Records of Immortality-Volume 1—Chapter 29: Final Trial: Departure
Elder Zarah's dull eyes measured the assembled members, his gaze a physical weight.
'Hmm... most have reached the Awakened stage.'
His attention lingered on Team 7.
'But not these. Without the guarded methods of the great Houses, their progress in the Samyama Marga stalls. If they survive this, there is hope. A faint one.'
"Your final trial begins now," his voice boomed, hollow in the vast temple.
"Succeed, and you will be formally accepted into the Order. Fail, and you are nothing."
'We're still not considered true members?'
Ashan's mind raced, a cold spike of alarm piercing his focus.
Elder Zarah clasped his hands. The stone floor erupted in patterns of violent, blackish light. Space itself wavered, the air humming with immense power.
"What's happening?!"
"I feel sick!"
Cries of confusion and fear were swallowed by the groaning void.
'Fuck! A spatial translocation!' Ashan had no time for further curses.
"Survive," Zarah's voice thinned, stretching across dimensions. "And return!"
A shroud of absolute blackness wrapped around every candidate. The world twisted, compressed, and then—
Silence. The temple was empty, the strange patterns gone.
Elder Zarah turned his reptilian calm to Instructor Faala.
"The hints regarding this trial. Were they delivered?"
Faala's eyes lost focus. "I... forgot. The leeches... I didn't eat them on time. My memory becomes... messy."
Zarah stared, his silence more accusing than any shout.
"The leech quality is insufficient? Upgrade your supply."
Instructor Yessa muttered a venomous curse under his breath. "Leech-eating bastard."
Head Instructor Inira interjected, her voice a polite scalpel. "Elder, accounting for Instructor Faala's lapse, I took the liberty of seeding hints throughout the trial zone."
Faala shot her a look of pure venom.
Zarah nodded slowly. "Adequate. The trial must be eventful. It must cull the weak." His gaze rested on Faala once more, and she bowed her head in submission.
"And the preparations?" he asked the group.
Instructor Dhren spoke up. "The slaves are stationed at all major points. The traps are set."
Instructor Asrein added, "The slaves have been informed: exterminate all the candidates, and they will earn their freedom."
Zarah gave a noncommittal grunt.
"Elder," Head Instructor Ress began, choosing his words with care. "If I may... is this level of extremity necessary?"
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Zarah moved to the altar, staring up at the seven blasphemous emblems.
"We do not need numbers. We require experts. If they all die, we begin anew. The alliance of the House of Sins is young. Its foundation must be built upon an elite cadre, forged in true adversity." He paused, his voice dropping into a zealous whisper.
"This is the will of the Asuras."
"Praise the Asuras!" the instructors chanted in grim unison.
***
Ashan's consciousness was not lost but violently remade.
The world dissolved into the unfolding petals of a black lotus, each one reflecting a shard of a terrible future.
A chorus of silent screams vibrated through his soul.
He saw a field of fallen shadows—too many, too still—under a sky the color of a fresh bruise.
At the vision's heart, an obsidian dais throbbed with a painful light.
Two dancers wove a desperate line of silver against a tide of gnashing darkness, while from behind them, unseen assassins picked off the shadows with whispered death.
A lion's roar, defiant and wet, was the only sound.
Two figures knelt before its fading light, their silhouettes bent in a final, desperate vigil.
The lotus petals snapped shut. The vision shattered into glittering dread.
'A premonition... This trial is a slaughterhouse. Those bodies...'
His thoughts were severed by the gut-lurching sensation of freefall.
His eyes snapped open to a vast, blue expanse. Sky above, ocean below.
'They teleported us into the fucking sky!'
He was plummeting. The ocean's surface, a hard, flat pane of blue, rushed up to meet him. A few seconds was all he had before impact would pulp him.
Sheek! Sheek!
A massive shape, all grey muscle and jagged teeth, broke the surface directly below him. A shark-like Rakshasa, its maw wide open, awaited its falling meal.
'Of course. Dinner is served.'
Ashan clutched his sword, then dismissed it.
'The skin is too tough.'
Instead, he aimed his hand, the guttural words of Ashurain a spell and a curse.
"𝔙𝔞𝔯𝔨𝔲𝔩 𝔃𝔥𝔞𝔢𝔫 𝔱𝔬𝔯𝔞𝔨!"
A bolt of dark-brown energy, smelling of fresh-turned soil, struck the inside of the creature's gaping mouth.
Hrrar!
It bellowed in pain and fury, its lunge faltering for a critical instant.
Ashan was upon it. He twisted in mid-air, Prana surging into his legs in a dark-bluish glow. The [Broken Stone Kiriya] guided his foot as he used the beast's snout as a springboard, launching himself toward the shore a dozen meters away. 'Tough-skinned bastard.'
He hit the water and swam, strengthening his body with Prana, each stroke a frantic battle against the water and the predator behind him. The Rakshasa recovered instantly, its speed terrifying in its element.
Ashan risked a glance back. It was a hair's breadth away, jagged teeth ready to shear through flesh and bone.
'There must be a weakness!'
[Viksana: Analyse]
His eyes swirled grayish-white. A torrent of information flooded his mind—density, muscle structure, Prana flow. In the split second before impact, he saw it. The internal tissue was vulnerable.
He dove, the Rakshasa's maw snapping shut over the space his head had just occupied. Enraged, it followed him under. Ashan let it come, tumbling in the churning water, letting its momentum carry him into its throat. The world darkened, pressed in by living, muscular flesh.
He didn't fight it. He formed the energy in his palms. Two [Combat Bolts], point-blank, fired directly into the beast's innards.
The twin azure detonations tore outwards.
Harr!
The cry was a wet, internal explosion. Ashan was ejected from the rupturing body in a geyser of crimson water and viscera.
He broke the surface, gasping, and swam the final distance to the shore, collapsing onto the sand.
'Huff... Huff... The inside... was the weak point.' He looked back.
The corpse of the Rakshasa was already being torn apart by a school of its kin, the water churning red.
'A Bodnir rank, but not Awakened. A waste of a Vestige.'
He assessed his surroundings.
An endless, predator-infested ocean to his left.
A dense, towering wild forest to his right, its leaves rustling with an eerie promise.
The air was a strange cocktail of salt, blood, and wild decay.
Above, two suns cast long, orange-yellow shadows.
'The life of a Sadhaka,' he grimaced, the reality a cold stone in his gut.
'Final trial.
Objective: Survive and return.
A battle royale with no rules. Rakshasa, traps, and other candidates all stand in my way. And that vision... a slaughter.'
His expression hardened into resolve. 'Priority one: Find the others. If they're alive.'
He pushed himself to his feet. "Shelter. Food. Then, hunting."
Thump. Thuck.
The ground trembled. The scattered, elongated pebbles around him began to rise.
The very sand beneath his feet bulged upwards, elevating him as if he stood on a growing mountain.
He was not standing on sand.
He was standing on the back of a colossal, sand-dwelling Rakshasa now rousing from its slumber.
A single, weary curse was all he could muster.
'Fuck.'
.
!
Volume 1—Chapter 29: Final Trial: Departure
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