

There they trade not only flesh, but stolen memories, substances to control the will… and children.

The police do not enter.

Because they also… come out of there."

Sebastián closed his eyes for a moment.

Not from rage.

From focus.

"Second," Selena continued, "an abandoned factory to the west, where they hold illegal fights.

They call it The Cradle.

There they train the slaves they later sell.

But lately, something else has been moving within its walls.

No one comes out alive."

"And the third," said Helena…

"you will know later.

When we see how you act with these."

The limousine stopped in front of a building with no signs.

Black glass, polished steel.

Military design with the aesthetics of a boutique.

A place where clothing was not sold.

Function was offered, dressed in tactical elegance. "Go ahead," said Helena.

"Let the city… begin to remember you tonight."

Sebastián stepped out without urgency.

He crossed the doors like a weapon still sheathed.

And the world…

began to creak in anticipation.

The interior of the facility was a temple of lethal precision.

Walls without adornment.

White, surgical light.

Polished black floor that left no trace of steps.

It was more bunker than store.

More laboratory than boutique.

A place where aesthetics bent before function.

From the back emerged the specialist.

Tall, thin like a spear, eyes hidden behind opaque lenses.

His gray coat barely shifted as he walked, and his face was stone.

No visible name.

No smile.

Only analysis.

"They have specific requirements," said Selena without wasting time.

"The subject needs full equipment for nocturnal urban operations, non-intrusive, without identification."

"In what range of mobility?" asked the specialist, voice of marble.

"Maximum. Total lightness. Without reducing resistance."

"Understood."

Not another word. He simply turned and extended his hand, pointing to a side corridor.

Sebastián advanced without hesitation.

Behind him, Helena and Selena walked like shadows of power.

A room opened before them: white, sterile, as if awaiting a dissection.

Selena began to enumerate, without looking at the specialist, as if she had rehearsed it a thousand times:

—"Black thermal fiber trench coat, full hood, adaptable to the face.

—High-neck face cover, adjustable up to the nose, no visible seams.

—Dark glasses. Visual tracking block. Integrated smart interface.

—Right earpiece with frequency isolation and secure channel.

—Black combat shirt. Light, elastic.

—Tactical camo pants. Black.

—Infiltration boots. Silent. Waterproof. Medium resistance.

—Fingerprintless gloves, with tactile pressure and reinforced grip."

The specialist nodded silently as he registered each item on his tablet. "Sizes?" the specialist asked at last.

Sebastián blinked once.

"I don't know. I've never worn them."

Silence.

Helena turned her face slightly.

Selena pressed her lips, barely perceptible—like someone calculating in her mind a margin of error that did not exist.

"And your current clothes?" Helena asked.

"They have no label. They weren't made here."

Selena inhaled subtly.

Then spoke with a dry voice:

"Then we will measure everything. From the skull to the soles of the feet."

The specialist activated a side console. Metallic arms emerged from the ceiling, smooth and precise.

Dim light turned intense.

A scanner circled Sebastián's body as if dissecting him with sight alone.

Then…

Sebastián removed his shirt, without theatrics.

The skin revealed was not human.

It was an ancient map etched in pain.

Scars like roads.

Marks of teeth, claws, blades, burns.

There was no symmetry.

Only memory imprinted in flesh.

The chest, marked by the old wound in the shape of broken thorns.

The back, crossed with lines that narrated a stolen childhood and a torn adulthood.

The mark in the shape of a spiral at the center of the sternum, dark, like a sealed whirlpool.

His arms were pure tension.

Muscles defined not by vanity, but by survival.

The abdomen showed lines of old cuts, closed by force more than by care.

The legs, firm as columns, also bore irregular scars.

On his thighs, old burns.

On his ankles, marks of pressure… as if he had once been chained. And yet…

The face was unmarked.

Not by chance.

But because Sebastián allowed no scar to remain there.

Not out of vanity.

But because the face was the mask.

And masks do not bleed.

The specialist scanned, measured, adjusted.

He spoke in a low voice to himself:

—"Height: 1.82 m.

—Estimated weight: 83 kg.

—Chest: 101 cm.

—Waist: 74 cm.

—Hips: 89 cm.

—Shoulders: 50 cm wide.

—Arms: 38 cm (biceps), 34 cm (forearm).

—Legs: 56 cm (thigh), 42 cm (calf).

—Neck: 39 cm.

—Hand: 22 cm long, strong fingers.

—Foot: size 43.

—Skull: 58 cm circumference.

—Eyes: Each iris contains a dark red tornado, spinning slowly yet perpetually, as if a storm pulsed within. At the center, a black pupil."

Selena barely shifted her gaze.

Helena showed no reaction, but her mind recorded every line.

It was not an aesthetic body.

It was functional.

A weapon carved by years.

When Sebastián covered himself again, he did so without hurry.

Darkness became clothing.

And silence, a promise.

"The pieces will be ready in less than two hours," confirmed the specialist.

Helena nodded.

Selena simply said:

"We will take him to his first target tonight."

Sebastián asked nothing more.

He did not need instructions.

Only direction.

And the world…

was about to tremble.

The limousine door closed with an electric whisper, sealing off the outside world like a creature of metal snapping its jaws shut. Inside, the air was cold, perfumed with control, and the darkness was a soft filter projected by the tinted glass.

Sebastián sat without urgency, his muscles still tense from the recent exposure. Helena and Selena flanked him, each in her corner of silence, like two pieces in a chessboard of steel.

For several minutes, no one spoke. Only the city murmured through the windows. The passing of cars. Distant voices. A siren that never came closer.

"They won't take long to finish the clothing," said Selena at last, fingers interlaced over her crossed knee. "In the meantime… it's time to define your first target."

Helena slid a small device to the center. Its screen projected a map, red lines like diseased arteries marking points of infection.

"We'll start with what's visible. What's obvious to anyone who knows how to look," she added in a low voice. "A private club in the Karesth district."

The name appeared in fractured letters over the image: Club Ruin.

"Legally, it is untouchable," Selena added. "It belongs to a public figure with influence in the commerce parliament. But in the shadows…"

She touched the screen. The image shifted.

Children in alleys, women passed out over their own vomit, fake contracts for 'night work,' bodies marked with numeric tattoos.

"Trafficking of bodies, of substances… and something more. Something our cameras cannot identify. Smoke of another color. Violent reactions in those who consume it."

Sebastián did not respond. His reddish eyes, spiraled into the black pupil, did not blink.

"We want evidence, not just blood," clarified Helena, anticipating the obvious. "But if it becomes necessary to cut off heads… make sure no one finds them."

The city outside seemed to hold its breath. Lights changed without anyone seeing them. The noise was lower than it should have been.

"There are rumors that place doesn't only feed addictions," Selena continued. "It also recruits. People disappear… and then reappear. Different. Obedient."

A dull throb seemed to run through the seat beneath Sebastián's body.

It was not fear. It was not fury.

It was hunger. Hunger for purpose. "…And when…?" he finally asked, without turning his head.

"Tonight," Helena replied. "As soon as the clothing is ready. The club opens at twenty-two hours, but the ones in charge arrive at twenty-three."

"That will be enough," murmured Sebastián, without expression. "I don't want names. Only closed paths."

Silence returned, thick as a shroud over a corpse.

And then, with surgical precision, the faint hum of the internal communicator sounded.

"The attire has been completed," announced the specialist's neutral voice. "They are ready for final delivery."

Helena reclined slightly.

"It is time to dress the night, Sebastián."

He did not respond. He only turned his head, very slowly, toward the black glass.

And the city, reflected in his eyes, seemed to tremble.

The notification reached Selena's earpiece like a precise whisper.

"It's ready," she murmured.

Helena barely lifted her eyes from the tablet where she was reviewing strategic blueprints.

Sebastián, on the other hand, said nothing. He only nodded once, as if that detail—the clothing he would wear to walk the night and stain himself with others' blood—was nothing more than an extension of his body.

They descended together.

The vehicle stopped in front of a gray structure without logos.

No windows. No visible doors.

It looked more like a bunker than a store.

A figure waited at the entrance: the same specialist who had taken his measurements earlier.

His face was a mask of neutrality; he did not greet, did not meet their eyes. He only gave them passage with a slight gesture.

The room they entered was illuminated by cold white lights, without a single shadow.

Everything was sealed. Sterile. Silent.

At the center, upon a black table, rested a long case with steel fittings.

"Here it is," the man announced, without emotion.

"Configured exactly to specifications.

Proximity activation. Cut-resistant fabric, fireproof, insulated. The system the ocular system includes a basic interface with thermal mode and visual tracking block.

The face cover contains a microfilter and basic translator of pressure waves.

The boots leave no footprint. The gloves register no DNA.

He opened it.

The silence seemed to grow denser.

Inside, each piece of the attire was folded like a sacred offering.

The fabric of the trench coat was a black so deep it absorbed the light.

It did not shine. It did not reflect.

It was like wrapping the body in pure shadow.

"Where do I change?" asked Sebastián, his voice sounding like stone against glass.

"There," the man indicated without looking at him, pointing to a side door.

Sebastián vanished behind it.

Selena lowered her eyes, feigning to review a report, but her mind did not obey.

She remembered the measurements.

The proportions.

The elegant brutality of that body without fat or excess.

Pure muscle. Bone carved by survival.

A body where every fiber carried a story… and none asked for compassion.

Helena glanced at her from the corner of her eye, and for an instant, a half-smile—more thought than gesture—curved her lips.

She said nothing.

When Sebastián emerged, time stopped.

The trench coat enveloped him completely, with the hood low, covering part of his face.

The black face cover rose to nearly brush his cheekbones, leaving only the contours of his jaw and neck visible.

The glasses concealed his eyes, but not his presence.

He seemed like an edge sharpened by the abyss.

The combat shirt clung to his movements without hindrance.

The camo trousers fell perfectly over the black boots that made no sound.

The gloves sheathed his fingers like an additional skin.

No trace of human flesh remained visible.

Only… an entity armed with flesh, fabric, and function.

Selena held her breath. It was not beauty she saw.

It was a primitive aesthetic: the functional perfection of an absolute predator.

A form of power that did not ask permission to exist.

"It works," said Helena, without emotion, but with respect.

"I want to test it tonight," Sebastián replied.

His voice was the same.

But inside that uniform, it sounded different.

As if he were speaking from within a coffin of shadow.

"You will," said Selena, steadying her pulse.

"And this time… without the world remembering you the next day."

Sebastián did not answer.

He turned.

The reflection of his silhouette was etched against the metal door as he stepped out again.

Helena and Selena followed him, in silence.

The night wind received them outside.

The city was ready.

And its shadow… walked with them.

Sebastián's steps made no sound.

The tactical boots did their job.

But the silence was not technical.

It was ritual.

He walked like one crossing the threshold of a profane temple.

Without haste.

Without noise.

Without mercy.

"Turn right," said Selena through the earpiece.

"Four thermal signals. Armed. No metahuman mobility."

The door opened before Sebastián reached it.

A voice greeted him:

"Who the—"

The skull of the first man split before the question mark.

A single strike. Dry. Vertical.

Like splitting firewood.

The second tried to shoot.

But Sebastián had already pivoted, using the first man's body as a weapon.

The corpse flew and crushed the second against a console. Bones against steel.

Vertebrae to dust.

The other two stepped back.

One shouted something.

It didn't matter.

Sebastián lunged.

The third took a punch to the stomach.

The force cut through flesh, muscle, organs.

It tore his spine out through his back.

Literally.

The fourth tried to run.

He never managed a second step.

Sebastián caught him from behind, seized his head with both hands, and twisted.

Not the neck.

The head.

He rotated the entire skull as if unscrewing a useless object.

The corridor returned to silence.

"Next hallway. Three cameras. Two escape routes."

"They will be sealed," Helena replied through another channel.

Sebastián advanced.

He was not a man.

He was punishment.

Each time someone crossed his path, no gunfire was heard.

Only bones breaking.

Tongues bitten through in sheer terror.

Walls painted with new patterns of death.

He did not speak.

He did not pause.

He did not soil his hands: he consecrated them.

He ripped arms away.

Slammed faces against screens that displayed data on victims.

Shattered legs and left bodies hanging, like unwritten warnings.

"You're close to the core," said Selena.

"At least seven signals. Two possible leaders."

Sebastián did not respond. He pushed the door open.

Inside: a long table.

Screens.

Money.

Drugs.

A man in an expensive suit.

A woman with a surgical knife in hand.

"Who are you?" the man asked.

Sebastián entered.

And closed the door.

From the audio channel, Selena only heard

…

the crack of wood

and then, of flesh.

Five minutes later, Sebastián stepped out.

Slow.

Stained.

But his gaze remained clean.

"Zone neutralized," he said for the first time.

On the other end, Helena only exhaled.

"Confirmed."

And the city, on its surface, kept dancing.

Unaware.

Complicit.

The elevator descended slowly, as if the very metal hesitated to sink into hell.

The flickering light inside the cabin was an omen, not a technical fault. The walls, covered in blackened steel, reflected Sebastián's hidden face: his silhouette veiled by the trench coat, his eyes behind the opaque glass of the goggles, as if he were no longer a man… but a sentence.

The hum of the communicator broke the silence.

"First level… cleared," Selena announced with surgical coldness. "The second goes deeper. Two side corridors, a central supply zone… and a sealed chamber at the back. According to the blueprints, no one enters there without biometric authorization."

"How many?" growled Sebastián, his voice wrapped in shadow. "Seventeen heat signals, not counting possible hidden ones," Helena intervened. "Do not underestimate this floor. This is where they keep what they don't want to show even to their own allies."

The elevator stopped with a metallic sigh.

The doors opened…

And the stench struck.

It was not just sweat or gunpowder.

It was ancient fear, soaked in dried blood.

The walls were rougher, made of cracked concrete.

Red lights flickered from distant corners, as if the very facility bled from within.

No warning.

Sebastián stepped out.

A hail of bullets greeted him.

But they no longer mattered. The rounds ricocheted off the enchanted fabric of his trench coat… and against something denser, more lethal: his body, hardened by pain and combat.

Like a beast without language, he advanced.

Silent. Absolute.

"Fire! Fire!" shouted a voice, desperate, human… fragile.

Too late.

The first fell with his trachea crushed in a single strike.

The second flew against the wall, used as a projectile to shatter an improvised barricade.

A third tried to flee, but Sebastián was already upon him, tearing away the weapon—and with it, his arm.

Blood. Fragments. Shattered bones.

The hallway was painted like a gallery of extinction.

The screams were not of war. They were prayers, with no god to hear them.

From above, Selena monitored the data, cold.

"Only eleven still alive. Nine active. Two paralyzed by trauma. Do not break the rhythm," she ordered. Helena remained silent. But her gaze on the screen revealed something else… fascination. Not for the violence. But for the precision. The way Sebastián executed not like a murderer, but like a scalpel—cruel and perfect.

A reinforced door opened at the far end, releasing a thick smoke… and a new creature emerged: not a metahuman, not a demon. A man with grafts, with poorly integrated mechanical parts. His right arm was a hydraulic cannon. His eyes, replaced by thermal lenses.

"Toys," Sebastián whispered, without stopping.

The cannon fired.

The wall exploded.

Sebastián was no longer there.

He appeared behind, like a living shadow.

Ripped the cannon from the man's body with a brutal twist, then smashed his skull against the floor once… twice… three times, until nothing remained but pulp.

Silence again.

The central hall stood open. What remained of the men scattered like insects without a queen.

And still the stairs awaited, leading to the last level.

The core of sin.

But Sebastián did not pause to breathe. His Qi burned inside, not as light, but as silence.

And the night… was far from over.

The sound of the elevator doors closing was like the curtain announcing the next act.

From the mobile operations room—the limousine that smelled not of luxury, but of controlled power—Selena watched without blinking.

On the screen, the bodies were still warm.

Some headless.

Others limbless.

All… meaningless.

"Second level cleared," she confirmed aloud, though she didn't need to. The system already knew. The AI had already recorded it. But there was something in saying it with a human voice that helped keep control.

Or pretend to.

Helena said nothing.

Her hands were folded over her knees, her eyes fixed on one of the many divided screens. On one screen, the moment Sebastián crushed the modified man's skull replayed in a loop.

Not out of cruelty.

But out of method.

"He is not an executor," Helena said at last, her tone barely audible.

Selena turned her eyes toward her, not understanding.

"What do you mean?"

Helena breathed slowly.

"He is not like soldiers trained to enter, annihilate, exit. He doesn't clean. He… dismantles.

He dismantles the very idea of resistance.

Leaves nothing behind that can be rebuilt."

Selena nodded, but not fully.

"He's not an ordinary killer either. He doesn't do it for pleasure. He doesn't smile. He doesn't provoke.

He just acts. As if killing… were his natural state."

Silence.

On the screen, Sebastián descended the stairs to the third level.

A side sensor marked his body temperature. It hadn't changed.

Not even a tenth of a degree.

As if the effort of killing did not wear him down.

"He is more than a tool," said Selena, almost to herself.

"He is a warning," Helena completed.

The atmosphere inside the limousine grew denser.

The dim lights barely touched their faces, and yet made them seem like sculptures from some fallen temple.

A cold priestess.

And a sick strategist.

Both watching a monster they never asked for… but one they could no longer let go.

"Do you think he will always obey us?" Helena asked—not as a doubt, but as a poisoned prophecy.

Selena did not answer immediately.

She only turned her gaze back to the screen, where Sebastián opened the door to the last level… and disappeared into the darkness. "I don't know," she said at last.

"But if one day he doesn't…

it's better to be on his side when it happens."

The elevator descended like a slow tomb.

The floors slid past… and the silence was unnatural.

In the audio channel, Helena's voice whispered with restrained alert:

"No signs of movement. The cameras have been dead for minutes."

"It's a trap," added Selena with surgical precision. "But we don't know for whom."

Sebastián didn't respond.

He didn't need to.

When the doors of the third level opened, no heat emerged.

No noise.

No human presence.

Only a corridor of gray concrete, empty, lit by a dying light that flickered as if the place itself were breathing.

The blood from the first and second floors had already dried on his clothes. He didn't care. The trench coat fell heavy and shadowed on his shoulders. Each step echoed with the cadence of a predator.

"You're alone," Helena said finally—more for herself than for him.

And then, he saw it.

At the center of a circular chamber, surrounded by dead machines and dismantled weapon crates, a man waited.

No. Not a man.

His skin was torn by metallic grafts.

His left arm ended in a pulse cannon, still vibrating.

His back seemed covered by plates welded with brutality.

His eyes… were an opaque abyss, without pupil or soul.

And on his chest, right above the sternum, throbbed a deformed core.

Black. Diseased. As if the energy inside had been forced.

The suit he wore was reinforced ARMEX, an old model of physical enhancement. They weren't produced anymore. Too many failures. Too many broken minds.

This was one of those remnants.

A failed metahuman.

"Kill," the being whispered. His voice was deep, hollow, like an echo trapped between metal and hate.

"Kill…" And it leapt.

Sebastián did not retreat.

His body twisted. He dodged the strike. The other's arm exploded against the wall, shattering concrete.

The counterattack was immediate.

A direct blow to the diaphragm.

The sound was sharp—like bone collapsing.

But the creature did not fall. It roared.

The fight had begun.

Every step was a thunderclap. Every fist, a declaration of violence.

Sebastián advanced with his martial art of the body. No Qi. No spiritual techniques. Only strength. Pure. Raw. Brutal.

The enemy fired his cannon at point-blank range.

Sebastián spun. The beam grazed his back, burning part of the trench coat.

He answered with a spinning kick to the enemy's flank.

Metal groaned. The being bled… oil, or something worse.

The creature charged like a rabid machine.

Sebastián endured. Blocked. Took a step back.

Then, he hurled himself forward with everything.

His shoulder struck like a battering ram.

The failed metahuman flew several meters. Crashed into the crates. Rose again.

"Kill," it repeated, now with dark foam at its lips.

But Sebastián had already read him.

He had already tested his speed. His strength. His resistance.

It was time.

He tensed every fiber of his arm.

The fist closed like a promise of rupture. And then…

Fist of the Absolute Dragon.

The atmospheric pressure shattered.

The shockwave took the form of a dragon, projected from the fist that advanced like an avalanche.

The impact was total.

The metahuman's chest collapsed. The core exploded. The suit split apart. The body flew into the ceiling, tore through it… and fell back down a ruin.

Silence.

Only smoke. The hum of dead machines. And Sebastián's footsteps sounding once again.

"Third level… clean," he said, without emotion.

Through the channel, Selena exhaled softly.

"Received."

And Helena, from the other end, whispered:

"Then… let the next part begin." The silence of the third level was not natural.

It was the kind of void left behind when ill-born things were finally torn from the world.

Sebastián stood beside the shredded corpse of the metahuman. Vapor still rose from torn flesh, from the crushed skull, from vertebrae shattered like old clay. The creature no longer trembled. Neither its body, nor its memory.

But the suit it wore… was not ordinary.

Sebastián tilted his head. Clenched his jaw.

An almost imperceptible gesture activated the interface of his goggles. Digital symbols, faint like ancient runes, floated across his field of vision. The secure channel with Helena and Selena answered with a soft pulse of sound.

"Do you see it?" Sebastián said, without emotion. "The suit."

Helena responded first, her voice cutting through the channel like a well-honed scalpel.

"ARMEX model. Armor for Rakzar."

Selena completed the phrase—always precise, always surgical. "Rakzar. Extreme sport. Popular on the continent. Players compete in coliseums of asphalt, strength, and speed. Real combat… with powered suits."

There was a brief silence.

Then Helena:

"But that model… it isn't official. It doesn't correspond to any of the prototypes authorized by the International League. It's modified."

"Too much," added Selena, with a trace of doubt unusual in her voice. "The energy density we registered during the fight… is anomalous for a regulation ARMEX."

Helena spoke again, graver this time:

"Bring it. Whatever you can. I want to analyze that thing."

Sebastián did not respond.

He crouched, as if tearing away a rotting shroud from a blasphemous altar.

His hands, without hesitation, ripped open the metallic torso of the suit. The corpse's remains crackled like dry branches. The straps, the safety locks, the internal circuits—everything was dismembered with monstrous ease. A force that carried no humanity, but neither rage. Only necessity.

Reinforced plates, internal fibers, the artificial core of the suit. All the essentials were extracted.

And at the touch of his ring, the fragments vanished, absorbed into the portable void Drayla had left him as a silent legacy.

No words were spoken. None were needed.

The corpse remained like a useless husk.

Sebastián wiped his hands with a strip torn from the suit, unhurried. The blood was already dry. The flesh had already stopped pulsing. But he still breathed as if the worst was yet to come.

He turned without ceremony.

The elevator awaited him, its door open like a steel throat.

Sebastián stepped inside without looking back. His black silhouette, sinister outline of pure will, disappeared among the metallic reflections of the lift.

The motor hummed.

And as he ascended, he was not thinking of the voices on the other end of the channel. Not in the suit.

Not in the corpse.

Only in the certainty that what came next… would also have to be devoured.

The club still awaited him.

And the world above still believed it could hide its rotten roots beneath false lights and dirty music.

But Sebastián was already rising.

And this time… no one else would leave alive. The elevator stopped with a groan.

The door opened like an exhausted eyelid.

The club's air struck Sebastián with its usual stench: cheap perfume, diluted alcohol, rusted metal, and unwashed fear.

The music still throbbed, but it could not cover the bloody echo of the three lower levels.

No one awaited him above.

No one who mattered.

He walked among decadent lights and unconscious bodies that did not know death had passed so near.

His stride was steady. His shadow unshaken.

And his eyes—hidden behind black glasses—still burned with the restrained fury of the abyss.

The club's door opened for him.

Outside, the night was still dense.

The limousine waited at the curb, like a luxurious beast that knew its master did not need to announce himself.

Helena and Selena were already inside. The tinted windows concealed their faces, but he knew they had been watching him since he emerged.

He entered without words.

The interior smelled of leather, of control, of professional silence.

"Finished?" Helena asked, crossing one leg over the other.

Sebastián did not answer immediately. He lifted his right hand and activated the ring.

A darkness pulsed in the air.

And the fragments of the ARMEX suit—still stained with dried blood and remnants of artificial energy—materialized between his fingers.

With a minimal gesture, he placed them on the folding table at the center of the limousine. Helena raised a brow.

Selena, meanwhile, unfolded a black analysis cloth, laying it out with almost surgical precision.

She placed the fragments upon it and activated her tablet.

The interface scanned the plates, the cores, the traces of contact.

"Interesting…" she murmured, voice low, almost to herself. "The internal composition has been altered. And not by an official manufacturer."

Helena, without shifting her gaze from Sebastián, asked with studied softness:

"That ring. Where did you get it?"

Sebastián tilted his head slightly.

There was no doubt, no tension. Only a direct response:

"It was given to me."

"By whom?" pressed Selena, without lifting her eyes from the analysis.

"By someone who is no longer here," he said, with a neutrality that closed the door to further questions.

And that was enough.

Neither of the two pressed again.

Not out of respect. But because they understood that with him, words carried weight.

And one could not ask him to carry more than was necessary.

"Back to the offices," Helena ordered the driver. "It's time to define the next steps."

The limousine started.

The city lights began to drag across the windows like electric scars.

And as the machine carried them into the heart of Helena Caelis's empire,

Sebastián leaned back slightly, without closing his eyes.

Because for him, even rest was a form of vigilance.

The club had been only a vestige.

A minor muscle of the real tumor.

The cleansing had only just begun.

And this time, blood was not the problem.

It was… habit. The city breathed slowly beneath the night.

From atop the main wall, still unfinished, Virka crouched like a waiting beast The new concrete gave her no warmth, nor did the wind striking her face intimidate her.

Her silhouette—human only by courtesy—trembled inwardly with a restlessness she could not tame.

The distant smoke, the false lights, the constant murmur of engines and voices…

All that world was a chorus of weaknesses, of distractions…

But there was something brushing her chest like a more intimate threat.

Sebastián.

He was not with her.

And though his absence was voluntary, his energy still lingered in the air—dense, aching, like a lack of oxygen.

"He's moving away," she said without moving her lips.

A voice rose in her mind, soft and deep as stagnant water in a forgotten well:

"No. He's going down," corrected Narka, speaking from the inner lake, where his body, in reduced form, rested almost submerged.

The surface trembled with slow ripples, as if the words vibrated from within the water.

"I feel him different…" Virka growled. "As if something inside him won't return the same."

"Because it is true," affirmed Narka. "The core consumes him, but not destructively. It is… shaping him."

Virka licked her lips, though not from hunger.

Her gaze swept across the distant towers of the city, their soulless reflections gleaming in the glass.

In there, within those spiritless structures, Sebastián had massacred faceless men.

She knew it. She didn't need to see it.

"And if one day he doesn't come back?" she asked—not with pride, but with fear disguised as contained fury.

"Then it will be up to us to bring him back."

Silence.

Narka's water did not bubble. The wind ceased for an instant.

Only Virka's eyes—red as the calm abyss—remained fixed on the urban horizon. —This world is weak, Narka. It doesn't want us. It doesn't understand us.

Why do we insist on staying?

Narka took his time. And when he spoke, it wasn't with certainty, but with a slowness that weighed:

—It isn't about whether the world accepts him…

but whether he can resist devouring it.

Virka clenched her fists. Her human form trembled.

Not out of rage.

But because she was beginning to understand that the creature she loved… had no limit.

And that every day he spent in this world was a dance between holding back or breaking everything.

—How long will Sebastián… be able to contain what he is?

Narka didn't answer.

But at the bottom of the lake, an invisible crack opened for a second.

As if the very plane they inhabited knew that this question…

had no answer.

Virka remained silent for a few minutes more.

Her legs dangled over the void of the wall.

Her claws, hidden beneath human fingers, trembled with impatience.

But not for battle.

Rather for an older unrest.

More primitive.

—I don't like those two —she spat suddenly.

Her voice was low, hoarse.

As if every word carried an edge.

—Helena… and the other one. The one with gray eyes —she added.

Narka didn't answer right away. From the lake, the surface rippled very slowly.

—Selena —he finally murmured—. That is her name.

Virka snorted. The name tasted like rusted metal in her mouth.

—They get too close.

They talk too much.

And he… doesn't push them away.

It wasn't rage.

Nor fear. It was something else.

It was the wound of a proud beast who, for the first time, didn't know if the territory marked was still hers.

—Do you think they want to take him from me?

Narka didn't rush.

Through Qi, his thoughts flowed like cold currents.

—They cannot take what does not belong —he said—.

And Sebastián does not belong to you.

Nor you to him.

But both of you chose to stay close… and bleed for each other.

That is stronger than any mark.

Virka lowered her gaze.

The asphalt seemed to tremble down below.

Or perhaps it was only her.

—But that woman… Selena…

She is like me.

Narka raised a mental eyebrow.

Virka felt it inside her head.

—Like you?

—Beautiful —she confessed—.

Cold.

Unique.

And when she looks at Sebastián… it is not just curiosity.

It is desire.

Contained, disciplined, but real.

I smell it.

Narka's waters stirred faintly.

—Then… what do you fear?

Virka clenched her teeth.

Her throat hardened with an answer she didn't want to utter.

—I fear…

that he might see her as I see her.

Silence. Dark. Dense.

Painful.

Narka did not judge.

He only let himself sink a little deeper into his inner lake.

—Then you are beginning to understand —he whispered—.

To love a creature like Sebastián is not only to walk at his side…

It is to accept that he may cross lines you would never draw.

And not to step back when he does.

—I don't want to share him —Virka growled.

—I know.

—I don't want to lose him.

—Nor does he want to lose you.

But the world is touching him.

People are seeing him.

And not all step back before what his eyes are.

Virka felt something crack inside.

Like an ancient bone.

—What should I do?

—Decide if you love the creature… or the man.

She lowered her head.

And did not answer.

She only let the wind pass through her body, as if it could empty her.

But the emptiness… never filled.

It only waited.

Like her.

Like love in the shadows.

Like the beast…

who still did not know whether it should bite or stay.

The limousine doors opened with a hydraulic whisper.

There was no urgency in the air.

Only the muffled echo of the massacre.

Sebastián stepped out first.

The city still seemed unaware that one of its ancient sons once again walked its streets…

with fingers stained in death. Helena descended after him, elegant, unshaken.

Selena said nothing, but her gray eyes did not leave the shadow-covered body walking a few steps ahead.

The Caelis office tower rose like a lance of steel into the night.

Sober. Precise.

No glaring lights, no empty ornamentation.

Only black glass and matte steel, as if the building knew that what it guarded did not need to shine.

Upon entering, silence closed around them like a chrysalis.

No employees, no civilians.

At that hour, only the upper floors lived.

They ascended without words.

The elevator made no sound.

Only a digital number marked the rise: 39… 40… 41…

The door opened.

A spotless, cold room.

Walls of frosted glass.

At the far end, a curtainless window let the city display itself like an open viscera.

—Take a seat —said Helena without looking back.

Sebastián did not sit.

He simply stopped before the long table of black wood.

Slowly, he removed the dark glasses, the mask, the hood.

His face remained intact.

But something in his eyes had changed.

As if the blood spilled had stained the depths of his gaze.

Selena activated a floating screen with a wave of her hand.

—Thirty-six men.

All armed.

Six directly tied to trafficking networks, three with confirmed disappearances.

None left alive.

Zero alerts to the state system.

Helena looked at him.

Not with gratitude.

With judgment.

—Efficient.

One word.

Nothing more. Sebastián drew a small metal capsule from the storage ring.

He set it on the table without ceremony.

—The suit —he said.

Helena took it without touching it.

An automatic scan enveloped it.

Selena followed it with her gaze, processing every curve of the metal.

—Confirmed —Selena murmured—. It is not one of the approved RAKZAR models.

It is… a dangerous modification.

—Possibly a stolen prototype —Helena added—.

Or manufactured outside the official circuit.

—Is it useful to you?

—More than you think —said Selena.

There was a pause.

The silence was tense, but not uncomfortable.

—And the payment? —Sebastián asked bluntly.

Helena did not frown.

She was not offended.

She simply slid a small tablet toward him.

—Bank account in your name.

Based on your mother's inheritance.

Empty for years.

Now it is active.

We transferred 80,000 units for this first purge.

Sebastián took it, without thanks.

—Anything else?

—Tomorrow —said Helena, turning in her chair to look at the city—.

Another place.

Deeper.

Dirtier.

Selena adjusted her hair, without losing composure.

—Tonight gave us clarity about you.

Tomorrow… we will assess whether what you are can be sustained in the long term.

Sebastián turned. —I didn't come to be evaluated.

—I know —Helena murmured—.

But this world does not bend to strength.

Only to results.

Silence returned.

Sharp.

Absolute.

Sebastián walked toward the door.

But before crossing it, he spoke without looking back:

—Don't give me more money.

I don't need it.

But make sure that Virka…

can have everything she wants.

Food. Clothes. Spaces.

A pause.

—She didn't ask to live here.

I brought her.

And then he left.

Leaving behind a faint scent of blood…

and the shadow of a beast that was only beginning to stir.

The doors closed behind him.

The air of the office felt heavier.

As if Sebastián's shadow had remained suspended, without body, without voice, but with a real weight.

Helena did not speak immediately.

She only stood, gazing at the city burning in its metallic distance.

Selena walked to the table, took the ARMEX suit capsule, and turned it between her fingers with surgical precision.

—It wasn't a fight —she said at last—.

It was a dismantling.

A surgical demolition.

He left nothing… except purpose.

Helena nodded without looking at her. —And it wasn't out of rage —she added—.

He did it with the calm of someone watering a plant.

As if killing were part of his breathing.

—It is.

Selena set the capsule on the table gently.

Her gray eyes held no judgment. Only calculation. And a crack almost imperceptible.

—Do you think we were wrong to bring him?

Helena tilted her face only slightly.

—No. But neither do we truly know what we have done.

The city was still there, like a body in a coma that still breathed.

—And what if he doesn't let himself be used? —Selena asked, her voice low—.

What if he only allows us to believe we are using him… while he decides the rhythm and the end?

—Then we must be better than that —Helena replied—.

We did not bring him to chain him, but to observe what kind of fire we have invoked.

A dense silence followed.

Selena walked to the window.

The lights reflected her perfect silhouette, her lips barely curved, her eyes of carved steel.

—He is attractive —she said suddenly—.

But not because of his face.

Nor his body.

But because of the absence he carries.

That emptiness…

—...that drags others to fill it —Helena concluded.

Selena turned her head just slightly.

—Do you know what's worst?

He does not care for power.

Nor money.

Not even victory.

The only thing that seems to matter to him… is that creature who walks with him.

—Virka.

Selena did not answer.

—Does it bother you? The gray eyes did not blink.

—He intrigues me.

Helena observed her in silence.

She knew how to read people the way one dissects butterflies.

But with Selena… there were still folds left unexplored.

Perhaps that was why she chose her.

Or perhaps because she knew that, one day, Selena too would ask uncomfortable questions.

—And if we lose him? —Selena whispered—.

If tomorrow… he simply decides to disappear?

Helena turned.

She approached.

And, for the first time in a long while, placed a hand on the shoulder of her most perfect executive.

—Then at least we will know he existed.

And that, for an instant, the world showed us what it could be…

when the monster was not the enemy,

but the only possible answer.

The limousine advanced without urgency through the veins of the city, as if the asphalt itself knew it carried two women who did not respond to the world… but redefined it.

Inside, the silence was thick, heavy with unspoken analysis.

Helena turned the small device Sebastián had given them: the broken core of the ARMEX suit. She examined it with a gaze that blended diagnosis and omen.

—This model isn't in any registry of those used in RAKZAR —she murmured, without lifting her eyes—. Not even as a prototype in development.

Selena, seated at the front with her chin slightly tilted, released the faintest sigh. Her metallic eyes did not blink. They analyzed.

—Then it wasn't made to compete. It was made to kill.

—And it failed —Helena concluded.

An even denser silence fell over them.

The city, seen from within the vehicle, seemed distant. Unreal. As if that burnt core were the vestige of a different dimension… one where the human body was no longer a limit, but an attempt.

—What kind of experiment is capable of producing something like this? —Selena asked, her tone without emotional inflection. —A desperate one —Helena answered calmly—. Or one… that does not fear the price.

The image of the subject torn apart by Sebastián still floated in her memory. The body was not defeated. It was reduced. Destroyed beyond tactics. As if the battle had been an excuse to confirm a truth: humanity is not enough.

Selena crossed one leg over the other, the movement elegant, measured.

—We too have sought transcendence. But we did it with power, strategy, economy.

—Not with flesh or rage —Helena agreed—. Nor with implants that erase judgment.

Selena stayed silent a few seconds longer. Then her voice, when it returned, was lower. Almost thoughtful.

—That suit tried to make of a man… a machine of war.

And even so, Sebastián tore it apart.

The phrase lingered. Helena did not answer. She only looked at her sideways, knowing where that line was headed.

—Does he fascinate you? —she asked at last, without mockery or judgment.

Selena did not deny it. But neither did she affirm it.

—Not as a weapon.

Not as a man.

But as…

something that should not exist.

And yet, there he is.

The confession was cold, but honest. And beneath that honesty, a primitive germ vibrated. One Helena recognized, because she had felt it too —for different things, for crueler people—: the desire not for the face, nor the voice… but for the anomaly.

—He is a creature that does not answer to this world's game —Helena said—. You cannot seduce him. You cannot own him. You can only walk beside him… if he allows you.

Selena nodded slowly.

—I know.

And still… I want to understand him.

The limousine turned toward the business district. The city seemed ignorant of the secrets beginning to grow beneath its artificial lights. Helena closed the box that contained the fragment of the ARMEX suit. Her fingers pressed it a second longer than necessary.

—There are others like that subject. I do not doubt it.

But if they are loose… if someone is creating them in secret…

we are going to need more than information.

We are going to need something that breaks the balance.

Selena glanced at her from the corner of her eye.

—And you think he… wants to be that?

Helena did not answer.

Because it was not necessary.

They both knew the truth.

Sebastián was not a shield.

Nor a spear.

He was a breach.

A fissure that opened the world toward another abyss.

And if they did not learn how to navigate it…

it could swallow everything.

Sebastián did not use private transport.

He did not need it.

After leaving Helena Caelis's office, he did not wait for company, or chauffeur, or permission.

He simply walked.

The city lights ignored him.

The urban sounds, already tainted with urgency and rot, did not dare brush against him.

Only the crunch of his own steps,

the dry echo of his boots against the concrete,

and the contaminated breeze of the world.

He crossed half the city with the stealth of a beast forced into domestication.

And when he reached the hill where the skeletons of concrete were already rising,

the night embraced him without asking questions.

The mansion was still under construction.

Walls half-finished, bare structures, shadows thrown by provisional lamps.

But the lake already breathed as if it had been there for centuries.

Its surface, serene. Its soul, deep. And there was Virka.

Sitting on the edge of the highest wall.

Her loose black hair moved with the wind as if it were part of it.

Her legs crossed. Her eyes closed.

But when Sebastián crossed the threshold of the grounds,

she opened them.

And everything changed.

She did not run down.

She did not shout his name.

She only descended in silence,

like a knife that falls without force… yet remains a blade.

She walked toward him.

She sniffed the air.

She frowned.

—You're… different —she murmured—. Your scent is denser.

Sebastián did not answer immediately.

He let the weight of the world slide off his shoulders for a few seconds.

Then he nodded.

—I was busy.

Virka raised an eyebrow.

And she embraced him.

Not like a human.

Not like a beast.

She did it like someone who only recognizes one thing: "You came back alive."

From the lake, Narka emerged in silence.

His liquid body took compact form on the surface,

and he walked along the shore to a cluster of rocks he used as a seat.

He did not speak yet.

He only observed.

Virka pulled back and ran her fingers over the new fabric.

—It smells of metal. And of human blood. —That's right.

—Was it difficult?

—Not for the body.

But for… the rest.

—The rest?

—The mind. The heart. Or whatever remains of them.

Narka cleared his throat, his voice deep as an undercurrent.

—You killed something that was not only human.

—I know —Sebastián replied.

—And did you feel it?

—Yes.

Virka tightened her jaw.

—And they… did they send you alone?

—It was part of the deal.

Narka nodded with serenity.

—The city wants you to clean its filth.

But it will give you more than that. It will show you… what it is.

And when that happens, Sebastián…

—I'll decide when it comes.

Silence.

The lake breathed.

The night descended with a sick calm.

—Do you regret it? —Virka asked, her voice lower.

Sebastián did not look at her.

He only walked to the shore and sat on a stone, without removing his coat.

—No.

But there is something I learned tonight.

—What?

—That if I continue down this path…

I will have to stop asking myself who I am.

And start deciding what I want to be.

Virka sat by his side.

Narka closed his eyes.

The world, for an instant, stopped demanding answers.

Only the air remained.

And three monsters.

Waiting for the next call.

_________________________________________

END OF CHAPTER 22