Chapter 22 - Deprived of Love
The main question of the universe that had been gnawing at my mind for days was how much time a mortal being needed to spend to open the seventh chakra. Obviously, the answer would be different for everyone, even with Laghima's knowledge. For some, it would be easier to simply give up their love and all other ties because they already knew the secrets of this very chakra. But without Lakhima's knowledge and efforts, I couldn't even say which direction to look in, how much preparation would be needed, and whether all my ambitions would suddenly disappear.
All I could figure out was to gradually renounce my achievements and merge with nature itself, which would require a couple of years of meditation and practice, but I think someone like Hugh was quite capable of achieving this result already. Looking into the face of the guru preparing for battle, his body increasingly covered with various roots and tightly packed algae, I tried to get inside his head through all these feelings and pull out the answer. Of all the people I know, he is probably the closest to such an achievement, so why is he still clinging so stubbornly to his swamp and guarding his seventh chakra as if it were fire? He is afraid... no, it is not the fear that is cleansed during the opening of the first chakra, it is the fear of losing his bonds.
If I take and destroy all this swamp now, nothing good will happen to Hugh, he will lose himself just as Kuruk lost himself. And he thinks that if he accepts the seventh chakra, the same thing will happen to him.
"Hugh, renounce this place. Renounce your earthly attachments, or you will suffer much more than from fighting me." At that moment, mud flowed towards me from the swamp, covering my body and creating a golem-like form. It was as large and powerful as the monster Hugh had appeared to me.
The mud I spat out solidified in the air and exploded with a crash when it collided with Hugh's legs, simply in an attempt to immobilise him. But all that remained in this green, branching body was a dent — I had to admit that, thanks to experience, it had strengthened itself just as well as I had. The dense plants mimicked human muscles, and with the ice, it was powerful.
"You don't know what you're talking about," came a muffled roar from its belly. "Try giving up what you've devoted your whole life to. Nature is more precious to me than anything else in this world, more precious than my own free will.
Swinging a huge paw, the vines on which formed a giant whip with an icy sharp edge, he cut through the air with a lashing blow. The tip of this deadly weapon reached the speed of sound, and a single blow made a clicking sound as it cut through half of my muddy body and then froze it.
"Dirt isn't the best weapon against such an advanced water mage, but it can transform at any moment."
Without even touching the vine whip, I turned the ground into sand with a single movement, then dried it out, beginning to absorb the power of Hugh's main body.
Shukh-Bakh*
"You cannot defeat me in my own home," he said, cutting off the whip and not caring in the slightest about the possibility of killing me, and then he launched an attack with the roots of the great Banyan tree. Its branches were truly gigantic, and the attack could only be compared to a giant stone attached to an equally large lever - the mud body was swept away like a rag. But stopping in one place, Hugh realized that I was no longer in the golem.
"As strange as it may sound, while we are in the forest, we both have sensory perception. Hugh receives information from a huge tree that can see every twig and leaf... that's why I asked Azula to destroy everything here."
Flying out of the row of warming trunks, which Azula was wholeheartedly dousing with concentrated blue flames, I pointed my hand, charged with an electric field, at the guru's body, to which was attached a small, silver coin of the people of the earth. The push mimicked a rail, and it pierced the dense shell of natural intertwining with a screech. A current ran through the body, causing Hugh to roar, a huge hole appeared in the body, and my headless golem immediately rushed forward, regenerating with each step it took.
BOOM*
The giants locked hands, not caring about their lost limbs and huge holes — one froze and made the body brittle, while the other dried it out and caused the twigs to crumble into dust. I just had to get to the body...
BWAAK
But if it had just been the two of us fighting... Banyan's branches shot up and abruptly trapped Azula and me in a wooden trap, squeezing us so tightly that human bones could turn to dust in an instant, and blood and muscles could turn into the most ordinary human smoothie. The tree was perhaps even more dangerous than Hugh, because if I wanted to do everything by the book, I couldn't touch him.
"But you squeezed the wrong ones," I said, wrapping myself in a large stone ball that gave me a feeling of total protection, and I pierced him sharply with magma spikes. But the cage containing Azula nearby glowed with a strange, dark green light, so abnormal even for such a spiritual place. The next moment, the tree itself burst into emerald flames, and huge fiery blades began to chop the cage to pieces, freeing the lady, whose entire body was covered in this very anomalous fire.
We just stood there, looking at the unusual sight of the fire. It wasn't as if it had been created according to some logic or law of physics — at least, it was clear that Azula hadn't mixed anything into it. It was one of the rainbow colours of her flame.
"What density... fire for cutting weeds," - patterned flames swirled around Azula's limbs, taking the shape of rings, forks, and anything else she desired, while maintaining their shape and not dispersing. The temperature may not have reached that of the blue flame, but she could easily shape it into a whip and cut through a dozen thick trunks with a single swing, leaving burnt cuts. And the fire itself did not go out." "For trees to burn well even in such an environment, you need high density and heat. All this can be provided by heat magic.
Azula clenched her fingers, and several green balls appeared above her hands, like fireflies, which were so easy to imagine in this swamp. But how much energy they contained... With a sharp jerk of her hands to the sides, she caused a cascade of explosions that burned all the surrounding trees and, of course, the plants. Even the water nearby began to boil from the intense heat. It was very similar to the clan's ignition magic...
"Hold that Banyan tree back, will you?" It suddenly occurred to me that she was actually capable of holding back one of the two opponents. A huge living tree, which had also chosen Azulu as its main target, apparently because she had appeared as a cruel burner, immediately swirled around her in rainbow-coloured flames and dozens of giant roots. As for Hugh... he had already changed his body. It seemed that he had realised the futility of simple plants and had strengthened himself exclusively with the roots of the wise tree, filling my golem with everything he could.
Considering how much qi there was in these plants, draining them was a task beyond the ordinary. There was only one way out: force and high temperatures.
BDZ*
Only the golem's huge log hand shook from the encounter with my swampy mound, as if pierced by another coin shot. The hand was shot off, and before he even had time to raise his head, my magmatic glove tore it off like a manhole cover.
"Quick!"
The monster's back split open with a hundred tentacles, hidden solely to catch me and tear me to shreds. But Hugh couldn't have expected a giant boulder the size of a house to burst out of the swamp and smash him into the Banyan tree like a pathetic piñata.
Two shots from the railgun to his legs to prevent him from walking. Another to his remaining arm to cut off any possibility of resistance. Each shot left a large discharge of lightning and giant dents in the trunk of the mother tree we were fighting on. The mud golem ran up and grabbed the remaining part, at which point his hands began to melt on their own and turn into magma that cut through Hugh's armour like butter. The sounds of powerful blows echoed for kilometres in all directions, and the spirits gathered around watched in horror at the battle, which was completely insane in its cruelty.
The blows crushed the wooden monster until the main body of the small, powerless man appeared, whose students had all fled. There were tears in his eyes... he felt the pain of the suffering Banan, but deep down there was hatred and anger towards the one who had caused all this.
"People will always compete and fight for things they believe are right. It just so happens that only the strong can live in peace," I said, approaching the body that was wiping its eyes with its palms, slowly bending over its head and touching the top of its head.
What happens to spirits when I take control of them? They come under my control and cannot disobey my orders. What happens to people? They too can carry out orders if I suppress their will. Pouring energy into him, as Tai Li had taught me, I immediately entered into confrontation with Hugh's personality. Our energies collided.
It might have seemed that my advantage with the spirits would give me an easy victory, but experience... it often played an important role, especially if you were like a cornered animal. The desire to protect his love made him begin to furiously devour my body with overwhelming qi. He understood the flow of qi even in simple trees and connected to them with unprecedented ease. People were like open books to him. But a book named Dagoth could fight back.
"Aghshg-h!" The man arched his back from a couple of blocked qi points. There was only one person in the world who could channel energy better than me and knew how to use it viciously, and that was Tai Li. With a cunning trick, he forced Hugh's personality to retreat and engulfed him with a surge of energy. It was the first time I had ever done this to a human. I felt completely inhuman, as if it no longer mattered to me who I punished or why. But what could I do with him? Destroy the source of chi that was so clearly burning and completely under my control? Or should I just... give him an order, like an animal? Hugh had given me a hint on how to control other people's emotions, so it was time to move on to the next level.
"Use your wisdom... open your seventh chakra and renounce your bonds," I sent a sharp signal and immediately felt a stab in my soul. The spirit of prophecy advised me to retreat, as if the newly awakened soul would unleash such a powerful stream of will that it would simply blow me away. And I obeyed. At that very moment, as I broke contact, Hugh's entire body blossomed from the fully opened sources — it was one of the strongest and purest qi I had ever seen.
Only Avatars could rival its beauty, but... perhaps even they would be overwhelmed by the will of such a being. The will of one who had unlocked cosmic energy within himself, suppressing all earthly attachments.
"No... - but now he came to his senses. Kneeling, he looked up at the sky, at the crown of his once beloved tree. He slowly raised his hands, which were pierced by the rays of the rising sun, and felt the connection with the infinite cosmos, with the energy of the world. Despite the things that were happening here, despite the fear he had felt a second ago, now there was only complete peace," - Regrets... no more. But I have not lost hope.
Lowering his gaze and seeing me standing in the background with Azula and Banan fighting, the man shook his head in complete confusion.
"I didn't become a weak creature without any desires, as I had imagined myself...
"Of course not. By the way, some Avatars who also opened their chakras are still trying to achieve some kind of goal in this world, even though they shouldn't care about anything anymore. At least, that's how it seems," I turned to Banyan's roots, raised my hand, and with a single swing, cut them down with a stream of magma. Hugh sat there with a frown on his face, watching, although he would have killed for that before," I understood this by observing them. The chakra of thought is not about renouncing worldly things, it is about the desire to understand everything that exists, the desire to realise oneself and achieve good without relying on standard human emotions. Now you can go through the whole journey again, meditating for the sake of infinite understanding of harmony.
Perhaps I have made some inaccuracies, but this is only my assumption based on the strange behaviour of other Avatars, their desire to interfere in the world and achieve something — consider them those who have overcome a midlife crisis and are now rushing forward to do something that has not been done before. Those who have finished everything really resemble gurus; they are capable of meditating endlessly and learning Zen. They have no problem spreading their philosophy while remaining as calm as possible.
But nothing prevented Hugh from getting back on his feet and continuing the fight, only now he was several times stronger than before. And he did it not out of revenge, but out of a desire to fulfil himself. After thinking about everything I had said, he asked:
"Why are you doing this?
"The seventh chakra, like a lotus flower, will only open when you are completely ready to accept its gift. I'm not ready yet to rely only on myself and become an independent blossoming bud; I need to prepare the ground.
"Those who try so hard to nurture their growth will become a real treasure. But isn't a plant that suppresses others and considers itself superior called a weed? Standing up and crunching his shoulders, which seemed to have become more dangerous, he stared at me. "Weed Dagoth, you want to take the life force of the great tree, I cannot allow that to happen..."
VSHUKH*
But before the mage could complete his plan, the stones had already formed into a dense, burning substance. A sphere of heat and death that, under such pressure, could destroy any plant in its vicinity. The tree's roots, which tried to protect it, tried to envelop it, and as proof of my words, were turned to ash. And then the projectile struck the tree. A single crack, echoing across the entire swamp, announced to all living creatures that here and now, the life of the almighty Banan was over. Hot blood rushed through his veins and burned his spirit to ashes.
"… - Hugh, who wanted to stop me, could only watch. It didn't matter how many chakras he had opened, he didn't know the kind of magic that could stop me, that could hold back such overwhelming power. Controlling the blood of living creatures was beyond his reach.
With a loud crack, Banan's trunk collapsed. All the roots that had tried to kill me and Azulu suddenly drooped and lost all their strength, and with a monstrous boom that was almost like an earthquake, the tree fell to the ground, leaving behind a charred stump. With its fall, the connection to the spirit world was severed, and a thin layer resembling rags once again formed a dense and large barrier.
"Do you want to continue?" I looked at Hugh sternly, urging him to finally finish. And I saw only longing in his eyes. He did not break down as he might have before, but only felt that he had failed to fulfil himself as the tree's protector. "Find yourself another purpose in life, one that has nothing to do with spirits. Otherwise, I can't promise you mercy next time.
"No. You won," he conceded.
And then he wandered off, completely lost and not knowing what to do next, without even saying goodbye. He didn't even look where he was going. He just... let his feet move.
The desire of one had defeated the desire of another. Could it be that he would return and take revenge? Neither Anubis nor the spirit-fortune teller had told me anything about that. Perhaps we would even meet again.
"He was a good wizard," Azula said, approaching me with sweat pouring down her forehead. She was panting heavily and looked approvingly at the tree I had destroyed. "It's good that you destroyed his will to live. Well done. That's how it should be.
"Unfortunately, this is only the beginning.
"Right, you wanted to summon some spirit and chat with it... Are you going to end up in the spirit world now?
"No, Azula. I've finally started a war, now he'll come to me himself.