The land between Bhadrakaal and the next village was once thick with greenery. Now, every step Ravi took crunched through dead leaves and cracked roots. The black veins had spread, carving unnatural patterns into the soil. No birds. No signs of life. Just a rising pressure — as if the land itself held its breath.
Meera rode ahead on her mare, her expression tense. Kiran walked beside Ravi in silence, blades sheathed but fingers twitching.
"You haven't spoken since the shrine," Kiran finally said. "What did it show you?"
Ravi shook his head. "A lie. A truth. I don't know anymore."
He hadn't told them everything.
Not about the chained being. Not about the Tenth Limb whispering in his blood like a forgotten language. Not about how his Void Palm had started to twist — not just erasing things, but corrupting them if he lost focus.
He feared it.But he feared why it felt so natural even more.
That Night
They made camp near an abandoned watchtower. The fire burned low, and Kiran dozed, snoring into his scarf.
Meera and Ravi sat near the embers. She was quiet, studying him.
"Your energy," she said finally, "feels different. Thicker. Heavier."
Ravi looked at his hands. "What if I'm not just mastering the Void? What if it's mastering me?"
Meera reached out, gently touching his shoulder. "Then let us fall with you before we let you fall alone."
The words should've comforted him. But they didn't. Because even now, something in the dark was watching. Not with eyes — but with memory.
Dawn
The next village — Mrittikapur — was already gone.
Homes caved inward. The earth was split by jagged fissures. Black statues lined the path in kneeling poses — but they weren't statues. They were people.
Petrified. Frozen mid-scream.
A single figure stood among them. Cloaked in blood-red and bone, a tall man with long braided hair and a necklace of fingers.
A Warlord.
Aghor Devra. The Bone Collector.
Ravi stepped forward, the air turning cold around him.
Devra smiled, revealing sharpened teeth. "So... the boy who touches the void walks the living graveyard."
His voice cracked the stone beneath their feet.
"You feel it too, don't you? The Tenth Limb awakening. Your power is not sacred. It is forgotten filth rising from beneath the divine."
Ravi raised his hands.
Devra laughed. "Good. Let the dead fight the dying."
He lunged, bones bursting from the ground like spears.
Ravi moved instinctively — his Void Palm clashing with bone, disintegrating some… but not all. The ones that remained reformed, twisted with shadow.
Meera weaved behind him, casting healing wards to protect Kiran, who dashed into the fray, blades dancing.
But Ravi knew something had changed. The Void was no longer content with erasing.
It wanted to consume.
And when he struck Devra's chest, the energy didn't just erase — it pulled. Ravi felt Devra's memories flash across his mind: torture, hunger, screams, a pact with a dead god beneath the soil.
Devra roared and staggered back.
Ravi gasped, falling to one knee.
Meera caught him. "What did you just do?"
"I… I don't know," Ravi whispered. "I saw his life."
Kiran dragged Devra's broken body away. "He's still breathing."
Ravi stood slowly, his eyes distant."He won't for long. The Tenth Limb remembers its enemies."
That Night
Alone, Ravi stood in the woods.
The Void whispered louder now. Not in words. In instinct.
A feeling that all things — all life — were echoes waiting to end.
And in that moment, he almost believed it.