On the Path of Eternal Strength.

Chapter 111 - 109 Where the Soul Opened Its Eyes

The silence of the bunker did not last much longer.Narka remained before Sebastián with his complete form occupying much of the reflected room of the Veil. The Qi Mother Core remained extinguished behind him, tall and narrow, with that drained white that no longer looked like a living moon, but like luminous stone after having been emptied from within. To one side, the controlled fission reactor preserved its cold lines on the panel, still marking the loss of thirty percent of the stored energy. Nothing in the room moved violently, but the air had the density of something that had just happened, as if Sebastián’s advance had left an invisible mark on every reinforced wall.

Sebastián kept his gaze turned away.

Not out of fear. The pain had already gone from sharp to an uncomfortable pressure behind his eyes, but his body still remembered the instant when looking directly at Narka had been like trying to hold a mountain inside his pupil. The crimson Qi around him was contained, firmer than before, deeper. It no longer moved like a current of level eight. It had crossed a border. The new realm did not need to announce itself with thunder to feel different.

Narka was the one who spoke.

—Sebastián, you have awakened your Spiritual Consciousness.

The phrase fell without adornment.

Sebastián barely raised his face, but he did not look at him again immediately. The word had weight. It was not a technique. It was not a common ability. It was something that belonged to higher levels of perception, to a way of feeling the world that did not depend only on the eyes, on Qi, or on the body.

Narka continued with the same grave, ancient voice, but without cold distance. He spoke to him with respect, yes, but also with a calm familiarity, like someone who instructs without forgetting the bond that already exists.

—Not completely. Partially. For someone who has just reached Realm 9, Law Cultivator, that is already abnormal. Your spiritual energy advanced beyond what your realm should naturally sustain.

Sebastián remained silent, as if he were measuring the new weight of his own body. He did not seem visibly surprised, but his stillness was different. Information was entering him and settling without asking permission.

—The pain came because you looked too much —Narka said—. Not with common eyes. With what you have just awakened behind them. If you try to observe a superior presence without controlling the amount of spiritual power you concentrate in your gaze, your own body will reject it.

Sebastián breathed low.

—Then I must regulate it.

—Yes —Narka answered—. Look at me again. But this time close your eyes first. Feel the pressure in them and reduce the amount of spiritual power you let pass. Do not try to see everything. Only what is necessary.

Sebastián obeyed.

He closed his eyes. The bunker was reduced for him to breathing, metallic cold, and accumulated pressure. For a few seconds he moved nothing else. Behind his eyelids, that deep reddish energy with dark flashes once again felt like a current too close to the surface. Before, it had come out without form, pushed by the recent advance. Now Sebastián took it with more care. He did not extinguish it. He could not, and he should not either. He only forced it to retreat.

The energy diminished.

The dark crimson stopped pressing with so much force behind his eyes. The black flashes sank toward a more controlled depth, still present, but less violent. His breathing stabilized. The crimson Qi around his body responded to that control and settled again over him, as if the new realm were beginning to accept more precise orders.

Then he opened his eyes.

He looked at Narka.

The pain returned, but no longer like a stab that forced him to turn away. This time it was a bearable pressure, heavy, intense, similar to holding one’s gaze before a light too large without allowing it to enter completely. Sebastián did not turn his face away. He held the visual contact, serious, motionless, while the red irises in the shape of a crimson tornado spun with that new deep glow crossed by black shadows.

And then he saw.

He did not see only Narka’s colossal body. Not only the black and gray shell, the incandescent red veins, the dark quartz spines, or the golden eyes without pupils. He saw something coming out of him. Bursts of energy rose from his entire body, not like smoke, not like common energy, but like mineral pressure turned into form. They rose around his figure in irregular, sharp peaks, similar to the tips of mountains being born from his back, his shoulders, his shell, and his legs. Each one seemed made of weight, earth, and depth, as if Narka’s visible body were barely the surface of a mountain range buried beneath the world.

The air around the Guardian was not empty. It was full of layers.

Sebastián saw dense currents spinning near the mineral plates, lines of force leaning toward the shell, veins of power descending toward the floor of the Veil and rising again in the form of pressure. It was not an active technique. It was not an attack. It was presence. A minimal part of what Narka was when he stopped reducing himself for the common world.

Sebastián clenched his jaw, but he did not turn his gaze away.

Narka observed him calmly.

—What you are seeing is not me in totality —he said—. It is only the part of my form that I allow you to observe without hurting you.

The explanation did not sound like an arrogant warning. It sounded like a necessary limit. Sebastián understood the difference. If Narka had opened more of himself before that newly awakened gaze, the previous pain would have been only the beginning. Seeing did not mean understanding. Perceiving did not mean enduring.

—Your Spiritual Consciousness can give you an advantage —Narka continued—, but it can also harm you if you use it without measure. Not everything that exists should be looked at head-on. Not at the beginning.

Sebastián held the gaze for a few more seconds. The dark crimson in his eyes stirred, but it no longer overflowed. The pressure behind his gaze was still there, intense, difficult, alive. Even so, control was maintained.

—I understand —he said.

Narka barely inclined his head.

—Then begin with that. Before wanting to see more, learn to decide how much you can see.

The bunker fell silent again, but it was no longer the same silence as the previous ending. Now there was another test, less visible and more dangerous: a gaze that had learned to open, but still needed to learn when to stop.

Narka did not prolong the explanation inside the bunker.

The room remained marked by Sebastián’s advance: the Qi Mother Core extinguished before them, the reactor signaling the loss of energy, and that newly stabilized crimson pressure around the young man. But the other tremor, the one that had come from the upper part of the mansion, could not remain without an answer. Narka turned his head toward the exit of the bunker and, for an instant, his golden eyes seemed to measure the distance between the basement and Valentina’s room through the walls of the Veil.

—We will continue upstairs —he said—. First we must see Valentina and Virka.

His form began to shrink.

The colossal body compressed with a controlled calm. The black and gray plates diminished, the red veins withdrew beneath a smaller scale, and the dark quartz spines lost size until the living mountain once again became a small, compact presence, but still too heavy to seem ordinary. Narka did not leave the Veil. The mansion remained wrapped in that dark reflection where things resembled the real world without belonging to it completely.

Sebastián observed him without trying to look too deeply at him again.

Narka leapt lightly onto his shoulder. There he settled, firm, with his head held high and his gaze directed toward the corridor. It was not the posture of a pet or a burden. It was the position of an ancient guide placed near the ear of the one who had to learn to look without destroying himself with what he saw.

Sebastián left the bunker.

The basement of the Veil extended before him with a new clarity. Before, that place would have been only corridor, wall, shadow, and energy. Now there was more. At the edges of the corridor, near the corners, small presences moved slowly. Some had an almost human shape, but incomplete, like low silhouettes made of pale smoke and broken memory. Others seemed like small animals, creatures without an exact species that advanced on thin legs or floated a few centimeters above the floor. There were also geometric figures, fragments of opaque light suspended in the air, spinning over themselves as if they obeyed tiny laws that did not belong to matter.

Sebastián did not stop, but his gaze changed.

He saw them.

Not with the eyes from before. Not as one looks at a chair, a door, or a crack in the wall. He perceived them with a deeper layer of the gaze, an internal pressure that he still had to contain so it would not become pain. Each creature left a faint trace, an edge of spiritual energy, a minimal trail that before would have passed invisible even inside the Veil.

—What you are observing are lower wandering spirits —Narka said from his shoulder.

The voice was not loud. It did not need to be. It arrived grave, close, with that ancient respect that in him did not prevent familiarity.

—They are not a threat by themselves. They approach places where spiritual energy is dense. This mansion, the Veil around it, and my own presence attract them. They feed on residues, on pressure, on remains that greater beings do not even notice.

Sebastián continued advancing toward the stairs. One of the small figures, similar to a bird without complete wings, moved out of the way before he passed. Another, with the shape of a blurred child, remained beside the wall until dissolving into a gray stain. Sebastián did not extend his Qi toward them. He did not try to touch them. He only observed enough to understand that they had been there long before he could see them.

—Spiritual Consciousness —Narka continued— is a way of perceiving, projecting, and using spiritual energy through the connection between consciousness and the soul. At the beginning, its most important function is not to attack. It is to see. To distinguish that which the physical senses cannot capture.

They went up to the first floor.

The reflection of the mansion changed with them. The stairs seemed higher inside the Veil, the paintings on the walls had deeper shadows, and the extinguished lamps preserved a cold glow, as if they still remembered the light of the common world. Sebastián noticed presences in places where before he would only have seen decoration: a curved shape over a railing, a small group of luminous points gathered beneath a table, an animal shadow crossing the ceiling before disappearing into a corner.

Not all of them had bodies. Not all of them had faces. Some were barely old intention, weak hunger, repetition.

—With it you will be able to notice spirits, traces, residues of techniques, hidden presences, and variations of energy that do not belong to common sight —Narka said—. But you must remember something: perceiving does not mean understanding. And understanding one part does not mean you can endure everything. That is why you must regulate how much you let pass.

Sebastián kept his gaze forward.

—If I do not do it, the pain returns.

—Pain will be the lesser warning —Narka answered—. There are presences that do not hurt because they want to, but because they simply exist above the capacity of the one who observes them. You have just opened a door. You must still learn not to cross it all at once.

The explanation did not stop their steps. While Narka spoke, both advanced through the corridor of the first floor toward the upper area of the mansion, where Valentina’s room was farther ahead. The tremor from above no longer felt like before, but a residue remained in the air, a fine vibration that did not belong to the sleep of a normal girl.

Sebastián felt it too.

His red eyes, with the crimson tornado and those dark flashes still contained, fixed on the direction of the room. The spiritual energy around his gaze tried to deepen by instinct, but he contained it before it increased. This time he did not need Narka to remind him.

The Guardian noticed it.

—Good —he said, with low approval—. Do not look more than necessary. Look with intention.

Sebastián did not answer.

He kept walking.

At the end of the corridor, the shadows of the Veil accumulated with greater density near Valentina’s door. They were not aggressive, but they were restless. Small wandering spirits kept away from that area, like lesser animals moving aside from a presence they did not understand. Sebastián felt how the air became different. More delicate. More tense.

Narka raised his head on his shoulder.

—There it is.

The door to Valentina’s room stood before them, closed, wrapped by the night of the Veil and by a stillness too fine to belong only to sleep.

Sebastián did not open the door immediately.

The wood remained before him, closed, wrapped by the shadow of the Veil and by that fine vibration coming from inside Valentina’s room. It was not a violent pressure. It did not have the shape of an attack or the smell of an invasion. Precisely because of that, it was more unsettling. There was something delicate behind it, something too soft to be a common threat and too clear to belong only to a little girl’s dream.

Narka remained on his shoulder, small in form, but grave in presence. His golden eyes looked at the door with ancient attention, without visible alarm.

—Do not force your gaze when we enter —he said—. Look only at what you can sustain. If you feel pain, reduce the depth.

Sebastián nodded once. The deep reddish energy behind his eyes tried to open by instinct, drawn by the vibration that came from the room, but he contained it before it rose too much. Then he placed his hand on the door and pushed it carefully.

Valentina’s room appeared inside the Veil as a more silent version of itself. The bed remained in the same place, the blankets over the little body of the girl, the pink bunny pajamas visible beneath the dim light of the reflected night. Everything was familiar and, at the same time, different. The objects seemed to keep a second shadow. The edges of the furniture did not end in wood, but in a fine gloom. The air was full of small silver and golden particles, suspended around the bed like moon dust stopped before falling.

Virka was there.

She was still wearing her black, red, and golden dojo tunic, marked by the night of training. She stood beside Valentina’s bed, leaning over her, with one hand carefully resting on the girl’s head and the other near the hair that spread across the pillow. She did not seem to be using an aggressive technique. Nor was she resting. Her posture was that of someone who had reached an alarm first and had decided to become a wall before fully understanding what she had to block.

Sebastián saw her in a way he would not have been able to before.

Around Virka there was not only aura. There was a form. A dark, bestial presence, rising behind her body like a shadow with its own instinct. It was not complete or clean. It looked like a beast’s head formed from blackness and deep red, with long fangs surrounding the line of her face like a jaw prepared to close over anything that came near. But those fangs were not extended toward Valentina. Near the girl, they retracted, they hid inside the same shadow, like claws folding before touching something fragile. Virka’s beast did not disappear before Valentina. It contained itself. It surrounded her without biting.

That surprised Sebastián more than his face showed.

Then he looked at Valentina.

The girl slept deeply, but her sleep was not still. From her body came a golden and silver glow, soft, comfortable, spread over the bed like a breath of light. It was not strong like a discharge or dense like Qi. It was a fine, precious clarity, born from a more internal place. Her eyes remained closed, but over her eyelids there was a barely visible radiance, as if something behind them had learned to look even while she slept. The small particles that filled the room were born from that light and came undone before touching the floor.

Sebastián felt that his gaze wanted to deepen further.

He contained it.

Even so, the air seemed full of layers to him. Virka’s protective shadow. Valentina’s glow. The wandering spirits kept away from the door. Narka’s presence on his shoulder, heavy and ancient, regulating itself so as not to crush him. For the first time since he awakened that perception, Sebastián understood that seeing was not receiving information. Seeing was exposing oneself.

Virka turned her head when she noticed his entrance. Her red eyes went from Sebastián to Narka.

—What is happening? —she asked in a low voice.

Sebastián did not answer. He did not take his eyes off Valentina, although he kept the pressure behind his eyes controlled.

—Narka —he said—. Explain.

The Guardian descended from Sebastián’s shoulder and fell softly to the floor. Even reduced, his presence made the golden and silver particles around the bed move slightly, not as if they were fleeing, but as if they recognized a greater weight entering the room. Narka approached enough to look at Valentina without invading Virka’s space.

—What is happening with her is not the same as yours, Sebastián —he said with a grave, ancient voice, but contained so as not to disturb the girl’s sleep—. Even though both of you have awakened a partial form of Spiritual Consciousness.

Virka barely furrowed her brow.

—Her too?

—Yes —Narka answered—. But in her case the origin is different. Valentina has not advanced through cultivation. Her soul reached a point of precision and strength sufficient to open that faculty by itself. It is not a damaging rupture. It is a threshold. Something inside her reached the correct edge and crossed it.

Valentina continued sleeping. The golden and silver glow spread a little more over the blanket, then withdrew again with the girl’s breathing.

Narka continued, measuring each word so as not to make the explanation heavier than necessary.

—In cultivators, this process normally becomes ordered upon reaching Realm 10, Middle Patriarch. At that level, Qi stops serving only the body in an earthly way. The cultivator can sustain himself in the air, nourish his organs with energy, reduce the need for food and sleep, and begin to open a deeper door toward the soul.

Sebastián listened in silence. Virka did not take her hand away from Valentina’s head.

—That first step creates the Reflection of the Anima —Narka said—. An inner space where consciousness, the soul, and spiritual energy gather under a form of their own. There Spiritual Consciousness can settle and protect itself. It is like giving a dwelling to something that, otherwise, would remain exposed.

The word remained in the room with a different weight.

Narka looked at Sebastián first, then at Valentina.

—When that faculty appears before the Reflection of the Anima exists, it is called naked Spiritual Consciousness.

Only then did the term take shape inside the scene.

Sebastián understood the gravity before asking. Virka did too. Narka did not need to raise his voice. The light over Valentina, so beautiful a few seconds before, acquired a different fragility.

—Naked —Virka repeated, low.

—Because it exists without a structure to shelter it —Narka explained—. It can perceive, it can open a path between consciousness and the soul, but it does not yet have a place where it can fully protect itself. In you, Sebastián, the risk is lesser. You are a cultivator. You can regulate it, and when you reach Realm 10, your Reflection of the Anima will be able to give it support. Until then, you must use it with measure.

Sebastián did not answer, but his eyes hardened.

—In Valentina —Narka continued—, the case requires more care. She awakened a partial form, limited to the physical body. For now it manifests through the eyes, the same as in you. A complete Spiritual Consciousness could project itself outside the body, take form, travel, observe at a distance, and perceive without depending on common sight. What the two of you have is not that yet. It is an initial opening. A half-open door.

Valentina moved slightly under the blanket. Virka immediately lowered her gaze, and the bestial shadow of her aura once again retracted its fangs near the girl’s face. Sebastián saw that spiritual gesture with uncomfortable clarity: Virka was not only caring for her with her hands. Even her wildest nature forced itself not to brush her with an edge.

—Then, what do we do? —Sebastián asked.

Narka approached the bed a little more.

—It is not convenient to seal it completely —he said—. If I seal it absolutely, it could affect the way her soul is trying to stabilize. Besides, this faculty may serve her someday. But it must not remain exposed either.

—Can it harm her? —Virka asked.

Narka answered directly.

—Yes. Not because it exists, but because of what could touch her from outside if it remains unprotected. Spirits, ghosts, forms trapped between the world of the living and that of the dead, residues with will, presences that seek an opening. She will be able to see some of them, perhaps in a minimal way, as remnants of this opening. But seeing them must not allow them to reach her.

The room seemed to become colder.

Sebastián looked at the golden and silver light coming out of Valentina. He no longer saw it only as beauty. He saw it as a small door, open in someone too young to know how to close it.

Narka raised one of his front legs. His Qi appeared in brown tones with light orange flashes, slow, careful, without the crushing pressure he used in combat. The energy gathered before him like a living seal, compact, full of ancient weight.

—I will place a protection inside her soul —he said—. I will not prevent the Spiritual Consciousness from breathing. I will only place my safeguard around it. If something tries to harm her, it will touch my protection first.

Virka kept her hand on Valentina, but her voice came out lower.

—Do it.

Narka did not correct her for the tone. He only inclined his head, maintaining his ancient and close treatment when he spoke again.

—I will do it carefully. You do not let go of her.

Virka nodded.

Sebastián took one more step toward the bed, without opening his gaze too much. Valentina’s glow remained there, golden and silver, breathing with her. Virka’s bestial shadow stayed folded around her, fangs hidden, body ready. Narka began to bring his Qi closer to the girl, not like someone enclosing a light, but like someone building a wall around a flame that still did not know how to defend itself from the wind.

Inside Valentina, the night was not black.

There was golden mist.

It did not extend like a complete landscape or like a world formed with true sky and ground. It was rather a suspended space, soft, without visible walls, covered by a warm clarity that floated in slow layers. Small glimmers fell from above without having an origin, golden and silver particles descending like stardust before dissolving into the same mist. There was no wind. There was no noise. Only a strange calm, too clean, as if the soul had built a simple corner where a little girl could sit without yet understanding the depth of the place that held her.

Valentina was there.

Not like the sleeping body on the bed, but like a reflection of herself. She wore her pink bunny pajamas, the dark brown hair on the upper part and white on the lower part falling messily over her face. Her eyes, one brown and the other light blue, looked around with curiosity, not fear. She was sitting in the middle of that golden mist, with her legs tucked in and her hands resting on the fabric of her pajamas, as if she had just awakened inside a dream that did not fully feel like a dream.

Beside her there was a white rabbit.

It was sitting on its hind legs, still, small, with its ears raised and its body covered by a soft glow of golden and silver tones. It did not seem like a common animal. Its whiteness was not simple fur, but a delicate light that breathed with the mist. Each time it moved its head, minimal flashes ran along its ears and down its back, as if something ancient had chosen a kind form so as not to frighten her.

A butterfly fluttered near them.

It was small, purple, less bright than the rabbit, but no less strange. Its wings left violet trails each time they moved, and around those trails silver sparks appeared, slowly going out in the air. It did not fly far. It circled around Valentina and the rabbit, rose, descended, stopped for an instant over the mist, and lifted flight again with playful softness.

Valentina followed it with her gaze.

Then she looked at the rabbit.

—What are you doing here?

The rabbit blinked.

When it answered, its voice sounded the same as Valentina’s, but calmer, more orderly, as if someone had taken the girl’s same voice and made it careful so it could protect her.

—I am helping, Miss Valentina.

Valentina tilted her head.

—Helping with what?

—With you —the rabbit answered—. What is inside is becoming stronger. If it grows too fast and no one cares for it, it can hurt. I help so it does not harm you.

Valentina looked at her own hands. She saw no wounds. She saw nothing bad. Only the golden and silver glow coming out of her body like a soft breath, illuminating her pajamas, her fingers, and the mist around her. She did not fully understand, but the rabbit did not sound worried. That calmed her.

The butterfly passed in front of her nose and left a violet line in the air. Valentina smiled a little before asking again.

—And her? Why is there a butterfly here?

The rabbit followed the butterfly’s flight with its small eyes.

—She helped you have enough strength to awaken this.

—Did she make me stronger?

—Yes —the rabbit said—. But she did not do it alone. She opened one part. I help so that part does not hurt you. And outside they are also helping you.

Valentina lifted her gaze.

—Outside?

The golden mist changed.

From far away, as if an invisible wall were forming around that place, a layer of different energy began to appear. It was not golden or silver. It was brown, deep, with light orange flashes spreading slowly along the edge of the space. The texture seemed like compact earth, ancient rock, mountain roots closing in silence. It did not cover Valentina like a cage. It surrounded the place like a low, firm wall, made to withstand blows that had not yet arrived.

The rabbit raised one ear.

—Look. Your uncle Narka is helping.

Valentina turned around to see better. The layer of earth kept growing around the golden mist, forming a wide, warm, and heavy safeguard. When she saw it, she did not feel fear. She felt something similar to when Narka stayed near her bed. Something large, ancient, and safe.

—Did Uncle Narka do that?

—Yes, Miss Valentina. He is placing a protection. After this, the ugly things will not be able to touch you so easily.

Valentina hugged her knees.

—Ugly things?

The rabbit moved a little closer to her. Its golden and silver light touched the edge of her pajamas without burning or weighing.

—You are going to see more things when you are awake. Some will be small. Some will be strange. Others may seem horrible. Spirits, shadows, things that walk between where the living live and where the dead rest.

Valentina stopped smiling.

The butterfly lowered its flight and circled near her cheek, leaving a soft purple glow, almost like a caress of light.

—Are they going to hurt me?

—Not if you do not look at them too much —the rabbit answered—. If something is ugly, if something feels bad, you do not have to keep looking at it. You can turn your eyes away. You can call your mom, your dad, or your uncle Narka. And even if something tries to come closer, first it will have to touch this protection.

The brown and orange layer finished closing the edge of the space. It did not cover the golden mist. It did not extinguish the silver glow. It only held it from outside, like firm earth around a small flame.

Valentina looked at it for a while.

—Then... is this going to help me stay with mom and dad? And with Uncle Narka?

The rabbit nodded.

—Yes. It helps you become stronger so you can keep going with them. And they are also helping so you do not have to do it alone.

Valentina lowered her gaze toward her hands again. The golden and silver glow kept coming out of her, but it no longer seemed disordered. The mist moved more calmly. The entire space breathed better.

—I want to stay with them —she said.

—I know —the rabbit answered.

The butterfly descended then.

It flew in small circles over Valentina’s head, leaving violet trails and silver sparks that sounded like tiny bells. Tlin. Tlin. Tlin. It was not a loud sound. It was barely a soft, cheerful ringing, as if something small were promising to stay. Then it settled on her head, light, with its wings opening and closing slowly.

Valentina stayed very still.

—Is it also going to take care of me?

The rabbit looked at the butterfly and then at her.

—Yes. It too.

The butterfly moved its wings again, and the ringing repeated once more, lower, closer. The golden mist lit up around Valentina. The rabbit settled beside her, sitting like a small guardian. Narka’s layer of earth surrounded the entire space without closing it completely. And in that suspended corner of her soul, where a little girl could understand a protection before an explanation, Valentina breathed calmly.

Outside, her body remained asleep.

Inside, something had just been protected.

__________________________________________

END OF Chapter 109

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 fo