The two goons behind Ripa moved to the sides of the alley, and Brando looked down at the trembling puppy in his arms. He couldn't run, and he couldn't hide. The only thing he could do was try to protect the little creature while facing Davide Ripa.

  With slow movements, he crouched down, gently placing the puppy in the most sheltered corner of the alley. The creature let out a low whimper, as if it understood what was about to happen.

  "Stay here," Brando whispered. "Don't move."

  When he stood up, he saw that Ripa's eyes had lost all trace of their professional calm. This wasn't the disciplined, stoic guy he'd seen in class, the one who broke all the records. It was as if a mask had fallen, revealing something wild and uncontrollable beneath the surface.

  "I won't use my Cold Powers," Ripa said, studying him. "I don't need them. Just you, me, and one hit. A single hit, Casadei, and I'll leave you alone."

  Brando knew he didn't stand a chance. The streets of Rione had taught him to survive, not to fight against someone who radiated violence from every pore. In that moment, Davide Ripa was no longer just an Academy student—he was a predator who had finally found his prey. And he was an Omega Rank who had already reached [Violet One] Stage. The Cold Veins, once they began to thicken and allow the manifestation of ice, also modified the body's structure, strengthening it. The higher the Stage and Level, the greater the reinforcement of one's body.

  To Brando's eyes, Davide Ripa was practically superhuman. But one hit... just one hit might be possible.

  Brando moved on instinct. A feline leap, throwing all his weight into his right fist.

  He didn't even see Ripa move. The larger boy's forearm deflected the blow as if swatting away a fly. The uppercut to Brando's stomach followed immediately, precise and devastating.

  Brando doubled over. The taste of blood exploded in his mouth as he went down. Bile rose in his throat along with what little air remained in his lungs.

  He got back up using the wall for support. His legs were shaking, but his gaze remained steady. He charged with his shoulder, desperate.

  Ripa moved to the side with a grace that shouldn't belong to such a massive body. The kick to Brando's hip threw him against the wall like a rag doll.

  The crack of ribs echoed through the alley.

  "Aaaaaargh!"

  Brando slid to the ground with pain clouding his vision. It wasn't just the strength of the blows, but the surgical precision with which they were delivered. This wasn't just some bully. This was someone forged in violence, sharpened like a blade.

  "Want to continue?" Ripa's voice was almost gentle.

  "Coff... of course..." Blood was flowing from Brando's nose, but he got back on his feet.

  "Then I'll show you what fighting really means."

  Ripa took his stance. It wasn't the street posture that Brando knew, but something more lethal. Left foot forward, right foot back. Right arm protecting liver and chin, left arm high and mobile. There were no openings or weak points.

  It was the stance of a professional. Of someone who had spent his life perfecting the art of hurting others.

  Then the blows came like lightning. A left jab, a right cross, too fast to be seen. Then the circular kick, precise as a scalpel but hitting like a cannonball, connected with Brando's face. His nasal septum exploded in a red cloud. The brawls in Rione hadn't prepared him for this. This wasn't street violence—it was a true execution.

  He fell face-first into the mud. His hair mixed with blood and dirt. His eyes burned and every breath was torture. With just a few strikes, he'd been reduced to a human rag.

  Ripa crouched beside him. He lifted Brando's head by the hair with that false gentleness reserved for a wounded beast before the killing blow.

  "Well? Still want to continue?"

  Brando didn't answer. Blood flowed freely from his nose, his face already swollen with bruises. But there was no surrender in his eyes. It was the look of someone who didn't know how to win but refused to lose.

  From its corner, the puppy still trembled in pain, its three eyes fixed on the scene. The temperature around it continued to drop, but no one was paying attention. Not now.

  The other two watched in silence. They were there to ensure Ripa maintained control. That the violence remained professional.

  Davide Ripa gave a slight smirk. Until that moment, he had remained almost impassive, but Brando's stubbornness amused him. Brando seemed like an ant that, despite knowing it couldn't possibly succeed, continued to fight titanically against a giant.

  He lifted Brando by the hair and set him back on his feet. Brando felt sharp pains in his chest.

  "One hit... just one hit..."

  The colossus backed away slightly, maintaining his guard. Brando tried to focus. It was an incredibly difficult task considering his ears were ringing and his head was about to explode. His vision was blurry, but he noticed that Davide Ripa was smiling and trembling with excitement. He was bouncing like a boxer in the ring. He motioned for Brando to come at him, waiting for his opponent's next move.

  Fueled by willpower rather than strength, Brando was no longer able to fight with any awareness. The only thing he could do was charge wildly, staggering left and right.

  Davide Ripa began to mock his opponent. Instead of attacking or trying any move, he simply dodged Brando's clumsy, aggressive attacks. He had a disturbing smile plastered on his face that widened with each failed dodge.

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  They went on like this for a couple of minutes. Brando wouldn't stop. He kept going and going. His eyes were bloodshot; he wasn't thinking about anything.

  "Ahahah... Ahahah... AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!"

  Ripa's laughter exploded in the alley like something primitive and bestial as he continued to dance around Brando's blows. The two goons exchanged nervous glances; they had never seen him lose control like this.

  Suddenly, the colossus delivered a powerful knee to Brando's stomach as he was running toward him, making the impact even more intense. Ripa had finally decided to end it.

  Brando staggered, but somehow his legs didn't give way. He spat a clot of blood and kept his chin pressed against his chest. He stared downward, no longer having the strength to lift his head.

  Then a right uppercut to the chin was so powerful it sent him flying. He rolled and ended up face down in a puddle of mud. His uniform, already in terrible condition, became even dirtier and soaked with slime.

  He was beyond his limit now. Pain had devoured everything.

  But for Ripa, it wasn't enough. He turned Brando onto his back, mounting him like a beast mauling its prey. His fists rained down one after another as his laughter transformed into an animalistic howl that echoed through the alley.

  Through his swollen eye, Brando could only see that face distorted with excitement. His ears were ringing and every sensation was shutting down. He was vaguely aware of the two goons trying to restrain Davide Ripa.

  "Enough, Davide! If you kill him, we'll be in trouble!"

  "Get the fuck off me, you damn bastards!"

  He threw them away like rag dolls. They got up with terror in their eyes. They had seen this madness before and knew where it could lead. Despite not being scrawny at all, they looked like children trying to tame a bear. They looked at each other and gathered their courage, both rushing him together with all their strength. One grabbed him around the torso, the other by the shoulder. They managed to catch him by surprise only because he was lost in his delirium of power.

  They dragged him away, but Ripa wasn't finished. He broke free from their grip with a violent jerk and returned to loom over Brando on the ground. His figure stood above him like a mountain of muscle and madness.

  He planted his feet wide above his victim's battered body. His fingers trembled as he fumbled with the buttons of his pants, and that was pure excitement. He roughly pulled down his zipper and extracted his turgid member from his underwear.

  "Pissing when it's hard is a bitch," he muttered in a husky voice, giving himself a few quick strokes. His face was a mask of pure ecstasy as he struggled to make his erection subside.

  When he finally succeeded, the yellowish stream with its acrid smell hit Brando's face like acid. The boy was on the edge of unconsciousness, but every nerve in his body registered that last, supreme humiliation. He couldn't move, couldn't react, could only endure as his dignity was washed away along with the blood.

  The goons, who until that moment had remained at a distance, burst into grotesque laughter, the same type of laughter Brando had heard the morning before, when the bullies were tormenting the puppy. The same empty cruelty, the same pleasure in humiliating others that didn't discriminate. Then, without adding anything, they followed Davide Ripa as he walked away, leaving Brando alone with his shame.

  Davide Ripa was the perfect embodiment of what it meant to be a Ripa.

  The Ripas weren't like the eight great houses. They didn't own vast territories, didn't control vital resources, and didn't have seats on the Polis council. But they had something more precious: the most powerful blood among all Bearers. While other houses built themselves on possessions and wealth, the Ripas had forged themselves through generations of pure power in the Cold Veins. "The Ninth," they called them. Not rich enough to be among the Eight, but too powerful to be ignored.

  And Davide was their most brilliant and terrifying jewel.

  He had grown up in the training courtyards of the Ripa estate, where children were tempered from the tenderest age. His father, like all Ripas before him, believed that the body should be forged even before the Cold Veins manifested. It wasn't passion that he had transmitted to his son, but pure obsession.

  By twelve, he was already as tall as an adult. His talent for combat was extraordinary even by Ripa standards, which meant a lot in a family where every single member was a living weapon. In challenges between houses, no one his age dared even approach him.

  At fifteen, he had faced his father in ritual combat, a Ripa tradition marking the passage to adulthood. The fight had lasted less than a minute. His father, one of the most powerful Cold Soldiers in the Polis, had left him with that scar on his forehead as a reminder: even the strongest young Ripa still had a long way to go. But instead of humiliating him, that defeat had ignited something within him. He had transformed the scar into a symbol, a constant memento of the distance he still had to cover.

  From that day, his every single breath was dedicated to surpassing that moment. He trained to exhaustion, pushing his body beyond every limit. The scar on his forehead became his mark, not of defeat but of obsession. Even among the Ripas, famous for their maniacal dedication to combat, he was different.

  The problem was that there were no more challenges for him. He had transformed the ritual of challenge into something more perverse: he promised surrender if anyone managed to hit him even once. No one ever had. His victories were so swift and brutal that soon no one wanted to face him anymore, not even in formal challenges between houses.

  But something dark was growing within him. When he found an opponent who didn't immediately surrender, who kept getting up despite the obvious disparity, something in his brain snapped. It wasn't sexual excitement but something more primitive, an ecstasy that went beyond physical pleasure. It was the euphoria of the predator finally finding prey that fights to the end.

  In those rare moments, Davide Ripa became pure madness. His body reacted as if in a state of frenzy, and he continued to brutalize his opponent until someone physically stopped him. This was why he always brought at least two bodyguards with him: not for protection, but to be stopped when he lost control.

  When his Cold Veins manifested at nineteen, it was as if fate itself confirmed the Ripas' supremacy. His Omega Rank was proof that the blood of the Ninth House had nothing to envy from the Eight. Finally, he would be able to seek worthy challenges: other Bearers and especially the Glacials, monsters that would make normal men tremble.

  But the first to experience this new, devastating power was Brando Casadei. A boy from Rione Sanità who had dared to raise his head. The perfect type of prey to awaken the beast sleeping within Davide Ripa.

  It had started to rain.

  Brando lay there, powerless and immobile, without the strength to move. His filthy clothes, heavy with a mixture of mud, rainwater, and urine, had become unbearably heavy.

  He breathed with difficulty, each inhalation like receiving stab wounds to the chest. His eyes burned, but remained dry. Even after all this, after the humiliation and pain, he wouldn't cry. He had made himself a promise years ago, and no matter how broken his body might be, that promise remained intact.

  He felt weak, terribly weak. As if everything he was, everything he had built, had been swept away along with his dignity. But there was something Ripa hadn't managed to tear from him, despite trying: his tears. That small, insignificant victory gave him a crumb of comfort as he lay in the mud.

  Then suddenly, the rain stopped hitting his face.

  With an effort that seemed titanic, Brando opened his less swollen eye. A figure stood in the night, wrapped in an almost surreal aura. Through his blurred vision, he could make out blonde hair that seemed to capture and hold what little light remained, and a pair of green eyes studying him with something analytical. Not with pity or disgust.

  Before he could understand what was happening, darkness claimed him. The last thing he registered, as he slipped into unconsciousness, was the sensation of being swallowed by a darkness that, strangely, didn't seem so threatening.