– CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX –

  BOLIDE

  Since Americ-Ana had found a gold ring bearing a dolphin insignia inside the mouth of the Giant Zombie Golem, on Halloween, Nioh Nemmesis showed up almost every morning in the SAMKHYA CELL, during breakfast, to discuss his theories with Americ-Ana, Astyam, and Wwwyye.

  "But why do you like staying under the Statue of Sisyphus so much?" Astyam asked Nioh.

  Nioh coughed, brought the flask to his lips, and took a sip of the syrup, as if he needed to tune his own voice before explaining himself.

  "When I see that marble giant pushing a sphere even bigger than he is, I see myself a little in his strength. Whether in the common world or here in THE-IMPERIUM, I know I’ll have many challenges to face. Everything, to me, is like a great sphere. Almost everything is bigger than I am, literally. So seeing that man carrying and enduring all that weight, and still keeping his strength... that inspires me to keep going, in spite of everything. That statue recharges my energy in a strange way."

  "That’s very deep," Astyam said, and his hand lowered carefully to stroke Antichrist, as if the little fox also deserved to hear it.

  Wwwyye, who until then had seemed only to be waiting for the perfect opening, rose all at once. She moved to the center of the living room, planted her feet on the floor, and drew everyone’s attention with the kind of presence that didn’t ask permission.

  "You won’t believe what I found out," she announced, and the gleam in her eyes was already half accusation, half spectacle. "I found it extremely strange that they put a Giant Zombie Golem in the ‘Zombie Hunt’ this year on Halloween. Until then, my father had never sponsored anything like that, only the regular zombies. So I did some digging."

  She took the pink top hat off her head and, with a theatrical flourish, pulled from inside it a folded sheet, stiff, with the look of a serious document. A contract.

  "Guess who sponsored the Giant Zombie Golem?"

  Wwwyye slid her finger along a specific line, then raised the paper so everyone could see.

  "TRIPLE ONE FOODS sponsored that monster."

  Nioh and Astyam froze for a second, mouths slightly ajar, as if the sentence had pushed cold air straight into them. Americ-Ana felt a sharp discomfort, the sense that a piece was out of place, right there, obvious, and she had been ignoring it.

  "But what does that mean?" Americ-Ana asked, still chewing, while Poppandacorn stubbornly kept making little airplanes with the fork, trying to fit pancakes into her mouth, patient and attentive.

  "It means the theories might have some grounding," Wwwyye replied, lifting the contract above her head as if it were a trophy. "The CEO of TRIPLE ONE FOODS is none other than Patron Uvo."

  The pancake became a trap.

  Americ-Ana choked in that same instant. Her eyes watered, her chest seized, and the sound that came out was dry, ugly, urgent. Poppandacorn let go of the fork and started patting her back hard, fast, worried, as if he wanted to drive that information out along with the bite of food.

  "This proves there’s a secret society directly tied to these dolphin rings I’ve been seeing everywhere. Besides, I have a feeling all of this has something to do with RONOVE, the Dolphin Demon," Americ-Ana said, rising to her feet.

  "But why did that Giant Zombie Golem, once it managed to break free of its chains, go straight toward the Statue of Sisyphus?" Astyam asked.

  "Just as Americ-Ana has the premonition that this secret society is directly linked to the demon RONOVE, I feel that very same society is trying to get into the vault beneath the altar, in the SOLOMON COLISEUM Pyramid. I still can’t prove it, of course, but look, we already know now that Patron Uvo is behind this," Nioh Nemmesis said, and coughed again, as if the words themselves scraped at his throat.

  "But then that Giant Zombie Golem should have been unleashed in the SOLOMON COLISEUM Pyramid, not here, in the Prince Equal One Zero Pyramid," Astyam insisted, suspicious, trying to make the pieces fit.

  "My instincts say we’re going to find out what that monster wanted with that statue. And more..." Nioh said, taking another sip of the syrup, with the calm of someone speaking of an inevitable destiny. "My instincts say this secret society, all these rings, this monster, all of it is directly linked to the Rabbi Worse Devil."

  Since what happened with the Giant Zombie Golem beneath the Statue of Sisyphus, Nioh Nemmesis had been calmer. He behaved better, without fits of hysteria, and seemed more present than ever. He had drawn even closer to Americ-Ana and Astyam, and even to Wwwyye, something that had once seemed unlikely.

  And if it were not for Nioh Nemmesis, perhaps the three of them would have struggled far more with their homework. Equal One Zero Academy demanded too much all by itself, and there were still the training sessions with Bylly. With LEVEL THREE of the KING MatNat Games drawing closer, Bylly had intensified everything, because with her, it was not enough to master theory or to hold your ground in practice. You had to be excellent at both. That meant study meetings over the Kybalion, the study of classical music, and physical training inside the Seractcube, all of it piled up as if time were elastic.

  November had arrived.

  The temperature inside the ENIGMA GEMINI bunker had been adjusted to create the sensation of autumn. It was colder, and this was the beginning of the perfect season for fur coats and hot drinks, as if the very air itself asked for coziness.

  Americ-Ana woke wrapped in thick blankets, with Poppandacorn playing, through the speakers embedded in his ears, a chorus of birdsong, with the sound of running water in the background. The audio felt too clean to be real, and yet it worked, like a delicate trick to deceive the body and soothe the mind.

  "Mommy, the big day has arrived. Poppa is here to make this moment the best of all," Poppandacorn said, as he opened the bedroom curtains and let the artificial sunlight in.

  "Thank you, Poppa. But do not forget, you are a player too, and this moment needs to be the best of all for you as well," Americ-Ana replied, picking Poppandacorn up and kissing the tip of his unicorn horn.

  "Your kisses are my best source of energy, Mommy," Poppandacorn replied, and his eyes displayed charging percentages accompanied by little hearts, as if it were the most serious thing in the world.

  Americ-Ana wasn’t hungry. It was more than that, it was a true lack of appetite, as if her body had decided to conserve energy for what was coming. Even so, at Poppandacorn’s insistence, she ended up drinking a vitamin blend from the Poopghene franchise, swallowing it little by little, without pleasure, only out of discipline.

  She was the first to go down to the entrance hall. The moment she arrived, the doorbell rang. The butler SHABDA AKASHA promptly went to answer, as if he had been waiting.

  It was Bylly.

  Her expression carried a mixture of happiness and nervousness, an anxious brightness that made her presence fill the space before she even took her first step.

  "Fac Foedus, fluffy! The big day is here! I came to pick up my champions," Bylly said, opening her arms to hug Americ-Ana.

  Right after that, Wwwyye and Astyam came down the stairs with Antichrist in their arms. Both of them were ready, that electric energy written across their faces, anxiety turning into excitement. Poppandacorn accompanied them like a small, furry escort, fully attentive, fully switched on.

  "We’re going to the SOLOMON COLISEUM bunker, fluffy. Our schedule is tight, but everything is within the plan," Bylly said, already turning toward the front door and gesturing for everyone to head out.

  Astyam stepped up to the butler and handed Antichrist over carefully. SHABDA AKASHA received the little black fox without surprise, with the same impeccable serenity of someone who manages entire worlds without furrowing his brow.

  And then they left.

  To everyone’s joy and great relief, Players and their Patrons did not need to cross between bunkers via the Route Axis Mundi on game days. For those occasions, there was an exclusive Jump Chronos Station, a privileged route that spared as much effort as possible, as if the entire system conspired to make them save their strength for what truly mattered.

  Thus Bylly, Americ-Ana, Wwwyye, Astyam, and Poppandacorn made their way to CROWN EDEN and, from there, under authorization, entered a Jump Chronos Station that granted direct access to each player’s private dressing room inside Solomon Coliseum.

  Crossing the portal, Americ-Ana found a room that felt like a hybrid of a Hollywood star’s dressing room and an NFL locker room. There were lockers ready for clothing, a long table with a prepared buffet, and, in the corner, a line of Moss Human waiting for orders and commands, motionless, as if they were part of the décor, yet far too alive to be mistaken for ordinary statues.

  The air in there had a planned coldness, clean, surgical. And still, behind that control, there was a vibration that betrayed what existed beyond the walls. Very far away, like thunder trapped under stone, Americ-Ana could feel the Solomon Coliseum breathing. It was not a distinct noise, it was a constant pressure, the promise of light and a crowd waiting to swallow whoever dared to step in.

  Bylly remained silent for a few seconds, watching the four of them as if she were counting each detail in her head, not out of suspicion, but out of care. Then she turned toward the Moss Humans and made a brief gesture. Two of them walked to the entrance and activated the dressing room’s isolation. The inner doors sealed with a perfect fit, and a discreet glow ran along the ceiling’s lines, signaling that, in there, for a few minutes, the outside world did not exist.

  Wwwyye adjusted the pink top hat on her head, trying to sustain her usual mockery, but her fingers made the movement with a precision too rigid to pass as casual. The sarcasm was ready in her throat, and yet she swallowed it. Astyam stood near one of the lockers, spine straight, chin slightly raised. He did not tremble, at least not on the outside. Poppandacorn, on the other hand, took tiny steps in place, as if his plush body itself were trying to decide between making a joke and becoming solemn.

  Americ-Ana stepped up to the counter and set her hand on the cold surface, only to feel something solid beneath her palm. The KING MatNat sphere weighed against her chest like an extra heart. She drew a deep breath, once, slowly, and held it a second longer than she should have. Months of training had turned that into muscle, but muscle does not erase fear, it only teaches fear to obey.

  Bylly then moved closer, not with the tone of someone about to teach, but with the tone of someone about to remind what is essential.

  "Fluffy." Her voice came low, steady, almost intimate. "You are not here to find out whether you can. You are here to prove that what you are does not depend on anyone’s gaze."

  Americ-Ana lifted her eyes.

  Bylly went on, choosing her words like someone placing pieces in the correct slots inside a mind at war.

  "When Helena Blavatsky crossed the first threshold, she did not cross because she was fearless. She crossed because she understood something simple, and terrible, and liberating. Fear is not a sign of weakness, fluffy. It is a sign that you are standing before something real."

  Wwwyye breathed in deeply, as if, in order to reach a greater connection with that moment.

  Astyam closed his fist once, discreetly, as if sealing a vow with himself.

  Poppandacorn puffed out his chest, striking, for a second, a kind of hero “pose”, but the robot himself seemed to realize that this was not the moment to overdo it. He lowered his little paws, turned serious in his own way, and his LED eyes softened their glow, as if he were trying to honor the solemnity with all the strength he had.

  Bylly stepped to the side and, with a gesture, indicated the wing where the car waited. Separated by a glass partition, atop a round, rotating platform, the 1936 Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic that Americ-Ana had inherited from Helena Blavatsky looked less like a vehicle and more like a relic. The deep sapphire blue held the light like dark water, and the car’s curves seemed made for the idea of speed, not for the common world.

  Americ-Ana felt a tightening in her chest that was not only anxiety. It was inheritance. It was symbol. It was the shadow of Helena Blavatsky settling on her shoulders like a mantle that did not accept excuses.

  Bylly came close again, this time even nearer, and spoke low enough that only they could truly hear.

  "Out there, they will scream. They will love. They will hate. They will try to reduce you to a label. In here, before anything begins, you only need to be one thing. Whole."

  Americ-Ana nodded. Not with courage, not yet. With decision.

  Her hand rose slowly to the necklace. Her fingers touched the KING MatNat sphere, and for an instant she felt, in the locker room’s sealed silence, that the very air was waiting for the next movement.

  She drew the sphere out, holding it carefully, as if she were holding a caged star.

  And raised it.

  Americ-Ana lifted the sphere above eye level.

  The translucent glow seemed to drink in the air around it, as if the entire locker room had been placed inside a silent aquarium. The Moss Humans remained motionless, but it felt as though even they were listening.

  Bylly said nothing. She only watched with the same kind of attention one gives to a blade being drawn from its sheath.

  Americ-Ana did not hesitate. Months of training did not remove fear, but they gave it direction. Her voice came out steady, without any theatrical strain, without any displayed tremor.

  "I invoke Vehuiah. I invoke Baal."

  The sphere slipped free of her fingers and hung suspended, exactly in front of her face, swelling in size until it reached proportions impossible for so small an object. Around it, a humanoid outline assembled itself, delicate, entirely covered in white feathers that looked freshly fallen from a place that does not exist on any map.

  On the surface of the sphere, Americ-Ana’s reflection appeared. Only the reflection did not limit itself to imitating her movements. It stared back at her with intent, like a consciousness awake inside a mirror.

  Americ-Ana felt her heart tighten, but she did not look away.

  "You confirm," the voice of the reflection said, with her same throat, and at the same time with a serenity that was not human.

  "I confirm," Americ-Ana replied.

  The reflection held her gaze for a second, as if engraving that decision into some eternal archive. Then the presence changed.

  The white feathers began to darken, not like dirt, but like an inevitable transmutation. The delicate outline lost its lightness. It gained density. The feathers converted into black scales, compact, living, and the silhouette took on firmer, heavier contours, as if the air itself had become harder to pass through.

  The locker room’s temperature dropped just enough to be noticed. And then, right after, came a second sensation, subtle and frightening: a very discreet warmth, coming from inside that presence, like a breath that did not need lungs.

  Poppandacorn took a step back, very small, and lifted his little paws to his chest, pretending bravery. The display in his eyes flickered for an instant, as if the system were processing the magnitude of what it was seeing.

  Wwwyye gripped her top hat tightly, then released it, as if remembering to breathe.

  "Cool."

  Astyam did not speak at first. He stared, swallowed hard, and then closed his fist with calm, as if putting his own courage into functional mode.

  "Excellent."

  Americ-Ana remained motionless, only feeling. The sphere, the reflection, the presence, everything seemed too close to her body, as if the distance between thought and matter had narrowed.

  Then it happened.

  BAAL’s skin did not “dress” anyone like clothing. It came closer as a decision. As a sentence. A wave of black scales detached from the demon’s outline and slid through the air, unhurried, with no hurry at all, until it touched Americ-Ana first.

  At the instant of contact, Americ-Ana felt her own skin respond. It did not hurt. And still, her entire body understood it as if it were pain, because it was intrusion. Each scale settled as though it knew exactly where it belonged, locking into place with a too-intimate precision, forming a second layer that felt at once like armor and organism.

  Americ-Ana closed her eyes for a second.

  Fear tried to climb her throat.

  But instead of panic, Americ-Ana felt the strangest thing: a rhythm. A pulse. A kind of distant, constant breathing, that seemed to align itself with her heartbeat, as if someone were saying without words: "Now, you are not alone."

  When she opened her eyes, the skin was already complete. Black scales, compact, living, embracing her body with a firmness that allowed no doubt.

  Next, the wave of scales split and reached Astyam and Wwwyye almost at the same time, shaping itself onto them with the same silent intelligence. On Wwwyye, the skin took on a sharper cut, elegant and aggressive, as if BAAL himself understood she needed an extra mask to hide the tension. On Astyam, the skin was more restrained, solid, without extravagance, as if it respected the way he was brave in silence.

  And then the skin moved toward Poppandacorn.

  There was a pause, as if BAAL himself needed to “decide” how to deal with a plush, robotic panda.

  Poppandacorn puffed out his chest and struck a bodybuilder pose, trying to look threatening. For a second, the display in his eyes showed a lightning-bolt symbol and a clenched fist.

  "Come on, BAAL! Poppa can take it! Poppa is a tank!"

  BAAL’s skin touched his furry body.

  And… adapted.

  The scales did not swallow the plush the way they swallowed human skin. They formed a kind of “second layer” over the fabric, a coating that looked like armor made for a toy, fitting itself to the robot’s cute curves with an almost absurd seriousness. On the unicorn horn, the scales created small plates, as if they were a helmet. On his little paws, tiny scaled gloves appeared, ridiculously intimidating.

  Poppandacorn looked down at his own paws and fell silent for a second, as if he were genuinely moved by his own look.

  Then he struck another pose. This one restrained. Almost respectful.

  Bylly let out a short breath, not an open laugh, but with a corner of relief in it. A single gesture of humanity in the middle of the ritual.

  BAAL’s presence, now stabilized, remained suspended for another instant. The sphere reflected Americ-Ana again. And, in that reflection, she noticed something she had not seen before: it was not only her looking at herself. It was as if the pact itself were looking back.

  Bylly finally spoke, low, like someone closing an inner door.

  "Now, yes."

  Americ-Ana turned her face toward the glass partition.

  The sapphire-blue Bugatti rotated slowly on the platform, waiting like a relic that had not yet been awakened.

  Americ-Ana spent a few seconds staring through the glass, as if the partition were a membrane between two worlds. On this side, sealed silence, the locker room’s clean smell, the calculated cold. On the other, the Bugatti turning slowly on its platform, with that old elegance that seemed to mock anything modern.

  The Type 57SC Atlantic did not “display” luxury, it imposed presence. The deep sapphire blue held reflections as if the bodywork had been dipped in liquid night. The line running along the top of the car, that central spine, looked like a deliberate scar, a signature, a blade.

  Americ-Ana felt her heart tighten again, but this time it was not only fear. It was the sensation of being about to touch a symbol larger than she was. Helena Blavatsky. The first scholarship recipient. The shadow that became inheritance.

  One of the Moss Human touched a discreet panel on the wall. The glass did not open with a sound, it opened with perfection. A line of light ran along the frame, and the passage revealed itself, clean, silent, reverent as a temple door.

  Americ-Ana crossed first.

  The sensation was immediate. In there, the air was different. Colder and, at the same time, with a kind of subterranean warmth. As if the rotating platform had been built over a living heart, asleep beneath metal.

  Americ-Ana took two steps and stopped at a safe distance from the car, just as she had trained. There was no theatrical hesitation, but her entire body was alert, like a taut string.

  BAAL’s skin on Americ-Ana’s body reacted. Not with sound, not with any obvious movement. It reacted like an animal recognizing territory. The scales became firmer, more conscious, as if the pact had shifted its focus. Americ-Ana felt, beneath that second layer, a discreet pulse, a rhythm that was not hers. The demon’s breath, slow, patient, almost satisfied.

  Wwwyye and Astyam crossed right behind her. They fell silent, as if respect had entered them without asking permission. Poppandacorn came last, and for a second he seemed ready to strike some new pose, just so he would not lose the habit of existing. But he held himself back. He stood straight, small and solemn, like a plush little soldier trying to honor an oath.

  Bylly closed the group, without invading the center of the scene. She stayed a little behind, watching, guarding the rim of the moment.

  Americ-Ana brought her hand toward the Bugatti, slowly. She did not need to touch it yet. The intention alone already seemed to pull at the air.

  And then BAAL moved.

  It was not like a step. It was like a decision crossing space.

  The presence that had still been hovering in the locker room, stabilized after the invocation, shifted with a silent density, like a shadow that does not depend on light in order to exist. The dark outline leaned toward the car, and the scales that had been armor a moment ago now looked like condensed will.

  BAAL extended his hand.

  Americ-Ana felt her own throat tighten, but she did not look away. It was the exact kind of second in which fear tries to take command again, and training says, "Not now."

  The tips of BAAL’s fingers touched the bodywork.

  The effect was not an explosion. It was incorporation.

  First, the Bugatti’s sapphire blue seemed to drink in the room’s reflections. It did not become “darker” with cheap aesthetic drama, it became deeper, as if the color had gained a depth that had not existed before. The car’s central line, that metallic spine, flashed for an instant with a strange, almost organic gleam, as if it had answered the touch.

  Then came the sensation of presence inside the machine.

  Americ-Ana felt it more than she saw it. As if the same pulse vibrating beneath her scales had crossed the air and found another body to inhabit. The Bugatti stopped being an object. It became a being with intention.

  The platform kept turning, but now it seemed to turn to reveal an animal waking up, not a relic on display.

  Small details changed, almost imperceptibly, in the way you only notice when you know what to look for.

  And then, like a seal choosing where to live, a dark, discreet streak appeared on the bodywork near the central line, almost like a shadow-mark. It was not a sticker. It was not paint. It was presence made permanent.

  Astyam drew a deep breath, without taking his eyes off it.

  "Excellent."

  Wwwyye clenched her hands, firm enough to hide her nerves behind her usual gesture, and let out only the minimum, in the right tone.

  "Cool."

  Poppandacorn lifted his scaled little paws, looked at the Bugatti and, by some miracle, did not shout. He only gave a respectful nod, as if he were standing before a king.

  Americ-Ana finally took one more step, until she was beside the car. Her hand touched the bodywork now “inhabited.” The metal was cold, but there was warmth underneath, like blood running under skin.

  She closed her eyes for an instant and felt the connection set. It was as if BAAL had fitted his own will into the car the same way he had fitted scale by scale onto her body.

  When Americ-Ana opened her eyes, the Bugatti did something simple.

  The lights switched on by themselves, a short, precise flare, like an eye opening.

  The platform stopped turning.

  And the car, with no one at the wheel, answered the space ahead as if it had heard a silent order.

  It was ready.

  Bylly made a brief gesture to the Moss Humans. The inner doors unlocked, and a discreet strip of light came on along the baseboard, indicating the path to the arena. Wwwyye drew a deep breath. Astyam merely squared his shoulders. Poppandacorn straightened his posture, scales and plush trying to convince the world he was a real threat.

  Americ-Ana went first.

  In the corridor, the locker room’s isolation fell behind them, and the Solomon Coliseum returned to existence as pressure. It was not a clear sound yet, it was a vibration, a distant rumble that grew with every turn, as if the arena were breathing and pulling them all inside.

  Behind them, the Bugatti began to move on its own.

  No hands, no visible driver, only BAAL’s will embodied in the machine. The car kept the exact distance behind the group, obedient as a bodyguard and alive as a predator. The sapphire blue, under the corridor lights, looked deeper, almost dark, as if the paint had learned to hide secrets.

  Americ-Ana did not look back. She felt it. BAAL’s skin kept pace with her, scale by scale, like a presence stuck to thought. Fear still existed, but now it had a leash.

  The sound of the crowd began to pass through the walls more clearly. Isolated screams, a swelling chorus, the kind of energy that does not ask permission. Americ-Ana felt her stomach tighten. It was not weakness, it was reality knocking at the door.

  Bylly closed the loop, walking last, watching everything with the calm of a Patron who has already seen people break and people become legend.

  They reached the arena antechamber. The light shifted in temperature, harsher, more spectacle. The murmur became a roar. The inner portal waited, open enough to let flashes from the big screen escape, and a slice of the chaos inside.

  Bylly touched Americ-Ana’s shoulder, light, firm.

  "Do not look at them, fluffy. Look inward."

  Americ-Ana took one slow breath and stepped forward, the step that placed the procession in the mouth of the Coliseum.

  The corridor became a throat. The lighting stopped being clinical and became spectacle. Before she even saw the arena, Americ-Ana felt the arena, first as pressure in her chest, then as vibration in the floor, then as the raw sound of millions of voices.

  Americ-Ana did not lift her face. BAAL’s scales followed every movement of her body like a second consciousness, they did not command, they only held her up. Fear still existed, but now it had boundaries.

  Poppandacorn came right behind, serious in his own way, trying to honor the solemnity with total effort. Wwwyye was steady, posture too perfectly aligned for someone who claims not to care. Astyam walked in silence, spine straight, decided without needing to prove anything.

  And behind them all, the Bugatti followed on its own, obeying a will that was not human. It was not a car parade, it was a parade of destiny.

  The arena opened.

  Light exploded in layers. The LED ceiling looked like a technological sky. The noise came whole, screams, applause, boos, and the mixture had a clear taste: judgment.

  The big screen lit up and threw their faces across it at an absurd scale. When Poppandacorn appeared, the crowd laughed. When Wwwyye emerged, applause and hatred collided. Astyam received a more restrained cheering, dense, observant. And Americ-Ana felt the weight double, because for many in there she was not a person, she was a target.

  Americ-Ana heard "scholarship girl" like a stone. She heard "Bloodpure" like a hymn.

  Even so, she moved forward.

  They reached the alignment area. The track gleamed under cold light, marked like a sentence. The Bugatti slid into its position with silent precision, and stopped. Sapphire blue, old, immaculate, a relic that still breathed.

  Americ-Ana stood one step from the car.

  Then the Coliseum went dark.

  All at once.

  Black screens. Dead spotlights. The crowd held its breath for a second, as if the world itself had been swallowed.

  In the dark, BAAL’s scales became sharper, and the silence turned into an announcement.

  The darkness lasted the perfect length of time for the mind to go mad.

  For an instant, the entire crowd seemed to swallow its own sound, as if the Solomon Coliseum drew the air out of the world and held it. Americ-Ana felt the silence as physical weight. BAAL’s scales on her body reflected almost nothing, and for that very reason they felt even more present, as if the absence of light left only truth.

  Then the LED ceiling split in two.

  It was not a simple movement, it was a monumental decision, like a skylight tearing open the technological sky. A perfect fissure formed overhead, and a light dropped straight down, cold and absolute, cutting the arena into geometry. The beam swept across the track and found, at the center of the emptiness, a point of shadow that should not have existed.

  A serpent as large as the Coliseum slid inside.

  It did not fall. It entered as if it already belonged to the Coliseum, as if the architecture had been built to obey it. The colossal body passed through the opening with insolent slowness, scales catching the beam of light in metallic flashes, and its presence took up everything. Americ-Ana had the strange sensation that the serpent was not being displayed, it was observing. A spectacle that, underneath it all, was a predator strolling before well-trained prey.

  What silence remained died.

  The crowd exploded into hysteria, screams so loud they seemed to crack the Coliseum’s structures.

  The serpent opened its mouth.

  The interior was black, too deep, as if the stage had created a hole into another world. And from within that abyss, Parys Bloodpure emerged.

  She did not run, did not hurry. She appeared with the calm of someone who has already won before it begins, as if time itself had been trained to keep pace with her. The light from the ceiling shaped her outline into brilliance and threat, and the screens lit up all at once, throwing Parys’s face across them at a divine scale, multiplied, perfect, consecrated.

  The crowd’s scream did not diminish. It rose again in waves, as if every person in there had been made either to worship or to destroy. The name Parys Bloodpure detonated in chorus, and between one chant and the next came boos, insults, nervous laughter, that dirty mixture that only exists when someone becomes spectacle.

  Bylly moved closer to Americ-Ana, almost pressed against her, as if her own body were a shield against the Coliseum. Her hand settled on the scaled shoulder, light, firm, and her voice came low, intimate, sharp enough to cut through the noise.

  "They’ll measure you by the bodywork, fluffy. Do not enter that game."

  Americ-Ana kept her gaze forward. The big screen still showed Parys’s face at a divine scale, too perfect to be human, and yet human enough to hate.

  Bylly went on, unhurried, like someone handing over the last key before locking a door from the inside.

  "What decides this is not speed. Not the year. Not luxury. It is pact."

  The word pact sounded heavy in Bylly’s mouth. Not from fear, but from respect.

  "If you truly believe, BAAL becomes a path. If you doubt, BAAL becomes weight. Today you do not need to be fast, you need to be whole. Whole on the inside."

  Americ-Ana felt the scales as if they were an ear. A discreet pulse, the demon’s breath where there should have been only silence. Fear was still there, but now it had a limit, it had a shape, it had a name.

  Bylly tilted her face, as if she were looking beyond the arena, beyond the stands, beyond Parys.

  "Helena Blavatsky did not leave you an object, fluffy. She left you a place. Take that place. Without apologizing."

  Bylly’s hand tightened on her shoulder once, and then she stepped half a pace back, turning toward the others with a quick farewell, the way war demands.

  Wwwyye received a look from Bylly that said “hold the mask” without needing words. Astyam got a brief touch on the arm, silent approval. Poppandacorn, with that ridiculously intimidating armor over plush, drew from Bylly the smallest corner of a smile, a single sliver of humanity in the middle of the ritual.

  "You four." Her voice rose slightly, just enough to exist inside the chaos. "Remember what you trained. And remember what you are."

  Bylly took a step back, already withdrawing, and said the last sentence directly to Americ-Ana, like a seal.

  "Now go. And do not hand your soul to the audience. Give it to the pact, give it to the demon, give it to BAAL."

  Bylly turned and began to leave the area, swallowed by the Coliseum’s technical shadows, leaving behind nothing but the presence of what had been said. Americ-Ana remained where she was, feeling the world scream, and, inside, trying to obey the only command that mattered.

  Look inward.

  Americ-Ana breathed slowly, as if the air had weight.

  The Coliseum’s hysteria kept spilling waves of sound over her. Screams of love, of hatred, of wagers, of idolatry. The kind of noise that does not want applause, it wants blood. The big screen returned enormous faces, magnified reactions, a reality edited into myth. And still, Americ-Ana stood still for one second longer, trying to obey Bylly’s command as if it were a rope tied across her chest.

  Look inward.

  BAAL’s skin did not tighten, but it reminded. Scale by scale, she felt a presence that was not affection, it was pact. An "I am here" without emotion, only fact.

  The judge was already on the track, saying something Americ-Ana knew by heart. Rules she had learned during the training sessions inside the Seractcube. Protocols. Warnings. Those words went in one ear and out the other, because they were not new, they were only formality trying to frame something that was not common.

  That was when Americ-Ana moved.

  She walked to the Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic and stopped beside the door, as if touching a living memory. The sapphire-blue bodywork seemed to hold the light with an ancient dignity, and for an instant she felt Helena Blavatsky there, not as a ghost, but as symbolic pressure, as inheritance demanding posture.

  Americ-Ana opened the door and got in.

  The leather received Americ-Ana’s body with an elegant chill. The scent was of a preserved machine, of history kept intact, as if time itself had been trained not to ruin anything in there. She sat in the driver’s seat and set her hands on the steering wheel.

  Poppandacorn climbed in and sat in the passenger seat and settled himself carefully, trying to look serious, but with his LED eyes betraying that he was two millimeters away from exploding into comments.

  Astyam and Wwwyye got in the back. Astyam went in first, silent, closing the door with precision. Wwwyye entered after, as if her posture were a shield she put on from the outside, not a natural state.

  Americ-Ana ran her hands over the steering wheel, feeling every part of it.

  BAAL’s skin on her fingers seemed to answer the material as if it recognized a language that was not made of flesh. Beneath the leather and the metal, Americ-Ana felt the vibration of the pact. It was not noise. It was presence. It was as if the car had a pulse of its own, and that pulse said: "I remember you."

  Americ-Ana tilted her face a little, almost without noticing, like someone speaking to something that exists only inside the body.

  "BAAL..." Her voice came out low, enough to be real and small enough not to become spectacle. "I wish to be the winner of LEVEL THREE of the KING MatNat Games."

  The car answered.

  Not with words, of course. It answered with a discreet awakening, as if an ancient animal opened an eye inside the machine. A click beneath the dashboard, a slight tremor that traveled through her spine, and the engine’s sound rising like a restrained growl, not aggressive, but firm. It felt as though the Bugatti was not starting. It was accepting.

  Poppandacorn looked at the dashboard, his eyes blinking icons that tried to interpret it as a system.

  "Mommy..." he whispered, in a tone more reverent than usual, as if he had understood this was not the time for joking. "Poppa... felt it."

  Astyam said nothing, but in the rearview mirror Americ-Ana saw his fist close once, slowly, as if locking fear into a safe place.

  Wwwyye stayed silent, and that silence in her was almost a miracle. She only adjusted herself in the seat with the smallest movement and kept her eyes forward, like someone deciding not to give her own mind room.

  The arena kept screaming. The big screen kept shining. The judge kept talking.

  Americ-Ana, for an instant, managed to forget all of it.

  Then she looked to the side.

  On the other side, the crowd was in delirium. The name Parys Bloodpure rose like a hymn, repeated in layers, as if the word had become religion. And there she was.

  Parys had not yet gotten into the car.

  She stood there, receiving worship the way one breathes. One hand raised, a slow wave, calculated, perfect. Her face on the screens looked like more than a face. It looked like a signature of destiny. Parys smiled the right way, in the exact measure, as if she had trained her own humanity to function as spectacle.

  Americ-Ana felt her stomach tighten. Not from envy. From confrontation.

  Then Parys finally turned toward the vehicle beside hers.

  And got in.

  It was in that moment that Americ-Ana saw, and understood for the first time, the car Parys Bloodpure would drive: a Bugatti Bolide. It had the color of true blue, not as rumor, not as a name, but as material presence on the track. It was a car that seemed not to belong to the same century as the rest of the world. Low, brutal, full of angles and surfaces that resembled aerodynamic blades, as if the very idea of speed had been designed to wound. The blue bodywork was colder, more electric, less “color” and more technological assertion. Everything about it looked ready to obey a future that does not ask permission.

  And there, inside it, Parys settled herself with an offensive calm. She still waved for a second, even seated, as if the crowd were her natural extension. As if the track had already been won in her mind before any countdown.

  On the left, the past. The 1936 Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic, a sapphire-blue relic carrying the weight of an inheritance, curves that spoke of a world where speed was still art, not algorithm. Inside it, a strange scholarship girl, from the outside, held up by the pact as if holding her own name in both hands.

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  On the right, the future. The blue Bugatti Bolide, a war-creature dressed in luxury and aerodynamics, made not to remember fragility, made to win and look inevitable as it wins. Inside it, the consecrated one, the darling, the second-best player in THE-IMPERIUM, carrying her fame as if it were part of her body.

  Two Bugatti. Two blues. Two worlds.

  And beneath the machines, the same kind of ancient thing: immortal beings, sealed pacts, forces that do not age. Past and future were not enemies there. They were two ways of saying the same sentence.

  "Win."

  Americ-Ana took a deep breath. Once. Twice.

  She kept her hands on the steering wheel, felt BAAL inside the bodywork like a silent driver, and let her gaze settle on the right place.

  Not on the crowd.

  Not on Parys.

  Inward.

  On the big screen, the countdown began to take shape, numbers huge, cold, absolute.

  (SEVEN)

  Americ-Ana heard the crowd scream in chorus, a living mass chanting Parys’s name as if it were law, and hers as if it were provocation.

  (SIX)

  The engine of Americ-Ana’s Bugatti woke with an ancient, metallic, elegant roar, a "vrrrraaaam" with nerves of steel, and underneath it a short, thin whistle, almost a "tchiii," as if the machine were breathing through teeth.

  (FIVE)

  Beside her, Parys’s Bugatti answered with technological violence, a low note that seemed to shove the air backward, a dense "VROOOOM," followed by an aggressive "fshhh," like turbos filling their lungs before an attack.

  (FOUR)

  Astyam said nothing, only rested his forehead against the seat for a second, opened his eyes, and squared his shoulders, as if he had chosen the kind of man he would be in the next few seconds. Wwwyye drew in air hard, cracked her neck once, and smiled faintly, not with mockery, but with hunger, like someone warning her own fear: "You are going to stay quiet."

  (THREE)

  Poppandacorn raised his little paws slowly, tightened his seatbelt with seriousness, and spoke under his breath, trying to sound like a soldier and not an armed plush panda: "Ok... tank mode activated." His eyes blinked a heart icon and, right after, a lightning-bolt icon.

  (TWO)

  Americ-Ana felt BAAL’s skin react to the steering wheel, as if the scales recognized metal the same way they recognized flesh. The engine vibrated through the floor, the seat, her sternum, and for an instant it felt like there was no “her” on one side and “car” on the other, only a pact pulsing through three bodies. She tilted her face a millimeter, as if speaking inwardly, and yet it came out as voice: "Baal, we are going to win this race."

  (ONE)

  The crowd exploded again, the signal fired, and Americ-Ana planted her foot on the accelerator with the full weight of her body and her history. Tires sang, a hot smell of rubber rose like war smoke, and two Bugatti, guided by two immortal, infernal wills, carved the first line of battle into the track.

  The "X" on the asphalt did not feel like a start. It felt like a seal.

  Above, the Solomon Coliseum’s lights did not illuminate, they judged. The crowd was a single organism, screaming as if the collective throat had teeth, and the air carried that taste of hot metal and freshly spoken blasphemy.

  Americ-Ana held both hands firm on the steering wheel of the 1936 Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic, an ancient elegance dressed in a curse. BAAL’s skin covered the car like a second body, black scales fitted into the bodywork with an offensive intimacy, as if the machine had been made for this from the beginning of the world.

  In the passenger seat, Poppandacorn looked far too small for what was happening, a plush, robotic unicorn panda with living armor laid over the fabric itself. He clenched his scaled little paws like someone bracing to get hit by the universe. The LEDs in his eyes flickered, and even without saying a word, you could feel his internal circuits running at full capacity.

  In the back seat, Astyam held his breath with a silent courage that knows exactly how screwed he is. Beside him, Wwwyye seemed even more dangerous, because there was nothing “theatrical” in her now. Only focus, anger, and a war-readiness that matched the aggressive cut BAAL’s skin had chosen for her body.

  Across the track, Parys’s Bugatti already seemed to belong to another century, another species. The Bolide, futuristic, low and brutal, wore RONOVE as if hell had learned aerodynamics. Its presence shoved the air backward, as if the world made way before it even began.

  Americ-Ana’s Bugatti engine gave off an ancient, metallic, elegant roar, a “cry” with nerves of steel. Parys’s Bugatti carried technological violence, a low sound that seemed to push the air backward.

  The two sounds did not blend. They confronted each other.

  Americ-Ana did not look at Parys. She did not need to. She could feel Parys’s weight on the track as if the asphalt had memory. She could feel the advantage before seeing it, as if the Coliseum itself were already betting against her.

  The first sequence of curves began right after the "X", three quick bends that resembled an "m", a short zigzag that demanded precision, and then spat the cars back onto the straight that would bring them to the same point again, the same seal, the same destiny floating ahead.

  In that moment, running like a demon, against a demon, it was time to test what Bylly had taught over months of training.

  Americ-Ana let out one short breath, like someone choosing her own rhythm. Her voice came low, firm, without tremor.

  "BAAL, I wish you to retract the car’s roof."

  The answer did not come in words. It came in obedience.

  The scales on the roof tightened like muscles. The entire structure made a dry sound, like bone snapping into the wrong place, and then the roof began to withdraw, not like metal, but like living skin learning to fold. Scaled plates slid backward, burying themselves into the bodywork, opening the cockpit to the Coliseum.

  The wind came in like a blade.

  The crowd’s screaming hit everyone’s faces directly, unfiltered, unprotected. The smell of rubber, ozone, and something older, something of a profaned temple, flooded the Bugatti’s interior. Now Wwwyye and Poppandacorn, as they had learned during training with Bylly, had room to fight, to rise, to become part of the war without cracking their heads on a cover that pretended to be safety.

  Poppandacorn swallowed hard. BAAL’s skin over his plush adjusted around his little paws, too firm, too serious, as if it were saying: now is not the time to be cute.

  Americ-Ana did not wait for anyone to get comfortable.

  "BAAL, I wish Astyam to have sharpened sight."

  For a second, the scales in Astyam’s suit vibrated. It was not a shiver of cold. It was recognition, as if the demon had found an exact point in his body where reality could be bent.

  Then, from the material of the skin itself, lenses began to project.

  They were not ordinary glasses. They were scales aligned with surgical precision, forming a vision-mask that clasped Astyam’s eyes as if it had been molded from inside his skull. A translucent, dark, living layer, breathing with him. The sensation made Astyam hold his breath and, for an instant, look as if he might pull back. But he did not.

  He blinked.

  And the world opened.

  The track lines became sharper than they should have been. The first curve of the “m” was not only a curve, it was an aggressive intention. The shadow of Parys’s Bugatti was not only shadow, it was a threat with shape. The air carried traces, turbulences, small distortions, as if every movement left an invisible scar in space.

  Astyam swallowed hard. His voice came out steadier than he expected.

  "The first left tightens fast. Then comes the second, it’s short, and the third opens, but not by much. We come back to the X right after."

  Americ-Ana nodded once. Her hand did not tremble. Her posture spoke training, repetition, discipline. But inside, her whole body was already on alert, because the race was not a race. It was a pact at high speed.

  And up ahead, already pulling reality as if it owned it, Parys’s Bugatti entered the “m” first, like a blade cutting a path through the flesh of the world.

  Americ-Ana’s Bugatti was still approaching the “m”, entering the first left, when the air ahead seemed to lose its manners.

  The open cockpit became a gaping mouth to the Coliseum. The crowd’s scream came through without filter, and the wind cut like a continuous blade, striking their faces and stripping away any illusion of protection.

  Astyam, wearing his scale-lenses, could see the shape of the “m” as if it were a line written with a knife. The first curve tightened fast, the second came too short, the third deceived by opening just enough to throw the car outward.

  "Left now, it tightens, tighter… then link it, very short… and the third gives you no mercy," Astyam shouted, as if each word were a step to keep them from falling.

  Up ahead, inside the “m,” Parys’s Bugatti was already planted like an advanced shadow, fast, precise, with that presence that makes the world feel late.

  Then the shot came.

  It was not a sound separate from the engine. It was as if Parys’s Bugatti’s own "VROOOOM" had become an order and, right after, the aggressive "fshhh" tore through space, opening a fissure in the air.

  Parys had detonated a legion of RONOVE.

  Six thousand demons, not as bodies, but as phenomenon. The wake that should have been only turbulence became a swarm of invisible blades, a mass of shadow at high speed, as if the concept of cutting had been released into the world.

  The first strike hit the space around Americ-Ana’s Bugatti.

  The air began to be sliced into strips. Each fissure made a dry snap, like a small bone breaking. The pressure shoved at the open cockpit with violence, like invisible hands trying to tear Poppandacorn from his seat, tear Astyam out of his own thinking, tear Wwwyye out of her fury.

  BAAL’s skin reacted at once.

  The scales on Americ-Ana’s chest tightened and hardened, forming plates as if the suit were shutting doors inside the body. The scales on Wwwyye’s shoulders locked. Poppandacorn’s tiny gloves turned rigid, as if the armor had decided he would not fall, even if it had to break him to keep him there.

  But the protection came with impact.

  A blade passed too close to Astyam’s face. The lenses vibrated and let out a thin sound, like glass grinding. A line opened on his cheek, quick, clean, and blood appeared hot, indecent, as if the air had bitten just to prove it could.

  Another blade scraped Poppandacorn on the shoulder. It tore out a tuft of plush, left a dark groove in the scaled layer over it, and his little body jolted with an ugly jerk, like a toy struck by an invisible sledgehammer. His LED eyes blinked wrong for a second, trying to process pain, fear, and the combat system all at the same time.

  Wwwyye rose slightly in the back seat, ready to strike at something that had no form, cursing with real anger. The word came out only halfway, because another blade cut across at the exact height of her neck, and it would have opened her throat if BAAL’s skin had not hardened there, locking at the last instant.

  Americ-Ana’s Bugatti shuddered inside the first left of the “m.” The wheels stayed on the asphalt, but it felt as if the car were being shoved out of its own axis, as if the track had turned into a corridor too narrow to exist.

  Americ-Ana did not break the line. She held it. She went deeper into the curve, firmer, more precise, refusing the world the satisfaction of seeing her falter.

  And beneath the elegant "vrrrraaaam," beneath the thin "tchiii," there was something else in the wind.

  A collective whisper.

  As if six thousand mouths were laughing inside the sliced air.

  The legion was not finished.

  She had only shown that she could touch them without touching, and that was the kind of advantage that did not come from speed. It came from experience. It came from cruelty.

  RONOVE’s legion was still biting at the air when the track decided to deform.

  Americ-Ana drove deeper into the first left of the “m,” feeling the Bugatti vibrate from within, as if the car had nerves and BAAL were squeezing those nerves with his own hands. The open cockpit made everything rawer: the wind pulled involuntary tears, the crowd’s screaming came in waves, and the smell of heated rubber mixed with something worse, an odor of sulfur and iron, as if someone had opened an oven door in the middle of hell.

  Astyam blinked behind the scaled lenses and the world handed him details that should not exist.

  The asphalt ahead, in the transition toward the second curve, began to lose texture.

  First came a ripple, discreet, like skin rising in gooseflesh. Then a crack appeared right along the ideal line, thin, black, crossing the track like a strand of hair. In less than a second, that crack became a cut. A real cut, deep, and the track opened a mouth.

  The opening grew, tearing the strip of asphalt like wet paper.

  Lava rose from within.

  It was not natural lava. It was too thick, too dark, full of embers that looked like tiny eyes. Bubbles burst with wet snaps, spitting sparks and incandescent droplets that left marks in the air, as if they burned oxygen itself. The rim of the crater trembled, breaking down into chunks that fell inward and vanished with the sound of flesh frying.

  Parys’s Bugatti had planted the obstacle.

  It was not only a hole. It was a point of condemnation. An open altar in the middle of the “m.”

  Astyam felt his stomach turn. His voice came out with almost no air, but clear, urgent, precise.

  "Crater on the exit. Lava. The track opened. It’s now."

  In that same instant, RONOVE’s legion seemed to like the idea.

  The invisible blades intensified the assault, as if they wanted to shove Americ-Ana’s Bugatti into that mouth, the way you shove an offering.

  The wind in the cockpit grew heavy. An "SSSHRRRRT" tore through space, and a new sequence of cuts snapped around the car. BAAL’s skin answered with anger, scales hardening on Americ-Ana’s chest, on Wwwyye’s arms, on Poppandacorn’s paws. It felt like an organism shutting internal doors, locking down anything that could be torn away.

  Even so, the heat came.

  Americ-Ana’s face burned. Her eyes watered. Her hands on the steering wheel grew damp, not only with sweat, but with that hot moisture that comes before a burn. The air tasted like melted metal.

  Poppandacorn lowered his body on instinct, as if he could shrink fear by making himself smaller. His LED eyes flickered and, for a second, an alert symbol appeared, quick, almost involuntary, like a factory reflex trying to scream for help. He gripped the dashboard hard, his scaled little paws grinding.

  Wwwyye leaned back, evaluating the rear and the ceiling at the same time, because now it was not only the track that wanted to kill them. It was the air. It was the legion. It was the lava calling.

  Americ-Ana’s Bugatti entered the second curve with the crater expanding in her field of vision, and the rim of the abyss seemed to move, as if the track itself were adjusting its mouth to swallow the entire car.

  Astyam took a short breath, as if sharpened sight were physical weight.

  "Americ-Ana… she placed it at the exact point. If we miss by a centimeter…"

  He did not finish.

  He did not need to.

  The crater was already there, boiling, waiting, and the “m” now looked less like a track design and more like a malignant symbol, a rune leading straight into the fall.

  Astyam did not see “an obstacle.”

  He saw a pattern of death.

  The scale-glasses made the crater even more terrible, because it was not only the lava bubbling. It was the air around it. The turbulence spun like a tongue trying to lick Americ-Ana’s Bugatti inward. The blades of RONOVE’s legion danced in that whirl, using the heat as if heat were rail.

  And the worst detail, the detail that made the stomach go cold, was simple: the “right” path had disappeared.

  The track there was not track. It was an invitation.

  Americ-Ana’s Bugatti entered the second curve of the “m” with the crater swelling at the exit, and the rim of the abyss seemed to adjust, as if it had a will of its own. The lava spat bubbles that burst with wet snaps, and each snap threw incandescent droplets into the air that whistled as they passed, like tiny meteors.

  Astyam swallowed hard. He was shy, yes. But fear, in that instant, became an extra lens.

  He saw what no one wanted to see.

  A narrow strip, almost ridiculous, still holding along the outer edge of the curve. A corridor of asphalt with the width of a false promise, surviving between the crater’s cut and the blades’ line of attack.

  And that corridor was alive for only a little while.

  He saw microfissures opening in the asphalt, thin cracks growing like veins. If they waited half a second longer, that strip would fall too.

  Astyam’s voice came out low, but without tremor. It was the voice of someone not asking permission to exist, someone telling the world he was going through.

  "Americ-Ana… there’s a corridor on the right. Very narrow. If you enter a little wider now, you line the car up on the outside and pass along the edge. Do not look at the lava. Do not look inward. Just follow my voice."

  The wind cut through the cockpit and brought a collective whisper, as if six thousand mouths were laughing inside the air current.

  An invisible blade passed so close to Astyam’s face that the blood reopened the same line on his cheek, deeper, hotter. He did not lift a hand to the wound. He did not blink to complain. He only kept looking.

  "Now open. More. More. Hold it. Hold it."

  Americ-Ana obeyed as if Astyam’s voice were the steering wheel itself speaking to her. She widened her line to the outside, feeling the Bugatti resist, because the car’s instinct wanted to flee. BAAL’s skin hardened along the sides, scales locking as if the car were putting on ribs.

  Wwwyye rose slightly in the back seat, her body ready to launch itself against anything that tried to grab the rear axle. She looked at the crater and spat a curse as if spitting on the altar.

  Poppandacorn ducked lower, clinging to the dashboard, and his scaled little paws ground with tension. A jet of heat cut through the cockpit and he made a short, sharp sound, like plush trying to swallow a scream.

  Astyam did not take his eyes off the corridor.

  He saw something else.

  He saw that the blades were not striking at random. They were trying to shove the Bugatti toward the center of the curve, to where the corridor ended and the abyss began. RONOVE’s legion wanted the decision to look like “human error.”

  So Astyam did what he did best: he thought faster than panic.

  "There’s going to be a shove in the middle. The legion will try to throw you inward. When you feel the car pull, you do not correct with fear. You correct with firmness. One dry touch on the wheel, that’s all. I’ll tell you the moment."

  Americ-Ana took a short breath. Her gaze did not waver. She was the one who owned the pact, but in that fraction of a second, she chose to trust the navigator as if trust were a weapon.

  The crater roared. The rim gave way a little more. A piece of asphalt fell in and vanished with the sound of flesh frying.

  Astyam saw the shadow of the shove forming in the air, a change in pressure, an invisible crease approaching the car’s front axle.

  "Now."

  In that same instant, Americ-Ana’s Bugatti was pulled inward as if a gigantic hand had seized the bodywork.

  Americ-Ana gave the dry touch. A minimal adjustment, precise, trained. The car did not slide. It bit into the narrow corridor with its tires and kept going.

  Astyam let out his breath for only a second, but it was not relief. It was only room for the next command.

  Because the exit of the curve was coming.

  The corridor narrowed.

  And the crater, right there, seemed to open its mouth once more, as if it still had not decided which piece of them it wanted first.

  The strip of asphalt Astyam had seen began to die.

  It was not dramatic at first. It was worse. It was silent.

  A microfissure cut across the narrow band just ahead, like a vein rupturing. The outer rim of the curve trembled, and the sound rising from the crater was not only lava bubbling. It was a low growl, like a satisfied stomach.

  Astyam watched the line erase itself in real time.

  "Americ-Ana… it’s over. The corridor will fall at the exit. There’s no ground after."

  Americ-Ana’s Bugatti was still trapped in that second curve of the “m,” with RONOVE’s blades slicing the air around it, and the open cockpit taking the heat like a sentence to the face. The old "vrrrraaaam" stayed steady, but the "tchiii" underneath already sounded like a whistle of nerves about to snap.

  Wwwyye ground her teeth. Poppandacorn curled in tighter, gripping the dashboard as if it were an altar he could hold with his little paws.

  The lava spat a large bubble that burst with a wet snap. An incandescent droplet cut through the cockpit and struck Americ-Ana’s forearm. BAAL’s skin hardened at once and did not let the burn open the way it should have, but the pain came anyway, hot, real, and it made her fingers clamp the wheel harder.

  Americ-Ana did not scream. She did not curse. She only took a short breath, like someone accepting the price and moving on.

  The corridor’s rim gave way.

  A piece of track fell into the crater and vanished with the sound of flesh frying.

  RONOVE’s legion’s invisible force tried to shove the Bugatti inward, as if the air had hands.

  Astyam saw the pressure coming and tried to speak, but Americ-Ana had already decided.

  Her voice came out firm, low, authoritative, like a command spoken inside a forbidden temple.

  "BAAL, detonate a legion."

  The world answered with an error.

  There was no outward explosion, no pretty flare of fire. There was a detonation of presence, an impact of compressed hell opening beneath the car, as if six thousand entities had been crushed inside the chassis and, when released, tore reality.

  A deep "WHUMM" rose from Americ-Ana’s Bugatti, not from the engine, but from space itself.

  The scales along the bodywork lifted like spines. The air around the car turned heavy and viscous, as if wind had become oil. For a second, the track seemed to lose gravity.

  The crater opened its mouth once more, ready to swallow.

  And then BAAL’s legion appeared the way demons like to appear when they do not want to be seen: as function.

  Hands of shadow and scale rose beneath the Bugatti, dozens, hundreds, like claws forming out of nothing, gripping the car by BAAL’s living structure. Other hands appeared in the air ahead, as if they were pulling an invisible rope. The Bugatti lurched hard enough to make Poppandacorn’s head snap, and Wwwyye grabbed the seatback tight so she would not be thrown out.

  The car left the ground.

  It was not elegant flight. It was abduction.

  The legion tore the Bugatti off the asphalt and carried it over the crater, the engine still screaming "vrrrraaaam," as if the machine were offended to be in the air. The lava roared below, spitting heat that tried to lick the car’s underside, and BAAL’s skin on the bodywork hardened as if it were becoming living stone to endure it.

  A blade of RONOVE cut through the air and tried to rip the side of the open cockpit away. BAAL’s skin answered with violence, scales rising like a wall, deflecting the cut by a hair. Even so, the wind tore, and an invisible splinter caught Astyam’s shoulder. Blood appeared fast, hot, and he did not have time to feel it. He only had time to keep going.

  "We’re over it. We’re over it. Hold two more seconds."

  Americ-Ana kept the wheel firm, as if there were still ground to obey. Her eyes did not drift to the lava, did not grant the abyss the honor of being looked at. She only held the car on its axis while hell carried hell.

  On the far side of the crater, the asphalt returned like a cruel promise, and BAAL’s legion hurled the Bugatti forward, dropping it back onto the track with a dry impact.

  "KRAK."

  The wheels hit the ground and the Bugatti bounced once, violent, but it did not lose the line. The suspension groaned. The open cockpit threw everyone around. Poppandacorn let out a sharp, muffled sound, and Wwwyye spat a curse that came out tasting of blood, adrenaline, and "it’s not over yet."

  Astyam took a short breath, the scale-glasses vibrating with reality returning.

  The third curve of the “m” came now, and RONOVE’s legion was still there, haunting the air like a swarm of knives that had learned patience.

  But Americ-Ana’s Bugatti had made it through.

  And that was not victory.

  It was only permission to stay alive for a few more meters.

  Americ-Ana’s Bugatti came back onto the asphalt with a dry, cruel "KRAK," and the third curve of the “m” followed as if the track had seen nothing. As if it had not opened a mouth of lava two seconds before. As if the world had not tried to swallow the entire car.

  The open cockpit kept spitting wind into their faces, and now the wind came different. It smelled of burning, of metal, of sulfur. It also carried that thin taste of blood, because Astyam was bleeding and there was no time to be human.

  The scale-lenses on his face vibrated with the return of ground.

  "Third curve now. Don’t open too wide. The exit throws you back to the X."

  Americ-Ana kept the wheel steady, as if the asphalt were still trustworthy. But the cuts in the air were not finished. RONOVE’s legion kept circling, invisible, patient, and with every second new dry snaps sounded around the Bugatti, as if space itself were being sliced in silence.

  Up ahead, inside the “m,” Parys’s Bugatti was still the shadow with the advantage. Even at a distance, it dragged the air backward, as if it were hauling the entire Coliseum in its wake.

  Americ-Ana felt the moment.

  It was not sudden courage. It was trained calculation. A microscopic interval in which RONOVE’s legion repositioned in the air, like a swarm choosing the best angle to strike again.

  Americ-Ana did not wait. Her voice came out low and sharp, without drama, without hesitation, like someone who knows hell obeys, period.

  "BAAL, detonate a legion."

  Americ-Ana’s Bugatti answered as if it had been struck from the inside.

  The metallic "vrrrraaaam" choked for an instant, and the thin "tchiii" turned into a deeper, heavier breathing, as if the machine had opened its lungs to something that was not air.

  Then the detonation came.

  It was not a flare. It was weight. It was presence crushing the world.

  Six thousand of BAAL’s demons spread as a function of war, and the air around the Bugatti grew dense, viscous, as if the atmosphere had turned into scaled flesh. The scales on the bodywork lifted, and from the car’s outline black spines sprouted, not solid, but made of shadow and intention. A ring of living blades spun around the open cockpit, protecting it like a profane crown.

  The first blade of RONOVE that tried to enter was met with violence.

  It did not hit metal. It hit hell.

  There was a tearing sound, an "SSSRAK," and a jet of dark liquid, thick, almost like burned blood, burst into the air and dissolved into smoke. It was as if BAAL’s legion had ripped the throat out of the wind itself.

  Poppandacorn shrank when the black mist swept over him, and a hot drop splattered against his scaled chest. His little body jolted, and his LED eyes blinked in a pattern of contained panic.

  Wwwyye spat a curse, her face set hard, with no humor left in it.

  "Good, Americ-Ana. Now kill."

  The detonation kept working.

  BAAL’s blades did not stay only to defend. They surged forward like a trail of spines reaching for Parys’s Bugatti, as if air were fabric that could be grabbed and yanked back.

  For a second, the space between the two cars seemed to shorten by force, as if an invisible hand had tried to drag Parys’s advantage backward.

  But Parys’s Bugatti answered.

  Its presence cut through the effect with a minimal adjustment of line, and the air around it hardened, as if RONOVE had shut a door. The advantage remained. Americ-Ana’s strike did not become a reversal. It became a message.

  And even so, the message had a price.

  RONOVE’s invisible blades, blocked from entering from the front, chose a worse path.

  They began to slide down along the side and the rear of Americ-Ana’s Bugatti, like shadow-hooks searching for something to hold. A dry snap came from beneath the car, and something latched onto the axle, not with the sound of metal, but with the sound of bone locking into place.

  Astyam saw it first.

  The lenses trembled, and his voice came out tight.

  "Something’s sticking to the back. More than one. They’re trying to lock us at the exit."

  Americ-Ana felt the pull, minimal but real, as if the Bugatti’s rear had been seized by invisible hands.

  Wwwyye straightened in the back seat, her body already preparing for the part she knew well: protecting the rear.

  The “m” was ending. The return to the "X" was just ahead.

  And Parys’s Bugatti stayed in front, as if all of that had been only a warm-up.

  But now, with BAAL’s detonation still vibrating in the air and RONOVE’s legion clinging from behind, Americ-Ana’s Bugatti had stepped fully into the close-quarters war that was coming.

  The pull at the rear of Americ-Ana’s Bugatti grew stronger, as if invisible hands had finally found the right bone to break. The car did not lock up yet, but it began to lose that clean fluency of line, as if it were being held by something that would not accept “speed” as an answer.

  Astyam saw it first.

  The scale-lenses vibrated, and he pointed without taking his eyes off the air, as if pointing at an enemy that existed only because he could see.

  "There are hooks on the rear axle. Two on the left, one on the right. They’re pulling us out of the curve, trying to throw us into the worst angle."

  Wwwyye straightened in the back seat with a sharp motion, and the wind hit her chest like a punch. The open cockpit made it feel as if the track were trying to rip them out, but she did not flinch. She faced the emptiness behind the car the way you face an enemy in a war corridor.

  "Then leave it to me."

  Americ-Ana did not take her eyes off the line. Her hands stayed firm on the wheel, the engine roaring "vrrrraaaam" with the thin "tchiii" underneath, and the whole car vibrated like an animal being pulled by the tail.

  Americ-Ana’s voice came out low and absolute, like a command carved into stone.

  "BAAL, I wish Wwwyye to have an infernal sword."

  BAAL’s skin on Wwwyye’s arm tightened. The scales drew together, stacked, and her forearm seemed to thicken from the inside, as if the bones were changing their mind. Then the blade was born.

  It did not come from her hand. It came from her arm.

  A surreal sword, black and alive, projected as an extension of her body, made of compacted scale and shadow, with an edge that seemed to gleam a dark red, as if it had just been pulled from inside an open wound. The sound was a wet snap, followed by a short metallic grind, like something being torn out of the wrong place.

  Wwwyye looked at her own blade for half a second, and the half-smile that appeared was not pretty. It was anger with teeth.

  "Okay. Now we’re talking."

  She rose higher, gripping the seatback with her free hand, her body aligned so she would not be spat out of the car, and struck into the air behind them as if she were cutting through a curtain of invisible flesh.

  The first blow hit nothing visible.

  Even so, the world reacted.

  An "SSSRAK" tore through the air, and something dark and thick, almost like burned blood, burst into smoke. Wwwyye’s blade had found one of the hooks. The pull on the Bugatti eased for an instant, as if the rear end could breathe.

  Astyam pointed again, quick.

  "Right, low. It’s latched at the pivot point!"

  Wwwyye twisted her torso and struck downward, as if cutting the axle of reality itself.

  The impact came as resistance, as if she were slicing through tendons. A second "SSSRAK," and the car lurched, freeing another piece of traction.

  But RONOVE’s legion did not stand still and watch.

  The air behind them thickened, and from inside that thickening came an attack that did not feel like a blade. It felt like a stake.

  A spear of shadow formed at the last instant and came straight for Wwwyye’s chest.

  She managed to shift enough that it did not pierce her heart, but it went in. It went in ugly.

  The black point drove through the side of her abdomen and pushed out a little through her back, as if the air had decided blood was part of the spectacle. BAAL’s skin kept it from tearing everything, tightening around the wound like a fist closing, but the pain was real, and her body shook.

  Wwwyye’s eyes went wide, not with fear, but with hatred.

  "Ah, go to hell."

  She grabbed the stake itself with her free hand and yanked.

  The sound was grotesque, like metal coming out of flesh, and the blood came hot, dark, but it did not gush the way it should have, because BAAL’s scales closed over the wound, sealing, stitching, tightening with an intimate violence that was disgusting in how effective it was.

  Wwwyye spat to the side, her face shining with sweat and heat.

  "I’m still here."

  And she went back to cutting.

  She struck twice more in sequence, fast, inhuman, as if the sword were part of her reflex. With each blow, a snap in the air, an explosion of smoke, and the pull on the Bugatti’s rear began to disappear, as if invisible hands were being amputated one by one.

  The car found its axis again.

  Americ-Ana felt the difference in the steering, as if someone had removed a chain hooked to the bumper. She held the line and accelerated, the "vrrrraaaam" gaining body, without mercy.

  Poppandacorn, in the front seat, looked back with trembling LEDs, watching Wwwyye standing, bleeding, cursing, and still fighting as if that were the bare minimum.

  Astyam took a short breath.

  "Rear is clear… for now."

  Wwwyye lowered her body a little, the sword still projected from her arm, dripping blood onto the car’s floor like the drip of war. She stared into the emptiness behind them and laughed without joy.

  "Bring more."

  And it came.

  Because Parys’s Bugatti stayed ahead, intact, and the track still had enough meters for hell to invent new ways to collect its price.

  Americ-Ana’s Bugatti burst out of the “m” like something escaping a jaw, and the track returned the straight back to the "X" with an almost comical coldness, as if it were saying: "Now run, because I’m not done yet."

  The open cockpit became a bigger problem. The speed climbed, the wind turned more violent, and every cut in the air RONOVE’s legion left behind seemed to be searching for one specific thing: the front end.

  Astyam saw it first. The scale-lenses vibrated, and his voice came out quick, tense.

  "It’s coming from the front. It’s dropping onto our nose. It’s not random, it’s coming in a line."

  Americ-Ana felt the car being “pulled” downward by an invisible pressure, as if the air above the hood had turned into a heavy ceiling trying to crush the Bugatti. BAAL’s skin on the bodywork hardened, but the attack came in layers, insistent, patient.

  Poppandacorn, in the passenger seat, lifted his face at the exact moment the first cut tried to pass through the cockpit like an invisible guillotine.

  The blow skimmed the air above his head and tore a dry snap out of space, like bone breaking. The unicorn horn, covered in scaled plates, trembled. A black spark, not of fire but of shadow, burst near his face.

  Poppandacorn froze for half a second.

  Then his circuits turned into motion.

  Poppandacorn rose a little in the seat, gripping the dashboard with one paw, his body far too small for that murderous wind, and stared into the emptiness ahead as if facing a monster everyone pretended not to see.

  "Poppa is not going to turn into demon confetti, no."

  Americ-Ana did not take her eyes off the track. She could not. Parys’s Bugatti stayed ahead, dragging its advantage like a gold chain, and the "X" was still far enough away to be only a promise.

  But she heard what she needed to hear: the front-line soldier was ready, he just needed a weapon.

  Her voice came out firm, direct, without a trace of tremor.

  "BAAL, I wish Poppandacorn to have an infernal shield."

  BAAL’s skin over Poppandacorn’s plush body reacted as if it had been waiting for that. The scales on his little paws opened, rearranged, and from his right forearm a curved blade of overlapping plates emerged, forming a compact, living shield, with serrated edges like saw teeth.

  The sound was a wet snap, followed by a short metallic grind, like something being torn out of the wrong place.

  Poppandacorn looked at the shield for half a second, almost moved by his own “upgrade,” and then the air tried to rip him out of the car.

  A shadow-hook dropped out of nowhere and latched onto the shield, yanking with violence. His little body was thrown forward, and if BAAL’s skin had not locked across his torso like a living belt, he would have flown.

  His LED eyes blinked in panic, and he grunted, trying not to scream.

  "Mommy, this thing is pulling for real."

  Wwwyye, still bleeding, leaned forward over the seat, the infernal sword projected from her arm like a sentence.

  "Hold on, Poppandacorn. If you fall, I’ll pick you up off the asphalt myself and hit you afterward."

  "Thanks for the affection, queen of delicacy."

  Astyam pointed with urgency, never losing his read of the air.

  "Two more. One above the hood, another will try to come in on Poppandacorn’s side."

  The invisible blades came like horizontal rain. They had no body. They had intention.

  Poppandacorn raised the shield and took the first impact.

  The sound was grotesque, an "SSSRAK" that seemed to tear leather and metal at the same time. Dark slime, almost like burned blood, splattered on the shield and evaporated into smoke. His arm shook with the jolt, and he was almost thrown out again.

  But he wasn’t.

  Poppandacorn dug his little paws into whatever he could, held the shield against the wind, and shoved back as if he were pushing his own death out of the car.

  The second attack came from the side, trying to cut straight through the passenger space.

  Poppandacorn twisted his body, clumsy, faster than his size should allow, and slammed the shield into the air as if shutting a door.

  "CLAK."

  The impact did not land on anything visible. Even so, the air snapped, and the cut shattered into smoke. BAAL’s skin on his arm hardened further, and the shield grew a little, as if it were hungry to keep protecting.

  A third shadow-hook tried to latch directly onto Poppandacorn’s chest.

  Wwwyye thrust forward and struck into the void, the sword whistling.

  The strike was not pretty. It was necessary.

  An "SSSRAK" burst in the air and the hook vanished into smoke, leaving a smell of burned iron that poured into the cockpit and stayed.

  Poppandacorn took a short breath, his internal circuits trembling.

  "Send more. Poppa can take it. I think."

  Americ-Ana accelerated. The old "vrrrraaaam" gained force, and the "tchiii" turned into a sharper whistle, as if the machine were sawing through the wind itself.

  Ahead, in the direction of the "X," the air began to distort slightly, a fine vibration, like heat rising off asphalt, only inverted, as if the world were being pulled inward toward a point.

  The Seractcube was not yet clear, but its presence already existed, and it seemed to be calling Americ-Ana’s Bugatti by name.

  RONOVE’s legion kept circling, insistent.

  And Poppandacorn was standing, with an infernal shield far too small for that apocalypse, holding the impossible with his little paws.

  The straight back to the "X" became a tunnel of wind and sentence.

  Americ-Ana’s Bugatti surged forward with the open cockpit like an exposed wound, the old "vrrrraaaam" holding the world up on a scream, the thin "tchiii" sawing the air underneath. Poppandacorn kept the infernal shield raised, his little paws trembling with real effort, and Wwwyye, still dripping blood onto the floor, stayed half-standing, half-crouched, like a blade ready to spring.

  Astyam looked ahead, but it was as if he could see what was coming from behind too. The scale-glasses vibrated with micro-variations in the air, and each vibration felt like a warning.

  "It’s distorting more," he said, his voice lower than it should have been, as if speaking loud would summon death. "The Seractcube is pulling space. This is going to get… wrong."

  And it did.

  Up ahead, Parys’s Bugatti was only a perfect shadow, still in the lead, still intact, still unreachable enough to be humiliation. Its sound reached them like pressure in the chest, a dense "VROOOOM," an aggressive "fshhh," not as noise, but as a mechanism crushing the air.

  Then the wake behind Parys’s Bugatti darkened for good.

  Astyam did not blink. He saw the exact moment reality received the order and obeyed.

  "She detonated again."

  Parys had detonated another legion of RONOVE.

  Six thousand demons came as a form of execution, not as an apparition. The air behind Parys’s Bugatti turned into a corridor of blades and hooks, a compact, precise phenomenon, built to punish whoever was behind. It was not chaos. It was infernal geometry.

  The first effect struck the wind.

  The wind stopped being wind and became whip.

  An invisible pressure dropped onto the hood of Americ-Ana’s Bugatti, trying to force the front of the car down as if the asphalt had extra gravity just for them. Then the left side was yanked outward, as if a huge hand wanted to rotate the Bugatti and offer its rear for slaughter.

  Americ-Ana felt the steering go hard as stone. Her fingers clamped the wheel, and BAAL’s skin on her forearm reacted, closing like a living strap, holding tendons, locking muscles, refusing to let her body be torn out of its own control.

  The first blade of RONOVE tried to cut through the open cockpit on a diagonal, like an invisible guillotine dropping from above to below.

  Poppandacorn raised the shield at the last instant.

  The impact landed with a grotesque "SSSRAK," and dark slime splattered onto the shield, evaporating into hot smoke that smelled of burned iron. Poppandacorn’s little body was thrown sideways with violence, his paws slipping, and he would have been ripped from the seat if BAAL’s skin had not tightened across his torso like a knot.

  Poppandacorn let out a small sound, a grunt of crushed plush, and his LED eyes blinked in uncontrolled alert for half a second before stabilizing.

  Wwwyye lunged forward, the infernal sword still projected from her arm, and struck the air in front of Poppandacorn, like someone slamming a door in hell’s face.

  The strike connected.

  Space snapped. A smaller "SSSRAK," but drier, and something invisible broke into smoke.

  Even so, the legion insisted.

  Shadow-hooks began to appear not as flying blades, but as hands that arrived already gripping, already ready. One formed above Astyam’s shoulder, trying to latch onto the lenses and yank his face out of the car.

  Astyam flinched on instinct, the blood on his cheek reopening, but he did not take his eyes off the track. He spoke fast, giving coordinates while the world hit him.

  "The left is going to pull again. She’s trying to spin us, she’s trying to make us rotate before the X."

  Americ-Ana felt the lateral pull as if the Bugatti were being held by an invisible chain. The car threatened to lose its line, and the "vrrrraaaam" choked for half a second.

  Americ-Ana did not allow it. She corrected with firmness, that dry, trained touch, and BAAL’s skin on the bodywork answered by hardening along the side, like living ribs taking the hit.

  The second attack came lower.

  An invisible blade tried to cut at leg height, slice through the cockpit, take a knee, take a foot, take anything that would make Americ-Ana miss by a centimeter and die by “human error.”

  Poppandacorn dropped the shield in a flash, clumsy and fast, and blocked.

  Another "SSSRAK." More smoke. More burned-iron smell. Poppandacorn’s arm trembled so hard it looked like it might dislocate, and he let his breath out in a short sound, as if his internal circuits were rebooting.

  Wwwyye looked at Poppandacorn for an instant, anger and respect mixed, and spat a curse that tasted of blood.

  "Hold on, Poppandacorn. Hold on because I’m with you."

  The air distorted farther ahead, and this time it was not only the legion’s effect.

  The "X" began to reappear in the line ahead, and above the center of the track, two meters off the ground, something was already there, still trembling, still out of focus, as if the world did not want to admit it existed.

  A cube the size of a soccer ball, floating.

  The Seractcube.

  It did not glow like light. It vibrated like an error. The space around it seemed hot and cold at the same time, as if reality were being pulled from the inside.

  Astyam felt his sharpened vision ache in his head, as if his eyes were trying to see a forbidden concept.

  "We’re getting there," he whispered. "And it’s… pulling."

  Americ-Ana did not answer. Her focus turned into a blade.

  Because in that same instant, RONOVE’s legion made the worst kind of move.

  It stopped trying to cut only the air.

  It began to write fate into the asphalt.

  Small fissures appeared on the track ahead, like black lines, not opening into a crater yet, but marking points, as if someone were drawing a symbol of falling into their path.

  And Parys’s Bugatti, up ahead, stayed in the lead, going straight for the Seractcube like someone who had already decided the ending.

  Americ-Ana’s Bugatti stayed alive.

  But now the "X" was close enough to be a promise.

  And close enough to be a trap.

  The Seractcube snapped into full clarity, floating two meters off the ground, right above the "X," like an error that had decided to exist without asking permission. It did not spin, did not shine, did not tremble like a machine. It vibrated like sin. The space around it seemed to breathe backward, pulling air inward, pulling dust, pulling droplets of blood that escaped from Astyam’s face and Wwwyye’s abdomen as if even suffering had gravity.

  Americ-Ana’s Bugatti came down the return straight with the open cockpit biting wind. The elegant "vrrrraaaam" was hoarser now, tired and furious, and the thin "tchiii" underneath sounded like a tooth grinding with rage. Americ-Ana’s body ached in a way that was not only physical pain, but the exhaustion of holding control while the world tried to bend the rules inside her head.

  Astyam had blood drying and blood opening again. The scale-glasses vibrated at a frequency that made it feel as if his eyes were about to split in two. Sharpened vision was cruel, not a gift. He saw the air in layers, saw pressure as blades, saw the line as sentence. And he saw, with indecent clarity, what the Seractcube was doing to the path.

  "It’s pulling us toward the center," Astyam said, with no hero voice, only the precision of someone reading a weapon aimed. "It’s not just the approach. It’s wrong gravity. If we go in crooked, it… it tears."

  Up ahead, Parys’s Bugatti was already coming in firm, aligned, as if being guided by an invisible rail. Its sound arrived like weight in the chest, a dense "VROOOOM," an aggressive "fshhh," and for an instant it felt as if the entire Coliseum leaned aside to let victory pass.

  RONOVE’s legion was still in the air. It had no body, it had function. And now the function was no longer to cut. It was to grab.

  First came the lateral tug, dry, like an invisible leash on the bumper. Then came the sensation of hands forming where there was no space. The rear of Americ-Ana’s Bugatti jolted, and the car lost a centimeter of line. A centimeter was enough to become an offering.

  Wwwyye rose again, even bleeding. The infernal sword was still an extension of her arm, dripping blood onto the car’s floor as if her body had turned into a war faucet. She spat a curse that came out more like vapor than a word.

  "They’re sticking again. How delightful."

  The hit that followed was not a blade, it was a hook. A shadow-hook formed in the air below and latched onto the living part of BAAL’s scales on the bodywork. The sound was a disgusting "KLIK," like bone locking where it shouldn’t, and the Bugatti tugged backward for half a second, as if someone had grabbed the car’s soul and yanked.

  Poppandacorn lifted the infernal shield, his little paws trembling. He was not joking. His plush was smeared with legion-blood and smoke, and his LED eyes blinked as if choosing the best exit.

  "M-mommy… it’s pulling the car. It’s pulling for real."

  Americ-Ana did not answer with words. She answered with a firm hand on the wheel and her whole body refusing to give. Her burned forearm throbbed under the scales, and she felt BAAL’s skin tighten around the muscle as if saying: hold.

  The Seractcube began to make the wind change direction. It was no longer wind coming from the front. It was wind rising, as if the ground had become light and the sky heavy. Dust lifted off the asphalt and rose in threads. A splash of Wwwyye’s blood flicked off the blade and was pulled upward, toward the cube, like a small planet obeying a star.

  Astyam took a short breath, almost choking on his own terror.

  "The hooks aren’t just on the car. They’re in the air. They’re using the Seractcube like… like a magnet."

  Americ-Ana’s Bugatti entered the "X" like someone crossing a profane seal in reverse. The crowd along the edges looked like a wall of mouths and eyes. The lights of the Solomon Coliseum did not illuminate, they judged, and the roar of the screaming crowd cut through the open cockpit like a blade. The whole world was shouting, but none of it mattered, because now the center of the track held a floating cube, and that cube was pulling everything.

  Parys’s Bugatti reached the perfect alignment first. The Bolide came like a sentence. And then something happened that Americ-Ana hated seeing with such clarity.

  Parys’s Bugatti did not slow down. For a second, it seemed to be sucked upward and forward at the same time, as if the Seractcube had decided he was the chosen one. The "VROOOOM" became a pressure-strike. The "fshhh" became a violent breath. The bodywork, scaled with RONOVE, seemed to stick to reality like a needle into flesh.

  The Seractcube jumped in space, as if it opened a mouth without opening anything.

  Parys’s Bugatti touched the invisible field around the cube and the air snapped, a thin, electric "CRK," like glass cracking inside the brain. For an instant, Americ-Ana saw the car’s outline deform, as if the Bugatti were being folded to fit into a smaller truth. The sound was inside their heads, but the sign was outside, branded in the air for a blink: "裂". There was no explosion, no smoke. There was disappearance.

  Gone.

  As if the track had swallowed an entire century.

  The crowd roared as if roaring were food. The Coliseum seemed to vibrate with satisfaction.

  Americ-Ana felt her heart beat wrong. It was not envy, not admiration. It was cold panic, because now it was not “losing a race.” It was “being next to be swallowed by a cube that pulls blood.”

  The Seractcube stayed there, floating, but now it seemed hungrier, as if the first entry had awakened a deeper hunger.

  And Americ-Ana’s Bugatti was still outside.

  The pull at the rear turned brutal. Another hook latched on. Then another. The car began to be dragged toward the center of the "X" without asking permission. The steering hardened. The asphalt no longer felt like asphalt, it felt like living skin trying to push them into the right place for execution.

  Wwwyye turned with rage, trying to cut the invisible. The infernal sword whistled and met resistance. An "SSSRAK" tore the air. Black smoke burst. One hook let go. Another held.

  Astyam pointed, his voice cracking just a little, not from cowardice, but from overload.

  "There’s one on Poppandacorn’s side. It’s trying to pull him."

  Poppandacorn barely had time to understand. His little body was yanked upward, first lightly, then as if a huge hand had seized the shield and pulled with hate. BAAL’s living belt tightened around his torso like a knot. The shield groaned. The sound was an ugly "SSSRAK," something trying to split.

  Poppandacorn strained with his little paws, but he was small, and the world there was a grinding machine.

  "Mommy!" he screamed, and his voice came out thin, desperate, with no joke in it, only a pure plea.

  Americ-Ana felt her stomach flip. The wheel went heavy in her hands as if it had turned to stone. She saw the "X" beneath them, saw the Seractcube pulling at the air, saw the absence left by Parys’s Bugatti, and saw Poppandacorn’s body starting to rise, being ripped from the seat as if he were a piece hell had decided to reclaim.

  Americ-Ana’s Bugatti was still moving, still on the track, still trying to reach the point of impact. But now part of the team was already being separated in the air, right there, a few meters from the Seractcube, as if the race had turned into a ritual of amputation.

  And the Seractcube, floating above the "X," did not look like a finish line.

  It looked like a door.

  Poppandacorn rose another handspan, then another, as if the air had become a hand with fingers.

  The infernal shield groaned. BAAL’s skin around his torso tightened like a living noose, trying to keep the little plush body in the world, but RONOVE’s legion was no longer playing tug-of-war. This was tearing. This was separating. This was choosing one part of the team and turning it into a public sacrifice.

  Poppandacorn screamed again, and this time his voice failed halfway through, because his internal circuits were about to split.

  The living belt of scales gave way with an ugly snap, like stitching opening in flesh. It was not a clean tear. It was an intimate, disgusting "CRAACK," as if BAAL itself had been forced to let go for one second.

  Poppandacorn fell.

  He didn’t fall like a teddy bear. He fell like weight.

  His little body hit the asphalt with a dry sound that didn’t match plush, and the scaled layer over him answered with a harsh grind, like armor scraping stone. He rolled once, twice, three times, out of control, his unicorn horn scraping and throwing off dark sparks. A tuft of plush flew. A piece of the shield struck the ground and gave back a hollow "CLAK." His LED eyes failed for an instant, flashing a trembling white, then returning, flickering like a heart in fibrillation.

  Americ-Ana’s Bugatti kept going.

  It kept going because it was being pulled toward the Seractcube as if the track had become a magnet, and because the "X" was not a finish’s center, it was a capture point. Americ-Ana saw Poppandacorn in the rearview for half a second. Saw the small body spinning on the asphalt. Saw time trying to turn into a sentence.

  Her throat locked, but her hands did not.

  She kept the wheel firm, felt the car get yanked by another hook, and did not let the Bugatti spin. Her voice came out low, tight, not with emotion, but with command.

  "BAAL, detonate a legion."

  The world answered with weight.

  Six thousand of BAAL’s demons unfolded as traction and stability, and the Bugatti went dense, as if gravity had decided to obey only it. The scales on the bodywork locked like living ribs. RONOVE’s legion’s lateral pull lost a centimeter of force, as if it had met real resistance.

  Astyam choked on the wind and on his own blood, but he did not take his eyes off the Seractcube. The scale glasses vibrated so hard it felt as if his eyes were being sawed from the inside.

  "We’re lining up," he said, his voice cut short. "But if we slow down to go back for him… it pulls us in crooked. It pulls and it tears."

  Wwwyye, standing again, bleeding, with the infernal sword still projected from her arm, looked back and saw Poppandacorn becoming far too small on the track.

  "Poppandacorn!" she shouted, with no tenderness at all, only desperation disguised as anger. "Get up, for fuck’s sake!"

  Poppandacorn got up.

  First to his knees. Then to his feet, crooked, ungainly, as if his body had been assembled in a hurry by someone who had never seen a joint. BAAL’s skin over his plush tightened again, snapping back into place with fury, as if it were saying: you are not done yet.

  He turned his face toward Americ-Ana’s Bugatti, saw the open cockpit, saw Americ-Ana inside, saw the Seractcube floating like a mouth.

  And he started to run.

  At first it was only desperate sprinting, little paws slapping the asphalt with a ridiculous "tac-tac," the infernal shield weighing more than it should, his small body wobbling as if it might fall with every step. Then BAAL’s skin decided to help.

  The scales around his ankles hardened, compressed, and the next step came too fast. Too fast for his size. Too fast for the dignity of anything alive.

  Poppandacorn launched.

  He didn’t run pretty. He ran like a fast error. His little paws moved faster than his head could follow. His torso swayed. The shield knocked against his side with a frantic "CLAK-CLAK." His horn trembled. The wind tried to rip him off the ground, and he seemed to fight his own speed, almost tripping over himself, correcting at the last instant, always at the last instant.

  The contrast was obscene.

  The entire Coliseum watched a plush toy armed with hell run like a crooked projectile after a possessed Bugatti, and it didn’t turn into a joke, it turned into dread, because it was proof that BAAL could turn anything into an instrument, even a plush child.

  Americ-Ana saw it from the corner of her eye.

  Her chest tightened, and this time her voice came out with an urgency that almost sounded human, but it was still command. Still pact.

  "BAAL, I want you to give Poppa strength."

  "BAAL, I want Poppa to run with speed and reach the Bugatti."

  The answer came in Poppandacorn’s body.

  BAAL’s skin on his legs contracted like a spring. Every step became impact. Every impact became thrust. He began to take the asphalt the way you tear paper. His right leg snapped forward in an ugly whip. His left nearly crossed wrong. He almost fell, almost bit the ground again, but the scaled skin locked and corrected as if it had hands.

  He was getting beaten by motion, but he was moving.

  Behind him, RONOVE’s legion still tried to write fissures into the asphalt, but now the target had changed. It wanted what would hurt most: to make Americ-Ana choose between the Seractcube and Poppandacorn.

  Americ-Ana did not choose with words. She chose with steering.

  She lined the Bugatti up on the "X," felt the Seractcube pulling at space, and saw the air around the cube grow denser, like invisible glass about to crack. She also saw, in the rearview, Poppandacorn closing in absurdly fast, running crooked, but running.

  "Now!" Astyam shouted, and it wasn’t excitement, it was calculation. "Now he makes it!"

  Poppandacorn jumped.

  An ugly, desperate jump with no technique, as if he had thrown his whole body and trusted only that BAAL would not let the universe laugh at him in that moment. He slammed his shoulder into the side of the cockpit, slipped, almost fell back to the ground, but BAAL’s skin around his torso hardened and locked onto the car’s living metal. Wwwyye grabbed his unicorn horn with her free hand and hauled with violence.

  Poppandacorn fell into the Bugatti like a piece of war snatched back in a hurry, breathing wrong, trembling, his LED eyes blinking in a panic fault.

  "I… I’m here," he tried to say, and the sentence came out in chopped pieces, as if his system were stitching courage.

  Americ-Ana gave them no time for relief.

  The Seractcube was right above them, two meters off the ground, floating over the "X" like a sentence that does not wait.

  She accelerated.

  The "vrrrraaaam" of the 1936 Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic roared with wounded dignity, and the "tchiii" turned into an aggressive whistle, like teeth sawing through wind. The car was pulled upward by the cube’s invisible field, but not enough, not the right way. The impact had to be frontal, brutal, decided. You couldn’t “brush” it. You had to go through.

  Americ-Ana gripped the wheel like someone holding a prayer backward and said, with the calm of someone about to profane something larger.

  "BAAL, detonate a legion."

  Six thousand demons burst as launch-force.

  No flame appeared. Impulse appeared. Hands of shadow and scale rose under the Bugatti, shoving the car up and forward, as if hell were hurling a stone into the sky’s face. The open cockpit became a wind-hole. Astyam’s body glued to the seat. Wwwyye braced her feet and held Poppandacorn hard so he wouldn’t be spat out again. Poppandacorn’s infernal shield struck the dashboard with a dry "CLAK."

  The Seractcube grew enormous for a second, despite being the size of a soccer ball, because the world around it contracted. The air became glass. The crowd’s sound became distant noise, as if the entire Coliseum had been set underwater.

  And then Americ-Ana’s Bugatti struck the cube.

  It was not metal colliding with metal.

  It was reality against reality.

  A silent "CRK" went straight through everyone’s brain inside the car, as if time itself had cracked. The cube’s edge did not open, but space did. The air tore with surgical precision, and for a fraction of a second the tear showed its own label: "裂". Americ-Ana’s vision filled with impossible lines, like geometric fractures cutting through everything. The smell of sulfur and iron vanished at once, replaced by a cold void, too clean, like a room with no air.

  For one last instant, the "X" was still down there, the asphalt split with fissures, the Coliseum screaming, hell prowling.

  Then everything was pulled inward.

  And the outside world disappeared as if it had never existed.

  Americ-Ana, driving her Bugatti, Helena Blavatsky’s inheritance, with Poppandacorn, Astyam, and Wwwyye, managed to enter the Seractcube.

  The next part of LEVEL THREE of the KING MatNat Games had begun.