Deepali and her twenty-nine followers materialized on the mirrored blood-ground, their feet making no sound as they landed. The blood beneath them rippled like a living thing, and the twin moons above began their ancient, unerring orbit.
On the VIP balcony, ten lakh cultivators held their collective breath.
Aryan sat on his throne, one small leg draped casually over the armrest. Six years old. The body of a child. The presence of something far older. The cloak pooled around him like liquid shadow.
His voice came soft, almost bored—the tone of someone who'd already won before the match started.
"Welcome, Deepali Raj. Welcome to the Crown's arena."
His words weren't loud, but they carried. They echoed. They penetrated every consciousness in the dome.
"I've been waiting for this moment. Not out of fear—but curiosity. Will you be stupid enough to actually come?"
The crowd, watching through the mirrors, stirred uneasily. There was something in his tone—something that tasted like poison dressed as honey.
[System: "Host, arrogance level: catastrophic. Confidence based on: reincarnation experience across two previous worlds + luck stat that actively violates physics + a six-year-old with the tactical mind of an octogenarian."]
Aryan leaned back further, completely at ease. "Luck isn't arrogance if it works."
[System: "It's arrogance. You're just too lucky to die from it. Statistical note: you should have been dead seventeen times by now. Eighteen if we count that incident with the falling from a dragon."]
Aryan: "That was self damaging you know, but the main thing is I got out in one piece."
[System: "yeah, definitely, you made that innocent dragon fall from thousands of feet You didn't even try to save yourself—you just existed and got saved. That's not defense. That's reality refusing to apply to you."]
The six-year-old stood, his small frame suddenly commanding the entire dome's attention. The movement was casual, but every spectator watching felt it—a shift in the world's axis.
"You promised twenty-nine followers + yourself. Let me show you why odds don't matter in my domain."
[System: "Probability check: Deepali winning = 0.0001%. Host surviving = 99.9999%. Remaining margin: acts of god, natural disaster, or sudden competence from the opponent."]
Aryan grinned beneath his mask. "I like those odds."
[System: "Of course you do. You're insane and lucky. A combination that creates suffering for everyone else."]
Aryan: "Not for me."
[System: "For everyone else. I pity those 29 children watching this. And the 10 lakh in the stands. And, honestly, Deepali most of all."]
Aryan raised his hand.
The ground beneath him moved—not violently, but with intention. With purpose. With the certainty of something that had rehearsed this a thousand times.
Vines erupted from the blood-mirror ground, thick as ancient tree trunks, coiling and interweaving in patterns that shouldn't have been possible. They formed the skeletal structure of a humanoid figure—spine, ribs, limbs, all of it growing in real-time.
Blood—crimson, impossibly thick, moving like sentient liquid—flowed upward. It coated the frame like flesh finding bone. It solidified, hardened, became real.
A perfect clone of Aryan materialized: same height (impossibly tall for a six-year-old), same build, same obsidian mask reflecting the twin moons.
But it was hollow. Ancient. A scarecrow wearing human form like a suit.
Before the clone fully solidified, Aryan whispered—not to anyone, but to the dome itself. A command that only the blood-world understood.
From Ishaan Verma's remembered technique—the one the boy had fought to master—Aryan infused the clone's surface with impossibly thin, blood-red threads. Threads so fine they were nearly invisible to the naked eye. They coated the construct like a second skin, like living lacework, pulsing faintly with a heartbeat that wasn't alive.
These threads had one purpose: chakra absorption on contact.
Any strike that touched the clone wouldn't damage it—the threads would drink the incoming energy. They'd feed. Absorb instantly. Grow stronger.
In the stands, a few elderly cultivators narrowed their eyes. They recognized the technique. Or rather, they recognized the corruption of it.
[System: "Clone durability status: effectively infinite while threads remain active. Ethical status of strategy: firmly in 'war crime-adjacent but devastatingly effective' territory."]
Aryan: "Borrowing Ishaan's technique. He'd be honored."
[System: "He'd be horrified and traumatized. You weaponized a child's hard work and dedication into an immortal scarecrow designed to parasitically drain people. That's psychological warfare layered over energy theft."]
Aryan: "Tomato, tomahto it doesn't matter to me."
While Deepali and her followers focused on the clone—while every eye in the arena focused on the puppet dance—Aryan did something invisible.
He pressed his palm against the mirrored blood-ground.
Beneath the surface, threads—thousands of them, wafer-thin, blood-red, pulsing with crimson light—unfurled like a neural network. They didn't spread randomly. They followed patterns. Patterns only the dome understood.
They mapped across the entire arena floor. An invisible grid. An invisible cage. An invisible feast prepared for invisible predators.
They formed their network beneath where the 29 followers stood. Directly beneath them. Everywhere they could possibly move.
[System: "Thread deployment: complete. Chakra extraction: passive, continuous, absolutely undetectable. Moral bankruptcy: achieving new philosophical heights."]
Aryan: "They stepped on my ground. Everything here obeys me. Every stone. Every breath of air. Every thread of reality itself."
[System: "You're literally siphoning their life force through the floor. Through the air. Through gravity itself, probably. I can't decide if this is genius or if I should report you to cosmic authorities."]
Aryan: "Try it. They can't kill me twice."
[System: "That's precisely the problem. You don't fear consequences because you've already lived past them. Twice. In different worlds. With different rules. This attitude will create enemies that never rest."]
Aryan: "Only if I'm not lucky enough."
[System: "And there it is. The core of all your suffering—belief in luck over wisdom. Reliance on chance over choice. One day, your luck will run out."]
Aryan: "Then I'll reincarnate again and do it better."
[System: "You're six years old and already planning for your fourth life. That's the saddest thing I've heard in any world."]
The clone stood motionless—a perfect scarecrow in human form. Waiting. Hungry. Impossible.
Aryan returned to his throne, settling back like a king watching peasants perform a play he'd already written.
"This is me," he said flatly, his voice carrying absolute certainty. "Beat it, and I'll acknowledge you're worthy of the real me. Lose, and you're already finished."
Deepali, seeing what she believed was Aryan standing undefended arrogantly in the center of the dome, laughed. Sharp. Vicious. Full of hunger.
"Go don't let him even move!" she screamed to her followers. "ATTACK WITH EVERYTHING!"
The 29 followers surged forward.
All twenty-nine contenders struck simultaneously. Not coordinated—desperate. Void-enhanced fists, artifact-powered chakra blades, borrowed strength turned into raw violence meant to shatter and destroy.
They pounded the clone mercilessly.
Each strike should have shattered it. Each blow should have annihilated the construct into vapor and shadow.
Instead: nothing.
The clone absorbed every attack without flinching. Blood rippled like water hit by stones. Vines bent and reformed. The construct stood immobile, eternal, impossible—like an ancient tree weathering a hurricane that had raged for ten thousand years.
The thin red threads glowed.
They drank the incoming chakra. The threads hummed faintly—a sound like a thousand insects singing—as energy flowed through the clone, back toward the throne, feeding Aryan's reserves.
Aryan watched from his throne, still unbothered, still calculating. Already winning.
On the mirrors, the crowd gasped.
"Wait... is he—"
"Still on the throne?"
"She's fighting a puppet!"
Principal Devendra: (Calmly, voice cutting through the noise) "Deeper than I expected, but expected nonetheless."
Beastmaster Elder: "The girl doesn't even realize. She's playing into his hands."
Lotus Pavilion Elder: (Softly, with genuine pity) "Arrogance vs. patience. Already decided before the match began."
Yamalok Elder: (Pale, gripping the railing) "That's... that's not possible. She should be—"
Firecloud Veteran: (Interrupting) "Winning? Against someone who controls this domain? Against a child whose skills defies explanation? She never had a chance."
Vendors stopped shouting. Scholars stopped writing. Children stopped playing. Ten lakh cultivators leaned forward collectively, realization trickling through them like poison through water.
This wasn't a fight.
This was a demonstration.
Roshni, watching from the waiting hall, whispered, "She's fighting his homework."
Sita closed her eyes, palms pressed together. "And she thinks she's winning. How tragic."
Bhaskar cracked his scaled knuckles. "She's so blind with rage, she can't see the trap closing around her ankles. Beautiful. And horrible."
Zhang Xuan, expressionless, simply observed. "One minute in and this is already over. She just doesn't know it yet."
She struck and struck and struck, growing more frantic with each blow. The clone didn't fall. It didn't even bleed properly—the blood just flowed back, sealing itself, as if the wound had never existed.
"Why won't he BREAK OR BLEED?!" she screamed, pouring more power into each follower's strikes.
Her voice cracked with rage and confusion.
She didn't realize she was feeding Aryan. Didn't know that with every strike, her army was getting weaker. Didn't know about the threads beneath her feet.
While Deepali focused on the clone—while every eye in the arena focused on the puppet dance—the blood-red threads beneath the mirrored ground began their invisible harvest.
They didn't drain violently. They were subtle. Like a persistent ache. Like hunger. Like a body slowly forgetting to maintain its own energy reserves. Like being tired for no reason.
[System: "Chakra extraction rate: 2.3% per minute across all 29 targets. Current collective absorption: 18%. Timeline to Chakra 2 Stage 1 breakthrough: 51 minutes remaining."]
Aryan watched the clone absorb strike after strike. It would take just under an hour. Perfect.
"And she still has no idea," he whispered.
[System: "It's not a fight. It's a sacrifice disguised as one. You're a child-shaped vampire, draining an army on ground you've claimed as your eternal property. Your luck lets you treat people like resources."]
Aryan: "Is that judgment?"
[System: "Observation. Judgment would require moral certainty. But I'll note: statistically, 23 of these 29 will recover eventually. Six might have permanent chakra scars—neural pathways burned out, unable to heal. One girl—Priya Nair, age 7, from the Northern Wind Sect—will never cultivate above Chakra 1 Stage 7 again."]
A pause. Aryan actually hesitated.
"...That's not ideal."
[System: "No. It's tragedy. But you'll forget by tomorrow because you're six years old, running on borrowed time from two previous worlds, and apparently zero emotional processing capacity. You compartmentalize human suffering like a ledger."]
Aryan: "Fair assessment."
[System: "It is. And it's horrifying."]
Forty minutes passed inside the dome.
The clone absorbed blow after blow without flinching. The followers grew sluggish—movements slowing, power dimming, artifact glow weakening perceptibly.
Deepali didn't understand why. She screamed at them: "PUSH HARDER! NOW!"
Some followers were already on their knees, gasping. Their veins barely glowed blue anymore. The artifacts pulsed weakly, their light dying.
In the stands, astute observers began to notice. The followers were exhausted. Impossibly, inexplicably exhausted.
Sita: "Something is draining them. Not the clone—something else."
Bhaskar: "The ground. It's the ground. I feel it."
Roshni: "Whatever it is, she doesn't realize it's happening."
The 29 were barely standing. Most had bruises from the clone's passive resistance. Some had blood running from their eyes—the sign of chakra depletion bordering on death.
Their breathing was shallow. Their hands trembled.
Deepali, still unaware of the invisible network pulsing beneath her feet, grew increasingly desperate and enraged.
"Why are they slowing down?! WHY?!"
She didn't realize the answer pulsed in the ground, drinking her allies and her dry like a predator's slow, patient feast.
At minute 59, the heavens reacted.
The sky above the dome fractured—not breaking, but cracking, like a porcelain vase hitting stone. Clouds that weren't there before gathered and swirled in impossible patterns, spiraling inward toward a single point.
A lightning bolt formed. Not a bolt—a pillar. Massive. Terrible. Gleaming with raw potential that seemed to contain the universe's entire fury.
It wasn't aimed at any person. It was aimed at the threshold. At the barrier between Chakra 1 and Chakra 2. At the point where a mortal becomes something more.
Every cultivator in the arena felt it.
The ascension phenomenon. The test that separated the worthy from the pretenders.
[System: "Ascension phenomenon detected. Classification: Chakra 2 Stage 1 breakthrough. Magnitude: significant. Challenge level: extreme. Survival probability: depends entirely on luck."]
Aryan: "What does the lightning actually do?"
[System: "It challenges you. Natural law demands confirmation that you're strong enough to earn the next tier. If you fail, the lightning kills you instantly. If you succeed, your breakthrough accelerates and you gain Chakra 2 Stage 1 immediately but with your ability to hold more chakra than others will make your power equivalent to a Chakra 4 Stage 1 user."]
Aryan: "And if I'm spectacularly lucky?"
[System: "Then through some impossible sequence of events that defies causality, it misses a six-year-old standing completely still. But that probability is so small, the decimal points need their own dimension."]
The lightning fell.
It was a pillar of electricity—thick as a tower, hot enough to vaporize stone into plasma, carrying the weight of natural law itself. It descended toward the dome like god's own executioner's blade.
From the arena:
The crowd screamed.
Ten lakh voices cried out in terror and awe simultaneously. Elders rose to their feet in unison. Every cultivator felt the pressure of that ascension phenomenon—a force that tested whether any mortal deserved to touch immortal power.
Deepali: "What is—"
At the exact microsecond before contact—at the precise moment before annihilation—something impossible happened.
A gust of wind emerged from nowhere. No source. No explanation. Just existence.
The wind shifted cloud's position by three centimeters to the left.
The lightning missed him by a huge gap.
Instead, it struck the clone—the scarecrow made of blood and vines thinking it is Aryan—and vaporized it completely.
There was no gradual destruction. No smoking remains. No trace of what was.
Just. Annihilation.
The blood evaporated. The vines incinerated. The threads dissolved like morning fog in sunlight. The construct that had stood unmoving for fifty-nine minutes simply ceased to exist.
Aryan stood untouched. Unburned. As if the lightning had never aimed for him at all.
The crowd fell into absolute silence.
In that silence, everyone understood: he hadn't dodged. He hadn't blocked. He hadn't defended himself.
The lightning had just... missed.
Beastmaster Elder: (Sitting slowly) "That was an ascension phenomenon. He survived it. And the lightning struck the clone instead. How very... convenient."
Principal Devendra: "And the lightning struck the clone instead. How very... convenient."
Lotus Pavilion Elder: (Whispered) "Luck. That's not skill. That's not technique. That's pure, impossible luck."
Firecloud Veteran: "The difficulty just became something we don't have a name for."
Roshni: (Breathless) "It wasn't even close. He wasn't even trying. It just... missed. Like the universe bent around him."
Sita: (Eyes closed, voice barely audible) "The lotus closes its petals now. This fight belongs to forces beyond our understanding. Beyond any understanding."
Bhaskar: (Rumbling laugh) "I've never seen anything like that. Ever. That's not cultivation. That's reality breaking for one child."
Zhang Xuan: (Smirking despite himself) "He was already impossible. Now he's in a completely different dimension."
Yamalok Elder: (Pale, standing, gripping the railing) "My girl... what is she fighting? What is that thing he was already a monster and now....?"
General Crowd Murmur: Chaos. Whispers. Prayers. Curses. "Impossible... the difficulty... it's beyond..."
When the lightning cleared and the clone vaporized, Aryan stood transformed.
His aura exploded outward like a supernova contained in human form. It bled gold, crimson, electric blue—colors that shouldn't exist in the same space without destroying each other. But they coexisted in him. They harmonized.
The temperature in the dome rose fifty degrees in a heartbeat.
His presence pressed against every consciousness watching. The weight of it was suffocating. The weight of it was wrong.
A six-year-old child should not radiate the presence of something immortal.
He felt it—the power flowing into him like a tsunami that had been waiting ten thousand years for this exact moment.
His six-year-old body changed at the cellular level. Every atom rewrote itself. Bones hardened beyond any natural limit. Muscles strengthened increasing his height despite his child-size, despite the fact that they shouldn't be capable of containing such power.
Chakra pathways—the channels through which cultivation energy flows—expanded exponentially. They became highways. Then vast networks. Then infinite labyrinths of power.
He wasn't just Chakra 2 Stage 1 anymore.
He carried the raw strength of a Chakra 4 Stage 1 user.
The power difference was incomprehensible. It was the gap between a child and a grandmaster swordsman. Between a spark and a wildfire consuming a forest. Between possibility and inevitability carved in stone.
And he was still six years old.
Deepali saw it all.
The clone was gone—completely vaporized by lightning that shouldn't have existed.
Aryan was no longer on the throne.
He was standing in the center of the dome, untouched by the lightning that had descended like god's own judgment.
And his aura was so overwhelming it made her void tentacles recoil involuntarily.
Reality was bending around him.
"You...you were sitting there the whole time?" Her voice cracked.
Aryan stepped forward—one small, deliberate movement carrying weight that shouldn't exist in a child.
"I was always here. You were just too blind to see the scarecrow for what it was."
His voice was calm. But beneath it lay something older—the resonance of someone who'd seen civilizations rise and fall across different worlds, different timelines, different versions of existence that most beings would never comprehend.
Deepali looked at her followers—twenty-eight barely conscious, one already beyond help.
Then she looked at the artifacts still pulsing faintly on their wrists.
And in that moment, she understood.
These artifacts were never just amplifiers. They were conduits. Vessels designed to hold and channel energy. But more importantly—they were reversible.
She raised her hand.
The artifacts activated—not to amplify further, but to siphon. They began pulling the final reserves of life force from each follower, draining them completely.
The 29 collapsed like puppets with cut strings. Their bodies hollowed out. But their last, desperate reserves of existence flowed through the artifacts, into her.
Purple light filled the arena like a funeral pyre.
[System: "New analysis received. Deepali's power level: dramatically spiked. Current threat assessment: upgraded to 0.4% chance of victory."]
Aryan: "0.4%? Still generous of you."
[System: "She just killed her entire army to buy herself 120 seconds of relevance. Statistically, it's possible one of them might land a critical hit while you're recovering from 'Another Chance.' That's the 0.4%."]
Aryan: "She doesn't know about that skill."
[System: "No. She doesn't. Which means if you need to use it, she'll think you're dying instead of rapidly healing via bone-breaking, muscle-tearing, soul-shattering agony."]
Aryan: "Perfect tactical confusion, then."
The void erupted around her like a second sunrise made of shadows.
Purple-black tentacles spiraled outward, thick as tree trunks, sharp as obsidian. Cosmic energy rippled across her form. The stolen life force of twenty-nine children manifested as raw power that bent space itself around her.
She was not stronger than Chakra 4 Stage 1.
But she was dangerously, desperately close.
"NOW I have something!" she roared, her voice distorted by void corruption that was beautiful and horrible simultaneously.
"Come at me, insolent instructor!"
The twenty-nine were expelled gently from the dome—unconscious but alive, floating safely back to the arena floor. Medical teams rushed to meet them, carrying healing crystals and restorative chakra.
The dome's ceiling sealed. Mirrors reformed, showing nothing but darkness.
Aryan and Deepali stood facing each other on the mirrored blood.
One sky above them. Two moons watching with ancient eyes. Discordant music playing in the background—the soundtrack to something larger than victory.
"Last chance," Aryan said softly, his voice carrying weight that shouldn't exist in a six-year-old. "Surrender now, and I teach you discipline. I teach you what real power feels like—earned, not stolen. Grown from within, not borrowed from the desperate and dying."
He paused. His mask caught the moonlight.
"Or refuse, and I show you what happens when you push me further."
His voice held something older—the resonance of someone who'd seen civilizations rise and fall across different worlds, different timelines.
Deepali laughed—sharp, desperate, defiant.
"Let's see if you bleed, child."
Deepali launched herself forward. Void tentacles coiled around her body, turning her into a living weapon of shadow and hunger that had consumed entire armies in mythology.
She moved faster than before—the stolen life force fueling speed that actually rivaled Aryan's newfound capabilities.
She closed the distance in a heartbeat. Less than a heartbeat. A breath that lasted forever and ended instantly.
The tentacles whipped toward Aryan from three angles simultaneously. They were sharp enough to cut through stone like butter, fast enough to blur vision, and they screamed—an actual sound, like souls being torn apart—with hunger.
Aryan raised his hand—not to dodge, but to test her power.
The first tentacle struck his palm.
The impact sent a shockwave across the entire dome. Mirrored blood rippled outward in concentric circles that spread for hundreds of meters. The sound of the collision echoed like thunder.
Aryan slid backward—his small feet drawing lines in the liquid surface, creating trails of crimson that sizzled and reformed behind him as he moved. He traveled twenty meters before stopping, completely stable, completely in control.
The tentacle recoiled from his touch, singed at the edges where void met raw chakra. The edges burned black.
[System: "Round 1 Analysis: Deepali is faster and more flexible. Aryan is exponentially more resilient. Winner: Aryan, through superior fundamental power at Chakra 4 Stage 1 tier."]
Aryan: (Emotionless) "Slow."
Aryan moved forward now—not defensive. No more tests.
His movement was subtly faster—the passive Acceleration skill triggering at the 10-second mark, boosting his speed by 40% automatically.
He didn't use techniques. He used fundamentals—raw chakra control combined with Chakra 4 Stage 1 output that was incomprehensible to someone at Deepali's current tier.
He threw a palm strike—simple, elegant, unstoppable.
The motion was economical. No wasted energy. Pure efficiency.
Deepali's tentacles intercepted it, trying to absorb the strike.
But the impact shattered them like tempered glass. The stolen life force bled away, dissipating into purple mist that evaporated on contact with his aura.
She retreated, reforming the tentacles, her eyes wide with realization.
"You're... you're not even trying," she gasped, breathing hard, void energy destabilizing.
"Not yet," Aryan replied, his voice calm and carrying confidence earned through decades of combat experience across two previous worlds.
He threw another strike. Deepali dodged—barely—and his strike carved through the air behind her, leaving a trail of burned space where reality itself seemed scorched and twisted.
She launched a counter-attack: void spikes that shot from her hands like bullets forged from shadow and malice.
Aryan walked through them. Not dodged. Not blocked. Walked.
The spikes bounced off his aura, unable to penetrate. They were reduced to wisps of smoke on contact, dissipating before they could fully form.
Deepali tried every technique she knew. She wove patterns with her void, created illusions that bent perception, attempted to trap Aryan in cascading layers of shadow and mental pressure designed to break the mind.
None of it worked.
But then—she caught him off-guard.
A void tentacle wrapped around his leg and pulled with everything she had. The sudden change in momentum threw Aryan off-balance for the first time in this fight.
He stumbled.
For the first time, he was vulnerable.
Deepali pressed the advantage with absolute desperation. She launched herself forward and punched with everything she had—the stolen life force of twenty-nine children concentrated into one, final strike.
It connected.
Her fist struck Aryan's chest.
The impact sent him flying backward, skipping once across the mirrored blood before crashing into the ground. He created a crater. Real damage. Blood splashed. The impact was hard enough to crack ribs that shouldn't break at his current power level.
For a moment—just a moment—Deepali thought she had a chance.
Aryan's body flared with light—crimson and gold, spiraling outward like a star going supernova.
The skill "Another Chance" activated automatically, draining 10% of his remaining chakra in exchange for complete recovery.
His injuries reversed instantly. Bones reset to perfect alignment. Muscles re-knit themselves. Bruises vanished as if they'd never existed.
But the pain—
Aryan screamed.
It was not a scream of defeat—it was a scream of every bone breaking simultaneously, every muscle tearing, every nerve burning as his body rewrote itself from the cellular level up.
The agony was indescribable. It was beyond comprehension. It was a physical manifestation of suffering concentrated into one child's frame.
He fell to one knee, trembling violently, for three full seconds.
Every heartbeat was agony. Every breath was a small death.
The crowd watching through mirrors gasped. They thought he was dying.
She didn't hesitate. She charged forward, thinking the victory was finally hers.
But then Aryan stood.
And his aura was brighter than before.
At the 100-second mark of the fight, Aryan's passive Acceleration skill upgraded automatically.
Another +40% speed increase.
His speed was now 80% faster than baseline.
He was a blur. A phantom. A concept of movement rather than motion itself.
Deepali could barely track him. She threw attacks that didn't connect. She tried to dodge and found him already behind her. She turned and threw another desperate punch.
Aryan caught it with an open palm.
The tentacle around her arm withered, burned by his aura. The void energy dissipated.
"You're exhausted," he said softly, his voice calm despite the cosmic battle happening around them. "You sacrificed twenty-nine children for one minute and twenty seconds of relevance. That's all you had."
Deepali's eyes widened. She realized the truth.
Deepali struggled forward, the stolen life force running out. Her tentacles were weaker now, slower, more sluggish.
The void corruption was eating itself, consuming what remained of its own power.
Aryan approached—not with urgency, but with inevitability. Like gravity. Like death. Like a force of nature that could not be stopped.
"This is over," he said.
She lunged anyway—one final, desperate attack fueled by pride and void corruption and the desperate hope that a miracle might exist.
Aryan sidestepped and, in the same motion, struck her chest with an open palm.
It wasn't a killing blow. It was precision incarnate.
Just enough to break her will.
Deepali fell to her knees, gasping, tears streaming down her face. Her aura collapsed like a building imploding. The void energy dissipated, returning to whatever void it had come from.
She knelt on the mirrored blood, completely spent.
Aryan stood over her, extending his hand. It was small, child-like, but carrying the weight of ages. The weight of worlds. The weight of experience that shouldn't exist in someone six years old.
"Deepali Raj. You came here to take. You manipulated twenty-nine children. You sacrificed them like tools. Like expendable coins for your own ambition."
His voice was calm. But beneath it lay something older—the resonance of someone who'd seen civilizations rise and fall across different worlds, different timelines, different versions of existence that most beings would never comprehend.
"I'm offering you one path forward, Surrender, Come under my wing. I'll teach you what discipline means. What real power feels like—earned, not stolen. Grown from within, not borrowed from the desperate and dying."
He paused. The twin moons watched.
"Or refuse, and I show you what happens when you push me further."
[System: "Deepali's response options might be, A) surrender (statistically likely), B) refuse and escalate (probability: 12%), C) refuse and something impossible happens (probability: margin of error—your luck stat.)"]
Aryan: "You're expecting something chaotic again, aren't you?"
[System: "Always. I've stopped being surprised by you. Now I just... prepare for the inevitable miracle or catastrophe."]
Principal Devendra: (Standing slowly, with recognition) "It's over. And it was never even close."
Beastmaster Elder: "That girl sacrificed her army and still lost. That's not skill—that's inevitability."
Lotus Pavilion Elder: (Whispering a prayer) "What we've witnessed... it's not cultivation. It's something else. Something older."
Yamalok Elder: (Pale, sitting down) "My prodigy... my pride... fell like an amateur to a child who was playing."
Firecloud Veteran: "He didn't just defeat her. He toyed with her. Let her think she had chances. Let her hope. Then crushed that hope methodically."
General Crowd Murmur: Silence first. Then whispers. Then prayers. Then curses. Then understanding.
"The Crown Rank is not an instructor."
"The Crown Rank is a force."
"The Crown Rank is something we shouldn't have provoked."
"The Crown Rank is—"
Deepali stares at Aryan's extended hand, tears streaming, void energy completely dissipated.