The days following the sealing of the Bhargavastra were not filled with thunder or light. There was no celebration of power, no triumph echoing through the ravines.
Only silence.
Not by accident—but by sacred design.
Devavrata did not descend the mountain.
He did not seek food or sleep.
He remained beneath the shadow of the Judgment Rock, a crag of blackened stone carved with lost syllables, where ancient mantras had once been chanted by sky-seers and storm binders. Now those etchings were worn to soft scars, visible only under moonlight, like the remnants of a forgotten god's final whisper.
There, he sat.
For three days and three nights.
Not cultivating.
Not meditating.
Not moving.
He simply existed—each breath drawn as if through the soul of the world itself.
Above him, storm clouds gathered but never wept. Winds danced in ritual around the peak, as though the mountain itself respected his stillness. Below, the earth groaned with tectonic hush—an ancient spirit bowing in reverence.
And nearby, just beyond the perimeter of presence, Parashurama watched from a circle of unlit torches.
He made no move to break the silence.
Not out of apathy, but of understanding.
This was the wound after awakening.
The fire beneath the stillness.
The void one must stare into after wielding a god's breath—and surviving.
Devavrata had changed.
No longer merely a prodigy in the mid Soul Transformation stage, with perfect spirit veins and meridian flow refined through royal instruction. No longer just a prince.
Now, he was forged by trial. Tempered by sorrow. Hardened by the burden of astras older than memory. He had stepped into the mid Soul Transformation stage not like a youth eager to rise, but like a man who understood that every step forward was a step away from the world he once knew.
He was no longer a warrior seeking power.
He had become something heavier.
A vessel for judgment.
A blade that no longer asked if it should cut—but only when, and at what cost.
In all their time together atop Mahendra Parvata, Parashurama had never once instructed Devavrata in the sacred arts of inner ascension.
Not a single scroll on qi-flow techniques.
No diagrams of meridian lotus paths, no celestial scripts drawn under moonlight.
No chants echoing the vibratory harmonics of the Dao.
No alchemical elixirs.
No astral dreamwalking.
No stages explained, no stairway laid out.
Only battle.
Only rage.
Only the astras.
Where others were given clarity through structured cultivation, Devavrata was given chaos. Thrown into the heart of flame, into the torrent of oceans, into sky-splitting gales. And from each—he emerged... altered.
The Agneyastra taught him how to burn without anger.
The Varunastra showed him how to drown without fear.
The Vāyavyastra scattered his soul across winds, teaching him how to reassemble his will from the fragments.
But it was the Bhargavastra—forged from wrath, bound by curses, steeped in Parashurama's own bloodline—that left the deepest scar. Not on his body, but on the invisible realm within him.
It did not vanish.
Though sealed, it lingered.
Coiled in his dantian like a caged god of vengeance, whispering of reckoning and justice.
When he breathed, it stirred. When he fought, it pulsed. When he dreamed, it sometimes opened its eye.
There were moments when Devavrata feared the astras had not become tools—but tenants. That they lived within him now, demanding space. Demanding purpose.
And yet... for all this power, for all the legendary duels and scars hard-won under blood-stained moons—he had not advanced.
He had not stepped into the late Soul Transformation stage.
He had not touched the threshold of the next realm of Void Ascension.
He had not seen his spirit tree bloom.
And so, at night, when the sky turned black and silent and the mountain fell asleep, doubt crept in.
Why does he not teach me the sacred path?
Why do I fight gods, but do not climb heaven?
Why do others fly to realms unknown, while I remain rooted to blood and battle?
He had once believed—hoped—that it was all a test. That Parashurama, stern and unrelenting, was hardening his body, stretching his endurance so that when the time came, his soul would ascend like a storm prepared by struggle.
But the seasons shifted.
Leaves turned red.
The wind began carrying voices—voices of spirits that recognized the toll of forbidden weapons. And still, no scroll. No scripture. No promise.
Just the next duel.
Then one evening, when the sky looked as though it had been struck open with a blade of vermilion fire. The horizon bled. Clouds moved like silent beasts above the cliffs. Even the birds, ever-watchful, stayed away.
Devavrata stood alone on the peak, his limbs trembling faintly—not from fatigue, but from the weight of realization.
Around him, the air shimmered. Not with qi—but with stillness so complete, it became sacred.
And for the first time, he did not just ask why Parashurama withheld the path.
He felt it.
That gnawing, low ache in the space beneath his ribs, where his core should have bloomed like a lotus. Instead, it felt... scorched. Warped. Heavy.
He looked within himself and did not see a golden orb of refined qi.
He saw a battlefield.
A field of ash and fire.
Weapons buried like bones in the soil of his soul.
The astras had not simply aided him.
They had replaced something.
And that night, as he stood beneath the judgment sky, hands stained with memory, he realized the truth:
Parashurama was not preparing him for ascension.
Parashurama was preparing him for something that lay beyond it.
Not the stars.
Not the heavens.
But something older.
Something deeper.
Something that did not require elevation—but endurance.
And as the truth settled, cold and vast, Devavrata felt something within him stir—not joy, not pride, but a kind of quiet terror.
Because now, he understood:
The path Parashurama had chosen for him was not the path of a cultivator. It was the path of a weapon.
And weapons do not rise.
They are lifted.
By the hands of kings.
By the breath of gods.
Or by fate itself.