On the Path of Eternal Strength.-Chapter 74 - 72 Between the Teeth of the Beast

Virka did not wait. The silence that had been born in the chamber had barely formed when her body was already in motion. There was no shout, no provocation, no study of the terrain. She advanced like a sharpened certainty: not to warn, not to test, but to kill. Her steps were more than firm: they were definitive. There was no doubt in her trajectory, no curve in her movement. She went straight toward Ivano C. Dirac, not like someone attacking a boss, but like someone executing a root. Her right arm tensed at the exact moment, her fingers curled with perfect precision, and the claw was projected with contained violence in a straight line to the man’s chest, aiming not at the body... but at the very end of his existence. The movement was clear: advance, straight line, perforation without pause. The attack was loaded with everything that the Fang of Total Rupture meant, and although Virka did not name it, every line of her posture screamed that this first blow was not an opening, but an ending.

But it did not arrive.

The impact was stopped abruptly, brutal and without warning, by the crossed arms of an interposed body. The man in the black nylon suit with golden edges planted himself in front of the blow as if he were a wall. He crossed his forearms in an X shape, and what happened was not a defense: it was a collision of two forces that did not know how to retreat. The sound of the contact was not that of a normal clash. It was dry, deep, as if something had broken beyond flesh. The ground trembled. The nearby metal vibrated. The echo drove itself into the flesh of the dead who already lay on the floor. Virka’s technique had not been restrained, had not hesitated: it had been a blow thrown to split sternum, perforate lungs, break marrow. The fact that it did not succeed was not a sign of failure. It was a sign that this man was not just any barrier.

Ivano took a step back. It was not voluntary. It was not strategic. It was a reflex. And for the first time in years, he could not avoid showing it on his face. Virka’s face was in front of him. That white face with red eyes without pupil or shine. There was no hatred in that gaze. No passion. No resentment. Only the absolute desire to kill. A pure intention that had crossed the interposed body as if it ignored it. Ivano had seen killers, soldiers, human mutations, torturers... but he had never felt that someone was looking at him like something that should already be dead. It was not intimidation. It was a sentence.

The second movement did not take even a second. The man in the cyan nylon suit with white stripes slid along Virka’s left flank like a weightless shadow. His arm went straight for her neck. The speed was surgical, clean, with no loss of force in the transition. The intention was not to restrain. It was to cut the flow. To finish her.

Virka reacted before the arm finished extending. Her body turned just enough. Her left arm rose like a contained whip, and the blow went straight to the attacker’s face. It did not seek to wound. It sought to destroy. But once again, the interruption came. The hand of the man in the black suit with golden edges intercepted the blow head-on. He did not deflect it. He did not absorb it. He stopped it.

The sound was like a thick branch breaking halfway. A dense pressure filled the air between the three bodies. The instant stretched like a taut thread. And then Virka stepped back. Two steps. No more, no less. Not out of weakness. Not out of surprise. But because she had understood something that was not in the blow: the rhythm would not be linear. The enemy did not come in turns. He came in synchrony. She had learned something: one contained, the other killed. The space between the three contracted. Ivano had not moved. He remained behind, static, watching. But his expression had changed. It was no longer contempt. It was a silence that had not yet dared to translate itself into words.

Virka readjusted herself. Her breathing remained intact. But her pupils—if there was any way to measure them—were now more closed. More focused. The three of them knew that what had happened had not been an entry. It was an opening. The fight had not begun. But someone had already tried to kill. And two others already knew how to respond.

The air did not have time to settle. Virka’s eyes were still fixed on Ivano when the ground vibrated again. Not from weight, but from speed. The man in the black nylon suit with golden edges had already launched himself, and he did not do it with calculation. He did it like a bull that does not fear the blade. He charged with his shoulders low, his arms driven like hammers aimed at Virka’s torso. He did not shout. He did not announce. He simply advanced as if every muscle were a weapon loaded by conviction. His body was a line of brute force, a threat with direction but without brakes. Every punch came to break, not to warn.

Virka did not retreat. She did not raise defenses. She did not draw a circle. She only waited. And when the first blow descended with the force of a collapse, she slid to the left, her torso barely angled, her feet anchored with surgical precision. The fist passed centimeters from her clavicle. The second blow arrived as a continuation of a line already drawn, and she turned backward, her chin beneath the enemy’s arm, her fingers already tense with the decision to counterattack. The enemy’s body remained at the center of the space; he had barely finished advancing when Virka sank beneath her own base of support, her right arm closed, her back like a spring. Her fist rose like a shot from the entrails, straight to the center of the enemy’s face.

It was the Echo of the Skull Burst.

The impact sought the base of the chin, but beyond the bone: the blow was designed so that the damage would rebound inward, so that the invisible would collapse from inside the skull. The intention was clear: kill him. Break his balance. Take away his speech. End him.

But just as the fist was rising, a shadow spun along Virka’s lower left flank. The man in the cyan nylon suit with white stripes had crossed like an electric current and executed a precise, surgical sweep, without excessive force, but at the exact angle to destroy Virka’s center of support.

She noticed it.

Not by the sound. Not by the wind. She noticed it because she had killed before in spaces where there were no windows.

And where there are no windows, details are heard with the skin.

She jumped. Just a few centimeters. Enough.

Her feet left the ground just as the sweep scraped through empty air. The rising blow was diverted, and although it did not lose intent, it no longer struck where it should have.

The body of the man in the black suit reacted instantly. His arm—like a trunk—rose with the reflexive movement of someone who had spent years fighting without allowing pauses. The closed fist struck Virka’s torso at the exact moment she was descending. The blow was not a wall: it was a cannon. She managed to cover herself, crossing her left forearm over her chest, turning the elbow to divert part of the force. It was not enough. The impact hurled her backward, and the dry sound of the collision doubled when her back struck the wall.

The concrete did not explode. But it cracked. Lines were born from the exact point where her spine had touched the structure, spreading like silent branches across the wall.

Virka did not fall. But she had no time to rise.

The man in the cyan nylon suit with white stripes was already in front of her.

The movement had been perfect. He had waited for the collision, calculated the moment of the rebound, and his leg—raised at a tight angle—fell straight into Virka’s abdomen. The kick did not seek to break a bone. It sought to extinguish a core.

The blow connected.

For an instant, the world was only pressure. Virka’s stomach contracted under the impact. Her body bent slightly forward, not from pain, but because what she had received was not an attack: it was an attempt at total interruption.

But Virka’s eyes never closed.

Not even when the blood from her lips touched her tongue.

The blood was still burning on her tongue when the world compressed again. There was no breath or transition. The man in the black nylon suit with golden edges was already on top of her, and this time he was not trying to push or measure: he was trying to bury her into the wall and break her there. His fist advanced straight toward Virka’s face with the accumulated force of his entire body, a descending blow, heavy, determined to crush skull and consciousness in a single movement. The man in the cyan nylon suit with white stripes stepped half a pace aside, clearing the trajectory with cold precision, making it clear that this was not impulse, but coordination rehearsed to kill.

Virka moved her head a fraction of a second before impact. No more. The fist brushed past her cheek and sank into the wall with a dry thunder. The concrete split open in a deep fissure, dust and fragments falling like old ash. That mistake lasted less than a heartbeat, but Virka was already advancing. Not with her arms. With her entire body inclined forward, neck and shoulders aligned into a single line of destruction. It was not a punch. It was a frontal charge executed with the base of the skull, with her full weight projected forward. The impact sought to break clavicles, dismantle posture, collapse the enemy’s axis. Broken Neck Charge.

The clash was brutal. The man in the black nylon suit with golden edges stepped back one step, just one, enough for the ground to creak beneath his boots. He did not fall. He did not break. But he felt the blow pierce through his chest and shake his spine. At that same instant, the shadow moved along the opposite flank. The man in the cyan nylon suit with white stripes went low, fast, with a clean sweep aimed at Virka’s feet, seeking to break her balance right after the charge.

She was expecting it.

Her foot lifted just enough to avoid the sweep, and in that movement she rotated her entire torso. Her right arm extended like a whip loaded by the full rotation of her body, her back exposed for barely an instant, the strike projected in a wide arc toward both enemies. It was not a fine or precise attack: it was a forceful sweep designed to break alignments and push bodies as a block. Lash of the Exposed Spine.

The impact struck first against the man in the black nylon suit with golden edges, driving him backward with a contained grunt, and the wave of the movement also pushed the man in the cyan nylon suit with white stripes, forcing him to retreat a few centimeters to avoid losing footing. It was not enough to bring them down, but it was enough to break the perfect synchrony they had maintained up to that moment.

Virka did not waste that minimal misalignment. She lowered her center of gravity and immediately attacked the base of the larger body. Her hand closed like a hook around the forward leg of the man in the black nylon suit with golden edges, while the other latched behind the same limb. The pull was not backward, but in a crossed rotation, seeking to dislocate, strip stability, turn strength into a fall. Trench of the Limb Ripper, executed without completion, without seeking amputation yet, only to break the structure.

The man in the cyan nylon suit with white stripes reacted instantly. He did not attack the arm. He did not attack the head. His strike was precise and direct to Virka’s opposite side, aiming at a point where a clean impact can shut down muscles and breathing. Virka saw it coming even before turning her head. She had anticipated it. In that same movement, without releasing the leg she was attacking, she chained two actions in an impossible fraction of time: the pull turned into a push to destabilize the man in the black suit, and the free elbow rose diagonally to intercept the lateral attack, colliding with the forearm of the man in the cyan suit and deflecting it just enough so it would not find its target.

The impact resonated in the bones. None of the three retreated immediately. The air grew thick, charged with murderous intent. Virka felt clearly what she could no longer deny: they were strong. Too strong. In that state, without resorting to anything beyond their bodies, they could match her at times. One by one, she could keep them at bay. Together, every second that passed without breaking their coordination became a real threat. That thought did not weaken her. It centered her. There was no fear in it, only cold calculation and an animal certainty: this was a fight to the death, and no one would come out unscathed.

Her senses sharpened. There was no visible change, but something in her perception shifted. Enemy movements began to feel heavier, more readable, as if time itself had added a minimal resistance to them. Every breath of the man in the black suit, every posture adjustment of the man in the cyan suit, became clear information. Virka closed her eyes for an instant, not to escape, but to sink deeper into that state where combat ceases to be chaos and becomes structure.

When she opened them, she already knew what she had to break first.

The noise was constant, but not loud. The enemies’ blows, boots on concrete, the clashes of air forced through tensed muscles... everything was there, but far away. Far not in distance, but in weight. Virka was not ignoring it. She couldn’t. She was receiving everything. Every sound, every thermal variation, every particle of oxidized smell coming off the wounded man’s body, every minimal change in pressure in the displaced air. But something in her was no longer receiving it as before. It was not a sudden improvement. It was not a secret technique nor a violent awakening. It was something older. Something that had begun the moment she understood that she did not have to kill immediately. Not yet. That combat was not only body and damage. That there was something else she could tense without breaking. A form of silence that could become an edge if she let it breathe.

First it was the neck. Not in the physical sense. But in the way her neck stopped moving by reaction and began to move by premonition. She turned not when the attack was coming, but when the attacker’s weight leaned toward the wrong side. Then it was the shoulders. They stopped tensing. They were no longer there to protect. They began to float barely a millimeter above the line of her axis, as if detaching themselves from the very intention of combat. Then the breathing. It did not slow. It became exact. One inhalation for every three displacements. One exhalation for every fall of чужes weight. She did not decide it. She did not think it. It happened. And when the process reached her core, when the center of her body stopped vibrating with urgency and began to beat with foresight, then everything transformed.

The first sign was not internal. It was external. The man in the black nylon suit threw an arcing punch aimed at Virka’s left side. And without moving her feet, without turning her torso, without using her arms, she tilted her head at an impossible angle and the blow passed without touching her. Not like an error by the attacker. Not like an incredible maneuver. But as if the attack had never been capable of reaching her. And what followed was stranger still. Virka did not return to center. She did not correct her posture. She did not recover her axis. She simply remained there, in that inclination, eyes open, fixed, with no visible tension. But her pupils... began to vibrate.

Ivano saw it. He was far away, yes. But he saw it. Virka’s pupils no longer responded to the light of the environment. They did not dilate or contract due to external stimulus. They were adjusting to a different frequency. As if each image were a separate plane that had to be focused in layers. And she did it. With a speed no human should have. Minuscule movements, imperceptible to anyone who was not looking for them, but Ivano saw them. And upon seeing them, he understood that he was not witnessing a strategy. He was witnessing a mutation in progress.

The man in the cyan nylon suit with white stripes came in with a low sweep. Fast, precise, made to cut support. But before his leg even began to rotate, Virka had already taken a lateral step. Not in response. Not by reflex. Her body was already there. And while the attacker’s leg completed its trajectory through empty air, Virka simply tilted her neck in the opposite direction, as if she were listening to something beyond the noise, beyond the combat. And then what Ivano had never seen happened. Virka closed her eyes. Not for a second. For several. In the middle of the fight. She closed her eyes and kept moving. Dodging. Turning. Lowering her waist to avoid an upward blow. Raising her knee to block an impact with her hip. All without seeing. Or rather, without needing to see.

When she opened them again, the change was total.

Her pupils were dilated to the extreme, but her gaze was not that of a beast. It was that of someone who had entered another perceptual dimension. Every movement of her enemies became predictable. Not because they were clumsy, but because she was reading them as if they were open structures. As if every tensed muscle spoke a language she understood. And she understood it before it uttered its first syllable. The man in the black nylon suit rotated his torso to the right, and Virka already knew that meant a heel strike three fractions later. The one in the cyan suit flexed his shoulder slightly, and she was already turning to avoid an attack that had not yet been born.

But it was not only sight. It was something deeper. She felt it in her skin. In the vibration that ran through the air when an intention formed. In the density of the movement that preceded the attack. In the way sounds compressed just before impact. It was as if her body no longer needed time to react, because it was already submerged in time as substance, as medium, as form. Every action of her enemies arrived late. Even before it began.

Virka’s face did not change. But her body did. It became lower. Not in size. In gravity. Everything she did seemed to arise from a deep axis, a hidden root in the center of her abdomen that sustained her beyond normal balance. Her movements ceased to be displacements. They became chosen interruptions of the flow. As if combat were a river and she chose when and how to let herself be carried, only to emerge exactly where she had to. No more. No less.

And then her eyes began to do something that neither Ivano nor the attackers could explain. They moved. But not in one direction. Not even in a line. Her pupils slid in micro-rotations, in impossible adjustments, as if they were looking not at one, but at several possible futures. As if every line of movement, every displacement of her enemies, every attempt to turn, every muscular vibration were a score she read all at once. And she did not only read it: she corrected it. Prevented it. Cut it before it could bloom.

The man in the black suit attempted a pincer attack. The cyan one complemented it with a distraction maneuver. It was the best they had executed so far. But Virka slid forward. Not as an attack. As a rupture. She evaded the first man’s strike with a shoulder rotation. Blocked the second with a hip turn that deflected the incoming arm. And in the same flow, without increasing speed, she simply opened her mouth. It was not an emotional opening. It was mechanical. Precise.

Her fangs sank into the neck of the man in the cyan suit with surgical precision. There was no struggle. There was no rebound. Only bite. Flesh torn away. Blood on her lips. Fragments of muscle falling. The enemy body staggered backward with a hollow sound. And then Virka turned.

Blood was still dripping from her mouth. Her teeth were still holding pieces of living flesh. And her gaze, when it crossed with Ivano’s, was no longer human. Nor was it animal. It was a gaze that asked nothing. That sought no answer. It was the gaze of an entity that had discovered it no longer needed to understand, because the world was revealing itself without asking.

And then she smiled.

Not as mockery. Not as a threat. As acceptance. Because in that moment, Virka was not only in control. She was awake in a dimension where only a few could enter. And now, she was there to kill.

_________________________________________________________

END OF Chapter 72

The path continues...

New Chapters are revealed every

Sunday, and also between Wednesday or Thursday,

when the will of the tale so decides.

Each one leaves another scar on Sebastián’s journey.

If this abyss resonated with you,

keep it in your collection

and leave a mark: a comment, a question, an echo.

Your presence keeps alive the flame that shapes this world.

Thank you for walking by my side.

If this story resonated with you, perhaps we have already crossed paths in another corner of the digital world. Over there, they know me as Goru SLG.

I want to thank from the heart all the people who are reading and supporting this work. Your time, your comments, and your support keep this world alive.

If this story resonated with you, I invite you to support me — your presence and backing make it possible for