On the Path of Eternal Strength.-Chapter 75 - 73 The Veil Closed with Hunger

Blood was still dripping from her mouth. The dark thread descended unhurriedly, clinging to her chin like a freshly drawn signature. Soft fragments of another’s neck still hung from her lips, small pieces of living muscle that barely pulsed, as if they did not yet know they had been torn away. But her eyes were not there. Not in the flesh. Not in the blood. Not in the victim. They were fixed on Ivano, and in them there was no question. There was no waiting. Only the straight line of an absolute will.

Virka’s body remained motionless for barely one more second, as if allowing gravity to confirm her silence. And then, without warning, it turned with a single movement: a twist of the waist, a shift of axis, and her legs rose in a brutal sweep. The sole of her foot struck first against the chest of the man in the black nylon suit, making him stagger back with a grunt that never fully formed. The second impact, immediate, crossed like a lateral hammer over the face of the man in the cyan suit, who had not yet finished falling when he was already being projected diagonally. It was not a counterattack. It was a discard.

She did not look at them. She did not finish them off.

Simply pushed them aside.

Her body was already headed toward Ivano before they touched the ground. She did not advance with speed. She advanced with certainty. Each step was a concluded destiny, a transition that did not depend on time or momentum. It was as if the ground were calling her toward her prey. As if the world accepted her advance as law.

Ivano stepped back without thinking. The wall at his back seemed farther away than it was. His feet carried him backward, but his eyes could not tear themselves away from hers. Virka was not running. She was not violently flexing her muscles. But each step she took seemed to compress the distance. As if space itself shortened in obedience. Ivano twisted his torso. Not out of strategy. Out of instinct. He ran. Not to flee. To gain seconds. To breathe. To feel that he could still do something.

Virka observed everything. Not only Ivano’s body. Not only his speed. She observed the tension in his heels. The way his hip rotated half a second before each stride. How his neck arched diagonally to calculate corners. How his hands trembled when they closed too late. They were not isolated details. They were patterns. Every muscle had its timing. Every intention, its biological beginning. And Virka knew them. Not by theory. By repetition, by hunger, by having killed in spaces where only the slightest movement revealed a betrayal.

The world slowed around her. Not because time yielded. But because her perception dissolved it into layers. Five seconds ahead were not a prophecy. They were a reading. Her gaze was not vision: it was diagnosis. The tension in the enemy’s right shoulder indicated preparation for a turn. The compression of the left ankle warned of an imminent impulse. The vibration of the air behind a moving body made it possible to intuit the way the next step would open the torso. Everything was written in bodies that did not know how to keep silent.

And beyond the human, even the environment manifested itself. The pressure of the air near a wall, the dull echo of a vibration in the ground, the slight change in the trajectory of suspended dust. They were minor notes in a greater score, but Virka read them all the same. Not as a main guide, but as accompaniment. She did not react. She decided.

Ivano reached the corner. The wall stopped him. His back struck the concrete. His breathing hammered inside his chest. He turned his face. And there she was.

Virka. Inches away.

Without sound.

Without mercy.

Without pause.

Her pupils did not tremble. They were fixed. They were not searching for his face. They were searching for his neck. His center. His root. Ivano barely managed to tense an arm, when the two men reappeared behind her. The one in the black suit extended his arm to grab her by the shoulder. The cyan one, still bleeding, turned toward her flank, ready to intervene. The instant was contained in a thin line, time stretched like a rope about to snap.

And then Virka felt it first.

It was not a sound. It was not a visible movement. It was a primitive vibration. A minuscule compression in the air. A minimal tremor in the dust beneath her feet. A tectonic murmur that had not yet been born. The world breathed inward.

One heartbeat later, everything shook.

The concrete vibrated as if it had awakened from a geological nightmare. The lights flickered. Sound multiplied. Fine cracks were born in the walls. Fragments of the ceiling fell. Bodies lost balance. Ivano lost his footing, his body tilting to the left as the wall cracked behind him. The air grew dense. For an instant, space came undone.

And when it stabilized again, Ivano no longer saw her.

Nor her.

Nor the men.

Nor the fight.

Only the wall. Only the echo. Only the tremor retreating like a wave that had already taken its prey.

On another plane —invisible to his human eyes— the Veil had closed like a mouth over three bodies. A distorted reflection of the same chamber, but darker, thicker, more silent. Within it, Virka, the man in the black suit, and the cyan one remained in tense positions. They were no longer where Ivano could reach them. They were in a replica. In an echo. In the mirror plane where only what has been touched by the rift may enter.

There, the lights did not vibrate. The walls breathed in silence.

And the blood was still fresh between the teeth of the beast.

The silence that remained after the tremor was worse than the roar. It was not the absence of sound. It was a charged pause. Ivano remained against the wall, breathing violently, but now without stimulus to flee. The vibration had ceased. The dust still floated in the air. But there was no trace of her. Nor of the bodies. Nor of his men. Nor of the fight. Only rubble, broken fragments, fresh cracks, and the memory of the gaze of something that had not been born to stop. His back slid down the wall until he was sitting. His eyes scanned every corner as if expecting to see her emerge from a reflection. But nothing. Not a shadow. Not a sign. The environment was too real to be a hallucination. The pain in his jaw was still there. The metallic taste of his fear as well. He stayed like that for a few minutes, unmoving. Waiting for something to return. Something... or someone.

But the emptiness held. It was not madness. It was certainty. And in that certainty, he straightened.

He shook his jacket with dirty hands. He wiped the dried blood from his mouth. He adjusted the collar of his shirt. The top button was still in place. He squared his shoulders, contained the internal tremor, and began to walk down the shattered corridor. With each step, his eyes slid over the remains. Open bodies, bare torsos with holes in the flesh, hands still clenched gripping their weapons, and piles of drugs scattered across the floor. What had once been an organized structure was now disorder and ruin. And he walked through the center like someone returning from a war he had not fully fought, but survived.

The staircase was intact. Each step creaked under his shoes with a faint complaint. He climbed without haste. There was no longer any hurry. There were no longer enemies. Only the sound of his breathing, and the strange idea that, perhaps, he had come out of all that alive.

But upon reaching the last step, he understood that he had not.

The destroyed reception opened before him like a poorly lit stage. And in it, ten silhouettes were waiting for him. They were not hidden. They had been there from before. In formation, standing, with weapons raised as soon as his face appeared. Men of the Crimson Empire. Dark equipment. Tactical vests. Empty gazes. And all the sights aimed at his forehead.

Ivano froze. Just a fraction. Then he smiled. A nervous grimace. And he raised his hands slowly, like someone showing he carried nothing. As if that could lessen the horror that was still dripping from his shoes.

Two of them moved. The first grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and dragged him without effort, throwing him into the center of the group as if he were a sack of waste. The second approached without saying a word. He raised his weapon, short-barreled, and with a dry blow smashed his mouth. A tooth flew out, bouncing on the floor. Ivano spat blood with a muffled groan. They did not ask him anything. There was no warning. Only handcuffs tightened hard against his wrists, and a rough movement to force him to his feet.

They took him out through the collapsed entrance. Outside, the wind carried the smell of old dust mixed with gunpowder. In the open ground in front of the complex, the deployment was evident. Two Crimson Empire military trucks running, with soldiers standing guard on the sides. Beyond them, two BRDM-2 armored vehicles: one with its 14.5 mm KPV turret, rotating slowly as if searching for a target that never came. The other, with an AT-3 Sagger module covered under a metal tarp. Between them, a black car, gleaming, elegant, with its doors still closed. Ivano felt the ground beneath his feet tilt again, but it was not a tremor. It was the weight of knowing that he no longer had any escape.

From the black car descended a woman. The Administrator of the Warehouse. She needed no introduction. Her mere presence was enough to impose order on those present. She walked with precision to the center of the operation. She observed Ivano for an instant. She did not touch him. She did not speak to him. She simply turned toward one of her own.

—We have the target. Withdraw —she ordered, without raising her voice.

The soldiers began to move. Quickly. Coordinated. But the Administrator did not turn yet. Something did not fit. Her brow furrowed, just slightly. And she asked, without looking directly at anyone:

—Where is the Beast Queen?

A brief silence. One of the soldiers stepped forward.

—We don’t know, ma’am. After securing the target, the lower level was inspected. The squad’s corpses are all there. But... we found no trace of her.

The Administrator did not respond immediately. Her jaw tightened. Not out of fear. Out of discomfort. An absence like that was not normal. A figure like that... did not simply disappear.

And then, a second door of the black car opened.

The footsteps were slow, firm, without unnecessary tension. Selena. Black trench coat down to the knees, perfectly fitted. Silk trousers that did not shine, but flowed with each movement. Long boots with low soles, made for comfort without losing precision. Her expression did not change upon seeing the operation. Nor upon hearing the report. She simply walked until she stood in front of the Administrator.

—Do not be alarmed —she said, in a firm, clear voice, without a single emotional note—. She is not easy to eliminate.

The Administrator turned her face toward her.

—She did not appear on any level. There are no traces.

Selena did not blink.

—I know where to look for her. I do not share this by intuition. I will do it by result. I will stay. You have already fulfilled your part.

The other woman nodded. She did not argue. She merely lowered her gaze briefly, just enough to show respect.

—A cleanup team will come for the bodies. And for the rest —she added, referring to the drugs.

Selena did not take long to respond.

—No problem.

With that, the Administrator turned around and returned to her vehicle. The trucks switched on their lights. The turrets closed. The Crimson Empire convoy began to move toward the perimeter, one by one, with the sound of engines and rubber crushing damp earth.

Ivano was dragged toward the rear of one of the trucks. He did not shout. He did not resist. Not because he had surrendered, but because he did not understand what was happening. Because no one explained anything to him. Because his world was no longer his.

And when the last vehicle drove away, only she remained.

Selena, beside the black car, motionless, with the wind pushing at the edges of her coat, waiting for something she knew would come. Not because she had faith. But because beasts do not die when they are sought. They only appear... when the world trembles for them.

Inside the black vehicle, Selena remained seated, unmoving, as if the outside world did not exist. The sound of the engine still running was barely a distant hum, a constant vibration that did not interrupt her thoughts, only kept them floating. Through the tinted glass, the destruction of the operation was a visual echo without importance: disturbed earth, tire tracks, bodies removed. She did not look out the window. She did not need to. What she was evaluating now was not outside, but inside. The faint reflection in the glass returned a serene profile, but the mind behind that face worked with a precision that tolerated no voids. Everything that had occurred did not match the projected structure. The operation had been carried out, yes. Ivano had been captured. The Empire’s units had withdrawn efficiently. But the critical component —Virka— had disappeared. Not wounded. Not confirmed eliminated. Simply... absent. No signal. No detectable error. And for someone like Selena, that kind of void was not acceptable. The Administrator’s report indicated that the squad’s corpses had been located. That the site had been secured. But there was no visual, thermal, or bodily residue record of the Beast Queen. That was not normal. Not for someone like her. Not for a being like Virka.

But beyond the field analysis, there was something more. Something Selena did not usually allow into her evaluation processes: an emotional origin. Not visible. Not dominant. But present. A variable that did not belong to the operation, but to what preceded it. To the call that triggered it. To that dawn with no open windows, where the sound of a cellphone broke the symmetry of her apartment.

The room was dark. Absolute silence. The air still. The sheet still covered part of her right leg, crossed beneath the left. The blue-gray silk robe hung perfectly over her body without letting the cold touch her skin. She did not sleep deeply. She never did. Her sleep was calibrated, divided into bands of muscular rest and mental review. But even so, the vibration of the phone pulled her from that threshold with immediate clarity. There was no startle. Only the exact blink of a mind that was already prepared to resume operation. She took the phone without sitting up. She activated the voice channel. The screen showed a single name: Sebastián.

—Hello, Sebastián —she said, in a plain, polite tone, without artificial softness. Friendly in form, but with the intact edge of someone who never gives more than necessary.

—Selena. I need to ask you a favor —he replied, without protocol. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

The phrase did not surprise her, but the tone did. It was not the neutral voice with which he usually communicated orders or shared information. There was pressure in his timbre. An effort to keep firm what was breaking down behind it.

—I don’t have much time. Something is going to happen with Virka. Something that can alter everything she is doing. I don’t know exactly how, but enough to ruin everything. —He did not breathe between lines. He only accelerated—. I’m going to send you the contact of the Warehouse Administrator. She will give you coordinates and details. I can’t appear. Nor intervene. What is going to happen will involve me directly. I don’t know how yet, but it will.

Selena narrowed her eyes. Her thumb pressed against the edge of the phone. Not out of tension. Out of precision. Out of order. Her tone did not change.

—Why me?

She did not ask it as a complaint. She did it as a calculation. An evaluation of meaning. There were others. Technically closer. With more immediate access. With less exposed profiles.

Sebastián took a fraction longer than usual to respond.

—Because I trust you. —The phrase was not said with emphasis. It was released like a conclusive line. A simple sentence. And then the call ended.

Not by error. Not by signal network. It was a decision on the other end. A deliberate closure.

Selena did not move. The room remained the same. The air the same. But the phrase stayed suspended. Not as impact. Not as weakness. As a piece she had not foreseen. She could not remember the last time someone had said they trusted her. Not from the word “trust,” but from the true content of that statement. Sebastián was not someone who spoke from the emotional. He had always been direct, determined, dry when he needed to be. Since she had known him, he had always operated with the same face, the same silence, the same sense of direction. And now, that call altered something.

It was not only the urgency. It was the fact that he —precisely he— had chosen to call her. Not as a professional option. Not as an extension of the Empire. But as one of “the few people I trust.” That line had not been said as flattery. Nor as manipulation. It had been raw. Plain. And for that very reason, impossible to ignore.

Back in the present, inside the black car, Selena had not changed her posture. But her mind was still there, processing. Not out of emotional weakness. But out of tactical consequence. If Sebastián trusted her, she could not allow herself to fail. But there was something more. Something that was not in the protocols.

She never thought she would come to occupy that place. She had always assumed that he saw her as a functional ally. A well-calibrated tool. A high-level executor. Never as someone capable of receiving a personal request. And even less... a trust.

The word “friends” crossed her mind. Not as a desire. As a question. Were they that now? Was it right that they were? Was it compatible to be a friend of someone like Sebastián? Was that even a functional role? She did not have the answer. And it was not the kind of question that could be resolved with pure logic.

But one thing was clear: if he chose her, if he entrusted her with the responsibility of protecting Virka, if he ended the call after saying what he said... then there was no room for error. Fulfilling it was not an option. It was a natural consequence.

The phone was still in her hand. Screen dark. But the phrase was still lit in her head, like an order that did not need to be repeated.

Inside the black car, Selena did not move. The reflection in the opaque interior glass continued to return the same serene face to her, without cracks, without complaint, without exposed emotion. Sebastián’s words had already settled. The call, his voice, his final sentence. Everything had passed. Everything had been processed. And yet, it still pulsed at her center. Not as emotional weight. But as evidence. A line recorded in her internal file. But that did not alter the purpose. It did not redefine the mission. Sebastián’s trust, although unexpected, was not a reason to allow dispersion. She herself had said it in her mind minutes before: that can wait. Virka cannot.

Selena’s back touched the seat with precision. Her legs adjusted to the movement as she opened the door. The outside climate struck with dust, heat, and remnants of tension suspended in the air. She stepped out without words, without protocol, without contact. Only her stride, straight, sure, as if each step were the extension of a calculation previously made. She entered the building. The walls still carried old tremors. The smell of metal and blood had not left. She descended the main stairs alone. She did not ask for an escort. She did not ask for a report. She was going to verify it herself.

The fractured concrete corridor received her with its traces still fresh. Remains of the squad. Fragments of weapons. Spilled blood in lines that did not follow ballistic logic. Farther ahead, the point of collision. The epicenter. Everything was there, but without answers. There were no signs of continued struggle. There were no traces of retreat. There was no execution error. Only corpses... and emptiness. No camera had recorded the disappearance. No energy reading survived the crossing. And that left only one option.

Selena lowered her gaze. Her lips barely tightened. It was not surprise. It was confirmation. Virka had entered a plane that she could not follow. The Veil. Not a physical plane, not a tunnel nor a teleport. It was something else. A deformed reflection, a mirror that did not return the real image, but a distorted version of the world, a place where matter trembled and the rules were different. Selena knew it. By name. By rumor. By theory. But she had no direct experience. Even so, that was the only logical answer. Virka had been absorbed, or had sunk voluntarily. Both were possible options. But neither explained the main thing: why she had not come out. The simplest possibility was the harshest. She was not alone in there. And that... changed everything.

In another plane, one without sound or stable gravity, the world curved without breaking. The lines of the buildings trembled as if they did not know where to end. The concrete had ownerless shadows. And among the remains of what had been an alley —a deformed copy of the real structure— Virka stood. Still in the same state. Her body, though unmoving, seemed to tilt the space around her. She did not breathe. She did not look. But everything surrounding her adapted to her presence.

Behind her, her manifested aura was a silhouette five meters tall, deformed and clear at the same time: a canine beast with an exposed skull, extended jaw, fangs long like rusted blades. The right claw, of black bone fused with dark energy, was visually connected to Virka’s claw, as if they shared invisible tendons. It was not a summoning. It was an extension. The form had no name, but the world recognized it as predatory. The air around it did not descend: it retreated.

In front of her, several meters away, stood the two men.

The one in the cyan nylon suit was surrounded by a white mist that emerged from his own back, expanding like frozen breath. Each time the mist touched the rubble, the concrete turned white, brittle, frost-covered. The temperature fell around him with each breath. He did not speak. He did not move. He only tensed his fingers, like someone measuring the reach of his own invisible edge.

The other, the one in the black suit with golden edges, had his body slightly crouched. From the joints of his suit, a thick, reddish energy seeped out, wrapping around his arms, outlining the muscles in an unnatural way. His body was reinforced not by technique, but by imposition. It was brute force sustained by pure concentration. The fabric curved with each contraction, as if the suit itself suffered from containing him.

The three remained in silence. Virka’s aura did not roar. It did not stir. It was simply there, firm, projected, unmoving. But each second that passed seemed to tighten the space. None of them retreated. No one spoke. The fight had not yet begun. But it was already happening.

The reflection of the world around them was no longer anything but an inverted ruin: a hollow city where buildings breathed shadows and the sky, without a sun, barely vibrated like dead skin stretched over a light that no longer existed. Virka remained there, standing, facing two men whose breathing was beginning to break down into uneven intervals. Behind her, the echo of her will rose like a parallel entity: her manifested aura, canine and monstrous, five meters of a black aberration with the skull exposed and the claws fused with those of the executioner. The ground, where her presence settled, seemed to crack without breaking, as if reality itself feared giving way.

The man in the cyan nylon suit, for the first time, brought a hand to the wound on his neck. The blood, already dark, still pulsed as if the pain were recent. But instead of trembling, he channeled a white mist from his palm, icy, compact, and pressed it over the crimson opening. Frost formed in rapid, almost living patterns, sealing the flesh with a patina of translucent crystal. He breathed with difficulty, but his voice was clear.

—There is no longer any point in continuing —he said, without lifting his gaze—. Since we crossed into the Veil, our mission has failed. We did not accomplish the objective. There is no reason left to fight. We should focus... on what matters.

Slowly, he raised his free hand and pointed to his right.

Virka barely turned her head. A few meters away, emerging from the deformed remains of what had once been a building, a pillar of energy rose. Dark, blackish, but with bright veins like liquid moonlight, writhing in violet spirals. It emitted no sound. But everything about it screamed. It vibrated with a pulse that was neither of time nor space.

The man in the cyan suit lowered his voice, almost in reverence.

—That was not planned. And if that keeps growing...

But Virka smiled.

It was not a human smile. Nor was it the smile of a creature. It was a twisted line of certainty. As if, from the beginning, the only purpose had been this: to kill.

—I don’t care —she murmured, without emotion—. I didn’t come for that. I don’t breathe for that. It’s only you.

It was then that the other man, the one in the black suit with golden edges, broke his stillness with a tense step.

—Damn brat! —he shouted—. Do you still not understand what it is? Even if you’re in that Battle Domino state .. Even if you’re an aura user at the level of a Brutal Aura Master, even in its highest form, you can’t take on the two of us.

Virka tilted her face, the blood still marking the edges of her lips.

—Is that what it’s called? —she whispered, among her thoughts—. I didn’t know. I don’t care. I only know that everything became clear. That I no longer need to think. That this state... —she paused, her chest rising slowly— ...this domain is enough for me to see you as you are.

She took a step. The aura of her reflected beast mimicked the movement, the claws flashing like blades of living obsidian.

—I know I shouldn’t have this strength —she continued—. I know that if they measured my level, they would call it Master. But your mistake was thinking that what I am can be measured.

She pointed her chin at the neck of the man in the cyan suit.

—If I were inferior to you... that wound would not exist.

Silence spread like a sudden swamp. Not even the pillar trembled.

—Thanks to this —she added—. Thanks to this domain, I can keep you at bay. Even kill you.

And then she prepared herself.

The jaw of her reflection crunched. Her eyes burned with that same pupil-less red that devoured her from within. Her body, still cracked by the scars of the previous fight, tightened like a spring of pure intent.

—And that —she said, on the brink of a new onslaught— ...is exactly what I will do.

______________________________________________

END OF Chapter 73

The path continues...

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