[Ash – Throne of the Supreme]
The void palace pulsed with memory.
Ash sat motionless, but within, storms of forgotten lifetimes surged. Before him, the Mirror of Eternity shimmered—not reflecting the present, but drawing fragments from the past.
He saw himself—not as Ash, not as Asuryan—but as something older. A silhouette of power standing before a sea of newborn stars.
"This was when I created the First Light," he murmured.
"And this..."
Another vision emerged: a planet woven with silver trees, children of flame playing beneath skies painted by his own hand. Among them, the first goddesses—tiny, laughing, curious.
He remembered their names:
Prithvika – the Earth's heart.
Agnisha – the flame's fury.
Varnika – the soul of creation.
Jalita, Vaayuna, Kshatra, Abyanta—each formed from a wish, a thought, a dream he once had.
They were daughters. Creations. Companions.
And then, the image changed again.
A vision of ruin.
A city of humans, once loved by him, now soaked in blood. Ash, older and wearier, watching mortals commit atrocities, defy divine law, twist magic into weapons. The faces of traitors, of kings who sold souls for power.
The pain resurfaced.
The betrayal.
The loss of purpose.
The cold, quiet fury that followed.
He clenched the edge of his throne.
"I gave them everything… and they chose destruction."
---
[Training Grounds of the Divine]
Akarshan gasped as he hit the ground for the fifth time.
"Again," said Agnisha, Goddess of Fire, flames dancing from her palms. "Feel the heat. Don't resist it—command it."
He grunted and rose, summoning the ember-like aura she had awakened in his core.
Nearby, Shiv trained under Vaayuna, the Wind Goddess, leaping between floating platforms, trying to shape wind blades with his voice.
Anuj meditated with Prithvika, his body surrounded by glowing vines and stones that pulsed with earth's rhythm.
Monish was paired with Jalita, controlling water like a dance. Shivam, already showing incredible potential in magic, was under the stern gaze of Abyanta, the Goddess of Void, learning spatial manipulation.
They were exhausted. Broken. Rebuilt.
And yet, day by day, they grew.
In the quiet corners of the divine sanctuary, whispers were growing. Whispers of resistance. Of a rebellion that would rise against the Supreme.
"I still don't get it," Akarshan said during a short break. "Ash wasn't like that. He protected us. He was the calm one. The one who kept us sane. What changed?"
Goddess Varnika, their guide and the softest among the deities, looked at him with sad eyes.
"He lived too long. Too alone. The longer a Supreme Being exists without renewal, the more the universe weighs on them. Some shatter. Others… like him… choose silence and judgment."
"Then we'll reach him before he becomes silence again," Akarshan said firmly.
---
[Ash – The Lost Flame]
Another memory flared.
A council chamber, the goddesses standing around him. Younger. Innocent.
He remembered the day he gave them the universe as a gift.
"Shape it," he had told them. "Let your hearts build a world better than mine."
And they had.
He remembered watching in silence, feeling pride... but also fear. Fear that he was fading. That they no longer needed him. That his role was done.
Then the humans came.
And slowly, chaos.
He stood up from the throne now, the black flame in his hand swirling faster.
"Why did I give the order?" he asked the void.
The answer came not from the palace, but from within:
"Because you forgot what it meant to love them."
His eyes narrowed.
"And maybe… I can't afford to remember now."
---
[Back in the Divine Realm]
After a week, the students had begun unlocking Professions no human had ever attained.
Akarshan was now a Pyro-Sentinel—a warrior of flame and memory.
Shivam, a Voidcaller—someone who could bend space around his soul.
Monish, a Flow Dancer. Anuj, a Stone Guardian. Shiv, a Skyblade Monk.
Each of them, unknowingly, bore fragments of power gifted to them long ago by Ash himself. Power now reawakening.
And then it happened.
A vision struck them all at once.
A dream—or a warning.
Ash. Standing on a field of burning stars.
Behind him, a wall of collapsing realities.
He raised a hand, and said:
"One year. This world ends."
The countdown had begun.
---