The pain broke.
Not vanished—but cracked, like ice under sudden heat. For the first time since waking, my thoughts aligned into something sharp and coherent.
Clarity.
I felt it then.
The thing inside me—the Emperor's soul—coiling, gathering itself, about to scream again. I could sense the pressure building, the intent forming before the sound itself.
Instinct moved faster than thought.
"Maunaṁ kuru."
Silence.
The command left my mouth before I realized I had spoken at all.
The Emperor's scream came—
And died.
I felt it clearly. Rage. Shock. A violent surge of intent that slammed against something invisible and stopped cold. His presence thrashed inside me, but no sound followed. Not a whisper. Not even an echo.
Nothing.
I froze.
The silence wasn't empty. It was held.
I could feel him fuming, pressing against a constraint he didn't understand, like a beast testing unseen bars. The realization hit me slowly, heavily.
I had bound him.
With a word.
My breath turned shallow. My heart pounded—not from fear, but from disbelief.
I swallowed.
"Speak," I said.
Nothing.
The pressure didn't change. The Emperor remained silent, his fury palpable but trapped, muffled into impotence.
My mind raced.
I tried again.
"Vada."
The effect was immediate.
It was as if a seal shattered.
The pressure burst outward, not violently, but released. The Emperor's presence surged forward, and this time, sound followed.
"What—how—" his voice snapped into existence, raw with disbelief. "How do you speak the gods' language?!"
I staggered, my pulse roaring in my ears.
"Who are you?" the Emperor demanded, his fury now laced with something far more dangerous. "What are you?"
I didn't answer.
Because in that moment, as the echo of Sanskrit still lingered in the air, I understood something terrifying.
I hadn't cast a spell.
I hadn't focused mana.I hadn't shaped intent.
I had spoken.
And magic had listened.
The realization settled over me with a strange calm.
In this world, Sanskrit was not merely an ancient language.
It was the language of magic itself.
Not a translation.
Not an approximation.
The source.
The Language of the Universe.
The Old Tongue—the one the Emperor spoke—was a derivative. A structured imitation, shaped to be usable by mortals. And the common tongue taught in academies was another step removed, diluted further for safety, for accessibility.
That was why spells worked.
And why they failed so often.
That was why I had always felt that strange sense of closeness whenever I heard spells cast in the common tongue—as if something essential was missing, just out of reach. The structure was there, but the foundation was flawed. Seventy percent instability suddenly felt generous.
And I understood something else.
I wasn't better at magic.
I was speaking to it in its own language.
The Emperor was still muttering inside me, his presence simmering with restrained fury, testing the edges of whatever bound him.
I focused.
"Satyaṁ vada."
Speak the truth.
The compulsion snapped tight around him.
"Yathārthataḥ uttaraṁ dadāsi."
You will answer honestly.
I didn't raise my voice. I didn't need to.
"Kasmāt atra bandhanaṁ prāptaḥ asi?"
Why were you sealed here?
"Kim satyaṁ abhavat sahasra-varṣebhyaḥ pūrvam?"
What truly happened a thousand years ago?
I felt him resist.
Not with silence—he couldn't—but with strain. With hatred. With the instinctive recoil of something that had ruled and now found itself compelled.
Then the words came out anyway.
"I was preparing a grand spell," the Emperor said, his voice forced, stripped of its former authority. "A spell meant to change the language of magic itself—the language of the gods—into the Old Tongue."
Images accompanied his words. Ritual circles. Conduits carved into stone. Endless inscriptions.
"I had already disseminated spells in the common tongue," he continued. "And through them, I discovered the truth. The closer a spell is to the gods' language, the greater its effect. Greater stability. Far less consumption."
His bitterness deepened.
"I had mastered the Old Tongue beyond any mortal before me. But I wanted more. I wanted to know what it would feel like to speak the gods' language itself."
A pause.
"Everything was ready."
Then his voice twisted.
"My generals betrayed me."
I felt the echo of that moment—shock, rage, disbelief.
"They claimed they were doing it for the stability of the world," he spat. "That no single ruler should wield such power. Lies. All of it. They wanted the knowledge. The control."
Power surged in the memory.
"I defeated them," he said. "All four."
The weight of that statement settled heavily.
"And then I initiated the spell."
His voice faltered.
"My magic was already too depleted. The ritual was vast—far beyond what my remaining power could sustain. The spell failed."
Tremors. Leylines screaming. Reality buckling.
"My body was destroyed," the Emperor said flatly. "But I had prepared a contingency. A vessel. I tried to escape."
Another pause.
This one colder.
"But the four had already sealed the chamber. The moment they entered… they sealed it ."
I silenced him again.
"Maunaṁ kuru."
The binding snapped back into place instantly. His presence slammed against it, furious, impotent. I didn't spare him another thought. I turned inward instead, sifting through the remaining memories—slowly this time, deliberately.
Places.
Times.
The weight of where I was.
When the last fragment settled, everything clicked.
The sealed land.
The storm-wrapped continent.
The Grand Library.
The Central Continent.
Understanding brought calm.
I released the binding.
"Vada."
The Emperor's presence surged forward immediately, coiling with barely restrained hostility.
"You tried to possess my body," I said evenly. "What should be done with you?"
"I can give you knowledge," he said quickly, too quickly. "Treasures. Power. Anything you want."
For the first time since I had sensed him, his voice carried fear.
I almost smiled.
"What makes you think," I asked quietly, "that I have need of any of that?"
Silence—his this time.
Then, desperation.
"You can't kill me," he said. "This continent is linked to my soul. If I dissipate, the land collapses. Everything here is destroyed. Billions die."
I laughed.
"Hahaha…"
The sound startled even me.
"You really are an idiot," I said. "The continent broke into five when you attempted your little spell. No one on the Central Continent survived."
His presence froze.
"I am the only living soul here."
I paused, letting that truth sink in.
"But you are right about one thing," I continued. "I can't destroy all this knowledge. All this history."
I could feel his reaction then—relief, greed, anticipation. He thought he had won something. Thought this was negotiation.
Joy flickered through his presence.
Before he could speak, I finished.
"Pavitra-bhūmeḥ bandhana-ātma-saṁbandhaṁ parityaja."
Release the soul-link of this fallen soul to this sacred land.
"Mām prati bhūmiṁ saṁyojaya."
Bind the land to me.
The command didn't echo.
It answered.
Something vast shifted.
The Emperor screamed—not in rage, not in defiance, but in pure, unfiltered shock.
"What—" his voice cracked. "What did you do?"
I exhaled slowly.
And for the first time since waking—
I felt the land listen.
I didn't respond to him.
There was nothing left to say.
The Emperor thrashed inside me, his presence no longer vast and domineering, but fractured—cracking under the weight of what he had lost. Fear bled through him now, raw and unmasked.
I spoke again.
Not to him.
To the law beneath language.
"Dharma eva etasya ātmanaḥ nirṇayaṁ karotu."
Let magic itself judge this poor soul.
My voice settled.
"You have lived long enough."
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then the world answered.
The Emperor's presence convulsed violently, seized by something vast and impersonal. This time, there was no scream—only a sense of pressure, of inevitability. His soul did not shatter.
It unraveled.
I felt it—every fragment of him breaking apart, not into nothingness, but into essence. Memories flooded outward: wars fought, spells perfected, languages refined, centuries of study and failure and obsession compressed into a single, overwhelming surge.
Pain lanced through me as that knowledge collided with my own mind.
Then came the power.
Raw, ancient mana—no longer shaped by will or pride—flowed into me like a river finding a new course. It did not resist. It did not burn.
It recognized.
The Emperor's magic, stripped of ownership, merged with mine. His pathways dissolved and reformed within me, reinforcing what already existed, widening what had once been narrow, stabilizing what had been weak.
His memories did not overwrite mine.
They settled.
Layered. Ordered. Accessible—but no longer his.
Magic did not punish him.
It reclaimed him.
And when it was done, there was no Emperor left.
No voice.
No presence.
No will.
Only silence.
I stood there, breathing hard, my body trembling—not from fear, but from the sheer weight of what I now carried. Knowledge that spanned an age. Power refined over centuries.
And beneath it all, something deeper.
Connection.
I could feel the land now—not distantly, not abstractly, but intimately. The Central Continent pulsed beneath my awareness, its ruins, its leylines, its buried halls responding as if to a long-awaited answer.
The Emperor was gone.
His ambition ended.
But nothing he was… was wasted.
The Central Continent no longer waited for a ruler who had failed.
It had found a keeper.