Rudra reached the boundary. The air crackled with latent power. He paused, centering himself. For the first time since entering the domain, he consciously reached for his deep, internal prana stream. It surged forth, not in a wild flare, but a controlled, deep blue river flooding his pathways, reinforcing muscle, bone, and spirit.
Instantly, the ambient pressure of Zone 4 felt lighter, manageable. He took a deep, steadying breath.
Then, he stepped into Zone 5.
KRAKOOM!
It wasn't pressure. It was simply annihilation.
Thirty-two times gravity didn't settle.It detonated.
It was like the heavens had collapsed—sudden, brutal, absolute.
There was no warning. No gradual slope. Just a drop—instant, merciless.
Rudra didn't fall.
He was erased from standing.
The moment his foot touched the boundary, the world exploded into a white-hot wall of pressure. A thunderclap inside his bones. His body convulsed—not from fear, but from sheer, overwhelming force.
His reinforced bones, tempered by Zone Four's crucible, shrieked like cracking timber under a storm surge. Muscles that had just been made stronger than steel now felt like soft wax melting under the sun. He didn't breathe—couldn't. The air was ripped from his lungs before it could enter, leaving him gasping like a drowning man in a vacuum.
His heart stuttered. The organ, which had defied the pressure of four zones, skipped its rhythm, crushed against his own ribcage. His blood threatened to reverse direction, pooling low as gravity turned hostile. Every cell in his body screamed.
His vision collapsed inward. Not darkness—worse. A blinding nothingness, tunneled and searing, rimmed with strobing stars like fireworks behind his eyes. His skull pounded with pressure. His ears rang violently. Time warped.
Thoughts dissolved into static.
And then, the prāṇa.
His carefully channeled stream—his lifeline, his fire—buckled. The force of Zone Five tore at it like a tsunami ripping through a narrow canyon. What had once flowed deep and calm now writhed violently, scattering, fracturing.
He could feel it fraying inside him, like threads pulled too tight—unraveling. If it broke, it wouldn't just vanish. It would lash back, tearing through his core from within.
No! he screamed silently. Not like this.
But his body no longer obeyed.
He didn't fall with resistance. He dropped, like a puppet with its strings cut.
First, his knees crashed into the ground. The earth wasn't just hard—it was unyielding. It didn't cushion. It rejected him.
A sickening thud echoed across the field.
Then his torso folded forward. Not in surrender, but in collapse. His spine crumpled. His ribs compressed.
His hands hit the ground just in time to stop his face from smashing into the dirt. But the force nearly drove his arms backward at the joints. His elbows flared with pain, and his entire frame trembled like scaffolding under an earthquake.
Pinned. Flattened. Suffocating.
His body refused to rise. His lungs burned. The pain wasn't sharp—it was deep, heavy, and endless. Like being buried alive under mountains. The pressure didn't just attack his muscles; it sank into his soul.
He gasped. Not for breath. For hope.
None came.
But somewhere in the haze, somewhere between his fractured prāṇa and failing body—something refused to break.
But beneath the terror, beneath the suffocating weight and the shriek of his own flesh, something else flickered. Not just willpower, not just defiance, but a desperate, human refusal.
He saw Ishaan's face, not smiling, but calm, steady, trusting. "You've earned this chance. Don't waste it." Simple words, heavy with unspoken faith.
He saw Jade, determination hardening his eyes as he spoke of the military school. "I need to start walking my own path, now..." A friend choosing his own hard road.
This isn't just about training anymore. It's about understanding what you are… so you can learn how to wield it."
These weren't abstract motivations. They were anchors in the crushing dark. Ishaan's quiet belief was a lifeline. Jade's resolve was a mirror. Edward's expectation was a gauntlet thrown down.
Get… Up.
The thought wasn't a roar yet, but a whimper against the void. Yet, it was his own.
Ronald Clain, His smug smirk vanished, replaced by utter, jaw-dropping disbelief. His eyes bulged. "No… Impossible!" he breathed, the words ripped from him. Seeing Rudra not just step in, but survive the initial impact, even if flattened, shattered his arrogant certainty. Disbelief curdled into hot, visceral hate. This commoner wasn't just defying expectations; he was defying reality, mocking Ronald's noble superiority. The sight of Rudra struggling but alive in Zone 5 was an insult.
Vaishnav He stared, frozen. The complex knot of emotions – resentment, rivalry, grudging respect – exploded into pure, stunned awe. He's IN it. He's FIGHTING it. Vaishnav knew the weight, intimately. Seeing Rudra endure even a second of Zone 5, after an hour in Zone 4, redefined his understanding of the word "monster." Edward's label echoed in his mind. A shiver, part fear, part exhilaration, ran down his spine.
Harry "RUDRA!" Harry's shout was pure, strangled horror and amazement. He took an involuntary step forward, hand outstretched, as if he could help. Seeing his friend crumpled under that impossible force was terrifying even though he only met this boy few hour ago he quite liked the boy, but the fact Rudra wasn't instantly reduced to paste… it defied logic. "He's… he's still conscious?!" Harry whispered, eyes wide with disbelief and dawning, terrified pride.
Gasps, curses, and stunned silence rippled through the crowd. "He's in Five!" "He's still standing!" "How?!" The meditators from Zone 3 stared open-mouthed. Those who'd mocked him moments before looked chastened, awestruck, or deeply unnerved. Rudra had ceased being an arrogant fool; he'd become a terrifying phenomenon.
The seemingly sleeping giant's eyes snapped open. For the first time since lying down, a flicker of profound surprise crossed his impassive face. His head lifted slightly off the ground. He watched Rudra, pinned but struggling, with intense, analytical focus. A low grunt, almost approving, rumbled in his chest. Edward had said he'd be surprised. Edward had understated it.
Rudra existed in a universe of pure, crushing agony. Blackness threatened to swallow him. His prana stream, frayed and chaotic, felt like shattered glass in his veins. Every instinct screamed to retreat, to curl up and die.
No.
The image of his uncle's quiet pride, Jade's determined face, Edward's intense scrutiny, the potential within him – they flared like beacons in the dark. He summoned a reserve of will deeper than the gravity itself.
Get… Up.
With a guttural, animalistic roar that tore from his constricted throat, Rudra fought.
He focused every atom of his newly-tempered strength. Muscles, pushed beyond any sane limit, locked. Tendons screamed but held. He braced his trembling arms, channeling the insane pressure down through his reinforced bones into the earth.
He wrestled the bucking, fragmented stream of deep blue energy. He didn't try to force it; he soothed it, guided it, pouring it with desperate focus into reinforcement, into stabilization. It was like trying to weave a tapestry in a hurricane. Slowly, agonizingly, the fraying edges began to knit back together, the flow becoming less chaotic, more purposeful, a desperate dam holding back the crushing tide.
He blocked out everything – the pain, the impossible weight, the watching eyes. He focused solely on the next micro-movement. Push with the arms. Straighten the spine. Lift the head.
Trembling violently, veins standing out like purple ropes on his neck and forehead, Rudra began to rise. It was inches, gained through sheer, brutal willpower. He forced one knee up, planting his boot flat on the dense ground. Then the other. He was crouched, not standing, but he was up. His head lifted, sweat and dust caking his face, his eyes blazing with feral determination against the crushing void. He drew a single, shuddering, agonizing breath of the thick, heavy air.
He was still pinned, still trapped in the heart of annihilation, but he was not broken. He was not crushed. He was enduring the impossible, refining himself and his power under the ultimate pressure, forging himself anew in the deepest crucible of Master Earth's domain. The forge roared, and within its heart, something extraordinary was being shaped.