The Zenin masters were nothing if not persistent, and their persistence was rooted in a rigid, paranoid denial of anything that deviated from their established, bloody path of power. To them, Cursed Energy was a resource to be spent in spectacular violence; anything less was philosophical weakness. After the bizarre vanishing of the Grade 4 shadow-rat curse during Nayona's initial technique manifestation, the elders spent weeks trapped in circular debate. Was it a true exorcism? Or simply a spontaneous spiritual collapse brought on by the creature's own innate weakness?
Their eventual conclusion, heavily driven by the conservative and overtly aggressive Ogi Zenin, was simple: the boy must be forced to use his power correctly. If the technique was demonstrably incapable of blunt force, then it must be channeled toward lethal precision a surgical strike, not a sermon.
Nayona, now seven, found himself unceremoniously dragged from his usual observational perch and placed directly in the center of the dusty, blood-scented training ground. The air was thick with expectation, resentment, and a chilling silence that only descended when a Zenin heir was being tested under such pressure. The perimeter was tightly lined with high-ranking sorcerers not to protect Nayona, but to witness the spectacle and, more importantly, to ensure the outcome was properly logged for the lineage records and to prevent any unconventional success from being swept under the rug.
His opponent was not a shadow or a minor affliction, but a genuine, captured threat: a solid Grade 3 Cursed Spirit, lumbering and hideous, shaped by the pervasive, collective fear of sickness and contagion. It was a bloated, six-foot mass of putrid green Cursed Energy, its form vaguely humanoid but disturbingly distended, leaking noxious, visible fumes that burned the air with a sickly sweet scent. It pulsed with a malevolent, destructive intent that was palpable even from fifty paces a physical manifestation of slow, agonizing death. This curse had been captured specifically to prove that the Saṃsāra Cycle was nothing more than a fluke against anything with true mass, intellect, and sustained power.
Instructor Yasu, a low-ranking member of the Hei unit known for his zealous cruelty and fanatical adherence to the Zenin rulebook, paced before Nayona, radiating palpable contempt for the boy's calm demeanor. "This is not a philosophical debate, boy. This is combat. Your energy is grey, fine. Now make it sharp. Visualize the spirit's core. Drive your technique deep and shatter the concept of its existence. We want a rupture. We want proof of power, proof of blood and residual energy. Do not disrespect the clan by talking about peace."
"Use the Lotus Seal, sir," Nayona replied softly, his voice carrying surprising resonance despite its quiet volume. He held the stillness of a deep lake within his mind, focusing on his breathing, slowing his heart rate to almost nothing. This meditative detachment was the core philosophical requirement that made his technique possible it required perfect mental stillness to channel the Cursed Energy neutrally.
"I don't care what esoteric nonsense you call it! 'Lotus Seal' a ridiculous term! It sounds like a poem, not a technique!" Yasu roared, his face contorted in frustrated anger, the insult to the clan's warrior tradition boiling over. "I care what it does. I want to see this thing incinerated, or split, or reduced to a smoking pile of residue! The clan does not tolerate sorcerers who waste energy on pacification or spiritual guidance when a simple blast would suffice!"
Ogi Zenin watched from the high porch alongside Maari, his arms crossed, his expression a promise of immediate, inescapable violence should Nayona fail to meet the standard of immediate, measurable harm. Ogi saw this test as a direct challenge to the supremacy of aggressive Cursed Techniques.
The curse was released. It moved with surprising, infectious speed, its bloated form blurring as it barreled directly toward the small boy, covering the distance in seconds. The intent to kill was overwhelming, a tidal wave of pure, concentrated negative energy washing over Nayona, threatening to physically crush him through sheer psychic weight.
Nayona closed his eyes for a single heartbeat, refusing to flinch. He did not visualize rupture or incineration. He visualized the Dharma Wheel the cycle turning slowly, methodically, inevitably. He saw the curse not as a present, immediate threat, but as a fleeting, temporary moment in a billion-year spiritual journey. His goal was not destruction, but absolute, irrevocable illumination.
He lifted his hands, his movements practiced, precise, and utterly serene, ignoring the incoming roar of the monstrous spirit. He executed the Lotus Seal (Padma Mudrā), the technique's initial invocation, which was a complex, interlocking pattern of his ten fingers forming a closed, opening bloom a gesture symbolizing purity, the rising above the mud of existence, and detachment. This Mudrā was key: it ensured the grey Cursed Energy flowed without friction, allowing it to bypass the spirit's crude physical defense entirely.
His grey Cursed Energy flowed rapidly, not like a blast, but like an irresistible, philosophical current. Instead of attacking the external mass, the energy immediately bound itself to the curse's core spiritual concept the primal, consuming fear of decay and contagion that had birthed it. This binding was the precise manipulation that Ogi had feared.
Instead of a blast, a pure, silent, persistent grey pulse emanated outward, instantly enveloping the Grade 3 curse entirely.
The Illusory Rebirth Loop was deployed.
This time, the effect was dramatically more intense and prolonged, lasting nearly five terrifying seconds, due to the curse's higher resistance, greater Cursed Energy mass, and more complex spiritual history. The observers saw the curse seize up mid-stride, frozen in a grotesque pose of aggression. Its green, sickly skin rippled, and its two massive, bulging eyes began to flick frantically, rapidly cycling through visions only the spirit could perceive. The spirit was enduring a forced, traumatic psychic journey that shattered its fundamental desire for existence:
Sustained Dukkha (The Origin of the Curse): The curse was forced to experience the agonizing, slow, fearful death of the person whose initial dread gave it birth a peasant dying alone in a plague, paralyzed by the fear of his own rot and dissolution. It felt the absolute despair of its own creation, realizing its existence was only an extension of that initial, excruciating, repetitive end. The source of its power became the source of its pain.
The Six Realms in Flash (The Cosmic Torture): The vision shifted violently, forcing the spirit to experience the quick succession of the lower, suffering realms of Saṃsāra, a rapid-fire sequence of hells, hungry ghosts, and animal lives all filled with endless pain and futile cravings. It experienced the crushing spiritual density of the Preta realm (hungry ghosts) and the savage, mindless cycle of the Tiracchana realm (animals). The curse was battered by the truth that its current, powerful form was utterly transient and just a brief, temporary, and ultimately irrelevant stop on an eternal wheel of suffering. This momentary glimpse of cosmic futility overloaded its consciousness.
The Path of Exhaustion (The Future): Finally, the spirit experienced a simulated, deeply visceral future where it spent centuries feeding, growing stronger, causing destruction, and resisting sorcerers, only to ultimately be slain by a powerful Zenin sorcerer a predictable, ignoble fate that the masters intended and dissolved back into the primordial chaos, its entire purpose having been a futile, exhausting detour toward a meaningless reset. It saw its end and its inevitable, pointless return, achieving nothing.
Vipassanā (The Final Truth): The ultimate, crushing spiritual blow was the realization that its suffering was self-created through its attachment to its current physical form and its malicious intent. It was shown the nirodha the cessation of suffering as a simple matter of letting go.
The internal experience was one of utter spiritual fatigue, proving the Zenin way destruction was pointless and just a step toward immediate, painful rebirth. The curse's will shattered completely.
With a rattling sigh that sounded exactly like a vacuum collapsing into itself, the Grade 3 curse did not explode. It did not melt. It simply yielded. Its massive, grotesque form began to deflate, the putrid green mass darkening instantly to a dull, lifeless black, not from a physical attack, but from a profound, complete loss of will and spiritual momentum. It shrank rapidly, silently pulling its voluminous Cursed Energy into a tight, dense knot that instantly evaporated into clean air, leaving behind only a faint, cool mist and the sharp scent of ozone.
The only collateral damage was the disturbed dirt where the curse had stood. The exorcism was complete, absolute, and silent.
The silence that followed was heavy and absolute, broken only by the nervous shifting of the observers. The curse was gone. The boy was unharmed. There was no crater, no gore, no proof of violence, and crucially, no quantifiable Cursed Energy signature left for the clan to analyze, reclaim, or even register on their detection arrays. The lack of residue horrified them more than any blast would have.
Instructor Yasu stumbled forward, staring at the empty space, his face pale with confusion and naked, superstitious fear. "No… no residue. No impact. It didn't fight back at the end. It looked… broken." He looked at Nayona as if he were a ghost, an unnatural deviation from the brutal Zenin world. "You didn't even raise your voice, or exert a muscle. It was defeated by introspection."
On the porch, Ogi Zenin's face was a dark, thunderous volcano of suppressed rage. He had wanted violence, measurable power, and instead, he had received a philosophical statement a demonstration of a power that transcended the clan's blood-soaked rules.
Maari, however, watched with a cold, calculating glint in her eyes. The technique was unorthodox, but undeniably, frighteningly effective against targets designed for pure violence. It was a spiritual shortcut that eliminated evidence and provided total incapacitation.
Ogi finally broke the silence, his voice booming across the training field, ensuring every ear heard his condemnation to mitigate the technique's undeniable success. "The technique is a failure of combat efficacy!" he declared, his voice trembling with political fury.
"It takes too long, requiring a deliberate sequence of seals! It offers no resistance against human sorcerers who will simply use their own techniques to interrupt the long, unnecessary sequence of hand signs! It is a support technique, suitable only for interrogation or pacification of weak enemies the work of an aide, not a general! It's an embarrassment!"
He pointed a harsh, judgment-laden finger at Nayona, cementing the boy's status and politically removing him from the line of high-ranking combat sorcerers, ensuring Nayona would never be a threat to his own aggressive heirs.
"From this day forward, Nayona Zenin, you are permanently assigned to the Interrogation and Intelligence Division under the command of Maari. You are a tool to extract information and break the spirit of captured enemies, not a weapon to win the war. You will learn to focus that Lotus Seal on the fear of attachment and damnation, not the path to release."
Nayona simply bowed deeply, accepting his new role without protest. He had killed the spirit without malice, and in doing so, he had secured his own position one that placed him in the shadows, away from the raw, frontline combat expected of the main heirs. It was a quieter cage, one where he could observe the Zenin's corruption and the deeper dukkha of his family, waiting patiently for the moment to offer real release.
His commitment to the Eightfold Path remained unbroken, hidden within the very technique the clan intended to corrupt. He realized this assignment was not a curse, but a rare opportunity for silent surveillance and future liberation, a vital step along the path of Magga.