When twilight fell, the trial temple blurred into something else—an impossible garden, swaying under moonlight that was too soft to be real. Perfumed winds stirred the lotus-lined corridors, and silk-clad shadows danced between crystal pillars. A low hum of laughter, warm and nostalgic, echoed through the air like forgotten lullabies.
Devavrata's breath slowed. This was not a battlefield—it was a memory twisted into a trap.
From behind a cascade of golden vines emerged Kamaari, the Spirit of Longing, her form sculpted from half-truths and sweet lies. Her eyes were pools of honeyed sorrow, her voice the sound of rain falling on silk.
"You've given your youth to silence," she murmured, circling him like a gentle wind. "The weight of kingship, the loneliness of duty… and yet, you ache. For love. For sons. For peace. I know."
She raised her hand, and the air shimmered.
Illusions rose around Devavrata like incense smoke—a palace where children with his eyes ran laughing, a queen with a gaze like fire and balm, their hands entwined beneath the boughs of a mango tree. A kingdom at peace. No blood, no vows, no legacy of ruin.
Devavrata flinched. His hand loosened on his spear. His jaw clenched.
"Do not pretend you do not want this," Kamaari whispered, stepping closer. "What use is power if your heart withers? Is this not worth bending fate?"
For a moment, Devavrata closed his eyes. And then, without a word, he opened them like iron drawn from flame.
He reached behind his back, drawing his bow with sacred precision. From his quiver emerged a shaft of pure white light:
Satya-Bheda — The Arrow of Truth Piercing.
"Desire may shape dreams," he said softly, "but truth destroys illusions."
He loosed it.
The arrow flew not at Kamaari's body, but at the center of the mirage. It spun through air like a comet, pulsing with the frequency of integrity. When it struck, the garden shattered like frost-glass beneath the sun.
The wife, the children, the peace—all gone. A scream tore the false paradise apart.
Kamaari staggered back, her form unraveling. No longer beautiful, her limbs shimmered with broken chains of craving, her smile cracked like old porcelain.
"You would destroy love itself?" she hissed.
"I deny false comfort," Devavrata replied, drawing another arrow. "That is not the same."
Rage contorted her face. Kamaari screamed, summoning blades of pure longing, curved like crescent moons. They lashed out like vipers—each one a memory, a seduction, a promise of joy that might have been.
Devavrata dodged—spinning low, sliding across the crystal floor—and returned fire.
"Vishantar!"
An arrow of severance, shaped from the wisdom of detachment. It sliced through a whip of desire mid-strike, the blade dissolving into smoke.
"Indriya-Vajra!"
A lightning-tipped shaft of sensory disruption. When it struck Kamaari's aura, her seductive voice was drowned in static, her vision blurred by thunder.
The garden buckled beneath their battle—petals turned to ash, vines shriveled under sacred force.
Kamaari launched upward, attempting to shift into multiple forms—a lover, a mother, a child, a people's queen.
Devavrata stepped back, summoned his inner breath, and performed Trikona Veerya—the Threefold Arrow Form, learned from sages who whispered through waterfalls:
The past arrow, forged in sacrifice.
The present arrow, weighted with will.
The future arrow, veiled in potential.
They flew in unison—past, present, and future converging into a radiant triangle. Each arrow struck a different part of Kamaari's essence.
One struck her memory.
One struck her heartbeat.
One struck the space she might have filled.
Her scream became a sob, and her form collapsed—no longer a goddess of desire, but a soul shedding its chains.
Petals rained from the skies. Soft, mournful. Final.
"Desire denied becomes strength," Devavrata said, lowering his bow.
Kamaari's eyes—now calm, almost grateful—met his once before she dissolved into falling light, her karma released.
And the temple, once again, stood quiet.
The Third Night – Judgment of the Mirror
The temple darkened, the walls melting into mist. No sound. No wind. Only breath.
Then Devavrata stepped forward—only to freeze.
Before him stood Nyaya, his own reflection, cloaked in shadow and bound in silent chains of karmic law. His face bore the same calm, determined gaze… but his eyes burned with a deeper sorrow.
"I am Nyaya," the mirror-self said, voice echoing like thunder inside a closed chamber. "The Law you will bind yourself to. The vow that will fracture kingdoms. I am the you that history will hate and fate will not release."
Devavrata clenched his spear. "If you are my shadow, then you know I walk willingly."
"Then feel the first wound." Nyaya raised his bow—elegant, obsidian, etched with runes of mourning. He drew and released Shoka-Paash — The Arrow of Grief.
It screamed as it flew, barbed and wrapped in the sighs of the dead. When it struck Devavrata's aura, it exploded into memory.
Suddenly he was drowning in echoes: Ganga weeping alone by the river after giving him away; A faceless bride he would never know; Children unborn, futures unchosen; The cries of wars he would cause by choosing duty over love.
He dropped to his knees, spear clattering to the ground. His chest heaved, his soul dragged under.
"This is your fate," Nyaya whispered, walking slowly toward him. "To be alone, to be unloved, to be revered and cursed in equal measure. Can you still walk forward?"
Devavrata's hands trembled… but then steadied.
He reached for his bow, and from his quiver came Dharma-Vritti — The Arrow of Right Flow. It shimmered strangely, glowing gold and blue, the runes on it rearranging mid-flight as he whispered:
"Let the right action find its own path."
He loosed the arrow—and it curved.
Not straight, but in spirals, loops, angles unknown to mortal archery. It sought not weakness, but righteousness.
Nyaya raised his palm to deflect it—but Dharma-Vritti swerved, striking not his heart, but his bow, shattering it into fractals of karma.
"You choose dharma," Nyaya said, staggering. "Even knowing it will cost you everything?"
"Especially then."
They stood, aura against aura. Silence returned. Then Devavrata summoned his final arrow.
He planted his feet and raised his bow slowly, reverently, like lifting a prayer.
"Earth bears the weight of all who walk it. Let me do the same."
He released Bhumi-Astra — The Arrow of Grounding.
It fell like a shooting star—then bloomed on impact. Golden roots burst from the floor, wrapping around Nyaya's limbs, chest, and mind. He gasped, pulled downward by threads of truth and burden, like a tree accepting the soil.
The temple trembled with stillness. No cry. No collapse.
Just understanding.
"I will carry this burden," Devavrata said, tears streaming freely, "even if the world never thanks me. Even if I am broken by it."
Nyaya's form began to glow, dissolving into motes of quiet light.
"Then you are ready," he whispered. "Not to win. But to endure."
And with that, Nyaya vanished, leaving behind only silence… and a single lotus petal, drifting slowly down.
Fourth Night – The Storm of the Void
Silence ruled the chamber—not the silence of peace, but the eerie stillness before a tempest of nothingness. Devavrata found himself suspended on nothing—no solid ground beneath his feet, no walls enclosing him, only an endless swirling grey mist that stretched into infinity.
Time felt fractured here, the air heavy with a primal void. Shapes without form flickered at the edge of his vision, faces with hollow eyes whispered names never spoken, and the very fabric of reality seemed to unravel.
Suddenly, the silence shattered.
A gale arose, a Storm of Emptiness, a howling force born before creation itself. Winds twisted with unseen power, tearing at the edges of Devavrata's being. The void howled—a soundless scream that pierced through thought and bone.
From the heart of this storm emerged a terrifying apparition—a void-beast, a colossal serpent woven from fractured strands of broken time and anti-light. Its sleek, shifting form rippled like shadows folding inward. Fangs dripped with the essence of unbeing, corrupting all light around it.
Devavrata instinctively raised his spear—Riversteel, the weapon that had felled flames and illusions alike. But the spear passed right through the beast, dissolving as if it were mist. His arrows, launched in desperation, vanished mid-flight, swallowed by the void.
A voice echoed, calm and cold, coming from the beast itself, deep inside the emptiness:
"You cannot strike what does not exist."
Devavrata's heart raced but he remembered the lessons Ganga had instilled deep within him during his time by the sacred river:
"To fight the void, become the space between thoughts."
He closed his eyes, dropping all resistance.
He released every thread of aura, every trace of force, surrendering to stillness.
His breath slowed until it felt like the river's deepest calm. Within, his lotus bloomed fully—now a rare and radiant black-ringed gold, signifying the completion of Soul Transformation and the awakening of Void Ascension.
Time stopped.
The void beast hovered, shifting and snarling, but unable to grasp the silent space Devavrata now inhabited.
Opening his eyes, filled with the vast emptiness of eternity, Devavrata spoke with calm certainty:
"I do not fight you. I accept you."
In that acceptance, a bow appeared in his hands—made not of wood or steel, but woven from strands of the void itself, shimmering between form and nothingness.
He nocked a single arrow:
"Nirantara" — The Arrow of Continuum.
A paradox forged in the silent space between inhale and exhale. Formless, yet cutting sharper than any blade. Existing in the moment before and after its release.
He let the arrow fly.
Time seemed to fold in on itself.
The void paused, trembling at the paradox.
And then, as if waking from a dream, it collapsed inward—folding into the swirling grey until nothing remained but silence once more.
Devavrata stood alone—no longer just a warrior, but a cultivator who had transcended the boundary between existence and non-existence.
The temple's crystal walls glowed faintly, catching the light like liquid glass as Ganga stepped forward. Her eyes, deep and calm as the river she embodied, reflected the quiet depths of countless ages. Her voice was steady, carrying the weight of eternity and the soft authority of a mother who had seen worlds rise and fall.
"Devavrata," she began, "you have walked through fire, faced desire, and met the void itself. Few souls emerge so tempered. But do not mistake this victory for completion."
Ganga gazed at him, pride and sorrow mingling in her eyes. "You carry the weight of countless lives within you, yet you wear it lightly. This is the sign of one who is truly ready—not just to wield power, but to bear responsibility." Her voice softened, almost a whisper. "You have walked through storms and silence alike. Few can say they have faced the void and returned whole."
Devavrata lowered his gaze, a mixture of weariness and relief softening his strong features. "Mother," he said quietly, "I have tried to let go of all that binds me. Yet sometimes, it feels like the shadows still cling to my soul."
Ganga nodded slowly, stepping closer, her hand reaching out to rest gently on his shoulder. "That is the truth of the Soul Transformation phase. You shed the old skin, but the new has yet to fully bloom. Your soul now teeters on the edge—between fate and freedom, between self and the vast emptiness beyond. Void Ascension will demand that you master the silence within, and the storms without."
Her touch was warm yet firm, grounding him in the moment. "Soon, you must leave this sanctuary and return to your father. The river has nurtured you, but the river's journey does not end here. As a son, you carry not only your own path but the burdens and hopes of your family and kingdom."
She took a deep breath, steadying herself. "I will walk those halls once more—not as a goddess but as a mother, and perhaps as a reminder of what you both carry in your blood and destiny."
Devavrata's eyes brightened with a new, fierce resolve. "I have longed to see him, to prove my worth."
Ganga's lips curved into a rare, gentle smile, softening her usually serene demeanor. "You will prove more than worth. But remember, strength alone will not guide you. Wisdom, patience, and compassion are your truest weapons now. The trials of the river prepared you for this moment—but the world beyond holds tests far more subtle, far more dangerous."
She stepped back slowly, the air around her shimmering and flowing like a living current. "Prepare yourself, Devavrata. Your cultivation ascends to a new realm—not just of power, but of duty. The time to meet your father approaches. Walk with courage, but walk with a steady heart."
Devavrata bowed deeply, his voice steady with conviction. "Thank you, Mother. I will not fail."
Ganga's voice lingered in the air like a soft ripple across still water as her words settled into Devavrata's heart: "Become the son your father needs—and the man your soul is destined to be."
But unlike the spirits who had faded after their trial, Ganga did not vanish into light. Instead, she remained, luminous and composed, the river incarnate in human form. Her eyes, usually placid as moonlit waters, shimmered with a rare emotion—part pride, part sorrow. "Come," she said softly. "It is time. I will walk with you—for a while longer. A mother's farewell must be given not in solitude, but where it matters most."
Devavrata stood taller, his silhouette serene. Yet something had shifted. His aura, once radiant and vast, now lay condensed, drawn inward like a star turned to ember. Where once he had burned like a celestial fire, now he moved like mist over still water—humble, quiet, unreadable. Even to those with trained senses, he would seem merely human. That was his choice. That was his control.
As they stepped beyond the temple's crystal threshold, the night around them parted like reverence before divinity. Ganga looked at her son, no longer a boy but something greater—and more alone. In the silence, she carried unspoken thoughts: of the weight she had laid upon him, of the destiny she had carved with love and discipline. There would be no more battles like these, no more trials wrapped in spirit-light. The next war would be of flesh and law, of family and dharma.
She exhaled slowly. "Shantanu waits. And so does the world. Let him see the man his son has become. Let me see him… one last time."
Devavrata nodded, his eyes shining faintly—not with power, but with the ache of farewell. And together, mother and son walked toward a future shaped by the past, river and warrior bound for the shore of kings.