On the Path of Eternal Strength.-Chapter 78 - 76 Beyond the Guardian’s Limit

The pressure within the Veil did not diminish after their arrival. On the contrary, it became more constant, more fluid, like an invisible current that passed through the body from within and sought to crush it without needing to touch it. Virka remained firm, her red eyes fixed on the endless pillar that rose toward the dark sky of the distorted plane, but even she felt how that force seeped beneath her skin and descended toward organs and bones. Her black aura circulated internally, moving through every part of her body like a second vital current that cushioned the impact, channeling the pressure to prevent it from destroying her from within. Even so, the discomfort persisted, an uneasy sensation that accumulated like liquid weight in her chest.

Selena was the one who felt it first in an evident way. The cold that had accompanied Virka’s aura still covered her, but now it was not enough. A slow dizziness began to settle behind her eyes, an internal vertigo that did not come from the surroundings but from within her own body. Her breathing became slightly irregular. Balance became harder to maintain. The pressure did not strike from outside; it compressed from within, as if each organ wanted to collapse toward a nonexistent center. Even so, she kept her posture upright, refusing to show weakness before the scene that was opening before them.

Virka noticed the change in Selena and adjusted the circulation of her aura, trying to reinforce the coverage, but she quickly understood that it was not enough. Her energy allowed them to cross the Veil, not to completely withstand what dwelled inside it.

The dizziness also began to intensify in her.

The mark that bound her to Sebastián vibrated more strongly, and for an instant her vision distorted slightly. The pillar seemed to stretch even further, impossible, and the figure of the giant butterfly behind it remained motionless, watching without moving, as if its mere existence were the source of all that spiritual pressure.

The silence was absolute.

Until a voice echoed in their ears.

Deep. Ancient. Serenely powerful.

It did not come from a specific point in space; it arose from all directions at the same time.

“Stay still.”

Clarity returned to Virka’s mind as soon as she heard the tone. She immediately recognized the presence behind the voice, a familiarity that pierced through the physical discomfort and steadied her breathing.

“Narka...” she murmured with contained relief.

Selena also reacted upon recognizing the voice. She had not heard it many times, but it was enough to identify it. The pressure continued to oppress her, although the mere fact of hearing that presence seemed to grant a certain stability.

“I will help you,” the voice continued with grave calm.

Before either of them could respond, their bodies began to rise from the ground. The movement was gentle, almost imperceptible at first, until they clearly stopped touching the shattered surface of the park. Virka kept her gaze alert, while Selena struggled to maintain mental balance in the face of the unexpected sensation of levitation.

Energy began to manifest around them.

Spheres of Qi in brown tones with light orange glimmers slowly emerged, completely enveloping them. The energy was not aggressive; it was solid, stable, heavy in a comforting way. When the spheres finished closing around both of them, the internal pressure immediately decreased to a bearable level. It did not disappear, but it no longer felt like an imminent threat.

Selena inhaled more deeply for the first time since they had entered the Veil. The dizziness stepped back. The cold of Virka’s aura was still present, but now it coexisted with a mineral warmth emanating from Narka’s Qi, a different energy, ancient, charged with patience.

Virka closed her eyes for a moment, allowing the stabilization to complete itself. “Thank you,” she said softly, although she knew Narka heard her without the need for words.

The voice resonated again, calm, laden with a wisdom that seemed to come from entire eras. “This is my Qi.”

He did not say it as an explanation. It was simply a fact.

The spheres began to move slowly through the air, advancing over the ruins of the destroyed park while the infinite pillar remained the central point of the landscape.

Selena observed the surroundings from inside the sphere. The devastation stretched in all directions, deep craters and torn structures as if a battle had erased any trace of previous harmony. She finally spoke, keeping her voice steady despite the residual tension. “Is all of this due ... to the butterfly?”

There was a brief pause before the answer.

“Yes,” Narka replied. “That is an Elazria.”

The name fell with its own weight.

The entity’s translucent wings moved slightly behind the pillar, reflecting spectral violet tones that seemed to distort the air itself. Its white mask remained unmoving, the broken smile visible even from a distance.

While they spoke, the Qi spheres continued advancing slowly, elevated several meters above the ground, as if an invisible current guided them toward the center of the phenomenon. Virka kept her gaze fixed on the creature. The mark on her chest vibrated with increasing intensity, confirming that Sebastián was connected to it, even though she could not see him.

Selena remained silent for a few seconds, processing the information. The pressure was still present, but now she could think with enough clarity to observe the true magnitude of what stood before them.

“What is it doing here?” she finally asked.

Narka’s voice grew deeper. “It is not here by chance.”

The words remained suspended as the spheres advanced slowly through the dark air of the Veil. The pillar seemed to grow with every meter traveled, its surface pulsing as if it possessed a life of its own.

Inside her sphere, Selena once again felt the nature of Narka’s Qi: stable, protective, built upon countless overcome experiences. She understood that that energy was not only defense, but the manifestation of a will that had survived entire eras.

Virka, though more recovered thanks to the support, still felt the weight of the Elazria’s spiritual presence. It was like standing before a silent ocean whose depth could not be measured.

The real park continued to exist in another plane, full of life and noise.

Here only ruins, energy, and an entity that seemed to observe them without needing to move remained.

The spheres kept advancing.

And with each passing second, the sensation that they were approaching something irreversibly important became clearer.

The Qi spheres advanced slowly through the distorted air of the Veil, moving with impossible stability over the destroyed landscape that stretched beneath them. At first, remnants of the original park could still be recognized: fragments of pathways, shadows of former trees, broken structures that barely retained the shape of what had once been a living place. However, the closer they drew to the pillar, those traces began to disappear, devoured by a growing devastation that seemed to intensify with every meter traveled.

The ground changed first.

The cracks became deeper, wider, like open wounds crossing the earth in irregular lines. Then the fallen trunks disappeared. There were no longer whole trees, only uprooted roots protruding from the ground like petrified hands searching for something they never found. The landscape acquired an uncomfortable bareness, a sensation of absolute abandonment where even the memory of life began to fade.

Selena watched in silence from inside her sphere. The pressure was still present, now contained by Narka’s Qi, but enough to maintain a constant discomfort beneath her skin. Each new image that appeared beneath them seemed more disturbing than the last, and the park, which in external reality was full of human movement, here turned into a desert of progressive ruin.

The pillar grew.

From a distance it had seemed immense; now it began to feel disproportionate. Its dark surface vibrated with veins of liquid light that slithered like living veins, and the cocoon embedded within it pulsed faintly, as if it were breathing. Behind it, the figure of the Elazria remained partially concealed, its translucent wings moving just enough to disturb the nonexistent air of the Veil.

The mark on Virka’s chest began to vibrate with greater intensity.

It was not pain, but a growing certainty that spread through her body. Sebastián was near. She felt it with a clarity that surpassed any doubt. Her red eyes remained fixed forward while her black aura circulated internally to maintain her stability.

The spheres began to descend slowly.

The movement toward the ground made the details become clearer... and more disturbing.

First appeared shapes that looked like bodies. From above they were only dark stains scattered among craters. But as they descended, the silhouettes acquired impossible contours. Some resembled human beings, though deformed, with limbs too long or torsos twisted beyond any natural anatomy. Others had features that evoked marine creatures: skin split like dried scales, mouths displaced to places that should not exist. Farther ahead, a two-headed body lay split in half, the expressions frozen in something between pain and surprise.

Selena held her breath for a moment. There was no fresh blood. Everything seemed ancient and recent at the same time, as if the destruction had occurred outside normal time.

The descent continued.

Each new stretch revealed something worse. Gigantic craters opened in the terrain as if something had repeatedly struck from the sky. Some areas were crossed by deep cylindrical marks, ravaged paths that cut through the earth in perfect lines, as if an immense force had been dragged across the ground leaving scars impossible to close.

Virka slightly clenched her fingers. The vibration of the mark increased with each passing second.

Then the metallic remains appeared.

At first they looked like irregular rocks among the rubble, but as they drew closer the shapes became clear: robots approximately two meters tall, destroyed beyond any possibility of repair. Five in total, scattered in different directions, with parts torn away and internal structures exposed. Only fragments allowed their mechanical origin to be recognized. Near them lay human bodies, some partially covered by dust and earth, others reduced to motionless silhouettes that barely retained the shape of people.

The contrast between machinery and corpses heightened the sense that this had not been an accident. There had been resistance. And it had failed.

The spheres finally touched the ground softly.

In front of them, Narka waited in his complete form.

The enormous creature of black and gray mineral plates, incandescent red veins running through his fractured shell, stood firm like a silent mountain. His total length of more than six meters and his imposing height made any human seem insignificant beside him. His golden eyes, ancient and without pupil, observed with a heavy calm.

And yet... before the pillar, even Narka seemed small.

The contrast was brutal. The pillar rose toward a sky that did not end, and behind it the Elazria displayed its true size: thirty meters in length, translucent wings stretching like a suspended eclipse. The broken smile of its white mask remained visible even from that distance, and its presence filled the space with a sense of incomprehensible antiquity.

Virka and Selena descended to the ground within the spheres, feeling how the Qi still sustained them while the spiritual pressure remained present, denser now that they were so close to the center.

The landscape around them was a nameless cemetery.

Human corpses. Distorted remains of unrecognizable beings. Broken metal. Earth opened into cylindrical furrows that spoke of violent movements. Everything visually led toward the pillar, as if the destruction itself pointed to it.

Narka spoke without moving much of his body, his voice resonating deeply. “You have arrived.”

Virka took a step forward within the sphere, the mark vibrating almost constantly now. The sensation was clear, undeniable.

Sebastián was near.

But she could not see him.

Selena observed the scene with a restrained expression, her mind trying to organize what she was seeing. The scale of the disaster surpassed any immediate tactical analysis. Even the air seemed heavy, as if breathing meant accepting that this belonged to a different reality.

Above them, the Elazria remained motionless.

Watching.

And in the silence that followed, the sensation that something far worse was about to reveal itself began to slowly settle in the space between them all.

The Qi spheres remained closed around Virka and Selena, suspended at the height of Narka’s shell while the spiritual pressure continued compressing the air of the Veil like an invisible tide. Even this close to the pillar, even under the protection of the ancient Qi emanating from the guardian’s mineral body, the force radiating from the manifestation was enough to discomfort even an entity like him. Narka did not move. His thick legs were anchored to the devastated ground, his presence firm like a mountain that had learned to withstand the passage of entire eras. However, the density in his golden eyes revealed something more than simple vigilance: he too felt the weight of that energy, though he bore it with a stability that was not human.

Virka took a step forward within her sphere. The vibration in her chest became insistent, a pulse that could no longer be ignored. “Where is Sebastián?” she asked in a restrained voice, her gaze fixed on the base of the pillar. “And Valentina?”

Narka did not respond with words at first. He only tilted his head slightly, a minimal gesture that triggered a change in the surroundings. The earth surrounding the base of the pillar, an irregular wall formed by fractured rock and compacted dust, began to crack from within. The barrier gave way with a deep sound, opening like a wound that reveals what it was protecting.

Then they saw him.

Sebastián was sitting in front of the pillar, his legs crossed and his torso leaning forward, both arms extended and his palms pressed against the dark surface of the infinite column. There was no serenity in his posture. His back was rigid, his muscles strained to the limit, his breathing heavy and uneven. Sweat ran down his dark skin, and each inhalation seemed torn out with brutal effort. He was not meditating. He was resisting.

Behind his back rotated seven seven-pointed stars, reddish, suspended in the air like living seals traced with inner fire. At the center of that circle, a dark vortex opened and closed in violent pulsations. The stars absorbed the energy emanating from the pillar, and as they did they fractured with luminous cracks... only to repair themselves immediately in an incessant cycle. They broke. They rebuilt. They absorbed again. Over and over. As if each second were a battle against something that would not yield.

The mark on Virka’s chest vibrated with almost painful intensity.

“What is he doing?” she asked, her voice hardened by urgency. “Where is Valentina? I don’t see her.”

Narka let out a deep sigh, one that seemed to contain ancient dust and memory.

“Valentina is inside the pillar,” he finally said. “In the cocoon.”

The cocoon embedded halfway up the structure responded with a faint pulse, as if its interior reacted to the mention.

“Her soul,” Narka continued, without a didactic tone, like one describing something he had already seen repeated in other worlds, “suffered a structural instability. Not by her own will. It was a consequence of the clash of forces that surrounded her.” His golden eyes did not leave the pillar. “The manifestation of the Elazria responded.”

Virka remained silent, waiting.

“It is not the Elazria that is unstable,” Narka clarified with grave calm. “It is Valentina. The manifestation acts as a correction process. The cocoon is the mechanism. The pillar... is the conduit.”

The weight of those words descended like a slab.

Sebastián tensed his arms with greater force at that moment. The reddish stars fractured again, this time with deeper cracks before sealing themselves. A shudder ran through his body, but he did not withdraw his hands.

“He tried to destroy the pillar,” Narka said. “His attacks were not sufficient. Then he decided to absorb the energy to force an interruption.” A brief pause. “He has been at it for hours.”

Virka clenched her teeth. She did not shout. She did not advance recklessly. Only a dangerous tension ran through her posture. “And nothing has changed?”

“No,” Narka replied.

The silence that followed was heavier than the spiritual pressure.

Selena, who had observed every detail with calculated attention, briefly shifted her gaze toward the scattered corpses around them. “Them?” she asked, without apparent emotion.

“They came when the manifestation appeared,” Narka answered. “Some sought to appropriate the spiritual energy. Others attempted to seal it. All underestimated what they were touching.” His eyes moved over the human and metallic remains with the same serenity with which one observes a passed storm. “I stopped them.”

Virka turned her gaze back toward the Elazria, whose figure remained behind the pillar, motionless, immense, its translucent wings spread like a suspended eclipse over the ruins.

“Then eliminate it,” she said with a hardness that was not impulse, but necessity. “If the manifestation sustains the process, destroy it.”

Narka remained silent for several seconds.

When he spoke, his voice was even deeper.

“If I attack it... nothing will happen.”

Virka felt the impact of that sentence more than the spiritual pressure.

“It is not a true Elazria,” Narka added. “It is a partial manifestation of a real one. And even so...” His eyes lifted slightly toward the gigantic figure. “...its presence surpasses my capacity for direct intervention.”

There was no dramatism in his statement. Only knowledge.

Helplessness descended over Virka like a cold shadow. Her aura stirred within her, but it did not erupt. Her gaze remained fixed on Sebastián, who continued forcing the pillar’s flow with a determination that bordered on self-destruction.

Selena took a slight step within the sphere. “Then explain how it all began,” she said in a firm voice. “We need to understand the origin before deciding any movement.”

Narka sighed again, a deep sound that seemed to drag buried memories.

“It all began,” he finally said, “when the instability of Valentina’s soul surpassed the point of no return.”

The pillar vibrated.

The stars behind Sebastián fractured once more.

And the past, inevitable, began to make its way through the air of the Veil.

__________________________________________

END OF Chapter 76

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