Chapter 24: Dominion

  —You look way too cheerful. Has something good happened lately?

  Dinamo was there, standing, without a mark, without a scratch. No dust. No blood. Not even the smallest wear that a fight at this level should demand from reality itself.

  As if nothing had happened.

  As if everyone’s effort in that battle had been a sick joke. As if that last attack had never happened.

  And to top it off, he was wearing his favorite outfit to provoke: the SS military uniform—immaculate, pressed, with that diseased aesthetic he wore as if it were a gala suit. Not out of “ideology”—Dinamo didn’t need to belong to anything—but for the simple pleasure of reminding them he could pick the most repugnant symbol and feel comfortable inside it. As long as it was gold, of course.

  Katherine stared at him without blinking.

  Her mind, meanwhile, was a mess.

  “Another copy?” was the first thought—automatic, almost defensive.

  Then came the second, sharper: “No.”

  And the third was the one that ruined her: “How could I fall for the same trick twice?”

  The problem was, she didn’t even know if it was a trick.

  The previous scene still burned in her head: the experimental weapon. The shot that was impossible to predict. The strike designed to leave no margin—to kill Dinamo before his brain had time to react, before his body could “create” an escape. Create a perfect clone to keep living.

  “One hundred thousand years keeping it.”

  And yet…

  There he was.

  The “Immortal.”

  Katherine wasn’t used to feeling like this. Not fear—disorder. Not being able to fit the piece onto the board.

  Dinamo tilted his head with a soft, almost affectionate smile.

  —Don’t get like that. It doesn’t suit you.

  He vanished.

  Not like a fast movement.

  Like a “rule.”

  In an instant he was in front of her—so close that anyone else would’ve died before understanding the distance had changed. No one reacted. Not Baek, not Caetano, not Hassan, not Ramiro. Not even Hanami managed her usual “ah, of course” smile.

  Only Katherine perceived it.

  Barely.

  Existence warned her. A minimal pressure—the whisper of her subconscious in crisis telling her to stay alert.

  Dinamo extended his arm.

  His fingers approached Katherine’s face with that insolent calm of someone touching a museum piece.

  She didn’t move. Not because she couldn’t—because failure had pushed her into a strange edge: a silent breakdown you couldn’t see from the outside, but Dinamo could smell like blood.

  His fingertips brushed her cheek.

  —See? A little better.

  Katherine felt something worse than disgust.

  She felt him enjoying watching her crack on the inside.

  —Do you think we can keep going? —Dinamo asked—. If not, I can give you a little break. Smile.

  Katherine raised one of her pistols.

  The shot was dry.

  The figure in front of her exploded into fragments, breaking apart like dust drifting away. Dinamo died without drama, without a final gesture, without anything epic.

  A gift.

  A small prize for her rage.

  And several meters away, Dinamo appeared again with a wider smile.

  As if he’d applauded internally.

  —That’s the attitude.

  Katherine didn’t celebrate. She didn’t breathe in relief. She just kept staring at the space where the body of her most recent failure had disappeared.

  Dinamo adjusted the collar of his uniform, as if pleased to have confirmed something.

  —Though don’t feel so bad. Technically, you did kill me.

  His tone was that of a satisfied professor.

  —But I’d already prepared for a situation like this. So… don’t feel bad.

  He made a theatrical gesture with his hand, like he was about to start a lecture at a university.

  —I’ll explain why I survived an attack impossible to predict. Take it as a reward for a notable achievement. Even I had never thought of creating a weapon like that. It’ll be hard to replicate.

  Katherine clenched her jaw.

  “Don’t play along.”

  “But you need to understand.”

  Dinamo raised a finger—like he understood her dilemma perfectly, and enjoyed it.

  —It’s simple. Do you know Schr?dinger’s paradox?

  The question was rhetorical. Katherine knew it. Caetano knew it. Even Yehiel—wearing the face of this wasn’t in the brochure—knew it as general culture.

  Dinamo smiled, entertained by the reaction his mere mention caused.

  —Well, I used the same principle.

  He spread his arms, as if waiting for applause.

  —It’s a defense method I designed after my battle with Cursed. A method that lets me be, at all times and in all places, always in two states of existence.

  Katherine said nothing. She didn’t give him the pleasure of a reaction. But inside, it was a different story.

  Dinamo continued anyway.

  —That’s how I survived that shot, because technically you killed me, but as I explained, I have two lives. You have to kill me twice.

  A pause.

  —Of course, this trick has its weaknesses —he added, with a smile that wasn’t kind—. Some I hope you figure out. But the most obvious one is that it takes me thirty seconds to reactivate it, so you should hurry up or the food will get cold.

  He tempted them with a gesture, amused at offering them a rematch. As if he’d handed them an advantage.

  No one moved.

  No one knew how to face the situation in front of them.

  And they all knew—by intuition or deduction—that Dinamo would take those thirty seconds very seriously. None of them was sure what awaited them in the next moments. So they didn’t advance.

  Dinamo tilted his head, pretending disappointment.

  —Nothing? Come on. I’m inviting you.

  His smile sharpened.

  —Of course, things won’t be that simple now. Even if I keep holding back, now I’m going to take you seriously.

  He looked at Katherine as if assessing a behavioral mistake.

  —I was hoping to have a bit more fun with you. I had a few more games I’m sure you’d appreciate. But it seems someone doesn’t like following the rules.

  Katherine took one slow breath. Forced herself back into her usual state: cold, calculated, no room for anything human.

  Dinamo, as if responding to that recovery, grew wings.

  From his back burst angel wings—huge, white, clean. A contrast to Katherine’s demonic wings: dark, sharp, made for war.

  And then he pulled out his favorite weapon.

  A sniper rifle.

  It wasn’t an improvised golden-gas creation shaped like a rifle. It was a complete weapon—detailed, with real presence. Dinamo held it with affection, like a family relic that had watched his partner grow from start to finish.

  Because even though he loved close combat—the thrill of crushing opponents with a hammer, the physical satisfaction of breaking them—his preferred combat was something else:

  Absolute dominion over distance.

  The next thing he did was erase the castle.

  He didn’t destroy it “piece by piece.”

  He simply unmade it.

  A tide of golden gas covered everything, and in an instant there was no throne room, no columns, no ceiling lost in mist. Nothing.

  Only an open field. The void of space.

  And them, standing in nothing, exposed.

  Targets.

  Dinamo’s voice arrived clear, amplified by himself. He was comfortably positioned at a distance of one AU from them.

  —To begin… I’ll kill you.

  He aimed at Freya.

  Not because he hated her.

  Because it was efficient.

  Freya had the best chance of blocking projectiles—or in this case, reflecting them. Her power was a problem in a fight like this. So she had to disappear first.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Katherine felt the calculation in her stomach.

  —Freya…!

  She didn’t finish the sentence.

  The shot went off.

  Freya barely had time to raise a defense: a frontal mirror, perfect, brilliant, like a luxury wall.

  The bullet struck.

  The mirror held—like a mirror holds when you throw a gigantic rock at it.

  Freya was launched kilometers away, dragged by the impact, her body trembling. She half-recovered midair with rage and wounded dignity.

  And then came the second shot.

  Stronger.

  More lethal.

  Baek tried to step in and cut the trajectory with his sword.

  He didn’t make it.

  The bullet simply avoided the block.

  It didn’t ricochet. It didn’t veer “by accident.” It avoided it.

  As if the projectile had judgment.

  The second impact struck Freya’s mirror and the sound it made wasn’t metal or glass:

  It was the conceptual sound of something about to break.

  Freya wasn’t ready for a third.

  Katherine knew it.

  They all knew it.

  Hanami too.

  And she acted.

  Thinking fast, she moved behind Dinamo to distract him.

  It was what she always did. The only thing she knew how to do.

  It was what Dinamo expected.

  The Dinamo she targeted was a decoy.

  Hanami sensed the danger the moment she appeared behind him—not by seeing anything, but by feeling that strange pressure, that alert her body had turned into instinct.

  She pulled back.

  She moved toward Katherine, as if the safest place in the universe was near her. Which, to her, it was.

  And still, a bullet passed beside her face.

  Katherine shoved her.

  Pulled her out of the angle by a margin absurdly small.

  The real Dinamo, hidden, had fired a fatal shot toward her head at the exact moment Hanami appeared behind the decoy—betting on the obvious: that she’d notice the deception and return toward Katherine, like she always had until now.

  Dinamo had bet correctly.

  Only Katherine had read it too.

  Hanami swallowed air, eyes wide.

  —Thanks, Kathe-chin —she murmured with a shaky smile—. I almost didn’t make it.

  Katherine didn’t answer.

  She wasn’t listening.

  She stared at a specific point, far away, where the air still vibrated from the impacts.

  She followed that line with her eyes and cold gripped her spine.

  Freya was still.

  Not unconscious. Not stunned.

  Absolute stillness.

  There was a hole in her head.

  Small. Clean. Perfect.

  As if someone had pierced reality with a needle.

  Dinamo had said he would kill her first.

  And everything else had been a distraction.

  The first “obvious” shot at Freya. The second “obvious” one. Baek’s attempt. The trap for Hanami. A whole spectacle so everyone would look where he wanted.

  While the real shot—the one that mattered—happened when Freya was at her most vulnerable: measuring, enduring, focused on not breaking.

  Freya had tried to create a mirror in front of Hanami.

  To save her.

  Not knowing that gesture would kill her.

  Katherine felt a clean fury—no screaming, no theatrics. She was still slightly unstable due to her most recent failure.

  Dinamo, far away, laughed.

  Not loudly.

  The laugh of someone satisfied.

  And then more Dinamos began to appear.

  Decoys.

  Two. Three. Ten.

  They moved across the open field like pieces on a board—talking, mocking—keeping Dimitri occupied. Dinamo didn’t want the madman going far enough that he’d have to look for him later.

  Dimitri, like a rabid animal, lunged at the first one he saw.

  The decoy wasn’t fast enough and turned to dust.

  Dinamo made another to take its place, to keep the number steady.

  —What does it feel like to be the cause of your friend’s death? —one of the copies asked, looking at Hanami—. Look, she even tried to make a mirror in front of you to save you. Isn’t that moving?

  Hanami blinked.

  Her brain took far too long to process the sentence.

  —W-what…?

  Another decoy spoke, walking backward while Dimitri chased him.

  —She tried to keep you safe, not knowing it would kill her. What does it feel like to lose another friend? What does it feel like to watch the people you care about die again?

  Hanami took a step back.

  Her pupils shrank.

  Katherine felt something ugly: the internal sound of a mind splintering.

  —Tell me… —Dinamo continued, now from another angle, with another copy— what does it feel like to stab people in the back?

  Hanami went rigid.

  As if the phrase were a trigger.

  —I… I… —her voice came out broken—. Is it my fault?

  Dinamo had made the shot at Hanami “too obvious” so everyone would see it coming. He’d built the perfect theater so she’d feel like everything revolved around her existence.

  While the real shot killed Freya.

  That was Dinamo’s preferred style of combat: distract, manipulate, wait for the right moment, and kill when the enemy could no longer hold themselves together.

  And if he could destroy their minds in the process, even better.

  Any method that gave you victory was good.

  Dinamo’s voice projected again, this time from farther away—like a host deciding to raise the show’s tempo.

  —Now… who should I kill? Tell me, Hanami-chan. Which of your friends should die?

  The silence turned strange.

  Hanami didn’t answer. She just trembled.

  Dinamo laughed.

  —You can choose between the cotton girl or the bubble guy.

  Irina pressed her lips together.

  Ramiro stood still—without his usual smile, serious for the first time.

  Dinamo walked in circles around them—not physically close, but close in intent. Like a predator that didn’t need to hurry.

  —Or should I kill you? —he asked, and the question sounded genuinely amused—. Hard to choose. Should I flip a coin?

  Katherine returned to her coldness.

  She did it out of necessity.

  She analyzed.

  Hanami was broken. Irremediably broken.

  Katherine looked at her: she was murmuring nonsense, trapped in a guilt loop with no rational basis, but with an emotional foundation—seeded by what had happened to her in childhood and the traumas that still hunted her. The brainwashing. The invisible damage.

  Katherine hadn’t expected Dinamo to break her that fast.

  Though part of the blame was hers: they had no real way to measure the extent of that damage, and they still brought her into this.

  She looked at Caetano.

  She saw his pleading stare.

  Should I let Caetano take over from here? The idea surfaced, obvious. Caetano could intervene—could cut the game short, could force an adjustment that would break Dinamo’s rhythm and make him fight more seriously. He could almost certainly buy them the hour.

  Katherine shook her head.

  Not out loud. There was no need.

  Caetano was more valuable than the evacuation itself. More valuable than everyone standing there. If there was any way, she preferred him to exert himself as little as possible.

  Because if Caetano fell, the evacuation—and this entire struggle—would have been pointless.

  Katherine turned her gaze back to the open field.

  The decoys kept appearing, moving, talking.

  Dimitri destroyed them like a rabid dog chasing shadows.

  Baek held firm, though he gripped his sword with uncertainty—he had no idea how to proceed in the current situation.

  Hassan was meditating in silence. Unsure.

  Irina tried to keep her posture, but it was too fragile. Her eyes wouldn’t leave the place where Freya had turned to dust.

  Ramiro clenched his teeth. Not a trace of happiness on his normally cheerful face.

  Yehiel watched everything, still—his face a poem, a blend of emotions ranging from curiosity to confusion to fear. But he seemed to be anchoring himself in resolve.

  Then Katherine saw it.

  Yehiel was positioning himself.

  No drama. No speeches.

  Just adjusting himself like someone who’d already made a decision.

  Katherine understood the gesture with bitter clarity.

  Either way, someone beat me to it.

  Yehiel looked forward, toward the void where Dinamo ruled distance, and for the first time since they’d known him, his expression lost that messenger’s courtesy.

  It turned serious.

  Practical.

  Yehiel was fast in his decision-making. He had already secured Tirsa inside his conceptual ability for recovery; it wasn’t progressing the way he wanted, but it didn’t slow his will.

  —Mila —he said without raising his voice— use your heat to distort the concepts around us. I need cover.

  —Yael, support her with your gravity.

  —Cap, create a dome of murky water. I want vision to be a problem.

  All three obeyed instantly.

  Space changed texture.

  Mila’s heat warped perception like an invisible layer—something that wasn’t fog, but behaved like it: a zone where edges stopped being reliable. Yael compressed the area with gravity, giving it density and direction, preventing the distortion from dispersing. Cap finished the whole thing with a dome of thick, dark water, loaded with conceptual sediment; light swallowed itself trying to pass through.

  Even Dinamo would have trouble seeing clearly.

  Caetano added support with a minimal gesture: a thin black mist, light, without pushing himself. It wasn’t the kind of effort worth wasting, but it was enough to reinforce the blockage without breaking his own equilibrium.

  Ramiro, dragging himself out of shock through sheer hatred and survival, joined Cap: a mass of bubbles expanded like a swarm, reflecting confused flashes inside the murky water. Irina added one more layer—a mass of cotton that didn’t just obstruct, but cushioned: emotional protection disguised as tactics.

  The concealment area didn’t exceed five hundred meters.

  They didn’t need more. They just needed to breathe.

  Yehiel gave the next order without pause.

  —Quach, Akem: help Dimitri. Chase those copies. Destroy as many as you can.

  Both complied.

  Quach burst out of the cover with a feral howl. His body became more bestial than it already was; it wasn’t just muscle—it was compressed animal intent, hunger to tear pieces off. Akem followed faster: he detonated into a storm of lightning, space thundered around him, and for an instant the open field remembered what fear looked like.

  Yehiel looked at his last two helpers.

  —Amaltea, Zlad: in reserve. You’ll handle protection and healing. Don’t move unless necessary.

  Both nodded.

  Everything was ordered.

  Everything was working.

  But Yehiel couldn’t stop there.

  He couldn’t contain his temperament.

  He turned to Katherine, serious, without dramatics—like someone allowing himself one honest sentence before going back to fighting.

  —I’m disappointed in you, Katherine. I expected more from an entity as prestigious as you.

  In another context, those words would’ve earned him an immediate confrontation. Katherine’s subordinates wouldn’t have tolerated it. But that “other context” had died with Freya.

  Now, the only thing that existed was tension.

  Caetano burned him with a stare. Of course.

  Others didn’t even react; they were still stunned.

  Katherine, however, looked indifferent. Not because she was above it—because she had no mental space left to protect anyone’s pride.

  She didn’t care how much respect Yehiel had left for her.

  She only cared that things unfolded according to her estimations.

  The commentator’s voice returned, cheerful, as if there weren’t fresh corpses.

  —Due to the need to respect the brilliant idea of our dear furry friend, we won’t have cameras inside his improvised visual block! —he announced, with irritating energy—. So, as compensation for our demanding audience, here are some close-up shots of our beloved god!

  The screens changed.

  And shots began to appear of Dinamo’s copies posing for the public—smiling, twirling the weapon, playing with the camera angle—while dodging—or trying to—attacks from Quach, Akem, and an unleashed Dimitri.

  Some copies even waved.

  Like celebrities.

  Then those same copies spoke in unison, mocking.

  —Do you seriously think we need vision to kill you?

  The weapons changed.

  The sniper rifles warped into automatic rifles.

  The barrage began.

  The sound wasn’t “gunfire.” It was rain—metal and concept, a continuous hammering meant to punch through the concealment by saturation.

  Inside the cover, Katherine moved.

  Her voice carried clear, without panic.

  —Don’t try to deflect the bullets. Just dodge.

  As she spoke, she fused her corrupted pistols.

  The weapons deformed and locked together like living pieces, forming a cursed sniper rifle—longer, thinner, with a structure that looked sick. Katherine chambered an indigo round.

  The material capable of killing Dinamo.

  Her pulse didn’t tremble, but her faith wasn’t there either. She had no expectations.

  Only insistence.

  Yehiel didn’t look convinced, but he followed her order.

  Because at that moment, it wasn’t like he had many other options.

  The field entered a new dead time.

  Time that lasted only a few seconds.

  But it was enough for Dinamo to recover his protection.

  Katherine didn’t feel it, but if Dinamo’s words were true—and they clearly were—the recovery window had completed.

  But she knew better.

  Yehiel had devised a quick, good strategy to counter Dinamo’s dominion.

  It wasn’t enough.

  When Dinamo fought seriously, you had to go further.

  Yehiel didn’t have the experience or understanding to grasp what it meant to face Dinamo.

  Then what Katherine was waiting for arrived.

  A burst of projectiles sought Yael.

  Yael tried to dodge, but the volume overwhelmed him. He’d been doing his best to slip through the tide, but his luck had run out.

  Yehiel didn’t hesitate.

  He moved.

  He swapped places with his best friend.

  One of the many things he’d learned while refining control over his conceptual ability. He and his friends could interchange—meaning he could trade positions with them, or they with him.

  He did it without thinking about implications.

  He only remembered Katherine’s words: don’t deflect, dodge.

  Yehiel chose something else.

  To face it.

  Amaltea acted instantly, as if she’d already foreseen it. Her ability covered Yehiel’s skin with dense, indestructible gold—conceptual armor that wasn’t metal.

  It was a fact.

  The bullets hit.

  And bounced without damage. Harmless.

  For a second, Yehiel almost felt relief. Almost allowed himself to question Katherine’s judgment internally.

  Until he felt it.

  From his left side, death was coming for him.

  Not as “danger.”

  As certainty.

  A threat so clean his body understood it as an ending.

  Dinamo and his copies had created that barrage as a way to determine the location of their prey.

  And it worked.

  Yehiel froze.

  For an instant he thought about swapping places with one of his friends. The impulse was automatic—horrible.

  But he resigned.

  Accepted his fate.

  And in that same instant, Quach swapped with him.

  Quach had sensed the threat much earlier. He didn’t hesitate to sacrifice himself.

  His head exploded like a watermelon.

  There was no slow-motion heroism.

  It was instant.

  A brutal mass of flesh and disappearance. Dust.

  The concealment filled with a thick silence, as if even the air refused to continue.

  Everyone was shocked by the spectacle.

  Everyone but one.

  Katherine didn’t allow herself to be shocked. She didn’t allow it because she couldn’t.

  Because the instant the true Dinamo fired, he revealed his location.

  And Katherine wasn’t slow.

  Her shot went out almost at the same time.

  The cursed sniper spat the indigo round.

  There was no thunder.

  There was a line.

  A perfect line that crossed the open field like a sentence.

  In the distance—perfectly camouflaged, something made easy by all the concealment concepts—a golden figure tried to dodge.

  He couldn’t.

  The bullet hit him.

  Dinamo died. Again.

  Or something close enough to be useful.

  The commentator screamed something, ecstatic, but his voice was distant noise to those still breathing inside the cover.

  An instant later, Dinamo returned.

  The original presented himself to them with a wide, satisfied smile—after cloning himself to survive.

  As if the shot had been an interesting caress.

  —That was splendid, Katy —he said, amused—. Only you could locate me that fast. My sincerest congratulations.

  Katherine kept the weapon raised, eyes unwavering.

  She knew it was a good moment to redirect Dinamo’s games.

  Because if they kept facing him like this—open field, dominion of distance, mental erosion—they wouldn’t get far.

  Reaching the hour would be extremely difficult.

  And Dinamo could get bored.

  And if Dinamo got bored, the concept of “worse” still existed.

  Katherine spoke.

  Not as a plea. Not as arrogance.

  As a cold decision.

  —I challenge you to a Skill Duel.

  Space tensed.

  Dinamo smiled wider.

  And for the first time in several minutes, the game changed according to the will of someone who wasn’t Dinamo.