Shattered Mirror

The creation was complete.

Yet, as the flames of the forge began to die down, Shree Yan felt nothing. No satisfaction. No triumph. There was only the silence of a world remade, and a soul forever altered. The blade—still gripped tightly in his hand—had been bathed in the blood-red flames, now glowing faintly with an ethereal energy.

It was a blade not just of creation, but of destruction. A weapon that could sever the ties of fate itself.

The air around Shree Yan seemed to thicken as he stepped back from the forge, his body still reeling from the cataclysmic transformation. He looked at his hands, expecting to see them shaken, scarred, perhaps even bloodied from the process. But they were... unchanged.

Yet, he was not the same.

His crimson eyes, once cold and calculating, now reflected an emptiness—a hollow void that had been carved into the core of his being. The world around him seemed distant, as though he were no longer fully part of it. The weight of creation had made him a stranger to himself.

For the first time, Shree Yan felt the absence of purpose.

The Echo of the Lost

The smith, who had been watching quietly from the shadows, now approached. His face, worn with age, held no surprise. No pity. Only a quiet resignation.

"You have done it," the smith said. "But you have paid the price."

Shree Yan did not respond. He simply looked around, at the world that had been reshaped by his hands. The forge, the very air, the ground beneath his feet—all seemed insignificant now. The future he had sought to mold felt empty, devoid of meaning.

"Do you regret it?" the smith asked, his voice almost a whisper.

Regret.

The word lingered in the air, its weight far heavier than Shree Yan could have anticipated. Regret was not something he had ever considered. He had destroyed and rebuilt countless times—each time with the certainty that the end justified the means. But now, standing in the aftermath of his creation, he could feel the pull of something he had never known: doubt.

"I do not regret what I have done," Shree Yan finally said, his voice flat and distant. "But I wonder if I have truly achieved what I sought."

The smith nodded, as though he had anticipated this answer. "Creation is not about achievement. It is about change. The world will be reshaped, yes. But it is not the world that has changed—it is you."

Shree Yan's gaze turned inward. He had changed. But in doing so, had he lost what had once driven him? His quest for immortality, his thirst for power—did they mean anything now?

And if they did not, what was left?

The Price of Immortality

Shree Yan turned away from the smith, walking toward the edge of the forge chamber. He needed to think. He needed to understand. What was he now? The Immortal King, the ruler of a new world—but a king without a throne, a world without purpose.

The flame of the forge had granted him immense power, but it had not provided the answers he so desperately sought.

As he walked, a sudden presence brushed against his mind—familiar, yet distant. He closed his eyes, reaching out through the void, searching for the source of the disturbance. And then, with a clarity that stunned him, he felt it: the pull of his past.

It was her.

Shidhara.

The memory of her, once distant and irrelevant, now clawed at him. The princess who had once loved him, who had once tried to bring him back from the darkness. She had been the first person to make him feel something, to make him question his purpose.

She had been the only person who had ever mattered.

But that was before the flames of ambition had consumed him. Before immortality had become his sole focus.

Could he return? Could he bring back the Shree Yan he once was? Or was he too far gone?

The Descent into Madness

The question lingered in his mind, but it was not one he could answer. Not yet.

But as Shree Yan stood there, staring into the nothingness of his creation, he could feel something else creeping in. A slow, insidious sense of madness. The weight of immortality—the curse of eternal life—was beginning to gnaw at him.

He had thought that immortality would free him, that it would grant him the power to reshape the world and bend it to his will. But now, he understood the true cost. Immortality was not a gift. It was a sentence.

A sentence to witness the passage of time, to watch the world change, and to remain forever unchanged.

To live in a world where nothing mattered—because nothing could last.

Shree Yan clenched his fists, a cold fury building within him.

The World of His Making

"I will not be a prisoner to this eternity," he muttered under his breath. "I will burn it all down if I must. No one will control me."

The forge had granted him the power to create. Now, it would grant him the power to destroy.

With a single, decisive step, Shree Yan turned and walked toward the heart of his creation. He would make the world bend to his will—no matter the cost.

He had created it. And now, he would break it.

Would you like to see how Shree Yan continues his journey of destruction, or would you like to explore another aspect of his transformation?