Eklavya crashed onto the floor of his room with a heavy thud that drove the air from his lungs and very nearly knocked the ambition out of him along with it. The impact echoed faintly against the wooden walls, and for a moment, he simply lay there, staring at the ceiling beams he had memorised since childhood. He was wondering how a day that had begun with clan politics had somehow escalated into interdimensional kidnapping.

  “Ahhh—!” he hissed through clenched teeth, curling slightly as one hand flew to the small of his back. Pain flared sharply, undignified and immediate.

  Above him, the spatial rift shimmered in faint violet distortions, its edges trembling like disturbed water, before sealing shut with smooth finality—as if it had delivered a package and was entirely satisfied with its work. The room returned to stillness, leaving him alone with bruised ribs and bruised expectations.

  He groaned and rolled onto his side, rubbing his lower back with exaggerated offence. “Oou… can’t that damn demon open the rift above my bed at least once?” he muttered, half complaint and half genuine accusation. “Five centuries of existence and not a shred of landing etiquette.” In his mind, the spectral face of Dashirsur flickered with infuriating calm, and Eklavya was entirely certain the ancient demon had aimed for the floor out of habit—or worse, amusement. If this was the beginning of divine mentorship, it lacked refinement.

  Slowly, he pushed himself upright, inhaling carefully to test whether anything vital had cracked. Satisfied that he was only wounded in pride, he dusted off his robes and moved toward his bed. The familiar wooden frame creaked softly as he sat cross-legged at its centre.

  The mattress dipped under his weight, warm and solid, reassuringly mundane. The faint scent of sandalwood incense lingered in the air. Outside, distant murmurs of clan life carried through the courtyard—guards shifting posts, servants passing quietly, the subdued rhythm of evening settling over the estate. Everything felt impossibly normal. And yet nothing was.

  Two god emperors had entrusted him with their inheritances. Two names capable of shaking realms—Demon God King Mahasura and God King Avas—now hung over his future like executioner’s blades.

  Somewhere within him, sealed power slept. Somewhere deeper, a second soul waited to awaken. He was sixteen, and the universe had handed him responsibilities usually reserved for beings with significantly more experience and fewer back injuries.

  He closed his eyes. Inhale, exhale and repeat.

  Gradually, the turmoil inside his chest loosened its grip. His breathing steadied. His heartbeat slowed. The physical sensations of his body began to fade as his awareness turned inward, descending layer by layer beneath muscle, beneath bone, beneath thought itself.

  The world dissolved. He stood upon a vast, endless sea.

  The water beneath his feet was dark—so dark it did not reflect light but seemed to consume it. It stretched toward an infinite horizon without boundary, without motion. Though he stood upon its surface, it did not ripple beneath him. There was no wind. No sound. Only stillness so complete it felt deliberate, as though the sea itself were waiting.

  Above him spread an eternal twilight sky. A pale glow illuminated the expanse without revealing its source, casting neither warmth nor chill. It was a realm suspended between moments—neither dawn nor dusk, but in between.

  He took a step forward, but no ripple followed.

  This was his Sea of Consciousness, the inner world his father had taught him to enter years ago. Yet even after countless visits, it still carried an aura of unfamiliarity—as though parts of it did not belong to him but someone else he didn’t know about but somehow felt. He lifted his gaze upward.

  High above the black ocean floated the structure that had unsettled him since childhood—a massive landform suspended in empty sky, jagged and ancient in silhouette. Five smaller floating islands circled it at measured distances, each connected to the central mass by enormous iron chains. The chains were thick, heavy, and metallic, yet they swayed gently in a wind that did not exist, their slow movement suggesting restraint rather than support.

  Eklavya tilted his head slightly, narrowing his eyes.

  The same question surfaced, persistent as ever.

  “What are you?” he murmured.

  No matter how many times he looked, the sight never felt natural. It did not resemble anything described in cultivation manuals. It felt older. Larger and intentionally placed.

  “It’s been here since the first time I entered my sea of consciousness,” he muttered, more to the silence than to himself. “Just floating… like it owns the place.”

  The islands drifted without response.

  He bent his knees and leapt with all his strength. The dark sea shrank beneath him as he soared upward, the twilight sky rushing past in silent blur. Within moments, he landed upon the central island with controlled precision, boots touching down with a muted thud.

  But what met his eyes was not soil or stone. Not earth shaped by nature.

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  Before him lay a vast circular basin carved into the island’s surface. And within it… was not water.

  It was a pool—a vast, circular basin carved into the heart of the island, filled not with water but with blood. Thick. Dark. Viscous. It did not ripple like ordinary liquid; it shifted slowly, heavily, as though it possessed weight beyond matter. Its surface reflected his face in warped distortions, stretching his features into something unfamiliar. The metallic scent of iron lingered in the air, sharp and unmistakable, though this was no physical realm. He knew he was standing within his own Sea of Consciousness, yet the smell felt real enough to settle into his lungs.

  At the far end of the pool stood a tree.

  It rose from the blood as if rooted in it, its trunk twisted unnaturally into an S-shaped curve, coiling like a resting serpent. The bark was pale—almost bone-like—and its branches stretched upward in thin, leafless limbs that clawed toward the twilight sky. It looked ancient, impossibly ancient, as though it had witnessed eras beyond memory. And yet, as Eklavya stared at it, he felt something unsettling.

  It felt alive, not with movement.

  With awareness.

  He took a cautious step back. He had seen this tree before—many times, in fact—but each encounter left him with the same turbulent reaction. Fear rose first, cold and instinctive. Curiosity followed close behind. And beneath both emotions lay something else… something raw, something hungry. I.e. his inability to express his emotion in his face

  He had to force himself to open up so people could understand. He was able to feel happiness, sadness, and every damn emotion in between, but he was never able to express them, as if some chain sealed off his ability to show anything to others. And because of this, his acting skills were almost flawless.

  “Why do you feel like you’re watching me?” he murmured, attempting composure. The tree did not answer, which was, in some distant corner of his mind, a relief. He was not ready for conversational trees just yet.

  Still, despite every warning instinct screaming restraint, he began walking along the edge of the pool. Each step brought him closer to the twisted trunk. The air felt heavier. The metallic scent intensified. And then—

  A whisper. Not a sound, but a pressure inside his mind.

  ‘Absorb.’ The word was not spoken aloud. It echoed from within. ‘Absorb it.’

  He froze mid-step. His pulse quickened. “What…?” he breathed.

  The command grew louder. Stronger. It beat against his thoughts like a second heartbeat—slow, deliberate, insistent. It did not feel like his own desire. It felt layered, as though another presence shared the space behind his eyes. Something else.

  He swallowed hard, his throat suddenly dry despite the sea of blood before him. The memory of what Dashirsur had said flickered through his thoughts: a second soul will awaken inside you.

  “Don’t start already,” he muttered weakly. Yet the pull intensified.

  Compelled by a force he could not fully name, he lowered himself beside the tree and sat cross-legged. His hands trembled faintly as he extended two fingers toward the surface of the blood pool.

  The moment his fingers hovered inches above it, the liquid stirred. A single drop rose.

  It lifted slowly, defying gravity, suspended in the air like a crimson gem. Thick and dark, it pulsed faintly, as though it possessed its own heartbeat. The drop drifted toward him with deliberate slowness and stopped between his brows.

  For a fraction of a second, there was silence.

  Then it touched him. As it touched him, agony exploded.

  His body convulsed violently as if struck by lightning from within. Pain tore through his veins like molten metal, searing and relentless. It felt as though every bone in his body had shattered simultaneously—then began reforging itself in white-hot fire.

  ‘Ahhhhhhh.’

  His breath escaped him in a silent scream, jaw locking, muscles tightening beyond control. He collapsed forward, clutching at the invisible surface beneath him.

  His throat chakra ignited first—burning fiercely, scorching his inner channels. The sensation travelled upward like a surge of flame, piercing through the barrier at his brow.

  His third-eye chakra burst fully awake.

  Ki surged into him from every direction—flooding from the sea, from the sky, from the very blood pool itself. It spiralled violently through his channels, crashing into his core in torrential waves. His channels stretched painfully to accommodate the sudden influx. Energy roared through him like a storm seeking dominance.

  He felt it. The breakthrough.

  The Chakra-Opening Realm consisted of nine progressive stages: Root Chakra, Sacral Chakra, Solar Plexus Chakra, Heart Chakra, Throat Chakra, Third-Eye Chakra, Crown Chakra, Divine Chakra, and finally the Divine Gateway Chakra. With each awakening, the body transcended ordinary human limits. Strength multiplied. Senses sharpened. Awareness expanded. Even the first stage granted superiority over mundane mortals. By the sixth—the Third-Eye Chakra opening—perception itself began to change.

  And in a single, violent instant. He had reached it.

  The pain lingered for long, excruciating seconds before slowly receding into a deep, trembling ache. His breathing came ragged and uneven. Sweat dripped from his temples, falling onto the invisible ground below.

  When at last he could lift his head, he stared at the pool in disbelief.

  “One drop…” he whispered hoarsely. “Just one drop did this?”

  Awe crept into his voice, tangled with fear. If a single fragment of that blood held such overwhelming power, then what exactly existed within this place? And more disturbingly, why had it been here long before he ever met Avrah and Dashirsur?

  They had given him inheritances of knowledge and sealed power. But they had not given him this.

  For a moment, temptation coiled through him like a seductive thought. ‘Another drop.’

  ‘If one drop could shatter a barrier… what would two do?’

  The whisper returned once again. ‘Absorb.’

  He hesitated, fingers twitching.

  Before he could take another drop.

  ‘Knock. Knock. Knock.’ The sharp sound cut through his consciousness like a blade. Eklavya’s eyes snapped open.

  He was back in his room. The wooden walls, the dim lantern light, the scent of incense—real. Sweat clung to his forehead and dampened his collar. His breath was still uneven, chest rising and falling rapidly.

  The knock came again, firmer this time.

  He wiped his face quickly, forcing his breathing to steady. Standing, legs slightly unsteady, he walked across the room.

  And opened the door.