> "Some cages are built of duty, others of defiance. But the cruelest are those we shackle ourselves to."
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The arena was silent.
Not because the crowd wasn't there—it was. Every seat was filled, every eye locked on the field—but not a sound emerged. Even the wind seemed to hesitate.
Because the name that had appeared on the board was not one they expected.
Sarva.
No title. No region. No faction.
Just one name.
But those who knew… they remembered the stories. The whispers passed down through forbidden scrolls and shadowed halls. The Chain-Breaker. The First Keeper. The man who had once tried to destroy the Ashvattha Tournament from within.
Aarav stood in the center of the battlefield, his heart pounding like a war drum, his skin humming with the tension of impending war. Every instinct screamed that something unnatural was coming.
And then—he appeared.
He didn't walk.
He arrived.
One blink, and he wasn't there. The next—he stood across from Aarav.
A man cloaked in white, hair falling like obsidian smoke, eyes carved from starlight. No Divine Mark. No aura. No presence.
And yet—Aarav couldn't breathe.
"Sarva," he whispered, the name tasting like blood on his tongue.
Sarva studied him. No emotion. No hostility. Just a gaze that saw too much.
"You're the one they chose this time," Sarva said, voice smooth like still water over a blade. "Pity."
Aarav forced himself to stand tall. "I'm not here to be chosen. I'm here to end this."
That made Sarva smile.
It was the kind of smile that didn't reach the eyes. The kind that came before catastrophe.
"I said the same thing, once," Sarva murmured. "Do you know how many bones I broke trying? How many gods I bled? How many chains I shattered—only to realize I had simply built new ones?"
Aarav's fists tightened.
"I saw the scroll," he said. "I know what the Keepers are hiding. I know what they're doing."
"Do you?" Sarva asked, stepping forward. "Do you really? You think you've seen the truth because they let you peek behind one veil? You haven't even touched the root."
Lightning crackled across Aarav's arm.
"I don't need to touch the root. I just need to burn the tree."
Sarva's eyes widened slightly.
Then… he laughed.
A short, broken thing.
"You truly are dangerous," he said. "That's why they've sent me. You've reached too far, too fast."
The air around them snapped.
Without warning, the chains appeared.
They erupted from the earth—black, jagged, and alive—spiraling around Sarva's arms like serpents. Each one hummed with divine power, etched with runes that glowed in every language of the gods.
Aarav's body screamed in warning.
"Begin!" the announcer cried, though his voice was barely heard through the weight of the moment.
And Sarva moved.
No, not moved—unleashed.
Chains shot toward Aarav from every direction, moving like sentient limbs, bending reality around them. Aarav ducked, rolled, and shot backward, lightning blazing through his arms.
Kāla Vajra!
He clapped his palms, sending a bolt of time-infused thunder directly at Sarva.
Sarva didn't dodge.
He let it hit him.
The blast engulfed him completely, shaking the arena.
Aarav panted. That was too easy.
Then the smoke cleared.
Sarva stood untouched.
Time crackled around him, reversed. The moment of impact unraveled, rewound, and vanished like it never happened.
"Do you think you're the first to wield time?" Sarva said coldly. "I broke time."
One chain lashed forward—Aarav parried with a pulse of lightning—but it was a feint.
Another chain wrapped around his ankle.
And pulled.
Aarav's body slammed into the arena wall with bone-shattering force.
Pain blinded him.
Get up, a voice inside him growled. Get up or die.
He surged to his feet, blood dripping from his temple, sparks dancing around him like a storm barely held back.
Sarva was already mid-air, spinning, chains coiling around him like a celestial storm.
And then—
He descended.
Chainfall.
The move shattered the ground.
Aarav barely threw himself aside, skidding across debris. A massive crater spread where he'd stood.
Sarva landed with grace, not even winded.
"You can't win this fight," he said.
"I'm not trying to win," Aarav coughed, standing. "I'm trying to understand."
Sarva paused.
Aarav's body lit up—not just with lightning—but with something older. A glyph across his chest, glowing red.
"The Vanara King wasn't just training me," Aarav said. "He gifted me. With a memory."
Sarva's expression darkened. "What memory?"
Aarav stepped forward.
"The memory of you."
And then—Aarav's left eye turned golden.
Sarva staggered back.
"No," he whispered. "That's impossible."
Because in that eye—Sarva saw himself.
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