GONG! GONG! GONG!
The iron bell tore through the pre-dawn darkness.
Ashan's eyes opened to a profound blackness. The cavern's roof was sealed shut; the only light came from guttering candles, casting long, dancing shadows.
"Shit! Watch where you're going!""Your big ass was blocking the entire path!"
The morning began, as ever, with Dris and Rodric's bickering—a sliver of mundane humanity in the encroaching gloom.
***
The new building at the cave's center felt… wrong. It hadn't been there yesterday.
'Built in a single night? Or something else?' Ashan mused, stepping inside.
"Ashan," Ballio whispered, his voice tight. "Doesn't this feel like... a temple?"
It did. But not one of solace. The air was thick, profane, carrying the metallic tang of old blood and cold incense. Blood-red candles cast a dim, hellish glow, illuminating massive columns carved with horrific, twisted animal forms. The candidates stood on a vast reddish-black carpet, facing an altar upon which rested seven emblems.
Ashan's eyes, sharpened by his Siddhi, traced each one:
A lion enthroned on a mound of feathers, its tail a silver-crowned peacock's fan.A roaring tiger bursting from the skull of a horned bull, locked in eternal charge.An owl with leech-like wings, feeding from a fruit that dripped black nectar.A rat coiled within a serpent's spiral, both sets of eyes fixed on a single, gleaming coin.A goat skull crowned with a fox's tail, merging into a swirl of perfumed smoke.A wolf trapped in a vast spiderweb, one eye forever fixed on a distant, unreachable moon.A bear curled in slumber beneath a spiral shell, both being slowly consumed by creeping vines.
'So these are the divine visages of the Asuras,' Ashan realized, a cold knot tightening in his stomach. 'I was never a religious man. But in a world where gods manifest power, ignoring them is not skepticism—it's stupidity.'
Elder Zarah's voice cut through the silence, zealous and solemn. "You stand in the first temple to worship all seven as one. This is the Temple of Sins."
'The alliance of all seven houses...' Ashan's mind raced. 'What threat could be dire enough to unite these rival factions?'
The instructors swiftly divided the candidates by their sin. Ashan found himself among the Greed-aspected.
"Never address the higher existence by their true names," Zarah intoned. "Use their honorific titles. Now, begin the gesture of Hollow Offering."
'So the performance begins,' Ashan thought with a wry internal smile. 'A hooded acolyte in a dark temple, praying to entities of sin. The aesthetic is flawless.'
He dropped to his knees, his spine arched not in humility, but as if shielding a hoard within his chest. His head tilted down, but his eyes remained wide open, staring at the ground—a gaze of avarice, not submission. His hands rose, palms cupped upward in a pantomime of both offering and desperate craving. His fingers curled inward, clutching at nothing, a symbol of the refusal to truly give. He pressed his hands to his chest, hoarding the empty air, then reached his trembling right hand toward the ceiling, begging an unseen vault to fill him, while his left remained clutched to his heart.
Softly, he chanted in Ashurain: "O Lord of Greed, who sits upon the Unfilled Vault, Ruler of Wealth, whose breath is the Covetous Flame, grant us the Debt of the Damned, that we may hoard in your name."
The temple swelled into a dissonant chorus, a hundred voices praying to different masters of damnation. For a long time, the only sound was this chant, until the air itself seemed to vibrate, and the emblems on the altar pulsed with a faint, sinister light.
"Enough," Zarah's voice silenced them. "This is your practice now, twice daily. For the next week, you will do nothing but stabilize your foundation through Sadhana in your assigned caves. You are dismissed."
'Assigned caves,' Ashan repeated inwardly, a chill settling in his bones. 'Of course. The circle closes. We return to the dark, but this time, we invite the monsters in.'
***
In the mess hall, a fragile excitement had taken hold. The new Arashens, tasting power, had let their guard down, the memory of the trials fading behind their new status.
"Tch! Stabilizing? I want to master my power," Dris grumbled.
Rodric smirked. "Better to be safe. Unless you're eager to sprout those extra body parts Ashan mentioned."
Ballio choked on his food, requiring a concerned Damara to pat his back.
"Watch it, Rodric," Dris pointed a threatening finger.
"Fools," Helma scoffed under her breath.
Ashan paid the bickering little mind. His focus was on the flatbread and curry. 'The quality has improved.' He took a slow, deliberate bite. 'A strategic investment. Well-fed soldiers are more productive.'
"What do you think awaits us now, Ashan?" Imla asked, her question silencing the table.
He finished his mouthful, drank from his cup, and let a soft sigh escape. "A hell worse than any we've known," he said, his voice soft yet absolute. "It will either become our graveyard or the cradle of our greatness."
The table fell into a solemn, dazed silence, the brief illusion of normalcy shattered.
***
Drip. Drip.
The sound of water was the only companion in his private cave. A single candle fought back the darkness.
"Back to where it all began," he murmured to the walls. "But now I trade the fear of hunger for the fear of my own soul." The jest was hollow, a defense mechanism his mind automatically deployed.
He sat cross-legged on the stone, assuming the root mudra—thumb tip to ring finger, other fingers extended. He half-closed his eyes, entering a state of Dhyana.
Controlling the flow of Prana was one thing. Guiding the Atmic was another. Doing both simultaneously, as required by the Samyama Marga, was like trying to write two different sentences with each hand while balancing on a wire.
He guided both forces to the root chakra at the base of his spine. They collided, not with a crash, but with a sizzling, psychic spark that sent a wave of maddening itchiness through his entire being.
"Kuh!" he grunted, his face contorting. 'Patience. Calm. This is the price.'
He tried again, a meticulous craftsman with unstable, volatile tools. As he wrestled with the energies, a colder part of his mind, the Gazer, observed the process.
'There must be a pattern,' he contemplated, even as his body shuddered with the effort. 'A frequency, a resonance I can analyze. There is always a more efficient path.' The search for that path was, in itself, an act of greed.