Chains clattered against stone like scattered rain.

Aaryan didn't move.

Around him, cultivators rose—brushing off dust, testing limbs, faces hard with suspicion and bloodlust. The chains had vanished, undone by the destruction of key and his control over the puzzle formation was gone. They were free now.

And they were circling him.

His back pressed lightly against the cool, curved stone wall—the one where the gate had once shimmered. Sealed now. No exit behind. No allies ahead.

Yashan stood front-left, sneering like he'd been waiting for this since the cradle. Shivul was to the right, a blade already half drawn, eyes shining with that curious blend of mockery and interest. Veiyra stayed near the rear, arms folded, quiet and unreadable. Around them, six more disciples—all of them at the 8th stage Body Tempering—formed a loose perimeter, some limping, most glaring.

Aaryan took a deep breath. Let it out slow.

"Quite the welcoming committee," he murmured, eyes flicking from face to face. "I assume this isn't just a group hug?"

Yashan let out a low chuckle. "Still think you're clever, rat? Even now?"

"Gotta keep the brand consistent." Aaryan tilted his head, smile thin. "Unlike your confidence. Bit wobbly after that last illusion, wasn't it?"

Shivul snorted, tapping his blade on his shoulder. "Still talking sharp, huh? You're surrounded. Outnumbered. Caught red-handed."

Aaryan raised an eyebrow. "And yet I'm still prettier than you. Life really is unfair."

That earned a few laughs. Dark ones.

Veiyra stepped forward just enough for her voice to carry. "You don't seem worried."

"I am," Aaryan said honestly, rolling his shoulders like a man checking a noose's fit. "Just saving my tears for when someone deserves them."

Yashan took a threatening step forward. "Keep talking. You'll be coughing up teeth soon."

"Don't tease me," Aaryan said, eyes scanning the walls behind them, searching for cracks, for markings, for anything. "I might just take that as a promise."

Shivul grinned. "Oh, we'll keep our promises. Even if you don't have the scrolls, someone's gotta pay for that little trap. Might as well be the loudest mouth in the room."

Aaryan's gaze flicked to each of them, noting their stances, their spacing. No way to run. No opening.

He raised both hands slightly—not in surrender, but like a conductor ready to change the song.

"Before we get into the stabbing," he said, "small question. You all do know we're still inside the tomb, right? Sealed gate. No exit. Ancient mechanisms. That kind of thing. See, I can control some of the cave. And if I go down…" He let the words hang, tone grave.

One of the disciples near the back hesitated, glancing toward the wall.

But the room didn't freeze.

It laughed.

Veiyra was the one to cut through the bluff. Her voice was quiet, but it sliced clean. "If you could control the cave, Aaryan… you wouldn't still be standing here bluffing."

Silence followed.

Then Shivul grinned wide. "Oh, he's good. Almost made me flinch."

"A for effort," Yashan added. "F for what's left of your face when I'm done."

Aaryan's smile faded slightly. Just slightly.

He took one step back. The wall kissed his shoulders. No further to go.

His fingers twitched at his sides.

Yashan moved first.

A sudden blur of motion—no warning shout, no grand technique—just raw speed and a clenched fist aimed at Aaryan's ribs.

Aaryan managed half a sidestep.

Only half.

The punch connected with a brutal thud, sending him sprawling sideways, his back scraping against the stone floor. Pain flared, hot and sharp. He rolled once, came to a halt on one knee.

"First one's free," he coughed, spitting red. "But try aiming for the face. Might improve it."

Yashan snarled and came again.

Then Shivul joined in—silent but fast, his blade a silver flick through the air. Aaryan twisted away, only for a boot from another disciple to crash into his shoulder, knocking him against the curved wall. Veiyra hadn't moved. She watched, arms folded, unreadable as ever.

Aaryan staggered to his feet again.

Another blow slammed into his gut. A shoulder charge knocked the air from his lungs. He tumbled across the room, rolling through dust and dried blood, ribs shrieking with every breath. He coughed again—wet now.

They weren't trying to kill him fast.

They were enjoying it.

As they closed in again, Aaryan fumbled with his sleeve, slipping two fingers into the hidden fold at his wrist. With sleight-of-hand honed from years of stealing meals and slipping traps, he brushed the edge of his spatial ring—barely a whisper of spirit sense—and palmed a small pill.

He popped it in without pausing, masking the motion with a laugh.

"Is this... the part where I beg for mercy?" he rasped, staggering to his feet again. "Or do I have to fill out a request form?"

Yashan's kick sent him sliding. Shivul's elbow dropped him to a knee.

Still, Aaryan rose again. Bruised, bloodied, but smiling. Barely.

Another fist slammed into his side. Aaryan wheezed. He didn't rise this time. He knelt, one hand pressed to the ground, the other to his chest. Breathing ragged. Bones fractured. Pill working, but slow.

Just when it seemed they'd break him for good... the ground groaned, and the rumbling began.

Low at first—like something shifting beneath layers of stone.

Every cultivator froze.

The six pedestals, cracked and unused, began to sink into the floor. Grinding. Shaking. Dust rained down in lazy spirals. And in their place, at the centre of the chamber, the ground simply... fell away.

A perfect circle. Wide. Black. Bottomless.

A pit that hadn't been there before.

Aaryan's head lifted.

His eyes locked on the void.

"A trap?" someone muttered. "Another trial?"

But Aaryan was already thinking. Breathing. Bleeding.

'No gate. No exit. No scrolls. No allies. Just me, the wolves, and the void.'

His gaze flicked around the room. No hesitation in their eyes. They'd tear him apart eventually, no matter how long he stalled. And Rudra had taken everything worth bargaining with.

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'So… gamble, then. Better my choice... than theirs.'

He grinned to himself.

'Isn't that what I'm good at?'

Without a word, Aaryan turned, limped forward—

And leapt into the hole.

The silence that followed cracked the room in half.

One heartbeat.

Two.

Then chaos.

"What the—?"

"Is he insane?!"

"He jumped?!"

"Ha! Idiot!"

Shivul barked a laugh. "Well. That's one way to die faster."

Yashan shook his head, smirking. "Could've begged. We could have spared him after cutting a limb or two. Now he's food for the dark."

Only Veiyra didn't laugh. She just stared into the pit, unreadable as ever.

🔱 — ✵ — 🔱

Far below, Aaryan was already falling. Bleeding. Breathing. Heart pounding like war drums in his chest.

And smiling.

The wind screamed past his ears as he plummeted into darkness.

Stone walls streaked past—untouchable blurs in a tunnel of wind and silence.

'If nothing breaks this fall, Aaryan thought, I'm done. No tricks. No talk. Just... splatter.'

He tried to twist mid-air, control his descent, but his limbs were sluggish, unresponsive. The pill worked, yes—but not fast enough. Not for this.

Pain pulsed through his ribs. Blood rose in his throat.

Everything swam.

The black around him wasn't just the pit. It was inside his head now.

'So this is it.'

His eyelids grew heavier with each second. His thoughts blurred. His last coherent sense was of his body tipping sideways, no longer falling—but floating?

Then—

Something slowed him.

Not abruptly. Not painfully.

Like a hand beneath him. Gentle. Careful.

'...what?'

He felt it—just for a moment. A subtle shift. A weightless deceleration.

And then the cold.

Rough, solid, unmistakable stone beneath his back.

His body jolted slightly on impact, but the pain barely registered.

He couldn't move. Couldn't open his eyes.

The darkness this time wasn't the void above.

It was his own.

And it claimed him at last.

🔱 — ✵ — 🔱

Aaryan stirred.

Groaning softly, he shifted, the chill of stone beneath him biting through cloth and skin. Pain echoed in waves—muted, but persistent. His ribs still throbbed, though less than before. The pill had done its work, enough to keep him breathing.

"Still alive?" he muttered, barely above a breath. "That's new."

His fingers found his sleeve again, brushing the ring tucked inside. With sluggish care, he summoned another healing pill—smaller this time, bitter and sharp on the tongue. He swallowed it dry, then forced himself upright.

Every movement was stiff, sore, and laced with warning pain.

He blinked, eyes adjusting to the dimness. A single corridor stretched ahead—long, narrow, its walls made of the same ancient stone, pulsing faintly with blue veins of light. Silent. Undisturbed. Empty.

Aaryan frowned.

'Where… am I? Still in the tomb?'

He glanced up—no hole. Just ceiling. Solid rock.

'So I survived the fall… and ended up deeper. Fantastic.'

He rose to his feet fully, swaying once. Then steadied.

The corridor felt endless, but there was no other path. No carvings. No traps. Just dust and stone and silence. He walked, boots scuffing against the floor, trying to read patterns in the walls. Searching for signs. Symbols. Anything.

Nothing revealed itself.

The tomb had gone quiet now—eerily so. No whispers, no shifting stone, no hidden blades. Just that unbroken path and the ache in his bones.

Time passed—he wasn't sure how much—before a shape formed at the end of the tunnel. A doorway.

Massive. Circular. Set into the wall like the mouth of something waiting to speak.

Aaryan stopped.

The door was made of black stone—smoother than the walls, etched faintly with symbols that pulsed in and out of sight like breathing shadows.

He hesitated.

"No turning back," he whispered. "Not that there's anywhere to turn to."

Still, his hand hovered near his belt, fingers brushing the hilt of the dagger he kept there. Not much comfort, but better than bare hands.

He stepped closer.

When he was only a few feet away, the door groaned—low and ancient.

And then, with no wind and no touch… it began to open.

Stone slid against stone. Darkness yawned wide.

Aaryan swallowed.

"Great," he said softly. "Creepy self-opening door. That's never a bad sign."

He stepped through.

Aaryan stepped through the black doorway—and paused.

Mirrors.

Dozens of them. No… hundreds.

The room stretched wide, then further still, vanishing into mirrored reflections. Floor to ceiling, every surface gleamed with a strange, silvered sheen. Some mirrors stood tall as monoliths, others angled like jagged teeth, and some—too many—reflected him from impossible perspectives. From above. From behind. From angles where his injuries had vanished or never happened.

He took one careful step forward.

The air inside was colder. Still. And thick with something that wasn't quite spiritual energy—like the breath of a memory.

His reflection moved with him. Then another. Then five more. Some mimicking perfectly. Others... not.

Aaryan narrowed his eyes.

'Illusion? Formation? No—too fluid. Too reactive.'

He turned, but the black door was gone. Behind him, only more mirrors.

"Of course," he muttered. "One step in and the maze seals itself."

He walked slowly, eyes darting between reflections. Some were a breath too slow. Others a little too fast. In one, his cloak dragged longer than it should have. In another, he was smiling when he wasn't.

Trickery. Precision-crafted.

'Alright. You want cunning? Let's play.'

He moved with careful intent—testing steps, tapping mirrors, leaving chipped marks behind him. Then another. Then another. Trying to map a pattern. Create a path.

He turned a corner—and found himself back where he started.

The marks on the floor were there.

But so was he.

Another him, grinning mockingly in the mirror.

"Cute," Aaryan muttered. "Playing with my face won't help you."

He spun and took another path. Faster now. Sharper angles. Left, then two rights, a sudden pivot. Footsteps quiet. Breathing steady. His eyes darted like a hawk's, noting everything—the mirror tint, the air pressure, the reflections.

But the maze only twisted more.

Paths looped into themselves. Doors opened to empty glass. Some corners turned into dead ends. The deeper he leaned into strategy, the more chaotic the maze grew.

His reflection began to change—subtly at first.

One showed him surrounded by enemies, bleeding.

One showed him walking away as Rudra lay bleeding.

Another showed him alone in a cell.

A third grinned back with Rudra's scrolls in hand.

He clenched his jaw. "Not real."

But his own mind had started to race.

'Where's the catch? Where's the hinge? What's the trigger that resets this? There has to be a pattern—'

Another dead end.

Another wrong turn.

He spun, palms up, breathing hard now.

'No… this isn't a puzzle. It's a leash. The more I try to break it…'

He looked up.

Straight ahead—through the mirrored mess—there was a corridor. A single path. Simple. Straight. No twists. No false reflections. Just… a door. Waiting.

Aaryan squinted.

Too obvious. It hadn't been there before.

And that alone made him suspicious.

"Too easy," he whispered. "That's the trap."

He turned away from it. Took the harder route again. The cleverer route.

The maze snarled back.

Reflections split—warped into dozens. The path bent like a serpent. And then… he was back again. In front of the same damn corridor.

No closer.

He stood there for a long moment. Breathing.

Then laughed, softly.

"Right," he said to no one. "You're not testing my cleverness. You're testing my addiction to being clever."

He turned toward the simple path again.

Stared at it.

Untrapped. Undistorted. Just a door. As if daring him.

And against every twitch of instinct screaming it was wrong—

So he walked. Not to outsmart the trap—but to outgrow it.

No tricks.

No echoes.

Just footsteps. His own.

The mirror walls faded. The reflections stilled. One by one, the glass rippled… and vanished.

The door opened without a sound.

Behind him, a whisper stirred the silence. A voice not heard—but understood:

"The trap... is the belief that there is always a trap."

Aaryan didn't look back.

He didn't smile.

But for the first time since falling, the silence no longer felt hostile.

🔱 — ✵ — 🔱

The next chamber greeted him in silence.

Aaryan stepped in warily, fingers near his dagger hilt. No mirrors this time. No tricks of light.

Just a wide, empty space. Black stone floor. No ceiling. The sky above was a flat gray—ash smeared across a dead canvas.

Then shadows formed.

Six of them.

Rudra. Yashan. Shivul. Veiyra. Two others from the tomb.

All standing still. Eyes closed. Breathing.

Aaryan's hand tensed.

In the centre of the room, a blade appeared. Floating. Pure white. Its hilt wrapped in threads of light—too fine to be real.

Then a voice—not spoken, but buried into his thoughts. Cold. Calm.

"One of them will betray you."

"Kill them now, and the others walk beside you—loyal. Safe."

"Choose wrong… and the rest will bleed."

He scoffed. "That's easy. Rudra. No question."

"Is it?"

Rudra stepped forward. But he didn't sneer. Didn't smirk. He just… looked back. Not with regret. But with hesitation.

Aaryan's lips tightened. "I know what he did."

"You know what he chose. Not what he considered."

The figures began to move.

But not to speak.

To act.

Shivul—catching Yashan's strike before it hit Aaryan.

Veiyra—stepping forward as the others jeered.

Rudra—turning from the scrolls, offering a pill instead.

Illusions. Lies.

But they were crafted too close to real.

Aaryan looked away, jaw clenched.

"I'm not that stupid. None of them ever stood with me."

"You never let them."

"Didn't have to. From the start, they mocked, threatened, looked for weakness—same as every other sect disciple."

"And you didn't?"

He froze.

The blade still floated. Unmoving. Waiting.

This wasn't a test of loyalty.

It was a test of paranoia.

He looked up. At them.

At what they could've been.

And then—what he could've done.

Him, stabbing first.

Him, choosing silence instead of trust.

Him, assuming betrayal before it ever happened.

"Why?" he muttered. "What does this prove?"

"That you still hesitate."

The room twisted.

New visions.

Each one showing him wrong.

Veiyra, dying—her illusion vanishing—only for Shivul to grin and strike.

Yashan cut down—only for Rudra to steal everything again.

Or refusing entirely—left bleeding, alone, as they turned their backs.

No path ended clean.

Only in blood. Theirs—or his.

His fingers hovered near the blade.

"What do you trust more?"

"Them?"

"Or your own need to draw first blood before someone else does?"

He stared at the weapon. Then at the silent figures.

He didn't want to choose.

Didn't want to give anyone that power.

But this wasn't about them anymore.

It was about him.

And the line he refused to cross.

Aaryan exhaled.

And turned away from the blade.

He stepped through the line of figures—watching, ready—but did not strike.

If one turned on him, so be it.

Better an open fight than a pre-emptive betrayal.

"You choose risk. You choose consequence."

"That is loyalty—not to them. To yourself."

The blade vanished.

The room dimmed, and the far wall opened.

Aaryan didn't smile. He just walked forward.

Jaw tight. Eyes sharp.

More alone than before—

—but still standing.

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