While Vyan remained at the waterfall, his world reduced to the rhythmic pulse of his new Spindle, Ansh slipped away.
The old man moved with a fluid, terrifying grace that completely contradicted his withered frame.
He didn’t need his dark wooden staff now.
He didn’t need a guide.
Blindness was no impediment to a man who had spent Sixty years charting the structural weaknesses of human souls and spiritual realms alike.
He moved downhill, away from the light-pavilion, toward a jagged basalt ridge he had expertly mapped during their initial entry.
He vividly remembered a specific flaw in the scenery.
To a normal eye, it was just a natural, jagged crack in the stone.
To a Grade 3 Yogi, it looked like a crude stitch—a volatile place where the very fabric of the Grotto had been torn open and clumsily mended with high-density threads of foreign Prana.
He crossed a narrow bridge of hardened violet mist that groaned under his weight, spanning a bottomless chasm that dropped into the infinite, silent void below.
He had been scouting this path for a week, moving bit by bit while Vyan was buried deep in his exhausting meditation cycles.
As he approached the “stitched” wall, a low, guttural chittering echoed through the rocks.
From the dark shadows of a basalt pillar, a Beasquab emerged.
It was a distorted, feral creature of the Grotto—a hunchbacked beast with obsidian skin, multiple red eyes, and six spindly, blade-like limbs.
It was a fiercely territorial predator, and Ansh was an unwelcome trespasser.
The Beasquab didn’t hesitate.
It lunged, a blur of black chitin and screeching hunger, aiming its razor-sharp limbs directly for Ansh’s exposed throat.
Ansh didn’t even turn his head.
There was no sound of a struggle, only a wet, heavy thud.
The Obisquab, caught mid-air, had its momentum stopped instantly.
A clean, vertical slash appeared down its center.
The beast fell heavily at Ansh’s heels, split perfectly in half from crown to tail, its dark, boiling blood sizzling violently against the violet floor.
Ansh kept walking, stepping over the bisected carcass without a second glance.
He reached the wall and ran his lone, gnarled hand over the stitch.
It felt different—older, heavier, and completely alien to the rest of the Gilded Horizon.
Before he could investigate any further, the ambient air grew freezing cold.
”WHY DO YOU WANDER SO FAR FROM THE ANCHOR, GUEST?”
The Grotto Spirit manifested directly behind him, its majestic robes of liquid mercury swirling in the dark.
The entity’s tone was no longer indifferent; it was sharp, layered with a distinct, vibrating warning.
”Nothing much to see, Great Spirit,” Ansh replied nonchalantly, his voice completely devoid of the grandfatherly warmth he used to manipulate Vyan.
“This wall simply piques my curiosity. It looks… uniquely out of place.”
The Spirit drifted closer, its faceless silver mask perfectly reflecting the jagged crack.
“IT IS A BOUNDARY. DOES THE CHILD WISH TO CHALLENGE THE TEST FOR OWNERSHIP OF THE GROTTO?”
Ansh’s milky eyes almost bulged from their sockets.
His face, already weathered and scarred from a lifetime of violence, contorted into an expression of raw, ugly shock.
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The thought of controlling a Grade 5 Grotto—the unlimited access to Prana Knots, the perfect tactical fortress, the ancient secrets of a high-tier domain—was more than he had ever dared to dream.
He forced his racing heart to slow, swallowing the explosive greed that threatened to choke him.
“Ownership?” he whispered, ruthlessly recomposing his features back into a calm facade.
“Please… continue.”
”THE ORIGINAL INHERITANCE WAS TAKEN,” the Spirit explained, the mercury of its robes rippling with historical memory.
“A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR ARRIVED IN THE DISTANT PAST AND BECAME THE GROTTO MASTER BY CLEARING THE INHERITANCE TEST. HE REMOVED THE ORIGINAL TREASURES AND LEFT SOMETHING OF EQUAL OR GREATER VALUE IN THEIR PLACE. HE SEALED IT BEHIND THAT WALL.”
The Spirit gestured to the glowing stitch.
“IT MIGHT BE A HIGH-TIER PUZZLE OR SOMETHING ELSE ENTIRELY. IF ONE CAN UNRAVEL THE LOGIC WITHIN THE GEOMETRY, AND OBTAIN THE LEFTOVER TREASURE, THEY SHALL BECOME THE MASTER OF THE GILDED HORIZON.”
Ansh looked at the wall, his mind screaming a single word in a deafening, ecstatic loop: JACKPOT.
If I become the owner, every single Prana Knot in this place belongs to me, he thought, his mind racing with wild, dark possibilities.
Maybe I don’t even need to risk stealing the Prana from the boy anymore.
Maybe…
I only need his body.
He looked back over his shoulder, toward the distant waterfall where Vyan was still innocently refining his soul, then turned back to stare at the stitch.
He didn’t just have a reservoir to harvest anymore.
He had a kingdom waiting to be unlocked.
“Welcome to The Sovereign Of Kaliyuga! New chapters dropping daily.”