Chapter -1
The wind blew low across the mountain path, dry leaves scraping against the temple's moss-covered stones. Above, the sky hung like a still lake—quiet, deep, watching.
A boy stood before the old martial school gates, wrapped in a simple black robe, his long hair tied loosely behind him. Not a monk. Not a master. Just Ved—or so the elders called him.
The sect he stood before—Seven Lakes Pavilion—was known not for power, but for patience. A place that taught restraint more than strength, clarity more than glory. Ved had trained here for five years. He had learned forms, studied the breath, memorized pressure points and patterns. He was stronger than most his age, but not yet feared.
Still, there was something unsettling about him. He fought like someone remembering rather than learning. Techniques flowed from his body that no master had taught. Movements too refined, too silent.
No one dared ask.
---
Down in the valley below, the local sects gathered rumors like dried wood for fire.
> "The Pavilion boy… he doesn't chant before combat. Doesn't meditate. Still, his stance—did you see it?"
> "It's said he sees things in his sleep. Ancestral memories. Battlefields."
> "Nonsense. He's just another orphan with lucky talent."
But they didn't see what the Pavilion's Master saw—the stillness in his eyes, like someone carrying a mountain that hadn't fallen yet.
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That night, Ved sat under the open sky, the moonlight spilling across the stone tiles.
He couldn't sleep.
Again.
The visions came like waves—silent, sudden, heavy.
Swords clashing in the rain. Thunder not from the sky, but from the cries of men in battle. A storm of warriors clad in strange armor, bearing symbols older than Murim. A temple burning, but not in flame—in light. And amid them all, a man stood barefoot, calm, eyes closed, surrounded by carnage.
> "Aryavart shall not fall," the man whispered, voice echoing inside Ved's skull.
Then silence.
Then Sanskrit:
> "न हि ज्ञानेन सदृशं पवित्रमिह विद्यते।"
"There is no purifier equal to knowledge in this world."
Ved opened his eyes, breath sharp. The voice was not from the past. It was here. Present. Alive.
---
At the edge of the courtyard, an elder watched him quietly. His name was Master Haejin—old, blind in one eye, yet sharp as cracked ice.
> "You see them again?" he asked, voice barely a whisper.
Ved nodded.
> "And hear?"
Ved hesitated. "…Yes."
Master Haejin did not reply. Instead, he lit a single incense stick and placed it in the stone bowl.
> "Then soon, the world will start watching you too."
---
Across the land, in shadows and silence, strange forces stirred.
In Mount Wudang, a scroll was unsealed after centuries.
In the Southern Rainblade Sect, a masked warrior dreamed of thunder in Sanskrit.
Deep beneath the Kagutsuchi Caverns of the East, an old hermit whispered, "Aryavart breathes again."
None of them knew who Ved was.
Not yet.
But they would.
---
As the moon passed behind the clouds, Ved stood and unsheathed the wooden training sword strapped to his back. He held it—not as a student, but as someone mourning something lost.
Something he never remembered learning…
Yet never forgot knowing.
> "Who am I really?"
Only the wind answered.
And somewhere, beyond oceans and time, a voice whispered once more—
> "धर्मो रक्षति रक्षितः।"
"Dharma protects those who protect it."
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