Aryaan had always believed that there were two kinds of silence.
The first was peaceful.
The second meant that something had gone terribly wrong.
The silence in Anahita and Ishaan’s training hall belonged firmly to the second category.
Ron was still sitting on the floor.
Potter was staring at him.
Mitchell was staring at Potter.
Bonita had stopped pretending to read the information on her tablet.
Riyansh looked as though someone had just told him that the Academy’s entire physical-training curriculum had been replaced with meditation.
Saiyuki, as usual, had managed to look calm while everyone else was collectively losing their minds.
And Aryaan—
Aryaan could still see the forest.
It had been there for less than a second.
A forest beneath an unfamiliar sky.
A river that seemed to glow from within.
A woman standing on the opposite bank.
And the certainty that she had seen him.
Not his astral projection.
Not some vague reflection of his consciousness.
Him!
As though she had been waiting.
Aryaan swallowed.
“Say it again.”
Ron looked at him.
“I met a woman.”
“No. The message.”
Ron frowned.
“Why are you asking me to repeat it? It was creepy the first time.”
“Ron.”
“Fine.”
Ron rubbed his face.
“She said, ‘Tell the one who sees time that the road to Svargnagari is already open.'”
Nobody spoke.
Aryaan looked towards Anahita.
She had gone unusually still.
“What does it mean?”
Anahita didn’t answer immediately.
That bothered Aryaan more than the message.
Adults who genuinely didn’t know something usually said so.
Adults who knew something and were deciding how much to reveal tended to become quiet.
Anahita was doing the second.
Aryaan stood up from where he was sitting.
“What does it mean?”
Anahita finally looked at him.
“It means the relay isn’t dormant anymore.”
“I gathered that.”
“It means the network has recognised you.”
Aryaan frowned.
“Why me?”
“We don’t know.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No,” Anahita said.
“It isn’t.”
Aryaan’s irritation rose.
His parents had disappeared.
He had spent years with fragments of information, incomplete messages and carefully worded warnings.
Every time he came close to an answer, somebody older told him that he wasn’t ready.
He was beginning to hate those words.
“I think I’m old enough to know why my parents disappeared.”
Anahita’s expression softened.
“You are.”
“Then tell me.”
She looked at Ishaan.
Ishaan shook his head slightly.
Aryaan saw the exchange.
That was enough.
“Seriously?”
Potter stood.
“Wait.”
Aryaan turned.
Potter was looking at Anahita, not him.
“You said they weren’t the only ones keeping secrets.”
Anahita nodded.
“Then start with yours.”
Aryaan looked at Potter.
The two had been friends long enough that Aryaan knew when Potter was angry.
This wasn’t anger.
Not entirely.
It was hurt wearing anger as armour.
Anahita seemed to understand it too.
She sighed!
“Fine.”
She walked towards the centre of the room.
Ishaan remained beside her.
“Your parents were investigating the ancient planetary resonance network.”
Aryaan’s pulse quickened.
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Years.”
“Before they disappeared?”
“Yes.”
Aryaan’s jaw tightened.
“And Devdutt?”
Anahita paused.
“Yes.”
That hurt more than Aryaan expected.
He turned away.
For years, Devdutt had been one of the few adults Aryaan trusted without reservation.
He had guided the cousins after their parents disappeared, helped them survive the years when their absence remained an open wound, and never treated Aryaan’s determination to find them as childish obsession.
Yet now it seemed that Devdutt had known considerably more than he had admitted.
Ron broke the silence.
“So everybody knew except us?”
Anahita looked at him.
“Not everybody.”
“Okay, but enough people knew that I’m starting to feel personally attacked.”
Potter glanced at him.
“This is not about you.”
Ron looked offended.
“Everything is about me when I’m hungry.”
Mitchell sighed.
“Ron.”
“What? It’s true.”
Bonita finally lowered her tablet.
“Can we focus?”
“Thank you,” Anahita said.
She activated the central display.
The training hall darkened.
A three-dimensional model of Mokshabhumi appeared.
The artificial city rotated slowly above them.
Millions of people lived inside it.
Residential sectors.
Industrial districts.
Academy sectors.
Agricultural rings.
Transit systems.
Docking structures.
Power-generation cores.
And beneath all of it, the enormous asteroid foundation on which much of the station had been built.
Anahita zoomed inward.
The outer city disappeared.
Then the Academy.
Then the training hall.
Then the underground structures.
Something enormous appeared beneath them.
A network of concentric chambers.
Aryaan stared.
“That wasn’t on the Academy maps.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because it predates the Academy.”
The image continued downward.
The ancient structure seemed to have been built directly into the asteroid.
Its geometry was unlike modern engineering.
Circular chambers connected by narrow passages.
Crystalline nodes embedded in stone.
Metal conduits wrapped around structures that looked impossibly old.
At the centre was a chamber shaped like a lotus.
Aryaan recognised it.
“The relay.”
Anahita nodded.
“More precisely, one of the primary relay chambers.”
Ron leaned forward.
“One of?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“We don’t know.”
Ron stared.
“That is not a reassuring sentence.”
Ishaan took over.
“Modern humanity discovered only fragments of the old network. We thought most of it was destroyed during the Great Collapse.”
Aryaan studied the projection.
“And my parents discovered it wasn’t.”
“Correct.”
“Then why didn’t they tell us?”
Ishaan looked at him.
“Because they weren’t certain what they’d found.”
Aryaan shook his head.
“They sent me a message telling me not to look for them.”
Anahita’s eyes changed.
Aryaan noticed.
“You know about that?”
“Yes.”
“What exactly did they mean?”
She hesitated.
Aryaan stepped forward.
“Don’t tell me it was meant to protect me.”
Anahita didn’t respond.
“Because I’ve heard that already.”
His voice was sharper now.
“They told me not to look for them. They didn’t say they were dead. They didn’t say they were safe. They deliberately left that uncertainty.”
Ron looked at him.
Aryaan continued.
“That message made me believe they were alive.”
His fists tightened.
“And if they were alive, I was going to find them.”
Anahita’s expression became sad.
“That was probably what they intended.”
Aryaan froze.
“What?”
Anahita looked directly at him.
“Your parents knew you.”
A strange ache formed in his chest.
“They knew that if they told you to stop looking, you wouldn’t.”
Aryaan stared.
“They knew you would interpret the message as evidence that they were alive.”
His anger faltered.
Anahita continued.
“They were not asking you to abandon them, Aryaan. They were buying time.”
“For what?”
“For you to become capable of finding them.”
The room became silent.
Aryaan looked down.
That possibility had never occurred to him.
The message had always felt like rejection.
A final instruction from parents who had vanished and didn’t want their son following them.
But what if it had been something else?
What if they had known that the people searching for them were watching?
What if the message had been designed to prevent someone else from understanding that Aryaan had been left a trail?
His temporal perception flickered.
For half a second, he saw his father’s hand writing the message.
Then the vision vanished.
His nose began to bleed.
Ron immediately pointed.
“Again.”
Aryaan wiped it.
“I’m fine.”
“Your definition of fine is genuinely cooked.”
Aryaan glared at him.
Ron shrugged.
“You keep bleeding whenever you get emotional visions.”
“That’s not a medical diagnosis.”
“Still true.”
Ishaan looked at Aryaan.
“That’s precisely what we’re worried about.”
Aryaan looked up.
“What?”
“Your temporal perception is becoming more sensitive.”
He pointed towards the faint blood on Aryaan’s hand.
“Your body isn’t keeping up.”
Aryaan’s expression hardened.
“I can manage it.”
“No.”
The answer was immediate.
Ishaan stepped closer.
“That’s the difference between talent and mastery. You can access an ability before you’re ready to pay its full cost.”
Aryaan frowned.
“Pay its cost?”
Ishaan nodded.
“Every serious cultivation breakthrough has a price.”
Riyansh immediately looked interested.
“What kind?”
“Depends on the ability.”
Ishaan looked at Aryaan.
“For him, the danger is neurological overload.”
He then looked towards Lane.
“For Lane, it will probably be spatial disorientation once his perception exceeds his physical processing.”
Lane’s expression didn’t change.
Ron raised his hand.
Ishaan looked at him.
“And me?”
“Heat accumulation, nervous-system strain, possibly damage to your internal channels.”
Ron lowered his hand.
“Cool.”
“Not cool.”
“Yeah, I realised halfway through saying it.”
Ishaan looked at the others.
“The body isn’t a machine you can simply upgrade because your consciousness has decided it wants a new feature.”
Potter frowned.
“So every power increase hurts?”
“Not necessarily immediately. But every meaningful advancement demands adaptation.”
Anahita stepped in.
“Cultivation isn’t collecting abilities. It’s changing yourself enough to survive them.”
Aryaan remembered the strange sensation of his temporal perception.
The first time it had appeared, he had thought it was a gift.
Now he wondered whether gifts were simply debts whose bills arrived later.
The display changed.
The fourteen Lokas appeared.
This time, they weren’t presented as separate worlds.
They were shown as overlapping domains.
Bhur.
Bhuvar.
Svar.
Mahar.
Jana.
Tapa.
Satya.
And beneath them:
Atala.
Vitala.
Sutala.
Talatala.
Mahatala.
Rasatala.
Patala.
The young heroes watched.
Bonita spoke first.
“Are these actual physical dimensions?”
Anahita smiled faintly.
“Not in the way you’re thinking.”
“Then what are they?”
“Layers of existence.”
“That doesn’t help.”
“It wasn’t supposed to.”
Bonita stared.
Anahita laughed softly.
“Fine. Think of reality as having different rules depending on the layer you’re in.”
Potter looked at the map.
“So they’re parallel universes?”
“Not exactly.”
“Alternate dimensions?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then what are they?”
Anahita considered the question.
“States of reality.”
Mitchell tilted her head.
“That’s vague.”
“Yes.”
“Deliberately?”
“Yes.”
Mitchell nodded.
“Fair.”
Anahita expanded Bhur Loka.
Svargnagari appeared.
The display then showed the surrounding galaxy.
The Milky Way.
“Your ancestors understood their immediate reality as Bhur Loka,” she explained.
“But the distinction between loka and physical space is not as simple as ancient texts made it appear.”
Aryaan watched.
“So Gaia is in Bhuvar?”
“Part of it.”
“Another galaxy.”
“Yes.”
“How far?”
Anahita brought up the coordinates.
The distance appeared.
2.7 MILLION LIGHT-YEARS.
Ron whistled.
“That’s a lot of birthdays.”
Aryaan looked at him.
“What?”
“I’m trying to make it emotionally manageable.”
Anahita continued.
“Gaia exists in another galaxy within a parallel loka-state. Under ordinary physical laws, there is no practical route between Svargnagari and Gaia.”
Aryaan stared at the line connecting them.
“But there is one through resonance.”
“Possibly.”
“That’s what the relay does.”
“Among other things.”
Aryaan looked at her.
“Then why is everyone acting as though Gaia is unreachable?”
“Because it is.”
“But you just said—”
“Resonance doesn’t mean transportation.”
Aryaan paused.
Anahita pointed towards the map.
“The network can establish a connection between planetary codes without transporting physical matter. Think of it as a bridge for information, consciousness, and energy.”
Ron nodded slowly.
“So it’s basically cosmic Wi-Fi.”
Aryaan groaned.
Anahita actually smiled.
“Your description is terrible.”
“Thank you.”
“But technically…”
Ron looked hopeful.
“…not entirely wrong.”
His face lit up.
“YES.”
Potter shook his head.
“This is why we don’t give him validation.”
The map changed.
A planetary core appeared.
It rotated slowly.
The outer crust vanished.
Then the mantle.
Then the core.
A stream of energy moved through the planet’s internal lattice.
Anahita pointed.
“Every living planet has a resonance pattern.”
Riyansh leaned forward.
“Closer to a code.”
“Can people read it?”
“Advanced practitioners can perceive fragments.”
“Can they alter it?”
“Under controlled circumstances.”
“Can they consume it?”
The room fell silent.
Anahita looked at him.
“Yes.”
Aryaan felt his stomach tighten.
“The Orions.”
“Yes.”
The planetary core cracked.
The energy stream reversed.
Instead of feeding the planet’s network, energy began flowing outward.
The planet’s surface changed.
Storms.
Volcanic activity.
Tectonic instability.
The world slowly began dying.
“Planetary-core extraction is not simply mining,” Anahita said.
“It destabilises the entire planetary system.”
Aryaan remembered the Gaia recording.
The First Mistake.
The Gaians had given the Orions information about resonance.
The Orions had discovered a way to consume the planetary core instead of cultivating themselves through resonance.
And then they had destroyed their own universe.
“How did they survive?”
Ishaan answered.
“By leaving.”
Aryaan looked at him.
“Before their universe collapsed?”
“During it.”
The map expanded.
Multiple galaxies appeared.
Then the loka layers.
The image became chaotic.
“The Orions broke the temporal structure that kept their universe coherent.”
Aryaan felt the words settle into place.
Nomological force.
A law that preserved the temporal loop.
A structure that allowed reality to experience itself as moving forward.
The Orions had broken it.
“And when the loop broke,” Aryaan said, “parallel realities merged.”
“Some.”
“Enough.”
“Enough.”
Lane finally spoke.
“That’s why Gaia is in danger.”
Ishaan nodded.
“Gaia opposed the Orions because they understood what planetary resonance really was.”
Aryaan remembered the woman in the recording.
The Gaian archive.
The First Mistake.
“They feel responsible.”
Anahita looked at him.
“Who?”
“The Gaians.”
Aryaan pointed at the display.
“They taught the Orions something that became planetary extraction.”
Anahita nodded.
“According to the archive, yes.”
“Then they’re not just fighting them.”
“No.”
“They’re trying to undo their mistake.”
“Perhaps.”
Aryaan looked at the planetary image.
“Who was Sia?”
The room changed.
Anahita’s eyes narrowed slightly.
Aryaan noticed.
“Sia.”
Ron looked at him.
“Who’s Sia?”
Aryaan frowned.
“I heard the name in one of the records.”
Anahita didn’t answer.
Aryaan looked towards her.
“You know her.”
Anahita remained silent.
Ishaan stepped forward.
“Sia isn’t simply a person.”
Aryaan waited.
“She is a bearer.”
“Bearer of what?”
“The consequence of the First Mistake.”
Aryaan’s expression hardened.
“What does that mean?”
Ishaan looked at Anahita.
Anahita finally said:
“The Gaians believe that someone must carry the burden of the information that allowed the Orions to become what they are.”
Aryaan stared.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It doesn’t need to.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It means Sia’s existence is tied to the mistake.”
Aryaan looked at the display.
The image of Gaia appeared again.
A faint mark appeared above the planet.
The same three-line symbol.
“The Gaians believe she carries the memory of what happened.”
Aryaan frowned.
“Memory?”
“Possibly more.”
“More?”
Anahita hesitated.
“The ability to perceive resonance differently.”
Aryaan’s attention sharpened.
“She can see planetary codes?”
“Perhaps.”
“Then why is she in danger?”
“Because the Orions would want her.”
Ron sat forward.
“Wait.”
Everyone looked at him.
“If the Orions are looking for worlds with intact planetary codes, and Sia knows how those codes work…”
He looked towards Aryaan.
“They’d want her alive.”
Aryaan nodded.
“That makes her a target.”
“And if Gaia is fighting the Orions…”
Ron slowly leaned back.
“…then Sia is probably having a really bad week.”
Nobody laughed.
Ron looked around.
“Okay. Too soon.”
Three levels beneath the Academy, Devdutt walked through a corridor that had not appeared on any official map for almost three hundred years.
He moved alone.
The corridor was narrow.
Ancient stone formed its walls.
Modern reinforcement beams crossed above it.
Someone had tried to preserve the structure while preventing it from collapsing.
Devdutt knew exactly who had done it.
His sister.
Anahita had spent years arguing that the chamber should be opened.
Devdutt had spent years refusing.
Not because he didn’t believe the relay was important.
Because he did.
He stopped before a door.
It was unlike any door in Mokshabhumi.
No handle.
No locking mechanism.
No visible technology.
A circular depression sat at its centre.
Devdutt removed a small object from inside his coat.
A fragment of black crystal.
He stared at it for a long moment.
Then placed it inside the depression.
The door responded.
Light spread through the ancient symbols.
Devdutt whispered:
“I’m sorry.”
The door opened.
Beyond it was a chamber larger than the Academy’s central hall.
At its centre floated a crystalline structure.
It looked like a lotus made from glass.
Each petal contained moving patterns.
Stars.
Planets.
Human faces.
Memories.
Devdutt approached.
A holographic image appeared.
Two figures.
Aryaan’s parents.
Devdutt stopped.
The image was not a recording.
It was a preserved resonance imprint.
Aryaan’s mother looked towards him.
“Devdutt.”
His jaw tightened.
The recording continued.
“If you’re seeing this, then the relay has activated.”
Devdutt whispered:
“Not by me.”
Aryaan’s father appeared.
“Then Aryaan found it.”
Devdutt closed his eyes.
His sister had been right.
He had been wrong.
The boys were no longer children.
The network had recognised them.
The message continued.
“We don’t know how much time we have.”
Aryaan’s mother looked towards the camera.
“If the relay activates naturally, do not shut it down.”
Devdutt’s eyes opened.
“What?”
The recording continued.
“Whatever happens, do not sever the connection.”
Aryaan’s father stepped closer.
“The network is not the danger.”
Devdutt stared.
“What, then?”
The recording answered:
“The thing listening through it.”
The hologram flickered.
For a moment, the image became distorted.
Devdutt saw something behind Aryaan’s parents.
A shadow.
Huge.
Not humanoid.
Not mechanical.
Something that seemed to exist across multiple frames of time simultaneously.
Then the image stabilised.
Aryaan’s mother continued.
“If the relay recognises Aryaan, it will attempt to establish a direct resonance channel.”
Devdutt’s face hardened.
“Why Aryaan?”
The recording continued.
“Because of what he inherited.”
Devdutt went still.
Inherited.
Not from his parents.
Something older.
Something connected to the family.
The recording continued.
“Do not tell him yet.”
Devdutt almost laughed.
“Of course.”
The recording ended.
The chamber went dark.
Then the lotus pulsed.
A line of light emerged from it.
It travelled through the chamber.
Through the walls.
Through the Academy.
Through Mokshabhumi.
Then beyond.
Devdutt looked up.
He could feel it.
Something was answering.
Not from Gaia.
Not from another nearby star system.
From far beyond the Milky Way.
Beyond millions of light-years.
Beyond ordinary physical distance.
From another loka.
Devdutt’s expression changed.
“No.”
The lotus pulsed again.
A voice entered his mind.
Not spoken.
Felt.
THE ROAD IS OPEN.
Devdutt staggered.
He grabbed the edge of the chamber.
The voice came again.
THE CHILDREN HAVE BEEN SEEN.
Devdutt’s breathing became shallow.
He looked towards the lotus.
“And by whom?”
Silence.
Then:
THE ORION REMEMBERS.
Devdutt froze.
Back in the training hall, Aryaan suddenly opened his eyes.
He had been staring at the projection of Gaia.
Now he was staring at nothing.
Lane noticed immediately.
“What?”
Aryaan didn’t answer.
He felt something.
Not a vision.
Not a memory.
A presence.
He closed his eyes.
The world disappeared.
For a second, he stood somewhere else.
A black sky.
Stars unfamiliar to him.
A planet below.
And something enormous moving between the stars.
Aryaan’s temporal perception activated.
He saw the past.
A world burning.
He saw the present.
The same world dead.
Then the future.
A thousand worlds.
One after another.
Their cores being consumed.
He saw the Orions.
Not as monsters.
As a civilisation.
Children.
Families.
Cities.
Scientists.
Warriors.
He saw their universe dying.
He saw their desperation.
He saw the moment they discovered planetary resonance.
And he saw the first planet they consumed.
Aryaan’s chest tightened.
The vision shifted.
He saw the Gaians.
He saw their mistake.
He saw Sia.
A young girl standing beneath a different sky.
She was crying.
Someone was holding her.
Then another vision.
Sia older.
Alone.
A strange symbol glowing beneath her skin.
Then—
Aryaan saw himself.
Standing opposite her.
He couldn’t understand what he was seeing.
Then the vision changed again.
Sia wasn’t alone.
Lane stood beside her.
Aryaan frowned.
The image vanished.
He opened his eyes.
Lane was staring at him.
“What happened?”
Aryaan’s head throbbed.
“Nothing.”
Lane’s eyes narrowed.
“Don’t.”
Aryaan blinked.
“Don’t what?”
“Lie.”
Aryaan stared at him.
There was something in Lane’s voice.
Not anger.
Concern.
Aryaan looked away.
“I saw something.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
Lane waited.
Aryaan sighed.
“Gaia.”
Lane’s expression hardened.
“What about it?”
“I saw the Orions.”
Ron immediately moved closer.
“What did they look like?”
Aryaan hesitated.
“Not what I expected.”
Ron frowned.
“Aliens?”
“People.”
“That’s not helpful.”
Aryaan looked at him.
“They had families.”
Ron went quiet.
Aryaan continued.
“They were desperate.”
Potter frowned.
“Desperate enough to destroy planets?”
Aryaan nodded.
“That doesn’t excuse them.”
“No.”
“But…”
Aryaan looked at the floor.
“It makes them more complicated.”
Bonita nodded slowly.
“Good.”
Aryaan looked at her.
She shrugged.
“Villains who wake up one morning and decide to be evil are boring.”
Potter glanced at her.
“That’s a terrible thing to say about an existential threat.”
“I’m not saying they’re not dangerous.”
Bonita looked at the image of Gaia.
“I’m saying understanding why someone becomes dangerous is how you stop them.”
Aryaan stared at the display.
He remembered his vision.
Orion cities.
Orion desperation.
Then the first planetary core being consumed.
“Maybe that’s what my parents were trying to understand.”
Anahita nodded.
“Probably.”
Aryaan turned towards her.
“You knew?”
“No.”
He stared.
She sighed.
“I suspected.”
Aryaan looked away.
He was beginning to understand that adults did not have all the answers.
They simply had more fragments.
Sometimes they had better reasons for keeping those fragments hidden.
Sometimes they were wrong.
That was perhaps the most unsettling discovery of all.
The Academy’s emergency alarms began.
Everyone looked up.
A red light flashed.
An automated voice announced:
RESONANCE BREACH DETECTED.
Anahita immediately stood.
“Stay here.”
Aryaan was already moving.
“No.”
Anahita turned.
“This isn’t a request.”
Aryaan stopped.
“We’re part of the relay.”
“Exactly.”
“Then we need to know what’s happening.”
“No. You need to stay alive.”
Aryaan’s frustration returned.
“My parents are alive because they entered this network.”
“You don’t know that.”
“They left me a message.”
“That doesn’t prove—”
“They told me not to look for them.”
Anahita stopped.
Aryaan looked directly at her.
“If they wanted me to stop, they could have told me they were dead.”
Anahita didn’t answer.
Aryaan’s voice softened.
“They didn’t.”
He looked towards the floor.
“They knew I’d keep searching.”
Anahita finally understood.
“You think the message was a trail.”
“I think it was a promise.”
Ron stepped beside him.
Lane followed.
Potter looked at the others.
Mitchell sighed.
“Apparently we’re doing this.”
Bonita stood.
“Apparently.”
Riyansh smiled.
Saiyuki simply rose.
Anahita looked at all eight.
For a moment, she looked like she wanted to argue.
Then she stopped.
She looked at Ishaan.
He shook his head.
Anahita sighed.
“Fine.”
Ron smiled.
“Let’s go.”
Anahita pointed at him.
“You stay behind me.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re the one who accidentally opened an inter-loka resonance channel.”
Ron thought about it.
“That’s fair.”
They left the training hall.
The lower Academy sector was already under lockdown.
Doors had sealed.
Emergency barriers had descended.
Security drones hovered in the corridors.
The further they travelled, the older the architecture became.
Modern walls disappeared.
Stone returned.
Ancient inscriptions glowed faintly beneath the emergency lights.
Aryaan recognised some of them.
Not words.
Instructions.
He stopped.
“Wait.”
Lane stopped beside him.
“What?”
Aryaan pointed.
The inscription had two symbols.
One represented a human body.
The other represented a star.
Between them was a spiral.
“What does that mean?” Ron asked.
Aryaan frowned.
“Resonance.”
“Obviously.”
Aryaan looked at him.
“Do you know what it means?”
“No.”
“Then why did you say obviously?”
“Because I wanted to contribute.”
Potter groaned.
Aryaan examined the inscription.
Something about it felt familiar.
He closed his eyes.
His temporal perception activated.
Pain struck instantly.
He grabbed the wall.
Lane caught him.
“Aryaan.”
“I saw it.”
“What?”
“The first relay.”
The corridor disappeared.
Aryaan saw people standing here thousands of years earlier.
Not humans as he knew them.
They wore a mixture of Taoist cultivation robes and early technological equipment.
Crystals floated around them.
They meditated.
Their Kundalini channels glowed.
Astral forms rose from their bodies.
Then the astral forms travelled.
Not through space.
Through layers.
Bhur.
Bhuvar.
Svar.
Mahar.
Beyond.
The people weren’t physically travelling.
Their consciousness was following resonance.
They reached worlds millions of light-years away.
Some were in other galaxies.
Some were in other Lokas.
And some—
Aryaan saw Gaia.
The vision snapped.
He collapsed.
Lane caught him.
Blood ran from Aryaan’s nose.
Ron immediately crouched.
“That’s getting old.”
Aryaan wiped the blood away.
“I’m okay.”
Lane looked at him.
“No, you’re not.”
Aryaan stared.
Lane’s voice was quiet.
“You don’t have to prove anything every time.”
Aryaan didn’t know how to respond.
For once, Ron didn’t make a joke.
Potter looked away.
The tension among them had been building for weeks.
Everyone was changing.
Their abilities were changing.
Their relationships were changing.
And the search for Aryaan’s parents had begun pulling all of them into something none of them understood.
Aryaan finally said:
“I’m scared.”
Nobody moved.
The admission seemed to surprise even him.
“I don’t know what I’m seeing anymore.”
Lane’s expression softened.
Aryaan continued.
“I don’t know whether these are memories, futures, possibilities, or something else.”
Lane nodded.
“Then we’ll figure it out.”
Aryaan looked at him.
“We?”
Lane shrugged.
“You’re not doing this alone.”
Ron immediately raised his hand.
“Same.”
Potter looked at him.
Ron frowned.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“What?”
Potter smiled despite himself.
“Nothing.”
Aryaan looked at all of them.
Eight.
They had started as friends.
Then teammates.
Then something more complicated.
Sometimes they fought.
Sometimes they misunderstood one another.
Sometimes they hurt one another without meaning to.
But they were still here.
Aryaan nodded.
“Okay.”
They continued.
The corridor ended.
A circular door stood before them.
It was enormous.
The same lotus-shaped symbol appeared at its centre.
Anahita stopped.
Ishaan looked at her.
“You sure?”
“No.”
Ron nodded.
“Great.”
Anahita placed her hand against the door.
It did not open.
Aryaan stepped forward.
The symbol reacted.
Light travelled across it.
Anahita immediately pulled her hand away.
“Aryaan.”
“I know.”
The door responded to him.
The symbol split.
The two halves rotated.
The door opened.
Cold air rushed out.
Beyond it was darkness.
Then lights began appearing.
One.
Two.
Ten.
Hundreds.
Thousands.
Stars.
The chamber beyond was not underground anymore.
At least, it shouldn’t have been.
The space was enormous.
There was no ceiling.
No floor.
No visible walls.
They stood on a platform suspended in darkness.
Below them was Mokshabhumi.
Not a projection.
The actual station.
They could see the lights of the city.
Far beyond it, the Solar System spread beneath them.
The Sun.
Planets.
Asteroid belts.
The enormous human settlement network.
But the view didn’t stop there.
The chamber’s perspective continued outward.
The Solar System became a point.
The Milky Way appeared.
Then another galaxy.
Then another.
Then the loka layers.
The entire cosmological structure seemed to unfold before them.
Ron whispered:
“Okay.”
Potter looked at him.
“Don’t.”
“I was going to say something profound.”
“That’s why.”
Ron ignored him.
The platform began moving.
Not physically.
Their consciousness was being pulled.
Aryaan felt it immediately.
His body remained behind.
But his astral awareness expanded.
He saw Mokshabhumi.
Then Svargnagari.
Then the Milky Way.
Then the enormous distance between galaxies.
2.7 million light-years.
The number appeared briefly.
Then vanished.
The network didn’t care.
It wasn’t moving through that distance.
It was moving through resonance.
Gaia appeared.
Blue.
Beautiful.
Far away.
Yet suddenly close.
Aryaan felt something.
A pulse.
Someone was calling.
He reached towards it.
Lane grabbed his arm.
“Don’t.”
Aryaan stopped.
Lane’s grip tightened.
“You don’t know what’s on the other side.”
Aryaan looked at him.
The pulse came again.
This time, everyone felt it.
The entire group.
Eight consciousnesses.
One network.
The signal moved through them.
A woman’s voice appeared.
Not in words.
In emotion.
Fear.
Urgency.
And one final sensation.
Recognition.
Aryaan’s temporal perception activated without his permission.
He saw the woman from the forest.
Sia.
But this time she wasn’t standing beside the river.
She was running.
Something was chasing her.
Behind her, the sky burned.
Aryaan saw the symbol beneath her skin.
The mark of the First Mistake.
Then the image shifted.
Sia stopped.
She turned.
And looked directly at Aryaan.
Her lips moved.
This time, he heard the words.
“Don’t trust the man who opened the door.”
Aryaan’s eyes snapped open.
The chamber vanished.
He was back inside the underground hall.
Everyone was staring at him.
Ron was breathing heavily.
“What happened?”
Aryaan looked towards Anahita.
Then Ishaan.
Then the door.
And finally towards the corridor behind them.
“Someone opened it.”
Anahita’s face changed.
“What?”
Aryaan looked at her.
“The relay.”
His voice was quiet.
“It didn’t open itself.”
Ishaan’s expression hardened.
“Then who?”
Aryaan remembered the vision.
Devdutt standing before the lotus.
His parents’ message.
The crystal.
The door.
And Sia’s warning.
He swallowed.
“I don’t know.”
A sound came from somewhere deep beneath them.
A single metallic impact.
Then another.
Something was moving inside the relay chamber.
Anahita reached for her weapon.
Ishaan did the same.
The eight young heroes instinctively formed up behind them.
Aryaan looked towards the darkness.
Then his temporal perception flickered one final time.
He saw Devdutt.
He saw the relay.
And behind Devdutt— a shadow.
Not a person.
Not a machine.
Something enormous.
Something that had crossed millions of light-years without moving.
Something that had crossed the boundary between Lokas.
And something that had just noticed Aryaan.
The vision vanished.
Aryaan whispered:
“It’s here.”
The lights went out.
And somewhere in the darkness, something laughed.