The decision to stay and fight didn't bring peace to Nzambi. It brought a different tremor, a narrow, deadly focus. His hand, which had been trembling before, clenched with steel-like strength around the hilt of his dagger. The world around him—the pyromancer, the aeromancer, the mist, the pain—blurred. All that existed was the man with the fire gloves, who now turned his full attention to Tainá, raising a hand where flames grew into a ball.

  Nzambi didn't run. He acted. But before acting against the enemy, he had to act against himself. His eyes fixed on the smiling face of the pyromancer, but his hand, holding the dagger, moved first to his own left forearm. With a quick, unhesitating motion, he pressed the tip of the purple blade against his skin below the elbow and pulled.

  A sharp, cold burning, different from the hot pain of the dog bite, cut his flesh. A trickle of bright red blood welled from the shallow cut, running down his arm. The dagger, as if it were a thirsty creature, seemed to vibrate subtly, and a deeper, more sinister glow emanated from it. The blood didn't drip to the ground; it seemed to be absorbed by the purple gem.

  Only then, with the price paid and the blade still firmly in his right hand, did he focus on the target. He didn't make any attacking movement toward the enemy. He merely looked. His eyes, now sharp as glass and charged with the intent his own blood had purchased, locked onto the pyromancer's face, fixing on a point between his eyes where the cowboy hat cast a shadow.

  He thought, with all the clarity of hatred and sacrifice: Disappear.

  There was no ray of light, no sound of fabric tearing. Only a sudden, impossible absence.

  The pyromancer's head, from the jawline up, simply ceased to exist. There was no gush of blood, no scream. What remained was an abrupt and impossibly smooth stump at the top of the neck, as if the upper part of the man had been carefully erased from reality. The body, still standing for a moment, lost all tension. The flames on the gloves died instantly. Then, like a rotten post, the corpse toppled sideways and fell to the icy ground with a dull, surprisingly light thud.

  Zé Vento jumped back as if the ground were on fire, his eyes wide, fixed on the headless body of his companion and then on Nzambi—on the man who hadn't moved, who still held the dagger dripping with his own blood, and whose only act had been a deadly gaze.

  "What the FUCK!" the word was spat out, laden with a genuine horror that replaced all presumption. The fear was now mathematical: distance didn't matter. Only the range of the gaze. And the price in blood.

  He backed away further, keeping a distance of about five meters, his eyes scanning Nzambi from head to toe, trying to understand.

  "You... you did that?" His voice was lower now, cautious, calculating.

  Nzambi just stared at him, panting. The dagger in his hand seemed to weigh a ton. The euphoria of the successful attack evaporated, replaced by the cold calculation of his next move.

  Shit. He's too far away, he thought, panic trying to return. From here, I can't reach him with the effect. Needs proximity, focus... Maybe if I... no, he's fast. I could still run. Tainá...

  He risked a quick glance at her. She was still on her knees, but now looking at him with an indefinable expression—shock, hope, despair. The fear was still there, but mixed with something else.

  I can run. Leave her. Live a few more minutes. The cowardly option whispered, sweet and logical. But its taste now was of ashes and shame.

  I'd rather die, he thought, and the final simplicity of that idea was almost a relief. At least I won't die as a coward who abandons those who fought for him.

  Thinking this, he felt a new kind of strength, desperate and irrevocable, rise up through his legs. He squeezed the dagger until his knuckles were white, and with a hoarse cry that was more rage than courage, he ran toward Zé Vento.

  The aeromancer didn't wait. He jumped back again, an almost instinctive reaction, maintaining the distance with frustrating ease.

  "I get your trick now!" Zé Vento shouted, his voice regaining a thread of confidence. "You need to be close, don't you? After all, my head's still in place. One thing I've learned in this life as a slave hunter and mercenary: there are no omnipotent gems. They all have their rules, their limits. Yours... is distance."

  Nzambi ran, his wounded leg burning with each step, but the man simply retreated, almost floating, propelled by controlled gusts of wind from his boots.

  "But I'm tired of this childish game of tag," said Zé Vento, and stopped retreating.

  Instead, he crouched slightly and took a colossal leap upward, propelled by an explosion of concentrated wind under his feet. He rose three, four meters into the air, hovering for a moment against the grey sky. Then, he fell. Not just fell; he dove downward, feet first, and upon hitting the ground with full force, an explosion of wind energy was released.

  VOOOOOOM!

  It wasn't a gust. It was a wall of concussive air that expanded from him in all directions. The impact hit Nzambi like a mule kick to the chest, knocking the breath from him and hurling him backward. His body spun in the air before slamming hard against the icy ground, his head hitting an exposed root with a deep, dull thud that echoed inside his own skull.

  The world disappeared in an explosion of white stars and blinding pain.

  For a few seconds that felt like an eternity, there was nothing. Only a sharp ringing in his ears and a dense, cozy darkness pulling him down. Consciousness was draining away like water between his fingers.

  But something pulled him back. A primitive instinct, stronger than the concussion. Survival.

  He opened his eyes. Vision came blurry, double, pulsing in time with the throbbing pain in his temple. The world spun slowly. He was on his back, looking at the grey sky beginning to brighten. The smell of damp earth, gunpowder, and blood filled his nostrils.

  And then, the sounds returned, first muffled, then clearer: shouts, orders, the frenzied barking of dogs.

  He turned his head, an agonizing task. The scene that revealed itself was a nightmare in slow motion.

  Zé Vento's wind had swept away the mist and dust. The clearing was now exposed, lit by the raw light of dawn. And in it, at least ten, fifteen bandeirantes who had managed to cross the collapsed earth barrier were now advancing, their hungry eyes fixed on two targets: him, fallen on the ground, and Tainá, who was about twenty meters away, trying with difficulty to get up, leaning on her staff like a castaway on a plank.

  The closest one was just three steps from Nzambi, a bearded man with a wide machete raised above his head, eyes gleaming with anticipation of an easy kill.

  Time stopped.

  Nzambi didn't think. He acted.

  With a movement that was pure reflex, he rolled to the side, feeling the machete cut the air where his neck had been an instant before, embedding itself in the earth with a wet sound. In the same continuous motion, his right hand, which still maintained an iron grip on the dagger, moved. Not against the attacker. Against himself.

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  He pressed the tip of the purple blade against the palm of his left hand and pulled.

  The pain was a white-hot flash, different from the cold, dull pain in his head. A clean, deep cut opened in his palm, and blood gushed out, warm and alive. The dagger's gem vibrated in his hand, a pulse almost imperceptible that he felt in his bones, and the blood seemed to be sucked into the blade, disappearing in an instant.

  Only then did he look at the machete man, who was already recovering from the missed swing and preparing for another.

  Nzambi focused. Not on the body, not on the machete. On the man's eyes, filled with a fury now stained with doubt.

  "Disappear."

  The bandeirante's head simply ceased to exist. The body remained standing for a fraction of a second, still in attack posture, before collapsing sideways, the machete slipping from lifeless fingers.

  Nzambi didn't wait. He stood up, the world swaying dangerously around him. The pain in his head was a constant thud, and his palm throbbed. But adrenaline was a fire in his veins.

  "Tainá."

  His gaze swept the clearing until he found her. She was surrounded. Two men were approaching from one side, a third from the other. Zé Vento, he glimpsed, was standing a bit farther back, observing, calculating, a curious smile on his lips, like a spectator enjoying a bloody show.

  Nzambi ran. Not in a straight line, but in a zigzag, a moving target. As he ran toward Tainá, his brain worked with feverish clarity. Each step, each breath, was accounted for.

  The first man in his path raised a spear. Nzambi didn't slow down. He brought the dagger to the already open cut on his forearm, scraping the blade against the wound. A fresh gush of blood. "Disappear." His head vanished. The body along with the spear fell sideways.

  Nzambi passed by him.

  Two more ahead, advancing in unison. He felt weakness coming, a fog at the edge of his consciousness. "No. Not yet." He pressed the dagger against the palm cut again, reopening it. The pain was nauseating. "Disappear! Disappear!" Two heads evaporated simultaneously, the bodies colliding with each other before falling.

  He was seven meters from Tainá. She saw him coming, her exhausted eyes lighting up with a final flash of hope. She tried to raise her staff, but had no strength.

  It was then that Zé Vento, the spectator, decided to enter the game.

  He didn't run. He pulsed.

  With a movement that seemed to defy physics, he took a short, impossibly fast leap, propelled by a concentrated explosion of wind under his feet. It wasn't a high leap, but a precise one. He covered the last meters separating him from Tainá in a low arc and landed right beside her, his movement so smooth it barely disturbed the air.

  Nzambi saw, but he was a step away. A step that felt like an abyss.

  "Enough playing," said Zé Vento, his voice a laden whisper that reached Nzambi's ears with diabolical clarity.

  The aeromancer didn't strike. He merely bent down, wrapped an arm around Tainá's waist, and pulled her to him. She tried to react, but her movements were slow, heavy, as if moving underwater. Her hands beat weakly against Zé Vento's arm.

  "You're going to be mine," he whispered, this time directly in her ear, his hot breath against her pale face. "I'm going to have a lot of fun with you before handing you over to Albuquerque. A prize within a prize."

  The expression on Tainá's face was pure horror and disgust. She fought with renewed strength, a last surge of dignity, but Zé Vento only laughed, squeezing her tighter.

  "NO!" The cry tore from Nzambi's throat, laden with a despair so deep it eclipsed the pain.

  He lunged forward, the dagger raised, willing to cut off his own entire arm if necessary to make that man disappear.

  But his feet didn't move.

  He looked down. From the ground, thick, dark, knotted vines had sprouted like serpents, wrapping around his ankles and calves with relentless strength. They tightened, pulling him down, rooting him to the ground. He tried to pull, but it was like trying to uproot a tree with bare hands.

  He looked around and saw their author: a man farther back, kneeling, with his hands pressed against the ground. A plant adept, hidden among the bandeirantes. Their eyes met, and in his was a gleam of perverse satisfaction.

  Zé Vento, seeing Nzambi trapped and powerless, let out a low chuckle.

  "Good job, Matinho," he said, not taking his eyes off Nzambi. "Keep the hero nice and quiet there. I think he's put on enough of a show for today."

  He began to retreat, dragging Tainá with him, who now fought in silence, her tears cutting clean trails through the grime on her face.

  Nzambi pulled, fought, tore his own skin against the tendrils, but they didn't give. He cut himself and made some of the vines disappear, but more grew in their place.

  He watched, immobilized not only by the plants but by the horrible sense of impotence, as Zé Vento carried Tainá away, into the shadows of the forest where the other bandeirantes were already regrouping, his prize secured.

  All was lost. He had failed.

  It was then that a new sound cut through the air. Different from the blast of muskets, the hiss of arrows, the roar of wind.

  CRACK!

  It was a dry, clean, precise snap. The sound of a shot from a weapon far more modern than a musket.

  Mid-leap, something impossible happened. The left side of Zé Vento's head simply... vanished, replaced by a red mist and an unrecognizable mass. The body, still propelled by the leap, lost all direction and fell heavily to the ground about twenty meters away. Tainá rolled away from the inert body, stopping in a low bush. She moved, trying to get up, dazed but alive.

  Nzambi stopped fighting the vines, his mind processing what he'd seen. The shot came from... from where? From nowhere. From the trees? From the sky?

  Before anyone could react, another dry crack.

  CRACK!

  A bandeirante who was running toward Tainá, seeing the opportunity, was hit in the chest. He was thrown backward, the impact so brutal it was clear: it wasn't a musket ball. It was something more.

  "What's happening!?" someone shouted.

  As the remaining bandeirantes, confused and terrified by the sudden murder of their aeromancer ally and the phantom sniper, began to look frantically in all directions, seeking the origin of the shots, death came from a place none of them expected.

  From the very shadow of a capit?o do mato who was scanning the brush with his eyes, something moved. It wasn't a shadow—it was a whole person who seemed to detach from the darkness as if stepping out from behind a curtain. Whisper.

  She emerged in a fluid motion, already in a firing stance. In her hands, she held not a dagger or a knife, but a short-barreled revolver with a light wood stock. Before the capit?o do mato could even turn his head, she pulled the trigger.

  CRACK!

  At such close range, there was no error. The man fell.

  Whisper didn't hesitate. She ran n three strides, she was beside Tainá. She didn't try to carry her. She merely grabbed her by the arm and, with a step to the side, the two women seemed to sink into the deepest shadow of the bush where Tainá had fallen. A shadow that suddenly turned pitch black, swallowed them completely, and then dissipated, leaving behind only the empty ground and slightly crushed leaves.

  To the watching bandeirantes, it was as if the ground had devoured them.

  Nzambi, still trapped by the vines, felt a relief so intense his legs almost gave way.

  "At least... she'll survive," he murmured to himself, a hot tear cutting through the grime on his face. His duty was done. The sacrifice hadn't been in vain.

  He raised his gaze. There was no more need to fight. The fatigue, pain, and blood loss hit him all at once. He saw one of the burliest bandeirantes, a man with an axe, pointing at him and shouting orders. He saw another, farther back, with his hands on the ground—the plant adept, probably. He saw a group reorganizing, anger replacing the initial fear, now focused on him, the last visible target.

  And then, he saw movement on top of the small rise behind them. Two men, sweating and grumbling, were rolling a huge stone, the size of a barrel, toward the edge. Their eyes met Nzambi's, and a cruel smile spread across one of their faces.

  Nzambi looked at the vines holding him. He looked at the stone beginning to roll down the hill, gaining speed, its deadly path as clear as day.

  With half his body trapped, there was nowhere to go. Nothing to do.

  He let out one last sigh, closed his eyes, and waited for the impact.