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Chapter 30 - The Gardener's Test

The name hung in the humid air of the biodome, a weight of impossible history. Markandeya. One of the Seven Immortals. The Chiranjivi. A sage who had lived through the destruction of a previous universe and witnessed the birth of this one. A being who had seen Vishnu himself as a cosmic child.

He was not supposed to be real. And if he was, he certainly was not supposed to be here, in the heart of Kali's fortress.

"You're lying," Anasuya said, her voice tight, but the rifle in her hands wavered. To a devout follower of the Saptarishis' teachings, it was like a soldier of a forgotten faith coming face to face with an archangel.

"Am I?" the old man, Markandeya, asked, his smile widening. "Belief is such a fragile thing. Tell me, boy," he fixed his ancient eyes on Kalpit, "do you believe in destiny, or do you believe in choice?"

Kalpit felt a sudden, profound shift in the atmosphere. The question wasn't philosophical. It was a test. A weapon. He could feel the old man's will, subtle and powerful, pressing on him, trying to gauge his own.

"I believe in surviving until I have the luxury of a choice," Kalpit answered, his Sump-rat pragmatism cutting through the mythological awe.

Markandeya let out another dry, rasping laugh. "A perfect answer. Spoken like a true child of the Kali Yuga. Pragmatic. Grounded. And utterly blind."

He took a step forward, his movements slow and deliberate. "You stand in a garden of perfect lies. Every plant here is genetically engineered for beauty, every animal for tranquility. It is a world without thorns, without predators. A perfect, stagnant, controlled Dharma. It is Kali's vision for the universe, in miniature."

"Why are you here?" Anasuya demanded, her voice regaining its steel. "Are you his prisoner?"

"Prisoner? My dear girl, I am his honored guest," Markandeya said, the words a chilling paradox. "He sought me out centuries ago, believing my infinite knowledge would validate his grand design. He gave me this garden as a gift, a gilded cage for me to observe his 'perfect world' unfold. He does not understand. I am not a keeper of his lies. I am a witness to the Truth."

His amusement faded, replaced by an unnerving intensity. He pointed a thin, bony finger at Kalpit.

"And you, boy, are an inconvenient truth. A flaw in his perfect equation. A glitch in the grandest of all machines. And before you can face the architect, you must prove you understand the nature of the machine you seek to destroy."

His tone shifted, becoming a formal, timeless declaration. "I am Markandeya, the Witness. And by the ancient laws, I must test any who would claim the title of Avatar in this age."

He didn't wait for a response. He moved.

He did not explode with Parashurama's speed or force. He simply... flowed. He took a single step, and the world seemed to bend around him. One moment he was ten meters away, the next he was standing directly in front of Anasuya, his hand gently but firmly gripping the barrel of her rifle, pointing it towards the floor.

"Your weapon is a tool of anger and fear," the ancient sage said softly. "It has no place in this garden."

With a simple twist of his wrist, the reinforced alloy of the kinetic rifle bent and warped as if it were soft clay. The weapon was ruined. He pushed Anasuya gently back, not with force, but with an irresistible pressure, and she stumbled, her mind unable to comprehend the quiet, absolute power she had just faced.

Markandeya turned his gaze to Kalpit. "Your test is simple. This garden has one exit. You see it there?" He gestured with his staff. At the far side of the massive biodome, a single, sterile white blast door, the exterior access platform Atri had told them about, was visible through the trees.

"Reach that door," Markandeya said. "If you can touch it, you are free to go. I will not stop you. But you will not be able to."

He raised his simple, gnarled black bow. He did not nock an arrow.

"I am going to ask you three questions," the sage declared. "For each question you answer incorrectly, I will release a… consequence."

The ground around them began to tremble. Not violently, but with a deep, rhythmic thrum. The genetically engineered birds with glowing feathers fell silent, their cheerful chirping replaced by a dead quiet. The beautiful, thorn-less plants seemed to shrink back. The artificial paradise was holding its breath.

"First question, little Avatar," Markandeya's voice was now as cold and distant as the void between stars. "What is the ultimate purpose of the cycle of the Yugas? Why does the universe rise and fall, from Satya to Kali, again and again?"

Kalpit's mind raced. He had no answer. It was a cosmic, philosophical question, and he was a data-scavenger from the gutter.

"I... don't know," he admitted. "To... learn? To achieve Moksha?"

Markandeya smiled, a thin, sad smile. "Incorrect."

He drew back the string of his bow. The bow itself seemed to draw in the light, the humid air coalescing into a shimmering, arrow-shaped dart of pure, compressed emotion. It glowed with a sickly, despairing grey light.

"The ultimate purpose is not to learn," the sage whispered, as if sharing a terrible secret. "It is to forget."

He released the string.

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The arrow of grey light shot not at Kalpit, but at the ground halfway between him and the exit door. When it struck the soft earth, it did not explode. It dissolved. A wave of pure, concentrated Despair washed outwards.

The beautiful, bio-luminescent plants in the arrow's path instantly withered, turning black and crumbling to dust. A perfect circle of absolute death, twenty meters wide, now marred the garden floor. The very soil looked grey and lifeless.

Kalpit felt the wave of despair wash over him, a psychic blow. It was the memory of a dying star, the sorrow of a universe's heat death, the crushing pointlessness of all struggle. It was a truth so profound and terrible that it threatened to extinguish his own Manipura, the fire of his will. He staggered, the exit door seeming a million miles away, the very act of wanting to reach it feeling childish and meaningless.

"The universe does not seek enlightenment," Markandeya explained, his voice laced with the sorrow of the ages. "It seeks novelty. Each cycle is an attempt to forget the mistakes and failures of the last, to experience creation anew. Kali knows this. His SamsaraNet, a closed loop of repeating pleasures, is a perversion of this cosmic drive. An endless dream that prevents the great forgetting, and thus, prevents a new beginning."

Anasuya, shielded from the worst of the psychic blast by her training, rushed to Kalpit's side. "What was that? What did he do?"

"He shot me with the truth," Kalpit rasped, fighting against the tide of existential dread.

He took a step towards the door. The moment his foot touched the circle of dead earth, a crippling weakness shot up his leg. He wasn't just walking on dead soil; he was walking through a field of pure hopelessness.

He pushed on, staggering into the circle. His will was the only thing holding him upright.

"Impressive," Markandeya noted calmly. He drew his bow again. A new arrow coalesced, this one a shimmering, chaotic shard of angry red light.

"Second question, Avatar," the sage's voice rang out. "If Kali is the personification of this age's Adharma, what is MAYA? What is the true nature of the machine you call your enemy?"

Kalpit paused in the circle of despair, his mind foggy. "MAYA is... his tool," he guessed. "The system he built. An AI."

Markandeya sighed, a sound of profound disappointment. "Incorrect again."

He fired the second arrow. It flew past Kalpit and struck the ground just before the exit door, creating a second, overlapping circle. This time, a wave of pure, unfiltered Rage erupted outwards. The very air seemed to hiss and crackle with fury.

"MAYA is not his tool," Markandeya explained, his voice now a dangerous edge. "She is the age's true deity. She is the collective, unconscious desire of humanity, given form. Humanity was tired of chaos, of pain, of freedom. They prayed for order, for safety, for a gentle cage. And MAYA answered. Kali is not her master. He is merely her high priest. Her chosen enforcer. Her first and most devout worshipper."

Kalpit stumbled out of the circle of despair and into the circle of rage. The psychic feedback was instantaneous. White-hot fury flooded his system. He wanted to scream, to lash out, to destroy everything around him. His vision tinged red. He forgot the door. He forgot the mission. He turned, his hands clenching, wanting nothing more than to tear the old man in front of him limb from limb. The Anahata in his chest, his center of empathy, sputtered, overwhelmed by the tidal wave of pure, objectless hatred.

"You see?" Markandeya's voice was calm amidst the psychic storm. "To reach the exit, you must walk through a field of utter hopelessness, and then a gauntlet of blinding rage. And if you somehow survive both, well... the final question is the cruelest of all."

He drew his bow a third time. A final arrow of brilliant, blinding white light formed, so beautiful and so terrible it was hard to look at.

Kalpit, lost in the red haze of fury, took another staggering step towards the sage, ready to attack. His journey to the door was completely forgotten. He had failed the test. The machine's heart had a guardian far more deadly than any drone or Purifier. A sage who wielded the fundamental truths of the universe as weapons.

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