Читать книгу Universe Аeternov. Book three: A Heart in Ashes - - Страница 10

The target is in the ashes.

While Alina was walking the Path of Silence in the Green World, her father and mother completed the Path of Two Hearts. Alexey the Mechanic and Kitty the Lion were not idle. Their word was spoken not through silence, but through battle, not through tears, but through the roar of the stands.

They traveled all over the Cybernetic planet: runners through sandy deserts and cliffs, wrestling in the Zero Heart Arena, racing across lakes teeming with monsters, jumping from faith over the abyss of erased beans. But all this is just a warm – up. Their real goal was much tougher: the «Colosseum of Sand and Tears» – an arena where endurance wins not strength, where every step is a test of the spirit, where time itself whispered about the deadly responsibility for every breath.

What for? Not for the sake of fame. Not for the sake of blood.

For the sake of the crystals.

Each victory brought Eternal Pulse Crystals, the rarest currency in the multiverse. They could get everything from spare parts for the Core Heart to information about missing worlds, and sometimes even a personal order from Dr. Ziggy «Boom Boom» Future himself.

Alexey and Lev did not fight for the sake of weapons, not for the sake of conquests. They longed for the fastest freedom ship in all the universes.

«Not everyone has the gift of movement,» Alexei said, fixing an old clock in the dressing room. His fingers, exposed in titanium mittens, glistened with silver light. – Not every planet has a teleporter. But if you have a ship… you choose where to fly and whose hand to hold.

The lion purred, his fur shone with golden veins in the light, his laser eyes sparkled with turquoise-blue light, and his tail left a trail of chrome dust in its wake.:

– Mrrr… and if you suddenly need to urgently deliver a laser pointer the size of the moon, we are ready!

Colosseum of Sand and Tears.

The Colosseum did not stand on the ground. He hung in a rift between worlds where time flowed backwards, and the audience were not just cyborgs and mechanicals, but the spirits of fallen fighters who had come to evaluate who was worthy of living.

The arena was circular, carved from the frozen tears of a Chrono-Heart that fell on the day Knox first cried. The sand underfoot was not sand, but the crushed oaths of traitors. Every step echoed in my memory: broken promises and forgotten words were pounding in my temples like the ringing of bells.

The stands were cracking under thousands of eyes. The Victor’s Crystal shone in the center, pulsating like a living heart, emitting a soft purple light that made the shadows of the fighter’s tremble on the sand.

In the shadows, Three Abyss Gladiators were preparing, an elite squad of Absolute Evil:

1. Wrath-9 is a cyborg with saws instead of hands, who has survived cliffs and disasters. His metal body shimmered rusty red, every joint sparkled from old fights.

2. Shadow-Fang is a killer chameleon whose eyes changed color from green to black depending on emotions, and his skin shimmered like liquid metal.

3. The Mad Mammoth is a 4—meter tank with a chest pain reactor and a new scar from a laser pointer; the armor is covered with burnt symbols.

They came back, and this time there were no rules.

The battle begins.

The robot referee with Knox’s face (old model, before the fall) raised his hand:

– LAUNCH!

Wrath-9 exploded with the roar of a dying reactor, each saw making a crackling sound as if it was cutting through the very air. Alexey froze at that moment, straightened his shoulders, the silver breastplate on his armor reflected the light of the arena like a splash of sunlight on water. His gaze flashed, and he said,

«My chains are made of steel.» My oath is from the light.

At the same moment, Kitty the Lion soared into the air. Her fur sparkled with gold and turquoise sparks, and her tail left a trail of stardust and flashes of blue light that shimmered like a living outline. She did acrobatic somersaults in the air, each movement reflected joy and excitement, laughter burst from her throat and turned into light vibrations resonating with the sand of the arena.

– Hey, Anger! Have you heard the joke about the cyborg who forgot to feed the cat? «Stop it!» she shouted, stabbing her tail right into the enemy’s jaw.