"You don't survive the Ashvattha to live. You survive it to become something else."
The moment Bhimasura's skull cracked against the obsidian slab and silence swept the crowd like a guillotine, Aarav knew something was wrong.
Not with the arena.
Not with the crowd.
With himself.
His pulse wasn't slowing. The Divine Mark along his right arm wasn't dimming as it should have. It pulsed—wild and erratic—like a heart that belonged to something else. His blood felt heavier, thicker. A river too swollen for its banks.
> "I didn't just win," he thought, "I changed."
The air itself recoiled from him. Even the dust refused to settle at his feet. The Mark was no longer a badge. It had become a wound—and something was waking up inside it.
Aarav exhaled and forced himself to stand tall, rolling his shoulders as the crowd began to chant.
"Aarav! Aarav! Aarav!"
The name echoed through the sacred chamber like a war drum.
But then came the silence.
Thick. Dense. Ancient.
And from the highest balcony, the Keepers of the Ashvattha rose for the first time in generations.
Clad in indigo ceremonial robes and bone-white masks, they resembled statues carved from divine judgment itself. None spoke at first. They simply stared. Their presence alone was an accusation.
> "They see the Mark," Aarav realized. "They feel it too."
Then one stepped forward, taller than the rest, with a mask shaped like the face of a screaming yaksha.
> "Aarav Sen. Rogue. Unblessed. Bound by no divine oath."
"You have torn the balance. Broken a sanctioned bond. Awakened a Mark beyond reckoning."
The words weren't spoken—they were pronounced. A ritual in sound. Every syllable gripped the bones of the arena.
> "And yet you stand."
Another Keeper leaned forward, mask like a serpent devouring its own tail.
> "He bears the storm sigil. The curse of the Tempestborn."
Gasps rose. Even seasoned champions flinched.
Aarav's knuckles whitened. "You're afraid of me," he said quietly.
The first Keeper responded:
> "No. We are afraid of what's watching through you."
Then came the Oracle.
It began as a humming from the west corridor. Monks with shaved heads and skin painted with stars emerged, chanting low. Between them, she floated—barely walking—her feet blackened by fire-coal, her blindfold glimmering with threads of starlight.
A child. No more than twelve. Yet the air folded around her like a dying sun.
> "The Oracle of Threads," someone whispered. "She sees what never was."
She stepped onto the battlefield, unaccompanied now. The monks knelt as one. So did the crowd. Only Aarav remained standing.
She opened her mouth.
But didn't speak.
She screamed.
A sound that tore the world sideways.
The sand convulsed. The torches dimmed. The sky beyond the dome cracked, as though thunder had whispered the name of a forgotten god.
Aarav collapsed to one knee, clutching his ears, veins glowing with silver flame. His Divine Mark lit up like a furnace—no longer a source of power, but a prison trying to keep something inside.
> "What is this?! What are you showing me?!"
Her voice poured into the air, now a river of prophecy and decay:
> "The Tree shudders…
The roots scream…
And he walks with the end in his marrow."
The arena blurred. For a moment, Aarav wasn't in the tournament.
He was elsewhere.
A throne made of bones. A mirror of blood. A hand reaching toward a dying sky.
Then it ended.
The Oracle dropped to her knees, blindfold soaked red.
> "You are the Key. The Gate. The Breaking of the Cycle."
She looked toward him, though she could not see.
> "You were never meant to be born. And yet you are here. So now the Forgotten will awaken."
"Who are the Forgotten?" Aarav demanded.
She smiled, her voice a fading ember.
> "You'll know them by the silence they leave behind."
Then she collapsed.
Silence devoured the arena. No one moved. Not the monks. Not the champions. Not even the Keepers.
Because beneath the Oracle, etched in blood and flame, a sigil had formed on the sand.
A shape that hadn't been seen in five centuries.
A mark that meant only one thing:
The Root That Betrayed the Tree.
The seal of the Ashvattha's Root.
Aarav stared at it. His pulse slowed. The Divine Mark was cold now.
And for the first time since his sister disappeared,
for the first time since stepping into the tournament,
he was afraid.
Above, the Keepers spoke in low, urgent tones.
> "He bears the omen."
"The Root has returned."
"The cycle is breaking."
And from the shadows, one final whisper:
> "The boy isn't just a contender. He's the crack in the world."
Aarav stood there, staring at the sigil, the blood drying on his fists.
And he understood.
The tournament had never been about winning.
It was about waking something up.
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