Kael walked home slowly, exhausted by a day… that, in truth, had not lasted even a second.

  His uniform was stained with blood, dark circles shadowed his eyes. Despite his advanced state of fatigue, he held The Velasquez Limit firmly against his chest, as though it were something fragile and precious.

  No one was visible in the streets. He cast curious glances toward the windows of the houses without approaching. People were watching him… the moment they realized he had seen them.

  That’s strange, he thought. I didn’t notice them watching me in the previous two loops…

  He quickened his pace.

  That’s really strange. I would have noticed if someone were observing me, even discreetly.

  He climbed the steps toward his house, not paying attention to the car. His thoughts were elsewhere.

  He turned the handle, stepped inside, removed his shoes.

  A woman’s voice called out:

  “Kael?”

  His mother.

  Just like in the previous loops.

  She came from the living room. The same radiant smile. The same simple, singular beauty.

  When she saw him, she said:

  “Oh, it’s you, my little rascal.”

  Kael couldn’t help but smile. She had always called him that. He could no longer even remember why.

  He walked toward her and looked at her closely. She looked surprised — then, without warning, he embraced her. As he had in the first loop. But this time, he truly held her, gently, her head resting against his chest.

  Startled, she asked:

  “What’s gotten into you, Kael?”

  He still held her. He sighed, as though the breath drained the last of his strength.

  “I’m tired, Mom.”

  She hugged him in return, her arms wrapping around his back.

  “Was it a hard day?”

  He gave a faint smile.

  “You have no idea.”

  He remained like that for a few seconds longer, pressed against her, then said in a half-serious, half-ironic tone:

  “You’re not going to hit me, right?”

  His mother asked the same question as before about the saber in his room.

  Kael explained briefly, without going into details.

  Without wasting another second, he headed toward the garden.

  The sun still shone brightly. He raised a hand to shield his eyes. He descended the steps and sat down, legs relaxed, at the base of the tree. The scent of the flowers his mother had carefully tended lulled him gently, already beginning to pull him toward sleep.

  He shook his head and lightly slapped his cheeks twice to stay awake.

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  Then he turned to what occupied all his thoughts: The Velasquez Limit.

  He opened it and began studying it as he had all the previous works.

  He turned the first pages slowly, like someone pushing open a door they were not entirely sure they were allowed to cross.

  The book resembled no other.

  Not a novel. Not a manual.

  Rather… a succession of visions, demonstrations, formulas interrupted by sentences almost whispered under the breath — as though the author were speaking directly to him from the other side of an abyss.

  The Velasquez Limit.

  A sober title. Yet everything here breathed prohibition.

  Kael devoured the pages without pause. Not out of obligation. Not out of curiosity.

  But because each sentence seemed to scrape away a layer of fog inside his mind.

  It was not a mathematical theory.

  Nor a mystical dogma.

  It was a kind of map… of a mental territory he had always sensed without ever being able to explore.

  And the more he read, the more he understood. Not with words. But with something else.

  Something that vibrated between the lines, between the laws.

  He read a definition scribbled in the margin, almost erased:

  “The Velasquez Limit is the exact point at which the observer becomes the cause of what he observes, of what he understands.”

  He stopped. Reread the sentence several times.

  His heart quickened for no logical reason.

  That was it. Exactly that.

  The point where every attempt to understand… alters the object.

  The threshold where thought can no longer remain a neutral witness.

  Another note read:

  “It is a boundary. A threshold. It was not designed to control the cycle… but to allow one to escape it.”

  Kael closed his eyes for a moment.

  Everything was becoming clearer… and more dangerous.

  He was not reading a book.

  The book was reading him.

  And the further he advanced, the more he felt his own mind shifting shape.

  As though what he understood could no longer be “forgotten.”

  As though, once past a certain threshold, there would be no returning.

  But he continued.

  Because he no longer had a choice.

  And because, deep down, he did not want to go back.

  Timidly, Kael thought:

  I… I think Dubium misunderstood “The Velasquez Limit”…

  As though questioning his words bordered on heresy.

  He recalled what Dubium had said:

  “If one truly understands the cause — before the consequence erupts — then the cycle can be broken.”

  He continued thinking, eyes still on the pages:

  “The Velasquez Limit designates the exact point at which the observer becomes the cause of what he observes, of what he understands…”

  Dubium did not see far enough, he thought.

  I’ve already identified the cause. And I know what I must do to detach myself from the Ouroboros.

  But… that detachment isn’t enough. It would only be a retreat. Not a true escape.

  He yawned, exhausted.

  Tears of fatigue slid down his cheeks. He wiped them away with his sleeve.

  Then he continued inwardly:

  Even Velasquez himself… was probably mistaken. About the method. About the understanding of his own limit.

  Kael thought:

  I have to choose another path. Something that is neither Remanence nor Dissonance.

  Something the cause cannot foresee.

  Something that cannot generate any consequence.

  He lay down in the grass, eyes fixed on the branches of the tree drifting in the wind.

  His thoughts continued to turn, clear, almost autonomous:

  Neither introspection.

  Nor refusal.

  Something in between.

  Or beyond.

  A point of strangeness.

  A refusal to play by the system’s own rules.

  His own words returned to him.

  He blinked several times. He struggled to keep his eyes open.

  Yet even that did not prevent him from thinking:

  “A refusal to play by the system’s own rules.”

  The words echoed in a loop.

  For me to leave the Ouroboros of causality…

  For no consequence to create a new cause…

  I would have to erase the cause itself.

  But how?

  His body felt pinned to the ground, too tired to move. His eyelids grew heavier.

  I mustn’t fall asleep, he thought. It might trigger another loop.

  He slowly pushed himself upright against the tree, rubbed his face, and resumed:

  For me to erase the cause…

  I must erase my flaw.

  Because that is the cause.

  But it would take dozens… perhaps hundreds of loops to erase that emotional void… like polishing a pane of glass forever without ever being able to pass through it.

  And I don’t know how…

  He sighed, emptied.

  Then he lifted his eyes… and saw his mother descending the garden steps.

  Her hair floated in the wind, her skin glowed softly under the sun.

  Kael looked at her, almost in wonder.

  She approached him, still half-sitting, half-lying against the tree.

  She sat down beside him.

  She smelled of clean linen and lavender.

  With infinite gentleness, she took his head and laid it upon her lap, running her fingers through his hair.

  Kael, lying there, looking up at her, thought:

  I won’t be able to reach the Velasquez Limit…

  She smiled at him.

  I won’t have the strength, he thought again.

  So he simply said:

  “I’m so tired…”

  And with those words, in the cool breeze, the sun still high, and the scent of lavender…

  Kael fell asleep.

  A tear rolled down his cheek.

  His mother leaned down, kissed his forehead, and whispered:

  “Rest, my little rascal. You deserve it.”