LEGACY OF THE FALLEN
Chapter 25
"Oh, so that's where you are. I've been looking all over for you," Arihant said, standing casually on a tree branch, sipping a can of cola.
Aksh didn't respond. He sat alone at the edge of the lake in Shantivan, silently throwing small stones into the still water, each ripple reflecting the mess inside his mind.
"Here, take this," Arihant called, tossing another can of cola.
Aksh caught it mid-air. He opened it and took a sip, still without saying a word.
Arihant jumped off the branch and sat down beside Aksh, stretching his legs out lazily. "You broke that little girl's heart, you know," he said, taking another sip of cola.
"If you're here to lecture me about what happened in the training, don't bother. Just leave," Aksh replied coldly, not looking at him.
Arihant didn't respond immediately. He stared up at the sky, eyes half-lidded.
"She's the kindest person I've ever met," he said after a pause. "One day, she accidentally stepped on a butterfly. When she realized, she locked herself in her room and cried the entire day."
He took another sip and let the silence sit for a moment.
"She can't even hurt a bug. She's not made for war.""If that's true," Aksh said coldly, "then all of you are just inhumane."
Arihant blinked, caught off guard.
"She doesn't want to use her power to hurt anyone, yet you still force her to use it. And if that's not enough, you made her fight her own teammate?" His grip on the cola can tightened. "Are you people really that desperate for power? So desperate that you'd push even an innocent girl like her into something like this?"
Aksh had never cared about anyone outside his family. Never meddled in things that didn't concern him. This was the first time he spoke for someone else.
Maybe it was because… he saw something of himself in Avni.
Arihant looked at him for a long moment before replying, his voice soft but unwavering.
"We're not the ones forcing her," he said. "Yeah, she hates her power. But she hates being controlled by it even more."
He looked away, eyes focused on the rippling lake.
"It's her decision to fight. She's the one who volunteered to be your training partner, not us. Because she wants to learn control—not for power, but so she'll never hurt anyone again."
Arihant stood up, picked a stone, and tossed it into the lake. It skipped several times before sinking into the water.
"I'll get going," he said, brushing off his hands. "I need to plan for your Tejas training. You've already done what I expected you to complete in a month. So, you're free for next 3 days."
Arihant jumped to a nearby branch and disappeared into the forest, hopping from tree to tree.
Aksh sighed, stood up slowly, and walked away.
"Aghhh… yeah… I heard it," Aman huffed, straining as he pushed through another rep. "That kid's definitely not normal. We gotta push ourselves harder if we wanna keep our dignity as his… seniors. It's a rule, man… hah… hah… you gotta be better than your juniors."
"Haha, I'd like to fight him once he gets stronger," Rudra said, lounging under the shade of a tree with a leaf lazily tucked between his lips, one leg resting over the other.
"If you keep fooling around like that… hah… hah… doing nothing, then that day's not far… hah… when he'll surpass you," Aman grunted between push-ups.
"Oh, is that so?" Rudra smirked, turning to lie on his side. "But you're working so hard… why haven't you surpassed me yet?"
"You—aghhh!"
Aman collapsed mid-push-up, crushed flat as Tushar's heavy body turned him into a human sandwich.
"Do you think my body is strong enough to handle Tejas now?" Aksh asked, staring into the mirror, shirtless.
His ribs were no longer visible—covered now with lean, defined muscle. He wasn't bulky, but the transformation was undeniable.
"Don't delude yourself," the voice echoed in his mind.
"Your body might be able to hold normal Tejas… but it's still far from enough to withstand Demonic Tejas."
"But since you are free for the next three days, you can train for more than a month inside your mind world. That should be enough for you to make your body strong enough to handle Demonic Tejas," the voice spoke.
"So it's time to enter the mind world again," Aksh said while stretching his arms.
"And don't forget about that before entering the mind world," the voice replied.
"Oh, you're right. How could I forget?" Aksh responded, taking out a pouch from his pocket. He opened it and reached inside. As he pulled his hand out, there they were—Tejavrittas pills.
Whenever Aksh entered his mind world, any training he underwent there would affect his physical body in the real world. The Demonic Tejas within him would begin restructuring his muscles in reality as he trained inside his mind.
However, this process required a tremendous amount of energy—far more than his Demonic Tejas alone could provide. That's where the Tejavrittas pills came in. They supplied the additional energy needed for the transformation, allowing his body to evolve in sync with the training he endured in his mind world.
Aksh placed four Tejavrittas pills in his mouth and swallowed them. He sat down in the lotus position and closed his eyes.
The moment he opened them again, he was already inside his mind world.
Without hesitation, he summoned Avni's image before him. "Come at me—with your full power!" he shouted, surging forward.
A trident materialized in his hand as he leapt toward her, the ground beneath him cracking from the force.
After 25 days of relentless, brutal training against Avni's clone at her full power inside his mind world—he finally did it.
At full strength, Avni stretched out the fingers of both hands, and with each wave of her palms, five branches erupted—twisting and darting toward Aksh like spears. But it made no difference. Whether it was five branches or a hundred, they were all the same to him now.
Aksh spun his trident with his body, not just defending himself but slicing through every single branch that came his way. He moved forward with unwavering momentum, the spinning blade carving a path of destruction.
Then he began to sprint.
Faster. Stronger. Cleaner.
The branches tore toward him like a forest storm, but he cut through them like butter—his strikes fluid, flawless.
And then, with one final burst of speed and precision— He beheaded the clone.
"Tch, it's become pretty easy to defeat her—even at full power," Aksh muttered, spinning his trident once before letting it vanish. "I need to summon someone stronger."
He paused for a moment, then his eyes lit up with a thought.
"Wait… when I attacked Avni, Arihant blocked it with a protection barrier. His Tejas came into contact with mine… so I should be able to summon him."
Aksh closed his eyes to begin the summoning.
"Oyy—wait, brat!" the voice in his head shouted.
But it was already too late.
A translucent red figure began forming in front of him—but something was wrong. The figure was unstable and its shape flickered violently. Energy began distorting around it, and then—
BOOM.
A massive blast erupted, consuming everything around him in blinding red light.
Aksh gasped and snapped his eyes open.
He was already out of his mind world.
Blood spilled from his mouth as he clutched his head in pain.
"What the hell just happened?!" he screamed, holding his head.
"What do you think, genius?" the voice growled. "You tried to summon a calamity into your mind world with the measly amount of Tejas you have. It couldn't recreate the tremendous power Arihant holds—and that unstable recreation exploded in your face."