Aryan's voice came like the closing of a tomb—cold, final, the tone of death itself pronouncing judgment.
"These artifacts. They represent everything wrong with your path."
Not anger. Not disappointment. Just... absolute. Inevitable. The finality of a door slamming shut forever.
Deepali closed her eyes.
She was certain this was it. The moment before annihilation. The moment before he crushed her like he'd crushed the artifact—into nothing, into ash, into the void from which she'd come.
She waited.
For impact. For pain. For the ending she deserved.
The silence stretched.
One heartbeat. Two heartbeats. Three.
Nothing happened.
The dome held its breath.
Slowly, shakily, her trembling eyelids opened.
Aryan stood before her, unmoving, hand extended downward—open, steady, waiting.
Not threatening. Not mocking. Just... offering.
His voice continued, still cold as the void itself, still carrying the weight of finality:
"I could kill you. Should kill you. The crowd demands it. The law demands it."
He paused. The pause felt eternal.
"But I'm going to show you something different instead."
The moment his words finished, the entire dome fractured.
Not violently. Not suddenly. But inevitably, like reality simply... gave way.
The mirrored blood-ground beneath their feet cracked into a thousand spiderwebs of light, and then those cracks simply... opened.
Space itself became transparent.
Deepali saw
She saw life and death circling each other endlessly—not as abstract concepts from monks' teachings, but as visible, breathing forces.
She watched a civilization bloom in fast-motion: cities rising like flowers from soil, people building, loving, creating, dreaming.
Then the rot set in. War came. Plague. Despair. Slowly, the cities crumbled. The people died. The dreams turned to ash.
Then—gone.
A new civilization rose in its place.
Then another. Then another. Then another.
A thousand civilizations. A million. An infinite stack of rises and falls, each one believing itself eternal, each one proven to be temporary.
The weight of it crashed against Deepali's mind like a physical force.
In previous worlds Aryan watched so many movies that were enough to use them to make a deception by himself in front of her.
[System: "Host, I hope you're proud. You've turned two reincarnations' worth of movies into a spiritual hallucination machine. Morally? Questionable. Tactically? 10/10."]
Suddenly, Deepali was inside Aryan's memory—seeing through his eyes.
She saw a world of stone and stars. A sky filled with constellations that moved wrong, that spelled words in a language she almost understood.
Aryan stood in this world—different. Older. Wiser. Broken in ways that no six-year-old should understand.
He was watching an empire fall. Not quickly. Slowly. Methodically. He watched people die in waves—plague, famine, war, despair.
He tried to save them.
He failed.
He watched the last city burn.
Then—emptiness. A fade to black.
Death came for him like an old friend finally arriving for a promised visit.
It didn't hurt. It was just... ending.
Another world. Technology and machinery intertwined in ways that defied logic.
Aryan again—ancient in experience, carrying the weight of two lifetimes already—was fighting something. A force. A darkness. Something that couldn't be named.
He was losing.
He fought anyway.
For years. Decades. Centuries, maybe—time moved differently in this world.
He fought until his body broke. Until his mind fractured. Until there was nothing left but refusal.
Then death came again—faster this time, sharper, less merciful.
He welcomed it.
A fade to black. An ending. A door closing.
And then Deepali was back in her own eyes, but her perspective had shifted.
She understood now:
Aryan had stared into the face of death twice. Not theoretically. Not spiritually. Actually, physically, personally.
He'd been erased from existence twice and still came back.
From that perspective—from someone who'd already lived past endings—all of this was just children playing with fire they didn't understand.
The void wasn't evil. The void wasn't pure. It was just... empty.
And Aryan had learned something that even the oldest monks couldn't comprehend: emptiness could contain mercy.
The vision collapsed.
Deepali gasped, tears streaming down her face—gasping like someone who'd just drowned and been pulled back to shore.
She'd experienced lifetimes in seconds. She'd watched empires rise and fall. She'd felt death twice through someone else's body.
Her entire understanding of power, of death, of mercy, of void itself—all of it had shifted.
Aryan stood above her, his voice still cold, but now she understood: the cold wasn't cruelty. It was clarity.
"Do you understand now?" he asked, and somehow, beneath the coldness, she heard something else. Recognition. Almost... respect.
"Death is not an ending. It's a doorway. And I've walked through it twice. What are your petty void corruptions compared to that? What is your ambition compared to someone who's seen the rise and fall of worlds?"
His hand remained extended.
"Come. Learn. Become something real."
Deepali reached out slowly. Her hand trembled so violently she could barely control it.
She didn't hesitate long—but her hesitation spoke volumes.
Since Aryan defeated her, since he showed her that raw power without understanding was just... noise, something had shifted inside her. The arrogance was gone, burned away like morning mist under a rising sun. The desperation was fading.
What remained was something she couldn't name. Fascination? Respect? The beginning of understanding?
But before she could speak—before she could even articulate the chaos in her mind—Aryan acted.
He pulled her up with one hand—not rough, not gentle, just matter-of-fact, like lifting a piece of her that had fallen.
From thin air, manifesting through chakra control so precise it seemed like magic, he conjured a token.
A Crown Rank Student Token—different from an instructor token. Smaller. Almost delicate. Carved with symbols that glowed faintly with inner light—gold and crimson threads running through black obsidian like veins of life running through death.
"This marks you as my student. Not my equal. Not yet. Not for a long time, perhaps. But under my guidance. Under my discipline. Under my teaching."
He placed it in her palm.
"Wear it. Nalanda will see it. Your sect will see it. Every elder, every rival, every person who thought you were just another arrogant prodigy—they'll understand that you've been chosen for something beyond death or demotion. You've been chosen for education."
Deepali stared at the token, her entire body still trembling.
For a moment, she wanted to speak. To thank him. To ask questions. To understand what was happening to her, to her void, to her very conception of power.
"I—" she started.
But the dome pulsed—once, sharply, like a heartbeat that meant ending.
"We'll talk later," Aryan said, already turning back toward his throne, dismissing her like a king dismissing a servant. "Right now, the trials continue. Others are waiting. You understand. And you'll understand more once you've had time to process what you've seen."
It wasn't a question. It was statement. Fact. Law.
Before Deepali could respond, the dome wrapped around her gently and expelled her.
She materialized in the arena like a ghost manifesting.
Her legs nearly buckled. The token burned in her palm—not with heat, but with significance, with weight, with destiny.
She looked at her twenty-nine followers—bruised, broken, weeping, some furious at their treatment, some unconscious, all of them ruined because of her choices.
The realization crashed down on her like a collapsing mountain: all of this suffering was because she'd been too arrogant to see that borrowed power was hollow.
Without thinking, without hesitation, Deepali reached into a special pouch at her side.
Golden pills. Twenty-nine of them. Each one worth more than a small estate. Each one the highest-grade restorative medicine the Yamalok Sect produced—held only for emergencies, for the most critical moments.
She moved from follower to follower, placing a pill into each trembling hand.
"Take these. Your chakra will heal. Your foundation will repair. Your dantian will rebuild itself."
She paused, her voice breaking slightly.
"I'm... I'm sorry. I was wrong. I see that now."
Some followers wept. Some bowed. Some simply stared in disbelief that their leader—the girl who had sacrificed them without hesitation—was now giving up the most valuable resources her sect possessed to heal their wounds.
On the VIP Balcony.
The Yamalok Elder stood abruptly, face pale as death itself.
"WHAT IS SHE DOING?!" he shouted, loud enough that the surrounding elders flinched. "Those are the highest-grade pills we have! Enough to restore an entire regiment! Enough to fully heal a cultivator who's been drained to the point of death!"
His voice cracked with despair. It was like watching gold being scattered to beggars.
"She's giving them away like—like they're nothing!"
But then he stopped, because the other elders around him weren't reacting with shock. They were nodding. Understanding.
Lotus Pavilion Elder: (Softly, with genuine appreciation) "She's learned something profound. Something no amount of training could have taught her."
Beastmaster Elder: (Grunting with respect) "A void cultivator who has seen the true void doesn't need to hide in black anymore. If even mercy and truth can fill the void, then all her followers' loyalty just shifted from slavery to devotion."
Firecloud Veteran: (Nodding slowly) "She's redistributing her power. Creating bonds instead of dominance. Teaching them that their leader can admit fault. The Crown Rank student showed her something the rest of us took decades to learn."
Obsidian Phoenix's Lady: (With a thin smile) "Brilliant, actually. Cold calculation wrapped in what looks like mercy. But if you look deeper—she's building loyalty through vulnerability. The Crown Rank Instructor is teaching her to build an army of disciples, not slaves."
Chintamani Hawk Clan Elder: (Observing) "Her void corruption is... changing. It's no longer pure black. Something else is mixing in. Not light. But not darkness either."
Principal Devendra: (Quietly, making mental notes) "She's becoming part of something larger. Not just an individual prodigy anymore. She's becoming a disciple. A fragment of something infinite."
The Yamalok Elder finally sat back down, hands trembling.
His prodigy was alive. More than that—she'd been marked by the Crown Rank Instructor. Bound to him. Whether this was honor or servitude, salvation or damnation, remained unclear.
But it was not death.
He reached for wine, hand shaking slightly.
"At least she's alive," he whispered. "At least she's become a Crown Rank student. Without that status... we would have lost everything. Our sect's pride. Our future. Everything."
He drank deeply, sighing with relief and confusion and a thousand other emotions that cultivators weren't supposed to admit to feeling.
Inside the dome, the transformation began.
Aryan sat on his throne, and for a moment, he was silent. The silence of someone processing something unexpected.
Then he spoke to the System.
"Why did you tell me to take her as a student? That wasn't the idea. That wasn't the plan. I was going to—"
[System: "Kill her. Yes. I know. I stopped you."]
Aryan: "And if I didn't want to be stopped?"
[System: "Then I would have let you. But you're going to need allies. Not slaves. Not followers who fear you. Actual companions who understand power at a fundamental level. People who've been broken and rebuilt and understand that strength without wisdom is just noise."]
Aryan: "Manipulation?"
[System: "No. Education. There's a difference. And before you ask—yes, recruit more. Specifically from the main sects. The powerful ones. The ones with pride and arrogance and raw talent. You find them, you break them, you teach them. Build disciples. An inner circle. A covenant of people bound not by contract but by genuine understanding."]
Aryan: "And this benefits me how?"
[System: "Because you're lonely. And because the trials you're running are becoming boring. New disciples mean new perspectives, new techniques to steal, new ways to test yourself. Also, it makes you harder to kill. You're still six years old. The universe knows you exist now. More allies means more security."]
Aryan was quiet for a moment.
Then he smiled beneath his mask.
"Fine. I'll collect them like trading cards."
[System: "Please never say that out loud to them."]
Aryan stood.
The dome transformed.
The mirrors shattered completely, becoming nothing but glittering dust that faded into non-existence.
The blood evaporated—not boiling away, but simply dissolving, returning to whatever void it came from.
What remained was apocalyptic.
Black soil cracked beneath—ancient, scorched, as if a thousand wars had burned the earth here until no life could survive. The cracks glowed faintly with dying ember-light, like the fire was just barely contained beneath the surface.
Burnt trees rose like skeletal monuments, their branches twisted and blackened by flame, leaves long since incinerated. Some still smoldered faintly, wisps of smoke drifting from their bark like the last breath of something that refused to die.
A single blood moon rose—torn, incomplete, as if it had been broken and never healed. Its light was crimson and dying, casting long, terrible shadows across the wasteland.
The space between the entrance and Aryan's throne was now fifty kilometers of pure, unadulterated apocalyptic desolation.
Not beautiful. Not mathematical. Not mirrored in careful calculation.
Just... real. Raw. The world after everything ends.
[System: "Environmental shift complete. Previous dome aesthetic: calculated terror. New dome aesthetic: post-apocalyptic trauma. Incoming challengers will feel the weight of this place."]
Aryan: "Good. Let them feel uncomfortable. Let them feel small. It sharpens the mind and burns away the ego."
[System: "Also, Deepali begins formal training tomorrow. Your teaching schedule is becoming complicated. You'll need to manage both the trials and her education simultaneously."]
Aryan: "Complexity is better than boredom. And besides—watching her learn what real void cultivation means? That might actually be interesting."
The announcer's voice rang out across Nalanda, carrying weight and authority:
"Second Ring of Trials: CONCLUDED!
Thirty challengers entered. Twenty-nine faced judgment. One has been elevated to Crown Rank Student status.
The Crown Rank Instructor offers mercy to those worthy of education.
Third Ring of Trials: COMMENCING!
The next batch of thirty contenders: prepare for entry! You will face Listener, Lower, Upper, and Crown Rank challenges in sequence. Some of you will survive. Some of you will break. All of you will be tested.
The dome has been reset. The trials continue.
Let those who are brave enough enter the wasteland. Let those who are worthy survive."
The crowd erupted—half relief, half terror, all anticipation.
In the waiting halls, the second batch of thirty students arrived.
Most were nervous, looking pale. Some whispered strategies. Some meditated, trying to center themselves.
But four figures stood out immediately.
ZAIN AL-DIN, called "The Mistweaver," stood near the back, a thin boy with features carved by desert winds—sharp cheekbones, knowing eyes. He wore robes that seemed to shift between solid and mist, depending on how light hit them. When he breathed, mist drifted from his mouth like smoke.
IZAN KAREEM walked beside him, taller, broader, with the presence of someone used to leading. His eyes gleamed with an inner storm—literally, lightning danced behind his pupils. Where Zain was calm, Izan was electric energy barely contained in mortal form.
"Allah guides our paths, brother," Zain said softly, clasping Izan's shoulder in greeting. "Today we prove our worth."
Izan grinned, lightning crackling between his fingers. "Bismillah, brother. By God's grace, let's show this Crown Rank what the desert can do."
ASHA of the Flame Lotus stood sharpening her gauntlet blades with smooth, practiced motions—shing, shing, shing—each movement precise, economical, threatening. She was small for her age, eight years old, but she moved like someone who'd been forged in fire and came out harder every time.
BHEEM SINGH of the Iron Falcon stood nearby, wearing massive golden gauntlets that glinted like captured sunlight. He was friendly, laughing at something one of the other contenders said, but his gauntlets hummed with barely contained power.
The four recognized something in each other—a willingness to face what was coming, a refusal to break before the battle even started.
But it was in the observer's section where things got interesting.
Roshni had already claimed a stone ledge, sitting with her back against the wall, sharpening her gauntlet blades with long, smooth pulls.
Shing. Shing. Shing.
Each stroke sang with metal meeting metal. Each spark that fell to the ground was like a tiny warning. Her Suryavanshi gauntlets—wolverine-type weapons, vicious and elegant—gleamed with edges that could probably cut through diamond.
Zhang Xuan stood across the platform, taking deep breaths, psyching himself up.
"Alright," he whispered to himself, straightening his collar, fixing his posture, trying to project confidence. "Composed. Calm. Cool."
He inhaled. Held it. Exhaled slowly.
"Just walk over. Act natural. Confident. Nothing can go wrong. Definitely not going to stumble. Definitely not going to humiliate myself in front of the most dangerous girl in the trials."
He started walking.
One step. Smooth. Deliberate. Controlled.
Second step. Still composed. Still confident.
His MAX Bad Luck crashed him in Third step—
His foot caught on the edge of a stone railing he absolutely did not see.
THUD!
He stumbled forward, arms flailing like a dying bird trying desperately not to fall and fail completely in front of everyone.
He tried to catch the railing.
Missed.
He tried to land on his feet gracefully.
Missed that too.
He barely saved himself from face-planting by throwing one hand forward and catching the edge of Roshni's weapon box.
His face was maybe an inch from her leg. His hair was disheveled. He was breathing hard.
Silence.
Total, absolute, deafening silence.
Roshni didn't even turn her head. Didn't acknowledge his existence. She just kept shing—shing—shing-ing her blades, calm as death itself, like a clumsy sectless boy falling at her feet was just background noise.
Zhang Xuan, still half-bent over like a villager begging for rice, tried to act like this was intentional. Like he'd meant to end up in this position.
He tried to lean up slowly, to look cool, to recover.
Big mistake.
Shing—click.
Roshni flicked her wrist with surgical precision.
Two blades shot out sideways from her gauntlets—left and right, moving in perfect synchronization—stopping exactly one millimetre from either side of his neck.
Then the middle blade slid upward. Just a hair.
Just enough that Zhang's chin scraped the edge.
A single line of red appeared, thin as a hair, but written in the universal language every cultivator understood:
You are moments away from death.
Only now did Roshni glance at him—
Her eyes cold, bored, irritated at his mere existence, like he was a fly that had accidentally wandered into her meditation.
Without any emotion in her voice, she said:
"One more step and I'll split you down the middle like a firewood log. Suryavanshi girls don't appreciate insects leaning in."
Zhang froze so completely that he might as well have activated a petrification technique.
His heartbeat was the only movement. Everything else was stone.
Roshni returned to polishing her blades as if nothing had happened, as if she hadn't just nearly decapitated a boy for the crime of stumbling.
The gauntlets hummed, hungry for blood.
Zhang Xuan quietly—oh-so-quietly—slid backward, trying to pretend the ground was pulling him away involuntarily, that he had no control over his own retreat.
Everyone watching nodded in silent sympathy for the dumb man who'd nearly gotten turned into two separate people.
Sita Lotusfold sat on the stone floor in perfect lotus position, her palms resting on her knees, eyes closed, lotus sigil glowing softly with inner peace and absolute menace.
Bhaskar saw her and immediately puffed his chest out, stretching his massive scaled arms, trying to look impressive.
"Alright," he whispered to himself, building up courage like he was about to charge into battle, "just act normal. Normal. She's not dangerous unless provoked. Probably. I think. No, definitely. Probably."
He took a confident step toward her.
The air changed.
A subtle increase in temperature—barely noticeable at first, like the world had just shifted a degree.
Bhaskar didn't catch it. He was too focused on looking cool, on not sweating, on appearing confident.
Another step.
He started sweating anyway.
His scales felt hot against his skin. The air around Sita seemed to shimmer—
Like heat rising off molten metal.
One more step.
Bhaskar opened his mouth, trying to say something smooth, something that would impress her:
"Hey Sita, I was thinking maybe we could—"
WHOOM—BANG!
A lotus-patterned fist crashed directly into his torso.
The impact sound was like a meteor hitting a mountain. Like the earth itself flinched.
Bhaskar flew backward, soaring over the startled heads of ten other contenders, his body completely airborne, his scales gleaming as he flipped.
He landed on all fours like a confused oversized lizard, skidding across stone before coming to a stop near the edge of the platform.
He looked up, dazed, ribs humming in pain like they'd been struck by divine hammer.
"HEY—HEY—WHAT WAS THAT FOR?!" he wheezed, trying to sound offended even though his voice cracked halfway through.
He clutched his side, feeling the bruises already forming beneath his scales.
"Just because my scales are strong doesn't mean you punch me like you're trying to break a mountain! I was just—I was just saying hello!"
Sita didn't respond.
Didn't look at him.
Didn't acknowledge his existence or his protests.
She simply exhaled—
And with that exhale, the heat around her vanished completely, replaced by perfect stillness again. The air returned to normal. The shimmering stopped.
She went back to meditating like nothing had happened.
Bhaskar stood up slowly, clutching his chest, trying to understand what had just occurred.
From the back of the crowd, someone laughed.
"Bro… you got Lotusfolded."
"Man went flying like a pigeon hit by a rock."
"You actually approached her? Are you insane?"
Bhaskar growled and brushed himself off, trying to maintain dignity despite being thrown across the platform.
"That wasn't fair…" he muttered. "She didn't even warn me."
Sita, from afar, still not opening her eyes, still not looking at him, said in a voice like ice:
"I did warn you. You felt the temperature change. You felt the air shift. You felt your body screaming at you to stop. You ignored every warning. That is your stupidity, not my fault."
Bhaskar froze.
The truth hurt more than the punch.
The atmosphere among the waiting contenders shifted noticeably.
Boys started whispering among themselves:
"Should we team up? The Crown Instructor is too strong. We'd have better odds together."
"Maybe if we coordinate our attacks—"
"Five guys could probably handle—"
"Who wants to join forces?"
But the girls—especially Roshni and Sita—were thinking the complete opposite:
Roshni stared at her blades, testing the edges with one finger.
"Any boy who teams with me is dead weight," she said flatly, to no one in particular. "I don't need someone slowing me down. I don't need a partner who'll get scared. I don't need a distraction."
Sita didn't speak, but her silence was agreement.
Asha, sitting nearby, was actively writing on a stone tablet, sketching attack patterns.
"I fight alone," she said, not even looking up. "I'll prove myself alone. And if anyone slows me down—" She didn't finish the sentence. Didn't need to. The implication was violent enough.
Bhaskar and Zhang looked at each other, defeated.
"Bro…" Bhaskar started.
"…they hate us," Zhang finished.
"No, bro, they want to fight alone and prove themselves."
"Should we help them?"
"Help by NOT going near them."
"Facts."
The boys gave each other a look of mutual understanding: survival meant distance.
Zain and Izan stood together, speaking softly in their native tongue mixed with common speech.
"The Crown Rank Instructor is stronger than anything we've faced," Zain said, his voice calm, accepting. "But Allah guides those with true hearts."
Izan nodded, lightning dancing behind his eyes.
"Bismillah. If we fight as we were taught—with passion, with faith, with the truth of the desert in our hearts—perhaps we can surprise him."
Asha and Bheem joined them, and soon all four were talking, laughing, bonding not as competitors but as friends who happened to arrive together.
They shared strategies without ego. Shared fears without shame. Shared hopes of reaching Crown Rank Student status without expecting to.
From inside the dome (through the mirrors Aryan could still access), Aryan watched the second batch arrive.
He noticed the four stand out immediately.
"Interesting," he murmured beneath his mask. "I've seen cultivators like this before. In my second world. They had the same energy. Passionate. Unpredictable. Explosive. Always getting themselves killed trying to prove something."
[System: "Dark humor noted. You're preparing for the trials to begin."]
Aryan: "Yes. Let's see if this batch can actually make things interesting."
The announcer's voice rang out one final time:
"Third Ring challengers: you may now enter your trials. Listener Ranks first. Prove your worth. The Crown Rank Instructor awaits those brave enough to ascend."
The second batch of thirty moved forward—nervous, terrified, but ready.
The four stood slightly apart from the others.
Zain, Izan, Asha, and Bheem looked at each other.
No words. No grand gestures. Just understanding.
They entered the Listener Rank domes.
As they crossed the threshold, the black soil shifted beneath them. The burnt trees seemed to lean toward them. The blood moon watched.
From the stands, Roshni, Sita, Bhaskar, and Zhang Xuan watched silently.
"They're going to die," Roshni said flatly.
"Probably," Sita agreed.
"Unless they're actually good," Bhaskar added.
"Which they probably aren't," Zhang finished.
But they all leaned forward slightly.
Because something about these four felt different.
Something about them suggested they might actually survive.
The trials continued.
And in the dome, Aryan smiled beneath his mask.
Because for the first time in a long time, he was genuinely curious about what would happen next.