On the Path of Eternal Strength.-Chapter 72 - 70 Crimson Empire: Purge Order

The silence that followed the final hammer strike was absolute. Not like an end, but like an echo that understood its place. The manager, still standing upright, looked ahead with his sobriety intact. There was no exhaustion in his voice, no dramatics. Only the closure of a cycle whose density did not need to be underlined.

—The auction has officially concluded—he announced—. All items will be delivered right here, immediately, except for the acquired energy sources, whose distribution will be carried out as established: in armored transport, staggered, and under direct supervision.

No private chamber asked for clarification. No one stood up. It was not necessary. The rhythm had been measured, precise. As if even the closing were inscribed in the architecture of the night. Within seconds, the inner bulkheads began to open with silent mechanisms. Hidden panels slid without friction, and from the lateral access points, the logistics staff began the delivery.

Chamber five received first.

The doors opened without announcement. Six men entered. They looked at no one. They did not speak. They pushed three mobile display cases: reinforced metal bases, soundless wheels, structures sealed with reinforced glass and internal biomagnetic locks. Inside each case, floating suspended in contained energy chambers, was a Mother Qi Core.

They were not ornamental pieces.

They were hearts. Slow, dense, primordial. Three different cores, yet bound by a common vibration: the invisible resonance of an energy that belonged to no current generation. Each seemed to breathe on its own. Not by emitting sound, but by expanding ever so slightly within the field of view. As if they had a contained heartbeat of their own. The internal light did not shine: it pulsed. A mute glow, with the gravity of the inexhaustible.

One by one, the men aligned them inside the chamber without asking permission. As if even their presence were regulated. They placed the cases along the right wall, forming a slight curve around the center of the room. Then they withdrew in synchrony. They did not say goodbye. They did not look back. They simply left.

Behind them, a woman entered, pushing a thin, padded platform that held an oil painting sealed within an opaque protective sheet. She placed it with a gentle gesture in front of the second wall, securing it on a folding stand. As soon as she activated the protection, the image emerged.

White background. Gray shadows. An isolated hill.

Upon it, a leafless tree, twisted, as if it had grown under the pressure of centuries in solitude. Seated on one of its thick branches, a woman of abstract beauty. Her face was partially covered by a tilted hat, revealing only the right side. There, an eye.

The pupil was vertical, elongated, golden. It did not emit light, but it seemed to burn from within. In its iris, ten runes rotated. They orbited without touching, without varying their speed. Concentric circles in eternal motion.

The painting did not speak. It did not insinuate. It imposed without violence. No one in the room said a word. The attendant made a slight bow and withdrew.

One minute later, the last two men entered.

They carried between them a small square display case. Not for massive exhibition. Not designed to attract attention. It was contained, polished, with dark edges and a velvet lower support. Upon the central pedestal, surrounded by a fine cushion that protected it without concealing it, rested the statue of Elazria.

Exactly 34.5 centimeters in height.

A humanoid being, standing, wings closed and wrapping its body forward, as if the world did not have permission to look beyond the form. There was no gesture. There was no visible face. Only containment.

The material defied all categories. Crystal, but not transparent. Internal surfaces like layers of solid mist, refracting light without retaining it. Soft, ancient iridescences, contained like memories that are not spoken.

They placed it beside the painting, without proclamation, without protocol. Then they withdrew as well. And then the chamber was left in silence.

Only they were there.

Sebastián, without having moved a single muscle. Virka, standing behind him, arms crossed and gaze fixed on the Cores. Narka, at the center of the table, with eyes half-closed. The warehouse administrator, still upright, still serene, with hands clasped behind her back. And Valentina.

Valentina was no longer breathing normally.

From the moment the statue was placed, something had fractured in her posture. It was not weakness. It was not fear. It was attraction.

An attraction not logical. Not aesthetic.

It was possession.

She walked toward the pedestal with soft steps. Her expression did not have the childlike sweetness that sometimes emerged on her face. Nor fear. It held something darker: a silent hunger. A dry desire, without form, that asked neither permission nor reason.

She stopped in front of the display case.

Her eyes were fixed on the statue of Elazria as if they were waiting for something from it. Something she could not put into words. She stretched out her arms and, with a fine linen cushion taken from the side base, tried to reach it.

She did not succeed.

The pedestal was slightly higher than her reach.

Valentina lowered the cushion, but she did not step back. She did not turn her head. She spoke without looking at anyone.

—Will you help me...? —she said, addressing the administrator.

Her voice was soft. But it did not tremble. It did not ask. It commanded without knowing it.

The administrator hesitated for only a fraction of a second. Then she nodded. She approached with a steady step, took the cushion from Valentina’s small hands, and with delicate movements, lifted the statue of Elazria. She held it for only an instant. She did not try to read it, nor to understand it. She simply handed it to her.

Valentina embraced it.

Not with tenderness.

With possession.

Her arms closed around the living crystal as if she had just recovered something that had been stolen from her since before she was born. She did not smile. She did not cry. She did not speak. She only held it against her chest, eyes open, breathing irregularly. As if that act, that contact, were the only true thing she had left in the world.

No one said anything.

Virka did not move.

Sebastián did not either.

Narka opened his eyes, and for the first time, lowered his gaze.

The administrator returned to her place without uttering a word.

And at the center of the chamber, a girl with a fragile body, with a broken history and a small voice, held in her arms an ancient symbol of the universal spirit.

As if the universe had chosen

—without apparent reason—

an obsession

to remember its form.

Sebastián stood up without saying a single word.

The movement was simple, almost mundane, but in private chamber five it altered the balance of the scene. There was no haste in his gesture nor visible tension in his posture. He separated himself from the chair with the same calm with which he had remained seated throughout the entire auction, and advanced toward the right wall, where the mobile display cases waited in silence.

The three Mother Qi Cores remained suspended within their containment fields. They had not changed since their delivery, but now, at close distance, their presence felt denser. They did not impose through brilliance or size. They imposed through what they were: matrices of primordial spiritual energy, capable of sustaining entire generations of cultivation without being exhausted.

Sebastián stopped a few centimeters away.

He raised his right hand.

On his ring finger, the storage ring responded to the act as if it had been waiting. The dark surface of the band emitted a barely perceptible vibration, not luminous, but structural. The space inside the display cases folded in on itself with absolute precision. There was no resistance. There was no sound. The containment fields collapsed inward and the three cores disappeared one after another, absorbed without friction or disorder.

The display cases were left empty.

Sebastián did not stop to look at them. He turned on himself and advanced toward the center of the chamber. The painting, already placed beside Valentina, remained motionless, as if nothing that had occurred around it concerned it. The golden eye remained open, the ten runes rotating in their eternal orbit, indifferent to matter and to time.

Sebastián approached the warehouse administrator.

—The total? —he asked, without preamble.

She did not flinch. She activated the internal panel with a fluid gesture, reviewed figures, consolidated data she already knew by memory, and began to respond. Her voice was firm, professional, precise. She spoke of numbers that would have paralyzed any other listener, but for Sebastián they were just that: numbers.

Meanwhile, a few steps away, Virka had moved.

With Narka perched on her shoulder, she approached Valentina. The girl remained standing, embracing the statue of Elazria against her chest. Her arms were thin, too fragile for the symbolic weight they held, but they did not tremble. Her fingers closed around the iridescent crystal with a strength improper to her size, not physical, but internal.

Virka stopped in front of her.

—Valentina —she said, without harshness—. What is happening?

The girl did not lift her gaze. She did not tighten her hold on the statue. She did not loosen the embrace. Her breathing was irregular, but steady, as if it were synchronized with something the others could not perceive.

—It is calling me —she replied after a few seconds—. To heal me.

The words carried no fear. Nor hope. They were a fact.

Narka opened his eyes.

His attention focused on the statue, not on Valentina. He recognized it. Not by form nor by historical record, but by resonance. That was not a passive artifact.

—They are not emotional wounds of the soul —he said, with a clarity that admitted no doubt—. I have been monitoring that since she arrived with us.

Virka frowned slightly.

—Are you sure?

—Yes —Narka replied—. Emotional wounds exist. They are real. And in Valentina they are healing. Slowly, but they are healing. Her soul has begun to accept. To recognize. To rebuild itself from the damage lived.

He fell silent for a moment.

—If Elazria “is calling her to heal” —he continued—, then it is not responding to those wounds. It is responding to something else.

Valentina tightened her hold on the statue.

—To what? —Virka asked.

Narka did not hesitate to answer.

—Structural Instability of the Soul.

The term fell among them like a stone into still water.

—What does that mean? —Virka insisted.

Narka adjusted the weight on his shell, as if preparing to explain something that was neither simple nor comfortable to pronounce.

—It means that Valentina’s soul exists intact —he said—. It is not fragmented. It is not broken. But its form, its cohesion, and its internal rhythm failed to consolidate correctly during the early stages of development.

Virka listened without interrupting.

—The soul is not born rigid —he continued—. During childhood, its structure is malleable. It stabilizes according to three fundamental factors: emotional continuity, existential security, and stable energetic flow.

He slightly raised his head.

—If any of those three fail... —he made a brief pause— ...the structure does not collapse, but it remains unstable. It adapts to survive, not to sustain itself. That is what I see here.

Valentina did not react to the words. The statue, however, seemed to absorb them. Its internal reflections moved with a hypnotic slowness, as if the crystal were listening.

—Can you confirm it? —Virka asked.

Narka slowly shook his head.

—Not without entering directly into her soul. And doing so would be dangerous. For Valentina.

Sebastián stopped listening to the administrator.

The name of the condition reached him like an echo that needed no prior explanation. He turned his head, and at that very instant, Virka and Sebastián spoke in unison.

—Can it be cured?

—Can we do it ourselves?

The silence that followed was heavier than any immediate answer.

Narka did not avoid their gaze.

—No —he said.

The word was not cruel. It was honest.

—Not even at my level —he added—. The souls of all conscious beings are complex. And Valentina’s case... —he paused— ...is worse than most.

Sebastián did not reply.

Virka pressed her lips together.

For the first time since they had left Draila, since they had passed through auctions, threats, powers, and impossible figures, the three of them faced something they could not dominate nor fully understand.

It was not an enemy.

It was not an immediate danger.

It was a limitation.

And while Valentina held the statue of Elazria as if it were the only certainty she had left, Sebastián, Virka, and Narka understood, without saying it, that even in their apparent calm, there had always existed things they could not know... nor protect.

The concern did not disappear.

It only changed shape.

After the conversation with Narka, no gesture was dramatic. No reaction crossed the limits of control. But the weight was there, between them, hanging in the air like a silent certainty. They could not help Valentina. Not with what they were. Not with what they knew.

And yet, they walked.

Sebastián did not give an order. Virka did not wait for one. Narka settled onto his shoulder without a single comment. Valentina, still clutching the statue of Elazria as if it were part of her chest, was positioned between them without the need for words.

The warehouse administrator opened the inner door without asking.

None of the five looked back.

They left the auction hall in complete silence, their steps muffled by the carpeted floor and the soundproofing systems that maintained the artificial peace of the venue. The overhead lights did not flicker. The temperature did not change. But the world, for them, had crossed a line that would no longer allow retreat.

They ascended toward the upper floor of the pawn house.

The architecture of the place seemed too normal to contain everything they had just lived through: a wide lobby, clean lines, corridors clad in noble materials, without excess. Everything was perfectly polished, perfectly ordered. The kind of order that seeks to simulate control, not justice.

Upon reaching the main exit, the administrator stopped.

She said nothing. She only watched as the automatic door opened before them, allowing the outside night to receive them without ceremony. When they crossed the threshold, she remained behind, alone, with the same firm posture as always. Her figure was returned to the interior darkness, while the others passed on to the next stage.

The street was deserted.

Except for them.

And for the three who were waiting.

They saw them the moment they stepped outside.

Two tall men, in fitted suits, straight cut, broad shoulders, firm posture. 1.80 meters, clearly selected to impose, to project presence more than to act. They carried no visible weapons, but there was no need. Their bodies were the weapons. The kind of strength that needs neither permission nor explanation.

And between them, a woman.

1.65 in height, well-proportioned figure, straight brown hair falling over her shoulders. She wore a one-piece dress, fitted and satin, that mimicked the silhouette of her body without exaggerating it. The discreet neckline, the thin straps, the neutral tone of the fabric—everything indicated calculation. Elegance with arrogance.

When Sebastián’s group set foot on the sidewalk, she smiled.

It was not a warm smile.

It was a smile that expected obedience.

—How convenient —she said, in a soft but raised voice, addressing Sebastián, Virka... and Valentina—. You came out just in time.

She did not mention the administrator.

She did not see her.

She did not know she had stayed inside.

—Let’s not make this more complicated —she continued, without losing her haughty tone—. Hand everything over. The crystal cores, the energy cores. Everything you acquired.

—Now —she added—, or you will die.

The night did not react. But Virka did.

Not with a shout. Not with words.

Her face hardened immediately.

The eyes, which seconds before were still marked by concern for Valentina, turned cold. The brow lowered. The corners of her mouth tightened. And, in silence, she clenched her teeth.

The pressure contained since Narka had said “no,” the anxiety that had transformed into mute fury, the protective instinct that had been unable to act against the invisible... now had a target.

The woman kept talking.

—Come on, it doesn’t have to be violent. We can take everything in an orderly manner. We know how to handle this kind of—

But she did not finish the sentence.

Because Virka disappeared.

It was only a blink.

To those watching from the outside, the female figure who had been to Sebastián’s left dissolved into the air, leaving behind only a shred of movement. The first guard did not have time to turn his head.

The snap was dry.

Too fast to be painful.

Too precise to be human.

The man’s neck rotated opposite to his torso, accompanied by a brief crunch. His body collapsed without dignity, without emitting a single sound. The woman still had her lips parted. The second guard barely turned, but it was already too late.

Virka was behind him.

There was no technique. There was no art. Only force.

A knee rose violently toward the guard’s lower spine, while a hand came down on the nape of his neck.

The crack was double.

Spine shattered. Skull fractured.

He fell in two phases. First the bones. Then the flesh.

The woman did not scream. She did not move.

She only remained standing, stunned, eyes wide open and body frozen.

Virka turned toward her.

In that instant, the fury she had contained since the auction manifested in its most direct form. Her steps were short, weighted, slow. Her shadow seemed denser. The air around her grew heavier.

When she was close enough, she extended her hand and took her by the neck.

The woman offered no resistance.

But Virka did not kill her.

Not out of mercy.

Out of contempt.

With the other hand, she seized the woman’s wrists and, with a sharp, swift motion, broke both hands at once.

The bones snapped with a wet sound. The woman screamed.

—I’m not in the mood —Virka said, without raising her voice—

for insignificant people.

She released her.

The woman’s body dropped to its knees, trembling, with her deformed hands hanging at her sides, her dress wrinkled, her dignity in ruins.

Valentina had not let go of the statue at any moment.

Sebastián observed everything without speaking.

Narka did not intervene.

And the night, complicit in the silence, did not register the violence as an anomaly.

Only as correction.

The woman remained kneeling in front of Virka.

Her body trembled. The broken wrists hung at a grotesque angle, as if the structure that had once sustained her posture had silently given up. She did not scream. She did not speak. She only breathed with difficulty, her dress stained with blood and her face covered by damp hair she could no longer arrange with her hands.

None of those present looked at her with compassion.

Virka remained motionless, her chest barely agitated, as if the released energy were still pulsing beneath her skin. Narka rested on her shoulder, observing everything without intervening. Sebastián stood a few steps away, in complete silence, as if waiting for the exact moment when what came next could begin.

And then, without turning, he said:

—Call her.

There was no emphasis. There was no emotion. Only an instruction that arose from the core of calm.

The door of the pawn shop slid to the side without a sound. The figure of the administrator appeared with surgical precision, as if she had remained on the other side waiting for the signal. She advanced with the same straight bearing as always, showing no alteration at the corpses on the sidewalk nor at the shattered woman before them.

Sebastián observed her from the side.

The voice was direct, without pause.

—Who is she?

The administrator activated the data panel on her wrist. The ocular scanner crossed the deformed features of the woman on the ground, and in less than two seconds, a series of lines were projected on the screen. She confirmed. Closed the device. Spoke.

—Name: Juliana Rossas. Twenty-five years old.

—Secondary public figure. She has been captured multiple times at high-profile events accompanying Ivano C. Dirac, sitting congressman. Officially, there is no confirmation of a link. Unofficially, she is recognized as his stable partner.

—She has been seen acting as an informal emissary for unofficial operations.

—In particular, around areas with private security structures and financial entities with dubious funds.

Sebastián did not respond.

He did not interrupt her.

He waited for more.

The administrator understood.

—Ivano C. Dirac is considered, within the underground reports of the warehouse network, to be one of the country’s largest drug exporters.

—She heads a network of clandestine laboratories, transport points, laundering systems, and shell companies.

—She specializes in experimental drugs.

—She has access to political cover, partial immunity agreements, and ties to multiple parties.

—There is no prosecutable evidence. The system protects him.

—The code name associated with his network is: “The Hive.”

The phrase hung suspended in the air.

Sebastián did not avert his gaze from the woman.

Nor did he change his tone.

—Is she the one from private chamber eight?

—Yes, sir —the administrator replied—. Confirmed.

It was then that Virka moved again.

She did so without dramatics. Without new violence. She simply leaned forward with a clean, calculated motion, and her hand descended slightly, as if she were about to close the cycle she herself had opened.

—I am going to kill her —she said.

No threat. No impulse.

A practical statement.

But Narka spoke before the act could be completed.

—Don’t do it —he said—.

—This woman is nothing.

—If you destroy her here, you will only lose a head.

—But if we trace every node... every root that feeds her network... we can destroy the entire swarm.

Virka did not turn around.

—I am not interested in the swarm —she said—.

—She is the one who threatened Valentina.

—And precisely because of that —Narka replied—. If you kill her now, you will warn the rest. You will give them time.

—If we let her breathe, we can erase them from the inside.

—Clean without leaving traces.

—Extermination does not always begin with blood.

—Sometimes it begins with silence.

The air grew heavier.

Virka’s jaw tightened.

But she did not act.

It was Sebastián who spoke, this time without looking at them.

—I agree with Narka.

He took one step toward the administrator.

—Prepare everything.

—The Crimson Empire is going to enter.

The administrator did not ask for confirmations.

She did not take notes.

She only nodded.

—Yes, sir. We can deploy resources on five fronts: auction, casino, warehouse, brothel, and nightclub.

—Also the loan network.

—Do you want legal tracking, strategic extortion, or direct elimination?

Before Sebastián could respond, Virka spoke.

—No —she said—.

—I will do it.

Everyone looked at her.

—You —she added— are going to stay here.

—With Valentina.

The silence hardened.

—She cannot be alone —Virka said—. Not now.

—Not while she has that thing in her hands.

—And not while we do not understand exactly what it is that is calling her.

Narka did not argue.

Sebastián did not either.

Virka took another step forward.

—I do not need help for this —she said.

—She —she looked at Juliana with absolute contempt— is not a threat.

—She is a symptom.

—I am going to burn everything that sustains her.

—And when nothing is left, not even her name will matter.

The woman, still on her knees, did not understand.

And it did not matter.

The inevitable had already been spoken.

Not in shouts.

Not with weapons.

With a structure.

With an order that could not be reversed.

And at the center of everything, a girl embraced a statue.

While outside, the first echo of urban war began to move along the margins of the Crimson Empire.

_________________________________________

END OF Chapter 70

The path continues...

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