Two weeks later...
Oz's training was merciless.
Every morning before the sun touched the river's edge, the brothers stood bare-chested in the mist, fists clenched, feet grounded in cold mud.
They were forbidden to use their Flow at first.
Only body.Only breath.Only pain.
Zaire's arms ached constantly. His ribs were still bruised from a failed counter the day before. Oziah moved with a fury that matched their father's, his strikes controlled, his footwork sharp. Zaire tried to match it — but never could. Not yet.
They had been through drills. Meditation. Resistance training. River sprints. Silent forms. Controlled Flow release.
And today, after two weeks, came something different.
Oz stood in the clearing, arms crossed, eyes cold.
"Again."
Zaire was on his knees, panting. Oziah was breathing heavy but steady. Steam curled from their skin.
The brothers rose. Their Flows began to stir.
Pale blue markings flickered over their chests and shoulders, like tribal sigils pulled from the water itself.
Oz stepped forward.
"You've both reached manifestation. But there's a higher state."
He raised his hand. Flow coiled around him — not like armor, but like energy flooding every inch of him. The river responded in kind, rising slightly, as if bowing.
"This is called Flow Submergence. It's when Flow doesn't just wrap around you. It enters you. Amplifies every cell. Your strength. Your speed. Your senses. Your survival."
Zaire's jaw tightened.
Oziah stepped forward.
Without a word, his markings surged — glowing brighter — until his entire body was surrounded by an aura of shimmering mist and sharp-edged light. His feet cracked the ground beneath him.
Oz nodded slowly.
"Good."
He turned to Zaire.
"Your turn."
Zaire closed his eyes. Breathed. Felt the Flow.
It answered — hesitantly. A pulse here. A ripple there. His markings glowed... but dimly. A flicker, then fade.
Nothing.
Oz's voice cut the air.
"Enough."
Zaire's head dropped.
"You still lack the crucial element of Flow."
"What is it?" Zaire whispered.
Oz stepped forward, voice lower now, not cruel — but disappointed.
"Flow is not a measure of strength. It's a reflection of control. You have power, Zaire… but you're trying to dominate it, not understand it. Especially you two…"
His eyes shifted between them.
"…as mutated Flow users."
Both brothers looked up.
Zaire's brow furrowed. "What is mutation, anyway?"
Oz exhaled, long and tired, like this was a truth he didn't want to share.
"Mutation is when Flow breaks its own rules. It happens rarely — in people whose spirit or trauma fractures something deep inside their resonance."
He looked up at the sky, then down at his hands.
"It can appear as unique abilities. Accelerated growth. Even multiple Flow types mixed into one body. But the Council…"
His voice darkened.
"…the Council hunts mutations. Not to protect the world — but to study them. Control them. Eliminate the ones they can't understand."
Oziah stepped forward, frowning. "So… we're targets?"
Oz nodded. "If they know what you are — yes. You are threats to their order."
Silence.
Then Oz spoke again, louder now.
"Now, we test something else. Physicality."
The boys stood straighter.
Oz pointed to the middle of the clearing.
"Fight."
The mist thickened, curling around their bare feet.
Zaire adjusted his stance in the slick mud, heart pounding. Behind him, the crooked training tree loomed — a silent witness to every bruise earned over the last two weeks. Water dripped from its leaves like a ticking clock.
Oziah was already moving.
A burst of steam exploded beneath his soles as pressure launched him forward — the air cracked around his limbs like snapping cords. His body shimmered faintly with condensed Flow: raw, aggressive, controlled.
Zaire barely dodged the opening jab, sliding to the left, feeling the mud give beneath him. He swung low, aiming for Oziah's ribs, and this time — he connected.
But Oziah didn't move.
He absorbed the hit like a statue. Then twisted.
Zaire felt his wrist get caught. He gritted his teeth.
In one brutal motion, Oziah pivoted, using the momentum — and slammed Zaire backward into the training tree. Bark tore at his back. His lungs emptied.
Zaire gasped, staggered, and dropped low to avoid a follow-up elbow. He rolled to the side, caked in grass and dirt, and scrambled back to his feet.
Their Flow pulsed around them now — Zaire's a flickering glow like uncertain lightning beneath water, Oziah's a steady burn, white-hot mist swirling around his shoulders.
Why do I hesitate? Why do I hold back?
He circled left, eyes locked on Oziah's. His brother's breathing was steady. His stance, sharp. Calculated.
Zaire's body remembered the forms. The sprints. The meditation. But none of it mattered here.
Oziah rushed again, Flow-enhanced steps cracking the earth with each stride. He moved like the pressure of a rising tide — constant and crushing.
Zaire dropped low under a hook, pivoted, and aimed a strike toward Oziah's gut.
Mist flared — counterstrike.
Zaire was too slow.
Oziah's arm spun into a backfist, enhanced with a pressure burst that boomed like a mini shockwave. The blow cracked across Zaire's cheek, sending him sprawling backward, mud spraying in every direction.
His body hit the tree again, hard.
The clearing stilled.
Zaire slid down the bark, blood in his mouth, hands shaking. The river behind them hissed — like it felt his shame.
"OZIAH!"Oz's voice split the silence like a whip."Pull back your control!"
Oziah stepped back, panting, his body still glowing faintly with mist. His brow furrowed. His Flow markings pulsed erratically along his arms.
Zaire looked up at him — bruised, beaten, humiliated.
But more than that… afraid.
Afraid of what he wasn't becoming.
His Flow flickered again, trying to surface. It wanted to respond. But not with rage.
With something else.
Something deeper.
Before Zaire could speak, a voice echoed from the forest's edge.
"Still raising your boys like soldiers, I see."
They turned.
From the treeline, a figure emerged.
She walked slowly, leaning on a carved stick etched with waves and stars. Her layers of cloth fluttered like wind-worn pages. Her hair, coiled like river reeds, danced in the breeze.
She was hunched — but not frail.Old — but not forgotten.
Zaire's eyes widened. Something about her felt familiar — as if the mist itself had given her shape.
Oz's body went still.
"…Chokmah."
She smiled, crooked and weathered. "Oz. You've aged well."
Oziah squinted. "Who is this?"
Oz hesitated. "An elder and I knew from my days before I left the Council."
Zaire's gaze locked on Chokmah. Her presence felt like the river on a stormless night — still, but impossibly deep.
She turned her eyes to Zaire. Her smile faded.
She stepped forward and slammed her staff into the earth. A sharp crack echoed.
"I saw everything."
She turned to Oz, her eyes narrowing.
"And I must say — it's inadequate."
Oz's jaw tightened. "Excuse me?"
She gestured toward the brothers. "You think bruises and mud will prepare them? The Council already knows. Their Flow isn't growing — it's screaming. You're not training them, Oz. You're delaying what's inevitable."
Oz stepped forward, protective instinct flaring. "They're my children."
Chokmah didn't flinch. "And they carry more than your blood."
She turned to the brothers. "Let me take them."
"No." Oz's voice was steel.
"There's truth in what you say, Chokmah," he continued, "but they're my responsibility."
Oziah scoffed. "I don't need some senile old woman telling me how to fight."
Chokmah blinked. "Oh?"
She tilted her head, amused. "You think you could beat a senile old woman, boy?"
"I could beat you with my eyes—"
Everything stopped.
The wind.The birds.The breath in their lungs.
The clearing fell deathly silent.
Then…
A chill spread across the ground.
Zaire blinked — mist swirled at his ankles, frost dusting the grass.
Oziah looked down. "What the—?"
His feet were frozen.
A thin sheet of ice crawled upward, encasing his legs, then his hips, his arms — locking him mid-breath. He struggled, but it was like time had thickened around him.
Even the river behind them stilled — not frozen, but silent.
The air shimmered.
And then… she straightened.
Chokmah rose to full height. Her cloak peeled off in a gust of mist, revealing skin traced with jagged, glowing white markings — Flow pulsing beneath her like lightning under ice.
Her hair billowed. Her staff crackled. The earth beneath her bare feet cracked with frost.
The sky above darkened just slightly — like clouds had gathered only over her.
Flow Submergence.
But not like Oz's.
Hers was older.Heavier.Unyielding.
She moved — not fast, but without effort — and knelt before Oziah's frozen form.
"Don't think you're special, boy." Her voice was layered now — as if more than one version of her spoke.
"You're not the only mutated Flow user walking this earth."
Oziah's eyes twitched — his Flow markings flared in panic.
"H-how did you, did you do this?"
"Hmph. Suprised? Where is all that confidence boasting from you before, child?"
Chokmah turned toward Oz, who watched in silent disbelief.
"You never told them, did you?"
"Told them what?" Oz asked, voice low.
"That I'm the one who taught you to manifest your Flow. The Council's teachings could never give you the knowledge you truly needed to understand the beauty of Flow. Or have you forgotten"
Her words hit like falling stones.
And then — just as suddenly — the frost melted.
Mist pulled back like a receding wave.
Chokmah stood tall once more, cloak returning to her shoulders in a swirl of fabric and Flow.
The forest exhaled.
Oziah collapsed to his knees, gasping.
Zaire just stared, wide-eyed.
Oz didn't speak.
Because what could he say?
Author's Note: A Word from Me
The tension between Oziah and Zaire continues to rise — but what lies beneath their conflict is something far more ancient. In Chapter 10, we'll begin to unravel the truth behind Chokmah's past… and the first whispers of a betrayal that still echoes in the river's heart.
Hey everyone — I just want to thank those of you who've been reading Flow of the Divine River, whether you've been here since Chapter 1 or you're just now discovering the story.
I know I've been on a bit of a hiatus. Life got real for a while, and I had to step back. But I haven't forgotten about this world, these characters, or this vision. If anything, I've grown — and so has the story.
We're back now. And what's coming next… is where the current really starts to shift.
Stay locked in.