The mountain did not feel natural the moment they began climbing it.
That realization settled quietly into everyone's mind long before anyone actually said it aloud.
At first, the path upward only seemed difficult in the ordinary sense. Steep cliffs. Thin air. Sharp winds tearing through the rocky slopes hard enough to throw off balance if someone lost focus for even a second. Snow covered portions of the upper terrain despite the lower forests remaining untouched by winter. Jagged stone formations rose around them like broken teeth while clouds moved unnaturally fast across the sky overhead.
But the higher they climbed—
the stranger everything became.
The silence was the first thing they noticed.
No birds.
No insects.
No distant animal cries.
Nothing.
Only the sound of wind and footsteps against stone remained. And even those noises sometimes felt swallowed unnaturally fast, as though the mountain itself absorbed sound before it could properly exist.
By the second hour, even Riven stopped making jokes.
That alone unsettled everyone more than they admitted.
Arin walked near the front quietly while the fragment of Vijaya rested beneath layers of cloth inside his bag. But despite the covering, golden light still pulsed faintly through the fabric every few minutes now. The closer they climbed toward the summit, the stronger the fragment reacted.
And the stronger it reacted—
the more unstable Arin's memories became.
Sometimes he would suddenly stop moving after hearing faint echoes inside his head. Other times fragments of Kurukshetra appeared briefly in front of his eyes instead of the mountain path. Broken chariots. Blood-covered skies. Warriors screaming beneath divine weapons.
The timelines had started overlapping again.
Liora noticed every single time it happened.
She remained close beside him almost constantly during the climb, not because she doubted his strength, but because she understood exactly how dangerous memory could become once it started consuming reality itself.
Especially for him.
"…you're drifting again."
Her voice came softly while they crossed a narrow stone ridge overlooking a massive drop into darkness below.
Arin blinked once before the battlefield vanished from his vision again.
"…yeah."
Liora watched him carefully.
"What did you see this time?"
A brief silence followed.
"…fire."
Another pause.
"And arrows falling from the sky."
The answer alone told her enough.
Kurukshetra again.
The memories were getting stronger the closer they approached Vijaya.
Not random fragments anymore.
Entire moments.
Entire emotions.
Entire lives trying to resurface simultaneously inside one mind.
Liora understood the danger immediately. Because unlike the others, she remembered what happened near the end of Aditya's life too. She remembered how unstable memory eventually made him before the war against the organization reached its climax.
Too many lives existing inside one person slowly destroyed the boundary between past and present.
And if that happened completely—
Arin might stop being Arin altogether.
The thought alone unsettled her deeply.
Behind them, the others continued climbing carefully across the rocky path. Exhaustion had already started setting in despite nobody openly complaining yet. The terrain only became more dangerous higher up the mountain. Several sections required climbing nearly vertical cliffs while freezing winds tore across the stone hard enough to numb their hands within minutes.
Still—
none of them turned back.
Because deep down, everyone understood the same thing now.
Whatever waited inside this mountain…
it was important enough to shake reality itself the moment Arin arrived near it.
And that meant the fragment hidden here could not be ignored.
By sunset they finally reached the upper regions near the summit.
The atmosphere changed immediately.
Snow covered almost everything now while thick fog drifted endlessly across the mountainside. Visibility became worse with every step until the world itself started feeling unreal around them. The cliffs no longer looked like ordinary rock formations either. Strange ancient symbols appeared carved directly into the stone walls surrounding the summit, glowing faintly beneath the snow whenever moonlight touched them.
The same symbols from the fragment.
The same symbols from Vijaya.
"…someone built this place," Kael muttered quietly while staring at one of the carvings.
"No," Arin answered instantly.
Everyone looked toward him.
The pressure inside his head intensified again while fragmented memories surfaced once more. Not Kurukshetra this time. Something older.
Something connected directly to Vijaya itself.
"…this place formed around it."
Silence followed immediately afterward.
And somehow—
everyone instinctively believed him.
Because the mountain no longer felt like a location.
It felt like a seal.
The summit finally appeared through the fog shortly afterward.
A massive circular plateau hidden between towering black cliffs. The snow covering the ground here looked untouched despite centuries of storms, and at the center of the summit stood something that made every single one of them stop moving instantly.
A cave entrance.
Massive.
Ancient.
And completely unnatural.
The opening itself resembled the jaws of some enormous creature frozen within the mountain. Jagged black stone curved around the entrance while faint golden cracks spread across the walls surrounding it. Cold air flowed outward from the darkness inside carrying a pressure so overwhelming that everyone felt it immediately in their chest.
Not fear exactly.
Recognition.
Arin stared at the cave silently.
Because he knew without explanation—
Vijaya was inside.
The fragment within his bag suddenly glowed brighter than ever before. Golden light burst through the cloth while the mountain itself trembled faintly beneath their feet again.
The weapon was reacting to its missing pieces.
And somewhere deep within the cave—
something answered.
Liora slowly stepped closer toward Arin.
"…this place feels alive."
He nodded quietly.
"Because part of Vijaya is."
Nobody questioned that sentence anymore.
At this point, all of them had already accepted that the weapon existed beyond ordinary logic entirely.
Riven stared toward the darkness inside the cave uneasily.
"So we're really doing this."
Aira crossed her arms.
"We climbed a cursed mountain for seven days. It would be weird if we stopped now."
"…fair point."
Still—
nobody moved immediately.
Because despite everything they faced so far, the cave radiated something fundamentally different from danger.
It felt ancient beyond human understanding.
As though the darkness inside belonged to another era entirely.
Eventually Arin stepped forward first.
The moment he crossed the entrance—
the cave reacted.
Golden light suddenly spread faintly across the walls like veins awakening beneath stone. Symbols illuminated one after another deeper into the darkness while low vibrations echoed throughout the mountain itself. Dust fell from the ceiling above while distant sounds moved somewhere far below the earth.
Then silence returned again.
But now the path inside had become visible.
"…well," Riven muttered nervously, "that definitely feels like a trap."
No one disagreed.
The group entered carefully afterward.
The temperature dropped instantly inside the cave.
Their breaths became visible while cold air moved unnaturally through the tunnels despite no visible openings nearby. The walls surrounding them were smooth in some places and jagged in others, almost as though parts of the cave formed naturally while other sections had been carved intentionally long ago. Ancient symbols covered nearly every surface now, glowing faintly whenever Arin moved closer to them.
The deeper they walked—
the stranger the cave became.
The tunnels twisted in impossible ways.
Sometimes paths curved downward despite clearly leading upward moments earlier. Other times distant sounds echoed from directions that physically made no sense. Several times the group became convinced they heard footsteps ahead of them only to discover nothing there.
And worst of all—
the pressure continued growing stronger.
Not physical pressure.
Mental.
Like the cave itself constantly watched them.
Eventually the narrow tunnels opened suddenly into something enormous.
Everyone stopped instantly.
Because what stood before them was not merely a cave anymore.
It was a labyrinth.
Massive stone walls stretched endlessly beneath the mountain, forming pathways twisting in every direction beneath a ceiling so high it disappeared into darkness completely. Ancient torches lined portions of the maze, somehow still burning with faint golden flames despite existing untouched for centuries. Bridges crossed over lower sections disappearing into bottomless pits while symbols glowed faintly across the pathways themselves.
The entire structure looked impossible.
Too large to exist inside a mountain naturally.
"…how…" Selene whispered quietly.
Nobody answered.
Because nobody understood what they were looking at either.
Arin slowly stepped toward the entrance of the maze while the fragment inside his bag pulsed violently now.
The moment his foot touched the stone floor—
the labyrinth awakened completely.
A deep sound echoed throughout the entire structure immediately afterward.
Like ancient machinery moving beneath the earth itself.
The pathways shifted.
Stone walls began moving slowly around them while parts of the maze rearranged themselves with deafening vibrations. Several bridges collapsed before rebuilding elsewhere moments later. Golden symbols illuminated across the floor beneath their feet while distant growls echoed from somewhere deep within the darkness ahead.
Everyone instinctively stepped closer together immediately.
"…tell me that's part of the puzzle," Aira muttered nervously.
Arin's expression darkened slightly.
"No."
The growls came again.
Closer this time.
Then suddenly—
eyes appeared within the darkness ahead.
Dozens of them.
Glowing faint gold beneath the shadows.
The sounds following afterward barely resembled animals anymore.
Starved breathing.
Claws scraping against stone.
Low guttural noises twisted unnaturally by hunger and something worse.
The creatures slowly emerged from the darkness one by one.
At first glance they resembled wolves.
Or perhaps they once had.
Now they looked corrupted beyond recognition. Their bodies appeared unnaturally thin, ribs visible beneath blackened skin stretched tightly over distorted bones. Golden veins pulsed violently across their bodies while their eyes glowed the same color as the symbols covering the maze. Several had extra limbs twisting unnaturally from their sides while others moved with broken skeletal structures that should have made movement impossible.
And every single one stared directly at Arin.
The fragment reacted violently again.
The creatures immediately snarled in response.
Liora's expression sharpened instantly.
"…they're reacting to Vijaya."
Arin nodded slowly.
The realization came immediately afterward.
The weapon's energy had corrupted the creatures over time.
Not intentionally.
Simply through exposure.
They had lived near fragments of something divine for too long.
And now they barely resembled living beings anymore.
One of the beasts suddenly lunged forward without warning.
Fast.
Far faster than ordinary animals should move.
But Arin reacted instantly.
Golden energy exploded briefly around his arm the moment he stepped forward and struck the creature directly across the skull before it reached the group. The impact shattered stone beneath them while the beast crashed violently into a nearby wall hard enough to break part of it apart completely.
Silence followed for half a second.
Then every creature attacked simultaneously.
Chaos erupted instantly across the labyrinth.
The beasts moved unnaturally fast through the maze while the pathways themselves continued shifting around them. Some creatures climbed directly across walls and ceilings while others burst upward from lower sections of the labyrinth itself.
Arin immediately understood the real problem.
This wasn't merely combat.
The maze itself was the trial.
And reaching Vijaya required solving it while surviving everything hunting them inside.
The symbols across the floor suddenly illuminated brighter beneath his feet.
A pattern.
A puzzle.
His eyes widened slightly.
The pathways themselves formed sequences.
Wrong steps changed the maze.
Correct steps opened paths deeper inside.
But every time the maze shifted—
more creatures emerged.
"…DON'T STEP RANDOMLY!" Arin shouted immediately while blocking another beast lunging toward Selene.
The creature's claws scraped directly against his arm, drawing blood instantly despite the golden energy surrounding him.
Riven slammed another animal aside with a broken stone weapon while shouting back.
"YOU COULD'VE EXPLAINED THAT EARLIER!"
"I JUST REALIZED IT!"
The maze shifted violently again.
A massive wall moved directly between Darin and Kael while several beasts immediately dropped from the ceiling around them.
The labyrinth was separating them intentionally.
And somewhere deep within the shifting darkness ahead—
something much larger moved.
Watching them.
Waiting.