Ashes and Aftermath

Pain was the first thing Raghav felt.

Not the kind that screams. The kind that lingers—a low, deep ache that told him something had tried to unmake him from the inside out.

His eyes opened to dim, golden light.

The Rebellion's medical wing wasn't a wing at all—it was a vaulted cavern with floating rune lanterns, smelling of iron, herbs, and old blood. Dozens of cots lined the edges. Most were empty. A few weren't.

He tried to sit up.

"Don't," said a familiar voice. "Your body's still catching up with your soul."

Mira stepped into view, silver hair messy, eyes sharper than before.

"You were out for two days."

He blinked. "Two—"

"You broke the court," she interrupted. "And your relic flared to a level we haven't seen since the Azure Breaker Incident."

He had no idea what that was.

Mira tossed a small orb to him. It hovered mid-air, then projected an image: the final moment of the match.

Zern's relic exploding. The fifth rune lit like a sun. Energy coursing through the court like veins on fire.

Then blackness.

He watched in silence.

---

"What happened to him?"

Mira's gaze darkened. "Zern? Sealed. Banished from the dueling lists."

She hesitated. "They call it sleepwalking the relic. His body's intact, but he won't speak. Won't move. It's like his consciousness fractured."

Raghav's fingers curled into his sheets.

> That could've been me.

Mira continued, quieter now. "The Host declared it an uncontrolled relic breach. Which technically means it wasn't your fault."

"Technically," he repeated bitterly.

"You were targeted. They wanted to see how far the Devourer would go."

He looked down at his racket, leaning quietly beside the bed. The fifth rune was still lit—but dimmer now, as if tired. Or content.

He didn't trust it.

---

Later that day, when he could finally walk, he was summoned.

Not to the arena.

To a place below it.

The Hollow Ring.

A chamber of reflection and judgment.

The Host sat on an elevated throne—not grand, just old. Tall. Covered in seals. His face was hidden by a half-mask of obsidian. Runes spiraled from his fingers like living tattoos.

"You survived," the Host said, voice layered by echo runes.

"Yes," Raghav replied.

"You didn't win. But you devoured part of Chimeric Requiem. The relic is now marked by yours."

Raghav frowned. "What does that mean?"

"It means," the Host said slowly, "that your Devourer now remembers the taste of chaos."

The silence was heavy.

"Zern Kael has been sentenced to Mirrored Confinement," the Host continued. "He will duel his own fractured relic in simulated courtspace until he either conquers it or shatters completely."

"That's a punishment?"

"It's mercy," the Host replied.

---

Raghav left the Hollow Ring with more questions than answers.

But he didn't return to his quarters.

He followed a note left in his palm.

A folded piece of black paper, written in silver ink:

> "Come to the Court of Echoes. Your next match will not be against an opponent. It will be against yourself."

– The Mirror Monk

---

The Court of Echoes wasn't an arena. It was a training ground that looked like a monastery ripped from another world. Walls of obsidian glass, reflecting sky that didn't exist. Water that ran upward. Bells that never rang.

The monk waited in the center.

Tall. Hooded. Barefoot.

His racket was simple—matte black, no runes. But the aura it gave off was eerily familiar.

Raghav stepped forward.

"I'm not here to fight today."

The monk raised his racket.

> You're here to listen to the silence inside your swing.

Raghav blinked. The words weren't spoken—they echoed in his mind.

The monk swung once.

A wave of pressure hit Raghav's chest—not enough to harm, but enough to warn.

> Your fifth rune has awakened. But it is not bound. Not yet.

"What are you saying?"

> You must master it before it masters you. Or it will take you beyond even Zern's path.

The monk turned.

A shadow detached from his own body—identical to Raghav.

Same height. Same expression. Same relic.

But its fifth rune pulsed violently. Blood-red. Hungry.

> Defeat yourself. Not with power. With clarity.

---

Raghav stepped into the court.

No crowd. No judges.

Just him.

And the version of him that didn't pull back at the edge.

The one that wanted to devour everything.

---