Darkness did not come gently.
It swallowed him.
One moment, there were hands catching him — voices shouting — Veer calling his name — Meira's fingers pressing against his pulse.
The next—
Nothing.
No sound.
No weight.
No pain.
Only silence.
Then—
A faint glow pulsed against his chest.
The red jade pendant.
It was warm.
Too warm.
The warmth spread through his ribs… into his spine… into his skull.
Something cracked.
Not bone.
Not mana.
Something deeper.
And Avdhoot fell.
He landed standing.
Not hard.
Not soft.
Just… standing.
He blinked.
The world around him was endless grey.
No trees.
No sky.
No ground texture.
Just an infinite plane of dim ash stretching into horizonless fog.
The air felt heavy — yet breathable.
He looked down at his hands.
Solid.
Intact.
His clothes — unburned.
His wounds — gone.
His fractures are silent.
"What…"
His voice echoed strangely.
Not outward.
Inward.
A ripple passed through the grey distance.
Footsteps.
Slow.
Measured.
A figure emerged from the fog.
Black cloak.
Hood pulled low.
Face hidden in shadow.
Not tall.
Not short.
No visible weapon.
Yet—
The space around the figure bent slightly.
As if reality itself stepped aside.
Avdhoot straightened instinctively.
"Who are you?"
No response.
"Where am I?"
Silence stretched.
Then—
A voice.
Calm.
Layered.
Not loud.
Yet it felt as if it spoke from inside his skull.
"This is where the weak learn what they are."
Avdhoot's eyes narrowed.
"And what is this place?"
"A threshold."
The figure stopped ten steps away.
"You have been brought here because something in you responded."
"The jade?" Avdhoot touched his chest.
The pendant was glowing faintly.
The hooded figure tilted its head.
"Names are irrelevant. Resonance is not."
"Resonance with what?"
A pause.
"Knowledge."
The word felt heavier than it should have.
Avdhoot stepped forward.
"Explain."
"You wish to understand mana."
"Yes."
"You wish to understand the fractures within you."
"…Yes."
"You wish to understand your origin."
His breath stilled.
"Yes."
The hooded figure raised one hand.
"Then survive."
The grey world shifted.
The ground trembled.
A familiar roar tore through the emptiness.
Avdhoot's stomach tightened.
"No…"
The fog ripped apart.
The Sky Reaper descended.
Exactly as it had stood in Wildwood Valley.
Massive.
Lightning crawling across its wings.
Eyes burning.
Intact.
Whole.
Avdhoot's gaze snapped back to the hooded figure.
"Are you the one who sent it into the valley?"
The figure did not move.
"My answer depends on your result."
The Sky Reaper lunged.
Avdhoot reacted instantly.
Fire ignited in his palm.
He hurled it toward the beast's face.
The explosion struck—
But the creature was faster.
Lightning flashed.
In a blink it was in front of him.
Claws blurred.
Something cold sliced across his throat.
For half a second—
He did not understand.
Then the world tilted sideways.
The grey horizon rotated.
His body fell.
His vision dimmed.
He felt warmth pouring down his chest.
He tried to breathe—
Air would not come.
The last thing he saw—
Was his own body collapsing separately from him?
Darkness swallowed him.
He gasped.
Air rushed into his lungs violently.
He stumbled backwards—
Whole.
Uninjured.
Standing in the same grey world.
The hooded figure had not moved.
The Sky Reaper stood behind it.
Alive.
Untouched.
Avdhoot's fingers trembled.
"I…"
He touched his neck.
No wound.
"I died."
"Yes," the figure replied calmly.
"But you did not end."
"What is this?"
"A trial."
The beast moved again.
Avdhoot spun—
Lightning struck through his chest this time.
Everything turned white.
Then black.
Third time.
Wind blades sliced his torso open.
Fourth time.
Crushed under talons.
Fifth.
Pinned and disemboweled.
Sixth.
Lightning burned his eyes to nothing.
Seventh.
Neck snapped mid-charge.
Eighth.
He tried to run.
It caught him from behind.
Ninth.
He screamed as wings tore him in half.
Tenth.
He did not scream.
He just watched it happen.
Each time—
Darkness.
Then air.
Then standing again in the grey world.
The hooded figure never intervened.
Never commented.
Never moved.
Avdhoot staggered on the eleventh resurrection.
"Why?"
No answer.
Twelfth.
Thirteenth.
Fourteenth.
The deaths blurred together.
Pain was real.
Every time.
It did not dull.
It did not lessen.
He felt everything.
The tearing.
The burning.
The suffocating weight.
And each time—
He woke again.
Whole.
By the twentieth resurrection, Avdhoot stopped asking questions.
He attacked first.
Fireball to the eye.
He ran behind the beast.
Formed a fire blade.
Slashed at its wing joint.
For one second—
He felt resistance.
Then lightning vaporized his arm.
The beast tore off his head.
Darkness.
Return.
The hooded figure finally spoke.
"Is that all?"
Avdhoot's jaw tightened.
He launched forward again.
This time he rolled under its talons.
Drove a blade into its neck.
Wind exploded outward.
Bones shattered.
He died again.
"Is that your limit?" the figure asked quietly.
"Shut up!" Avdhoot roared.
He charged again.
Died again.
Again.
Again.
Twenty-five.
Thirty.
Thirty-two.
Thirty-eight.
Time meant nothing.
Only repetition.
Only failure.
Only death.
On the forty-first resurrection—
He did not move.
The beast waited.
The hooded figure observed.
Avdhoot stared at the Sky Reaper.
Breathing slowly.
He noticed something.
The scorch mark on its left wing.
Small.
But present.
From his previous fireball.
He narrowed his eyes.
That hadn't been there before.
He stepped closer.
The beast attacked—
He died again.
Returned.
The scorch mark was still there.
Very faint.
But present.
His mind sharpened.
"You…"
He looked at the hooded figure.
"The damage remains."
Silence.
Understanding dawned.
This was not reset.
This was accumulation.
He smiled for the first time.
"Then this isn't punishment."
The hooded figure said nothing.
The beast lunged.
Now he watched.
Truly watched.
First attack — always talon sweep.
Second — lightning burst.
Third — wind blade follow-up if first failed.
Patterns.
Angles.
Breathing rhythm before it moved.
Micro-shifts in wing tension before takeoff.
He died learning.
Died testing.
Died adjusting.
Fiftieth death.
He lasted three seconds longer.
Sixtieth.
He forced it to pivot awkwardly.
Seventieth.
He blinded one eye temporarily before dying.
Eightieth.
He severed part of its wing membrane.
Ninetieth.
He pierced muscle.
The beast roared differently now.
Frustrated.
The grey world felt warmer.
His mana—
Something was changing.
He realized something else.
His body did not ache between deaths.
His fractures did not scream.
In fact—
Mana circulation felt smoother.
Cleaner.
As if the resistance inside him was wearing down.
"Why?" he demanded.
The hooded figure finally answered.
"Understanding is carved through repetition."
"That doesn't explain anything."
"You are being stripped."
"Of what?"
"Fear."
The beast lunged again.
One hundredth resurrection.
Avdhoot stood calmly.
The Sky Reaper bore visible wounds now.
Burns.
Cuts.
Lightning flickering unevenly.
It was weakening.
And he was adapting.
He formed a fire blade in his right hand.
Compressed fire orb in his left.
He sprinted.
Not away.
Toward it.
Lightning struck.
He anticipated.
Rolled through the shockwave.
Slashed upward across its throat.
Threw the orb into its wing joint.
The explosion staggered it.
He leapt onto its back—
Drove the blade deeper—
Wind exploded.
He was thrown.
Talons pinned him.
Crushing ribs.
The beast lowered its head toward his face.
Avdhoot smiled through blood.
"Let's have some more fun."
The talon crushed down.
Bones shattered.
Vision burst white—
Darkness.
He rose again.
One hundred and one.
The beast was breathing heavier now.
Its lightning unstable.
Its wind slower.
The hooded figure stepped closer for the first time.
"Do you understand yet?"
Avdhoot wiped blood from his lip.
"You're not testing my strength."
"No."
"You're not testing my mana."
"No."
"Then what?"
The figure lifted its head slightly.
Shadow still concealed its face.
"You are being forced to face inevitability."
"Inevitability?"
"You will die."
The words carried no malice.
Only fact.
"You will lose."
"You will fail."
"You will watch people fall."
Avdhoot's chest tightened.
"And if I do?"
"Will you stand again?"
Silence stretched.
The beast roared weakly.
Avdhoot's fire flared darker.
Not brighter.
Deeper.
More controlled.
He stepped forward.
"I already am."
Something changed in the grey world.
The air vibrated.
The pendant on his chest burned hot.
The beast lunged—
Avdhoot did not rush.
Did not panic.
He moved precisely.
Cut.
Burn.
Pivot.
Duck.
Strike.
He no longer attacked wildly.
He dismantled.
Lightning came—
He grounded it through controlled fire dispersion.
Wind blades formed—
He used their angle against the beast's own wings.
He climbed its back again—
But this time—
When it threw him—
He twisted mid-air.
Landed.
And severed its damaged wing entirely.
The Sky Reaper crashed to one knee.
For the first time—
It hesitated.
Avdhoot walked toward it slowly.
The fire around him no longer roared chaotically.
It flowed.
Like breathing.
Like thought.
He looked at the hooded figure.
"This is what you wanted."
The figure inclined its head.
"Continue."
The beast roared and lunged again—
And once more—
It killed him.
But now death did not anger him.
It informed him.
He came back faster.
Stronger.
More aware.
Each resurrection refined something invisible.
His control.
His timing.
His understanding of mana flow through muscle, bone, breath.
By the one hundred fiftieth—
The beast could barely stand.
By the two hundredth—
Its lightning sputtered weakly.
By the two hundred thirtieth—
It collapsed.
Avdhoot stood over it.
Fire blade poised.
The hooded figure spoke.
"Finish it."
He drove the blade into its skull.
The Sky Reaper dissolved into ash.
Silence.
The grey world trembled.
The hooded figure stepped forward.
"You have not won."
The ash reformed.
The beast returned.
Stronger.
Restored.
Avdhoot stared.
"You reset it."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because this was never about killing it."
The beast lunged again.
And the cycle continued.
Hundreds of deaths later—
He understood.
This was not about defeating the Sky Reaper.
It was about mastering himself within inevitability.
Pain lost meaning.
Fear dissolved.
Death became instruction.
And somewhere far away—
In the real world—
His unconscious body lay still.
But mana around him began shifting.
Subtly.
Meira would later swear his breathing changed.
Veer would later say the air around him felt hotter.
But here—
In the grey world—
The trial continued.
And Avdhoot no longer looked human in his resolve.
The beast lunged once more.
Avdhoot ran toward it.
Laughing softly.
Fire swirling in controlled spirals.
The Sky Reaper crushed him beneath its claw again.
Bones shattered.
Vision darkened.
And as darkness consumed him—
He smiled.
"Again."
[End of Chapter 20]