The forest fell utterly silent.
No birdsong. No rustling leaves. Not even the whisper of wind. It was as if the air itself had forgotten how to breathe.
Rudran stood before a jagged tear in the fabric of reality—an obsidian gash splitting the earth like a wound in the skin of existence. Within it, violet-black light twisted inward, as if the void itself was inhaling the world.
The Mouth of Kālā.
It wasn't a name.
It was a curse—whispered by the land itself. A forbidden threshold no soul was meant to cross.
His shadow stirred, thick and coiling around his spine like a living thing.
> "Step forward," it rasped—low, hungry.
"You seek answers? Then offer your rage in sacrifice."
Rudran's eyes flicked to his hand. The faint outline of shadow traced across his skin like ink forming a glove.
Then—he stepped through.
---
Inside the Mouth of Kālā
Reality shattered.
The moment his foot crossed the threshold, gravity twisted sideways. Colors bled to gray. Scents vanished. This was not space.
It was memory.
A realm born from the collapse of a forgotten god.
Beneath him, the ground pulsed like muscle—alive and breathing. Jagged stone teeth jutted from cracked earth. Above, the sky was no sky at all—only a void stitched with burning glyphs and spectral veins.
He didn't walk.
He was carried—his body obeying a will not entirely his own.
And then... he saw them.
---
The First Kill
They came silently.
Narkajīva.
Monsters forged from ash and cracked bone, limbs twisted at impossible angles. Jaws unhinged like broken puppets. Sanskrit glyphs flickered across their bodies—corrupted mantras, twisted beyond recognition.
Their breath reeked of burnt copper.
Rudran moved before thought could catch him. Vṛntaka sprang into his hand—a coil of blackened chain with twin ends: one a curved sickle, the other a jagged fang.
Whip. Slash. Bind.
The chainblade sang as it spun.
His left hand twitched—
> "Chhāyā Pāśa."
A noose of solid shadow erupted from his palm, catching the lead Narkajīva mid-leap. It writhed, snarled—
—and Vṛntaka carved a silent arc through its chest.
Shadow poured from the wound.
> They're showing me… the shadows. They want me to see.
He watched from within—a prisoner inside his own body. Every movement precise, practiced. But he had never practiced.
> "This is the price of the gate you crossed."
"Power answers not the brave… but the broken. Dance, shadow-born."
---
The Dance Continues
Two more surged forward.
Rudran dropped low. Vṛntaka wrapped around one's leg—jerked—and slammed it into the other.
> "Nishtya-Chhāyā."
Another Sutra.
A harpoon of darkness lanced from his shoulder, impaling the stunned creature.
No screams. Just collapse.
His heart thundered—not from fear.
From recognition.
Sutras.
But not cast—triggered.
Reflexes.
> "You thought you were learning."
"You were remembering."
"Tamasic Flow is not taught. It returns."
Each motion etched itself into his memory.
Angles. Breath. Flow.
This was more than fighting.
This was inheritance.
---
Deeper In
The Alpha
The bone-forest twisted around him.
Vertebrae arched like bridges. Ribs rose like petrified trees. Stones cracked under unseen pressure.
Light dimmed—not from clouds—but from a watcher.
Then came the sound.
Chhkk-chhkk-chhkk.
A crawl. A rhythm.
Bharankā.
A colossal centipede, forty feet long.
Its liquid-metal body rippled over bone. Segments snapped in lethal tempo, each tipped with needle legs that stabbed into ash.
Its armor was black, veined with violet cracks—the breath of the Crack itself made flesh.
Its face was no face—only a serrated bloom of mandibles.
Twelve glowing eyes blinked in a hellish constellation.
Where it moved, the earth hissed.
A predator born in the Mouth of Gods.
It lunged.
Rudran didn't flinch.
The shadow within surged.
> "Chhāyā Bandhana."
Chains of pure shadow erupted from the ground—coiling around its legs. The beast shrieked, tearing bindings like paper, crashing forward.
> "Not enough…" Rudran muttered.
"That was to slow it. Not kill."
The noose followed.
> "Chhāyā Pāśa."
A living rope snared its torso, slamming the beast into a bone wall—shattering vertebrae like glass.
Dust exploded.
Mandibles snapped free.
It lunged again.
Rudran's body reacted.
Vṛntaka.
It flared. Deflected legs. Hooked deep into armor.
> "How did my body do that?"
> "Because it's yours. As fire belongs to the flame."
Bharankā reared, shrieked.
Rudran was pulled forward—chain blade locked.
Midair, he twisted.
His hand flared with burning glyphs.
The blade fractured—splitting into six.
All struck.
CRACK.
Violet mist hissed from the wound.
The beast wasn't done.
A scream.
A spin.
Shadow morphed.
His arm widened—a void-forged guillotine.
SLAM.
Bharankā's skull split.
Its shriek silenced.
---
Tamasic Flow
Rudran straightened, breathing calm.
He understood now.
Not just motion.
Rhythm.
Not mimicry. Not training.
Memory.
His style—his movement—his own.
> "What are you teaching me?"
> "I do not teach."
"I awaken the bones where memory sleeps."
---
Surrounded
The air thickened.
Narkajīva corpses melted into shadow threads.
But more came—crawling, limping, slithering.
Ten. Twenty. More.
Behind them, two more Bharankā slithered forward—followed by eyeless hounds, centipede-wrapped wolves, unnamed horrors.
Rudran stepped back, breath caught.
Surrounded.
> "We cannot win."
He whispered.
> "This is death."
---
The Possession
The shadow stirred.
Then surged.
> "Then die as prey…"
"Or surrender. Let me show them what fear means."
Rudran's eyes glazed.
His body snapped upright.
Every muscle coiled.
And then—it emerged.
---
Tamas-Sarpa Awakens
A hiss.
A slither.
A shape.
Black as void, coiling from Rudran's back—
Tamas-Sarpa.
The Upa-Sutra.
A serpent twenty feet long, pulsing with wrath and grief. Its violet eyes burned. Its fangs dripped fear.
The world stopped.
Monsters froze.
Even the Bharankā trembled.
Instincts screamed.
They didn't run.
They collapsed.
Not from pain.
From terror.
> "What is this?" Rudran whispered.
"They're afraid of me."
No.
They feared what he had become.
---
The Slaughter Dance
Rudran moved—not possessed, but aligned.
Vṛntaka blazed.
Tamas-Sarpa spiraled.
Slash. Coil. Whip. Pull.
Shadow and serpent danced as one.
A Bharankā died mid-lunge.
Another fled—impaled before it could blink.
Some creatures died before reaching him—fear killing them faster than blades.
This was Tamasic Flow.
Unleashed.
Not mimicry.
Inheritance.
Rudran no longer watched.
He chose.
He moved.
He fought.
He became.
---
The Realization
Silence.
Not peace.
Reverence.
Rudran stood among ashes, breath steady. Shadow curled around him like armor.
Tamas-Sarpa hissed—then vanished into his spine.
> "I understand now," he whispered.
"This power… is not borrowed."
He turned inward—speaking to the voice.
> "You told me to learn or be consumed."
"I chose."
"I remember."
"This… is mine."
---
Understanding the Power.
Rudran sat down slowly, breath steadying. The forest around him had gone still — even the shadows seemed to listen. His words weren't just for the voice within. They were for himself… and for those who would one day ask what he had become.
> "Now I understand," he murmured.
"Sutras. Upa-Sutras. Dharma Circuit... they're not just powers. They're reflections. Of pain, instinct, memory... of who we are beneath the skin."
He clenched his fist, shadow rippling over his knuckles like ink in water.
> "A Sutra is a core technique — like the ultimate move from your soul. If I was a character in some anime, this would be my Bankai or Domain Expansion. But it's not just flashy—it's sacred. It's personal."
He closed his eyes briefly.
> "My Core Sutras are two:
Chhāyā Bandhana — the chain of shadows.
Netra-Tamas — the Eyes of Darkness."
> "Chhāyā Bandhana didn't come out of nowhere. It was born from the part of me that wanted to protect… and the part that feared becoming a monster."
He looked to the ground where a faint coil of shadow shimmered.
> "Then came Tamas-Sarpa — the shadow serpent. That's my Upa-Sutra.
Upa-Sutras are like evolved branches—emotional awakenings of a Core Sutra. Rage, clarity, grief—they twist the power deeper. Like how Goku's Super Saiyan came from loss. Or how Arjuna received his celestial weapons only after surrendering his ego."
His voice lowered.
> "Tamas-Sarpa came from my fear… finally facing itself.
But it's not the only one."
He drew a finger across the earth, tracing a still line of shadow.
> "There's also Nishtha-Chhāya. Stillness of Shadow.
A technique born when I stopped trying to run, and started learning how to disappear."
> "It's not invisibility. It's erasure. No sound. No aura. No motion. Even the wind avoids me.
I become a memory the world forgets… until I decide to return."
His eyes glinted with something calm. Dangerous. Awake.
> "Every Core Sutra holds multiple Upa-Sutras… like branches from a living root.
Chhāyā Bandhana holds Tamas-Sarpa, Nishtha-Chhāya, Chhāyā-Pāśa... and maybe more I haven't unlocked yet."
He paused.
> "Same for Netra-Tamas. It has hidden Upa-Sutras I can feel… but I don't know how to unlock them yet. Maybe it'll take more battles. Or more truth."
A subtle shadow moved near his hand — Vṛntaka, the chainblade forged from darkness.
> "Even this weapon… Vṛntaka. I don't think I understand it yet.
It answers to me, but not fully. It's like it's waiting for something.
Or maybe it's watching who I'll become."
He rose slowly, the wind parting around his silence. His shadow curled calmly underfoot — not wild, not monstrous, but aware.
> "The Dharma Circuit…
That's the path inside us. Like a map of our soul. Where pain flows into strength.
Where your anger becomes fire. Your sorrow becomes silence.
And your light… becomes weapon."
> "Everyone has these circuits.
But only some of us… awaken them."
He stood tall now, eyes glinting violet beneath the trees.
> "And once you do—
your story begins."
---
But deep within the Mouth of Kālā—
Far beyond the veil of violet fog and fractured light—
A figure stirred.
Humanoid, yet not human.
Too still.
Too ancient.
Its ash-grey stone skin was carved with runes no god dared speak aloud,
Prayer beads of dying embers draped heavy around its neck,
Clinking softly in the silent dark.
Only a presence.
Not wrath.
Not hunger.
But ritual stillness.
Waiting.
A waiting meant for one.
For Rudran.
Far, far away—hidden beyond sight and shadow—
A pair of eyes watched him.
Cold.
Unblinking.
Unseen.
Rudran did not know.
Yet.
The final reckoning had already begun.
---