The Vocal Crypt was not meant to be found.
It was carved not with tools or flame, but by intention—by a god who willed it into being while dying, every heartbeat a syllable, every breath a scripture. The air hummed with restrained power, the silence loud enough to press against the skull.
At the crypt's center stood an obsidian urn, wrapped in nine metallic bands, each engraved with an extinct language.
Luv narrowed his golden eyes.
"Nine locks again?"
Astha traced one of the seals, the metal reacting to his touch. The script warped, slithering across the surface, as if afraid of being read.
"They didn't just erase this god…"
"They dismembered its voice across timelines," Naira murmured.
"And buried the last syllable inside this urn," Astha finished.
He glanced at Smritidhaara coiled on his wrist. The sickle's blade glowed faintly, reacting to the remnants of cosmic grief lingering in the room.
"It's remembering something," he muttered.
"Then let's remember it together," Luv said, standing beside him, his wounds crackling with regenerating thunder.
Astha raised Vaayutal.
And cut.
---
With each strike on the bands, Astha's past clawed up his throat.
First Lock:
A memory of a temple burning. Screams. Smoke.
He remembered a child's voice, cut off mid-prayer.
Second Lock:
The hand of a god descending—not in mercy, but judgment—crushing mortals like ants.
Third Lock:
Aryan's silhouette, screaming his name, before vanishing in divine flame.
Smritidhaara lit up like a pyre.
"You're remembering everything," Naira warned. "Even what was erased."
"Good," Astha said. "That's the only way to kill what they hid."
By the eighth lock, his hands trembled—not from exhaustion, but rage.
"They made me forget my brother's final words," he growled.
"They rewrote my grief into silence."
"Then write it back in blood," Luv whispered.
Astha struck the ninth band with all his fury.
The urn opened.
---
From within, sound emerged.
Not noise. Not voice.
But sound as a concept—an ancient syllable forged from the god's dying breath, echoing in a tongue that even time dared not remember.
It wasn't heard. It was felt.
Naira fell to her knees, blood dripping from her ears.
Luv staggered, thunder reacting erratically around him.
Only Astha stood tall—his body surrounded by Smritidhaara's flames and Vaayutal's silent wind. The syllable swirled around him, seeking a vessel.
"You wish to remember me…" a voice echoed within him, ancient and fractured.
"Then speak what was never meant to be spoken."
Astha inhaled—
And spoke.
"Dṛṣṭi-Vaakh." (The Voice That Sees)
The syllable branded itself into his soul.
A new mantra was born—Vaakhshaastra, the Language of Rebellion.
Reality trembled.
---
The room shifted.
Astha opened his eyes—and saw not the world, but the code of existence. Divine rules, laws of cause and effect, even fate itself appeared as script floating in midair.
"This is how they control us," he whispered. "The gods didn't create reality. They edited it."
Smritidhaara now burned with scriptfire, each chain link inscribed with the truths of the forgotten god.
Vaayutal pulsed—its edge now capable of severing divine causality.
"You okay?" Luv asked, barely steadying himself.
"No," Astha replied, gripping both weapons. "But I see clearly now."
"And I'll make them choke on the silence they forced on us."
---
The syllable, now unbound, had triggered the temple's death.
The ceiling cracked, divine mantras failing.
Walls of screaming script chased them through the corridor as they ran—glyphs shattering the air like glass.
"The temple's rejecting existence!" Naira shouted.
"Let it," Astha snarled. "We've taken what we came for."
The trio leapt through the collapsing gate, Luv summoning a barrier of raw thunder behind them, sealing the passage with a final surge.
Silence.
Smoke.
Then breath.
They stood in the ruins of the Sunken Temple, bloodied… but alive.
And different.
Astha's eyes glowed faintly—mantra script flowing through them.
"This war," he said, turning to the horizon, "just became a rebellion."