The rhythm did not recover immediately after the rupture caused by the destruction of the supply; for an instant, brief but sufficient, the space remained suspended in a transition where neither of the two forces had absolute control of the situation, and it was precisely in that interval where the enemy reorganized again. There was no chaotic retreat nor improvised dispersion, but a calculated readjustment that did not seek to recover what was lost, but to reconfigure the combat under a new logic, and when the figures reappeared among the smoke and the debris, they did so with a different distribution, their positions not aligned in a direct front, but opened in an arc that was beginning to close.

The formation was not evident from the first second, but it defined itself as they advanced: a half moon, not completely closed, but enough to surround the most exposed line of the defense, the one where the units equipped with shotguns had advanced after the initial rupture, their function changing from containment to elimination at close range, and it was precisely that movement which now remained exposed. There were no shouts announcing the maneuver nor audible orders, but the intention was clear in the way the bodies moved, in how the rocket launchers positioned themselves at the ends and at the center of that curve, maintaining distance and creating angles from which the impact would not depend on a single trajectory.

The air did not clear completely. The smoke persisted in irregular layers, fragmenting visibility and forcing interpretation rather than sight, and it was in that incomplete environment where the next movement was executed with a precision that did not depend on absolute clarity. The shots did not arrive as uncontrolled bursts, they were selective, directed, impacting directly on the helmets of the advanced units not to penetrate them, but to destabilize what was inside. Each impact did not break the external structure, but transmitted an internal vibration that did not dissipate immediately, an interference that went through the support system of the suit and reached the wearer like a blunt hit, repeated at different points along the line.

The first reactions did not manifest as immediate falls, they were failures: minimal deviations in posture, in balance, in orientation. A step that was not completed.

A turn that did not find its axis. The coordination fractured enough, and that instant was used.

The launchers did not wait for additional confirmation. They fired, not one, several. The projectiles did not follow identical trajectories, but converged on the same objective: the disoriented units that had not managed to reconfigure their position. The impact did not destroy the suits, but it did overcome them in that specific moment; the combined force of the detonations lifted bodies that could not anchor themselves to the ground with the same firmness as before, displacing them, striking them against the nearby surfaces.

There was no immediate death, but there was total interruption. The bodies remained in intermediate states, with systems active but without complete response, consciousness fragmented and the capacity for reaction reduced to the minimum.

And at that point, the next layer of the attack was activated.

The snipers had not participated in the previous exchange, they had waited. Positioned at height, at points where visibility was not total but sufficient, their shots did not seek coverage nor suppression, but closure. Each trajectory was calculated on targets that could not respond, figures that were no longer in full combat, but in transition toward incapacity.

But they did not manage to complete that action.

The sound changed before they did. It was not an explosion nor an isolated impact, it was a constant pressure that descended from above: a flow of shots that did not come from the frontal line nor from the flanks, but from the ceiling of the installation itself. The surfaces that until that moment had remained inert responded, they opened in controlled segments, revealing integrated systems that had not been activated before.

The heavy machine guns did not deploy as an improvised resource, but as part of the original design of the place, and their activation did not generate chaos in the defense, but an extension of it. Their shots were not dispersed nor did they seek to cover the entire space, but specific points where the threat concentrated, forcing the snipers to break their focus, to move, to abandon the positions from which they had waited to complete their work.

The effect was not immediate on the whole of the combat, but it was on its rhythm.

The units with rifles from inside the installation took advantage of that change without the need for an explicit order. They did not come out en masse nor break formation, but they advanced enough to recover ground, to extend the line toward the exterior, where before they could not hold. The confrontation ceased to be contained at the entrance, it moved to the street.

The open space did not favor either side in an absolute way. The debris of the destroyed vehicles created unplanned points of cover, improvised structures that now defined new routes of movement. The enemies who had maintained the pressure with the launchers did not remain in their original position, they fell back, not as a retreat, but as an adjustment. They used those same remains to cover themselves, reorganizing their line once again, eliminating the direct exposure that had allowed the counterattack of the installation, and from those new points the fire returned, not with the same cadence as before, but with enough presence to prevent the defense from fully consolidating its advance.

Some of the launchers had managed to withdraw before the impact of the mortars, not all, but enough. Others, who had not been visible in the first exchange, emerged from angles that had not been covered initially, using the same logic applied before: pressure, interruption, wear. The shots were not continuous, but they were enough.

And in that scenario where visibility remained fragmented, where every movement had to be calculated without complete guarantee of information, the combat ceased to respond to a defined pattern. There was no clear line nor absolute dominance, only exchange, reaction and constant adaptation. And while both forces reconfigured themselves in that new space, where every advantage was temporary and every error had immediate consequences, what had begun as a structured defense ended up transforming into something different, not into chaos, but into controlled uncertainty.

The change did not occur as a clean cut in the confrontation, but as a progressive accumulation of pressure that ended up altering the way each unit perceived the field in front of it. The heavy machine guns, integrated into the upper structure of the installation, did not cease their activity after forcing the snipers to break their initial positions; on the contrary, they intensified their firing pattern, not expanding without direction, but adjusting each burst toward points where the threat attempted to reconfigure itself, following trajectories that did not seek to destroy buildings, but that ended up doing so inevitably by pursuing the targets that moved between them. The concrete fragmented in layers, the windows shattered outward and the shadows that hid at heights were forced to move without time to stabilize themselves, not because of immediate fear, but because of the impossibility of remaining static under a pressure that did not yield.

At street level, however, the dynamic was different. The units of the installation that had managed to recover part of the terrain were not in a position of sustained advance, but in an unstable balance where every second gained had to be defended with a precision that did not admit errors. The bodies that carried the wounded did not do so with uncontrolled urgency, but with an efficiency that sought not to break the line, but even that coordination began to strain under the continuity of the combat, not due to lack of training, but due to accumulated wear.

It was at that point where the attack changed in nature. The first bottles were not distinguished as an immediate threat when they fell; they were not high-impact projectiles nor did they generate direct explosions, but when they touched the ground, when they fragmented against the irregular surfaces of the field, the fire emerged not as an isolated point, but as an expansion that sought to occupy the space between the units, not destroying, but separating. The flames did not manage to consume the suits, but they did block trajectories, forcing the deviation of movements that were already compromised by the load of the wounded bodies.

For an instant, brief but critical, the line was forced to adapt. There were no shouts nor panic, but there was an alteration in the flow. The hands that held weapons descended toward the sides of the suits with a synchronization that did not require verbal communication, activating the integrated compartments that had not been used until that moment. The capsules emerged with a dry sound, small in size, almost insignificant in comparison with the rest of the equipment, and were thrown to the ground without seeking millimetric precision. It was not necessary.

Upon impact, they did not explode, they released a contained pressure that expanded in the form of a moist burst, covering the areas where the fire had begun to spread, extinguishing it not instantly, but enough to prevent it from becoming an impassable barrier. The heat did not disappear completely, but it ceased to be a structural threat.

The line stabilized for a second, and that second was enough for the next layer of the attack to manifest. From the right flank, where the smoke and debris had created a blind spot that had not been completely covered, the new figures emerged with a speed that did not seek to hide, but to take advantage of the exact moment in which attention was fragmented. They were not many in absolute number, but their entry did not depend on quantity, but on synchronization: approximately twenty.

Their weapons were not different in essence from those previously used, but the way in which they employed them was. They did not fire in long uncontrolled bursts, but in short sequences, directed toward points where the defense was occupied reorganizing, forcing those who held the line to divide their focus.

And with them, the machine.

The tankette did not burst in with unnecessary noise nor did it seek to impose itself through sound, but its presence was felt at the moment its main weapon began to operate. The cadence of its firing was not comparable with that of portable weapons; its impact did not only press, but displaced, forcing the units to reinforce their cover immediately.

The space compressed again, not due to lack of room, but due to excess of threat. The units of the installation did not retreat immediately, they resisted, but the pressure was no longer the same as before: it did not come from a single direction, it was convergent.

And at that point, the decision was made.

The disc was not thrown with dramatism, it was activated, released, and upon touching the ground it did not generate an explosion, but a different expansion: an invisible surface that defined itself in the air as a barrier that did not block vision, but did absorb what came toward it. The impacts began to accumulate on that surface, each bullet deflected, each fragment contained, and although at first its presence was stable, its color was not.

The initial white began to alter, to tense, to absorb more than it was designed to sustain indefinitely. Each impact did not break it, but brought it closer; the change to more intense tones was not decorative, it was a warning.

And even so, it resisted enough.

Because the attack did not stop. The launchers, which had managed to reposition themselves after the initial chaos, did not waste that window. The projectiles once again cut through the space, not with the same previous cadence, but with a more concentrated intention, directed toward the point where the defense had decided to resist instead of dispersing.

The impact on the shield was not clean nor silent, it was an accumulation of pressure that made the air around it vibrate, that deformed the protective surface to the limit of its operational capacity.

And at that critical moment, the second barrier emerged from within, not as a visual reinforcement, but as an extension of the system. It absorbed what the first could no longer contain; it did not completely nullify it, but it deflected it enough.

And that margin was used.

The units that could still move did so, not as a retreat, but as a fallback. The wounded bodies were dragged toward the interior with a precision that was no longer clean, but effective, while the last to remain on the line maintained fire just long enough to cover that movement. The street was not completely abandoned, it was ceded, for now.

When the last unit crossed the threshold and the structure closed again behind them, the combat did not end, it only changed form. And inside the installation, where the external noise continued to strike the structure as a constant reminder of what had not yet been resolved, the feeling was not one of defeat, but neither of control. It was something in between, a silent certainty that what was coming would be more difficult to contain.

The combat continued below like an open wound that did not finish closing, extending between the entrance of the installation and the nearby structures of the city, where the street no longer belonged to either of the two forces and every meter gained was sustained with a violence that did not seek to impose itself immediately, but to remain long enough to wear down the other; but several streets away, far enough for the roar not to dominate the environment, but to arrive fragmented, reduced to a constant vibration that traveled through the concrete without demanding direct attention, the scene was different.

From the height of a building that was not part of the immediate perimeter of the conflict, the city extended with an apparent normality, lights on in windows where life continued unaware of what was happening beyond, and on the edge of the roof, where there were no railings nor structures that interfered with the view, a figure remained standing without seeking cover, as if exposure did not represent any risk.

He was not close to the combat, but he observed it with sufficient clarity.

His posture was not rigid nor careless; he remained upright without visible tension, with his weight distributed naturally, like someone who did not need to prepare to react, but who was already in control of himself before any event required a response. His appearance did not impose strength in conventional terms: there was no marked musculature nor volume that suggested immediate physical power, his body was slender, stylized, defined by clean lines that did not seek to stand out, but that could not be ignored either.

The brown hair fell to the shoulders with a softness that contrasted with the urban environment that surrounded him, strands slightly moved by the night wind, while his white skin reflected the dim light of the city without losing uniformity. His features maintained a harmony that did not need exaggeration to be perceived as beauty, not a beauty excessively delicate, but one that generated a slight discomfort by not fully fitting into a defined pattern, reinforced by the way his eyes remained open without effort.

The left one was clear, blue, human in appearance. The right was not, not because of shape nor size, but because of its behavior: it did not reflect light in the same way, it did not follow the same rhythm when focusing, and although it did not emit evident brightness, there was in it a different precision, a stability that did not correspond to a natural organ, as if every movement of what it observed were fixed in a deeper reading than what the human eye could sustain.

His clothing did not correspond to the tactical environment of the combat he was observing. A dark jacket with an urban cut, fitted without rigidity, garments that did not seek camouflage nor visible protection, firm boots, a marked style, closer to a stage aesthetic than to a battlefield, and even so there was no incoherence in his presence, because he was not there to participate... yet.

His eyes did not follow the chaos, they ordered it. The explosions in the distance, the movements of the units, the trajectories of the projectiles, everything integrated into a continuous flow that did not need emotion to be understood, and when the attempt of entry occurred in the installation, when the figures crossed the weakened point seeking to finish the confrontation from inside, his attention fixed itself with greater precision. The instant was brief, and sufficient.

The explosion at the entrance did not expand toward the street, it compressed into the access, trapping the bodies at the exact moment they crossed the threshold, the pressure displacing them in opposite directions without allowing them to stabilize, and from the distance, the result was clear: fifteen did not survive, five managed to move aside, not as victory, but as reaction.

The observer did not move. There was no surprise in his expression, only a slight elevation at the corner of his lips, not as mockery, but as recognition. —Interesting... —he murmured calmly, his voice low, without intention of being heard beyond himself—. For an installation of the normal world... they have more than they should.

He did not take his gaze away from the point of impact immediately, he held it for a moment longer. Then he raised it slightly, not toward something concretely visible, but toward the night sky that remained indifferent to all of that, as if he evaluated something that was not in the direct scene. —My client will not be satisfied if this drags on— he added with the same tone, without urgency—. The remains... must be recovered before they lose them completely.

He did not explain what remains. He did not need to.

His body leaned forward, the minimal movement that preceded a clear action, and the edge of the building ceased to be a reference when the intention to descend formed with precision, but before the impulse was completed, his attention changed, not because of the combat, but because of something closer.

The air shifted first, not as an explosion, but as an interruption. The impact on the street was not violent in scale, but enough to lift dust and fragments within a contained radius, forcing the environment to acknowledge the arrival of something that did not belong to either side of the confrontation.

The figure that fell did not roll nor lose order. His body absorbed the impact without the need for visible readjustment, remaining stable from the first instant it touched the ground, and when the dust began to settle, the silhouette defined itself without haste.

Leather jacket, dark.

Fitted to the body, pants of the same material reinforcing a figure that did not need volume to convey presence, firm boots that did not shift unnecessarily, and on his right shoulder... Narka, motionless, observing. The golden eyes of the ancient being did not scan the environment, they fixed directly on the point where the figure on the roof remained, as if there were nothing else worthy of attention at that moment.

Sebastián did not speak nor advance, he did not need to. His gaze held with a firmness that was not a direct challenge, but neither indifference, a presence that did not seek to impose itself through gesture, but to exist with enough weight to be impossible to ignore.

Above, the observer did not retreat, did not tense his posture nor divert his gaze. The space between them was not short, but neither enough to conceal intention. The combat continued in the distance, the detonations still occurring, but at that specific point they ceased to matter, because what had changed was not the battle, but the level at which it would unfold.

The silence was not a void between them, but an active presence that occupied the space with more weight than any possible word, a contained tension that did not need to manifest in movement to exist, because in that specific instant, where the city continued breathing around them without recognizing what was unfolding at that point, the interaction did not depend on sound nor gesture, but on the mutual reading each made of the other, without margin for error nor for superficial interpretation.

Sebastián did not move nor change his posture. His gaze remained fixed, without forced rigidity nor unnecessary challenge, but neither with the slightest concession, as if the fact of being there were enough to establish his position without the need to declare it, while on his shoulder Narka remained in absolute stillness, his golden eyes held on the same point with an attention that did not fluctuate, as if time had no impact on his perception.

On the other side, the man did not retreat nor advance. His body remained relaxed in appearance, but that relaxation was not carelessness, but control, a state where each muscle responded without the need to tense visibly, and even so something in the air between them did not fit, not in perfect balance, but in a friction that did not resolve.

The seconds were not perceived as wasted time, they accumulated, they extended until becoming minutes that did not alter the posture of any of the three. It was not discomfort, it was analysis, constant measurement.

The man let out a sigh, not heavy.

Not tired, just enough to mark that the silence had fulfilled its function.

His expression did not change abruptly, but his tone, when he spoke, did not fully match the scene.

—It is not the time for a child to be wandering around— he said, with a voice that mixed lightness with a slight intention of correction, as if he were not speaking to someone who had just fallen from the sky with the stability of a structure that did not belong to that world—. You should go to sleep.

There was no open mockery, but neither absolute seriousness.

—There are things to do— he added, referring to himself more than to the situation—. And I do not have time to get distracted.

He did not wait for a response, he did not need it. His body turned naturally, giving his back without dramatism, initiating a movement that was neither hurried nor cautious, simply a logical continuation of his decision not to get involved more than necessary.

He passed by their side, close enough, exposed enough, ignoring them, or pretending to do so.

It was at that point where perception changed, not in the environment, in him. The sensation was not progressive.

It was immediate, a pressure that did not come from the exterior, but that imposed itself from a presence that had not changed in visible form, but that was now perceived differently, more defined, heavier, as if what had been contained until that moment ceased to be so, not due to loss of control, but by decision.

His body reacted before his mind finished processing it. The jump backward was not elegant, it was necessary. The distance he created was not excessive, but enough to break the closeness he had ignored seconds before, and upon landing his posture was no longer the same: it was not relaxed, it was functional, prepared. The sweat did not appear as an exaggerated reaction, but as an involuntary response to something he could not classify with the same ease as the rest of the variables he had observed until that moment.

Sebastián looked at him, without expression, without change.

—We are here to eliminate it— he said. He did not raise his voice nor did he need to. —Do not interfere with the battle of others.

There was no emphasis nor explicit threat, but the weight of the words did not depend on that.

The man exhaled through his nose, a brief laugh that did not become anything broader.

—This got more complicated than expected— he murmured, his tone recovering a slight irony, but without losing the tension that now inhabited his body—. I should have asked for more money.

There was no additional pause nor visible preparation.

He moved. The impulse was direct, without unnecessary motion, his body projecting forward with a speed that did not seek to impress, but to connect; the fist closed along the way with a clear intention, directed toward Sebastián without deviation.

Narka spoke before the impact occurred.

—Do not waste time.

His voice was not raised nor forced, but it crossed the space with a clarity that could not be ignored.

The man did not expect that.

He did not expect that presence to speak, and that minimal instant in which his attention fragmented was enough.

The Qi did not release as a visible explosion, it did not illuminate the environment nor break the structure of the place. It expanded, silent, dense, like a layer that covered everything that existed at that point. The world did not disappear, it shifted. The Veil did not present itself as an abrupt change, but as a superposition that could not be perceived by those who were not part of it, and within that space, where the rules were not the same and distance did not respond in the same way, Narka did not need to move physically to act.

The wave of Qi had no defined form nor was it visible in its entirety, but its effect was absolute. The man’s body did not manage to complete the strike; the force that reached him did not stop him, it displaced him, it threw him backward with a violence that did not correspond to the size of the emitter. His figure crossed the air without control, impacting against the lower structure of the building with a force that did not disperse on the surface, but partially embedded him into it.

The sound was not explosive, it was dense, contained, as if the material itself had absorbed part of the impact so as not to fragment completely. The dust rose, the fragments fell, and the movement stopped.

Above, on the roof, Sebastián did not move. Narka did not either. Both remained where they were, their gazes directed toward the point where the body had been thrown, without the need to confirm the result of that first exchange.

There was no haste nor urgency, only the certainty that what had begun had not yet ended.

_____________________________________________

END OF Chapter 93

The path continues...

New Chapters are revealed every

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