The forest groaned in silence after the Rift Howler's retreating cries had faded into the night. Om sat against the twisted roots of a massive tree, his chest heaving, each breath scraping his lungs raw. Dawon slumped nearby, his ribs rising and falling with uneven effort. The battle had ended not in triumph, but in survival, and that survival came only because they ran.
Om closed his eyes. The weight of helplessness pressed harder than exhaustion. He could fight—yes. Against a single beast, against a predictable foe. But when the Howler appeared, the forest itself quivered under his echoing roars, he had been powerless.
"Zero," he muttered, his voice low.
A hum stirred in the back of his mind, crisp and without warmth.
[Your performance degraded significantly when faced with multiple threats. ]
[Efficiency: fifty-three percent below survivable threshold.]
Om let out a dry laugh. "I didn't ask for a report card." His hands clenched into fists. "I need something else. Another way to fight."
Silence stretched. Then Zero's voice resonated, precise, cold:
[Agreed. Current arsenal lacks scalable, area-effective abilities. Ulka-Patt remains inefficient—consumption exceeds sustainable levels by eighty percent.]
[ Suggestion: develop an alternative technique derived from existing golden-script data within consciousness.]
Om's eyes snapped open. His gaze lingered on the trembling canopy above, but his mind sank inward. "Then let's go in."
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.
When he opened his consciousness, the forest and Dawon disappeared.
Om stood in an infinite void. Empty. Black. Yet within that emptiness floated golden Sanskrit characters—brilliant, eternal, each one glowing faintly like fragments of a forgotten hymn. They drifted in silence, weightless, yet Om felt each pulse of their radiance tug at the strings of his soul.
The cracks he had seen before—shards of a broken inheritance. This was all that remained. Characters. Fragments. Floating endlessly.
"Zero…" Om's voice echoed through the void.
Zero answered, the voice omnipresent here.
"Your inheritance is fragmented beyond natural repair. But reconstruction of functional techniques like previous techniques is possible using these elements. You correctly have enough capacity to hold two more moves."
Om casually replied, "One new move is sufficient for now. If needed we will see it then."
Om extended a hand. A single glowing character floated closer, hovering above his palm. Its glow intensified, warm against his skin. The symbol was unfamiliar, yet something in his soul recognized it.
He clenched it. "Then let's make something new."
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.
The process was not immediate.
Characters collided, resisted, scattered like fragments of a puzzle forced into wrong places. Each attempt Om made to bind them together resulted in collapse—symbols bursting into sparks before fading back into drifting silence. He tried to mimic the structure of Ulka-Patt, the meteor rain technique, but each simulation only strained the fragile bonds of his consciousness.
Zero interrupted repeatedly.
[You attempt replication. Ulka-Patt relies on celestial descent. Your body cannot sustain the channeling.]
Om exhaled sharply, sweat beading even here in this illusion of self. "Then what? Tell me instead of criticizing."
A pause. Then Zero responded:
[Patterns suggest another approach. Wind. Breath. The invisible thread binding all terrain. Sanskrit fragments align with Vāyu—the primal essence of air. Unlike stone or fire, air permeates all directions. It can divide, strike multiple points. A scalable weapon.]
Om closed his eyes, focusing. Air. The formless, ceaseless current that moved everything. Not crushing like stone. Not searing like fire. Not devouring like the abyss. But unending. Undefeatable.
He shifted the characters again, guided by Zero's cold precision. Slowly, painfully, the fragments aligned. Golden lines wove between symbols, creating a lattice. The void shuddered.
And then—power.
A new ember blazed into existence. The characters spun together, forming a wheel of golden light before his chest. Om felt its meaning in his bones, ancient and alive.
"Vāyavastra."
The name came unbidden, carried on the wind that now roared through his consciousness.
Zero's tone flickered with rare finality.
[Confirmed. New technique synthesized.]
[Function: Gale-conjuration, scalable to user's intent.]
[ Effect: summons directed windstorm that continuously damages multiple targets.]
[Consumption: proportional to intensity and target count. Sustainably efficient at low to medium scale.]
Om's eyes widened. The Sanskrit wheel burst outward, dissolving back into floating fragments, yet its essence remained burned into him. The knowledge was his. A new weapon.
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.
When Om opened his eyes, the real forest returned.
Night had deepened, shadows woven thick around the colossal trees. Dawon stirred, lifting his scarred head, golden eyes flickering with fatigue. Om's breathing steadied. His skin prickled—heat radiating along his arms, his chest.
Then he saw it.
Golden characters.
They shimmered faintly across his forearms and neck, glowing like tattoos. Each stroke alive, shifting as though whispered by unseen breath.
Om's heart pounded. "It's… on me now?"
Om's lips curved into the faintest smile. "So it worked."
But Dawon's gaze was fixed. The lion's pupils dilated as he watched Om. Slowly, he rose to shaky legs, claws pressing into the earth.
And then Om noticed—too late.
The same golden glow had begun to etch itself across Dawon. Characters flickered along his claws, traced his teeth, shimmered within his eyes. The aura clung to him, not like a burden, but like something waiting—something inherited.
Om froze.
"Zero…" His whisper cracked. "What the hell is happening to him?"
Zero did not answer immediately. The silence stretched, the forest creaked, Dawon's breath steamed in the cold air. Finally, the Zero's voice came, sharper than before:
[Unregistered phenomenon. No precedent. ]
[Correlation detected: shared bond channeling Sanskrit patterns into secondary vessel.]
[Warning: potential consequences unpredictable.]
Om's throat tightened. He glanced at Dawon, who tilted his head, a low rumble in his chest—not hostile, not afraid, but something else.
The golden glow deepened in Dawon's eyes.
Om looked away, gripping his arms where the characters still pulsed. A new move born. A new danger unlocked.
The forest around them stirred, leaves rustling despite the still air, as if the world itself had noticed.
That night, Om did not sleep.
The Rift Howler had been terrifying. His weakness had been suffocating. But what haunted him most was not defeat, nor the broken inheritance. It was the glow in Dawon's eyes—an echo of power.
And as he sat in silence, golden Sanskrit characters still flickering faintly on his skin, he understood: every step forward carried a shadow.
Vāyavastra was only the beginning.