The golden brilliance of the Viman pulsed in rhythm with the valley's heartbeat, but as Arjun stepped toward the bridge of light, the massive, silent figure of Gozen finally moved. He had stood like a mountain of iron throughout the exchange, but now his gaze, heavy and unyielding, shifted away from the Avatar and settled directly upon Gopi.
Gopi was still hovering at Arjun's shoulder, his hand anchored to his friend's sleeve as if he doesn't want him to go alone leaving him behind.
"And you, boy," Gozen's voice rumbled, which made the very flagstones of the temple vibrate. "Do not let your hand grow cold. Step forward. Your place is also not in this mortal world, but alongside with your friend in devlok."
The square went deathly quiet. Gopi froze, his eyes widening until they were white circles in his panicked face. He looked behind him, thinking the celestial must be speaking to someone else, but Gozen's boulder-like finger was pointed directly at his chest.
"Me?" Gopi stammered, his voice climbing an octave. "I... I' think you are mistaken. I'm am not an Avatar. I don't belong in your boat!"
The Blood of the Hidden
Anamika, Gopi's mother, surged forward with a cry of maternal terror. She threw her arms around her son, shielding him with her own body as she glared up at the celestial. "No!" she shrieked, her voice echoing off the temple walls. "You have already taken the Avatar! You have taken Smita's son! You will not take mine! My son has no mark on his wrist! He has no relation to your Devlok or your wars! He is just a normal child, he isn't anything special you desire in him!"
Gozen looked down at her, with a profound, weary solemnity. He lowered his hand, his voice softening into a low, echoing boom.
"The soil is what you see in him, mother, but the stars are what he carries," Gozen said.
"Destiny does not play favorites with a single bloodline. Four generations ago, a man fled from the turmoils of the High Heavens—a guardian of the Great Gate who sought the peace of the mortal world. That man was non other than Gopi's great-grandfather."
The realisation of truth shocked everyone standing there amongst arjun and his family alongside with Anamika who couldn't process what he just said to her. She stood frozen, her hands still hovering in the air where she had been shielding her son, her mind reeling as she tried to process the impossible truth.
The boy she had raised as a simple village kid—the boy who constantly stumbled over his own feet in the forge—carried the golden ichor of the High Heavens.
"The blood of Devlok runs thick within his veins," Gozen repeated, his voice a final, unyielding decree. "He is not being taken as an ordinary boy but as a future warrior returning to his long-lost kin. Beside the Avatar, he is going to be one of the pillars upon which the fate of the realms will rest."
Smita stepped forward, her eyes meeting Anamika's. There was no need for words between them; years of shared relation friendship and secret burdens passed between their gazes in a single heartbeat. Together, they turned toward their sons, who stood on the shimmering threshold of the star-bridge.
Anamika reached out, her fingers trembling as she grasped Gopi's hand one last time. she looked into the eyes of the boy who was no longer just hers.
"Then go," Anamika whispered, her voice cracking with a mixture of terror and fierce, maternal pride. "If this is your destiny than am no One to Stop you from keeping you away from it. Smita had tried for years but she couldnt. Gopi, do not let them wait. Follow Arjun. Be the warrior your blood demands you to be."
Smita placed a hand on Arjun's shoulder, her gaze sweeping over both boys. "You were brothers in the mud of this valley," she said, her voice ringing out for the entire village to hear. "Now, you shall be brothers in the light of the Devlok. Look after one another just as you did here. When the shadows grow long, remember the warmth of the Kalindi and about us, your mother's."
The two mothers stepped back together, their shadows lengthening against the ancient temple stone as the Viman's engines let out a low, resonant growl.
"Ma!" Gopi called out, his voice small as the light-bridge began to dissolve into a swarm of golden particles, lifting them toward the ship's maw.
Arjun gripped Gopi's arm, his other hand tightening around the hilt of his father's sword. "Don't look down, Gopi," Arjun commanded softly, though his own eyes were glistening. "Look up."
With a sudden, violent hiss of pressurized air, the golden doors of the Viman began to slide shut. The last thing the boys saw of their world was the two women standing shoulder-to-shoulder, their figures growing smaller as the ship ascended, until the village of Kalindi was nothing more than a flickering spark in a vast, dark sea of mountains.
Arjun and Gopi stood paralyzed on the polished ivory deck, their eyes wide as the walls of the ship—solid metal only a moment before—slowly became transparent, shimmering into a crystalline clarity that revealed the world outside.
The Ascent from the Cradle
"Look," Arjun whispered, his voice caught in his throat.
Below them, the Kalindi Valley was no longer a world of rugged peaks and roaring rivers; it was a delicate, miniature painting of deep greens and earthy browns. They watched in breathless awe as the great Himalayan range shrank into a jagged line of white frosting, and the vast, curved sapphire of the Earth—Prithvilok—began to reveal its true majesty.
Gopi pressed his hands against the glass-like hull, his fear momentarily forgotten in a surge of pure, childlike amusement. "Arjun, the clouds... they look like tufts of pulled wool! The whole world... it's just a blue marble hanging in the dark."
As the Viman surged forward, the deep velvet of space began to tremble and ripple like disturbed water. They were no longer merely flying—they were tearing through the very fabric of reality itself. Stars bent and stretched into luminous threads, and before them, a colossal spiral vortex unfurled, vast and hungry, its edges swirling with cosmic fire. Without hesitation, the ship plunged into its luminous maw.
The moment it crossed the threshold, the Viman released a melodic, high-pitched chime—clear and resonant, like a divine bell struck in the heart of the cosmos. Instantly, the suffocating darkness of space fractured and exploded into a breathtaking kaleidoscope of radiant colors. They were passing through the Antariksha, the bridge between realms. To the boys, it looked as though they were sailing through a river of liquid starlight. Nebulas of violet and rose swirled past the hull like underwater currents, and distant stars didn't just twinkle—they sang, a low, harmonic vibration that resonated in their very teeth.
"Is this magic?" Gopi asked, his face illuminated by a passing streak of emerald light.
"No," Kaelen said, stepping up behind them, his silver-blue cape flowing in the ship's artificial breeze. "It is the breath of the Creator. You are seeing the veins of the universe, the paths that connect the petals of the world-flower."
"Ah they always interrupt the fun with their seriousness to everything" Gopi murmuring to himself with a dissatisfied tone.
The iridescent tunnel of the crossing began to widen, the colors shifting from chaotic neon to a steady, blinding gold. The Viman shuddered slightly as it caught the "Solar Winds" of the upper realm.
The veil snapped open, and the world they knew vanished.
Arjun and Gopi stumbled back, shielding their eyes from a brilliance that defied nature. This wasn't the Devlok of stone temples and dusty myths they had imagined; this was a realm of impossible architecture and eternal dawn.
As the Viman surged through a final layer of golden mist, the sheer scale of the landscape forced them to their knees against the transparent hull. Dominating the horizon was Great Vanguard peak, a mountain so collosal that made the Himalayas look like mere foothills—a jagged spire of emerald and earth thrusting upward through clouds that glowed with the soft amber of a rising sun.
It was more than a natural wonder; it was a living monument of emerald and earth, thriving with a lush ecosystem that defied the thin air of such heights.
"Look at the summit," Arjun whispered, his eyes tracing the winding, ivory staircase that coiled around the mountain like a sleeping serpent. This path, wide enough for an entire army to march abreast, spiraled upward toward the Sky-Citadel.
At the very peak sat the Palace of the High Guard, a fortress-sanctum of perfect symmetry that seemed to breathe with the atmosphere. Massive marble compounds were held aloft by giant pillars glowing with divine light, while a central spire of diamond rose like a needle into the highest heavens. Waterfalls of liquid sapphire tumbled from these foundations, falling thousands of feet and dissolving into iridescent mist before they could ever touch the shimmering oceans below.
The Viman began its slow, graceful descent toward the palace. As they drew closer, they could see statues of winged guardians standing watch on floating platforms, their stone eyes seemingly peering across dimensions.
"It's beautiful," Arjun murmured, his hand instinctively tightening around the hilt of his father's sword. "It's too beautiful to be at war."
"The most beautiful things," Ares said, his voice grim as he tracked a faint, oily smudge of black smoke tainting the amber sky, "are always the ones the shadows want to consume first."
As the Viman banked sharply, descending toward the lower courtyards, the boys realized the city was not merely built upon the mountain—it was the mountain.
Gardens of eternal spring clung desperately to the sheer cliffs, and waterfalls of pure, crystalline energy poured from the staggering heights, feeding the great sapphire rivers that flowed through the ivory-paved streets below. The entire little metropolis was a masterpiece of divine geometry, designed with a precision that defied mortal hands. The air was filled with a low, musical hum—the thrumming heartbeat of the city's power source—and the sweet, heady scent of celestial incense that drifted up even to their immense height.
"Look at the statues," Gopi whispered in a hushed, trembling tone, pointing toward the horizon.
Flanking the main entrance to the lower city were two gargantuan guardians carved from living sapphire stone. Their wings spanned the entire width of the valley, and their spears reached higher than the tallest trees they had ever seen in the mortal world. They stood as silent sentinels, ancient and watchful, overlooking the complex network of arched bridges and tiered palaces that formed the magnificent city at the mountain's base.
"This is the heart of the High Guard," Kaelen said, his voice dropping to a reverent hush that mirrored the boys' awe." The capital of the Seven Realms. It is more than a seat of power; it is the bastion of light that has endured for millennia—a living monument to Hope, courage and the relentless spirit of the Devas."
Ares stood beside him, his gaze fixed on the horizon with a steady, practiced calm intensity. "But more than that," he added softly, "it is something we call as our home. And we were born to ensure it never falls—you, me, and every soul built like us."
Arjun looked down at the glowing empire and then reached back, feeling the cold steel of the sword on his back. The weight of his destiny finally felt real. He was no longer just a boy from a hidden valley; he was a future gaurdian of this radiant world, finally returning to his true home.
With a final, graceful glide, the ship touched down. Arjun gripped the hilt of his father's sword until his knuckles turned white. Beside him, Gopi stood firm, his gaze hardening as the ancestral blood in his veins began to simmer with newfound power.
Step forward," Ares commanded, his voice echoing in the vast, open square. "The High Council does not like to be kept waiting, and they are eager to see if the boys of the valley are truly the legends we promised."
Together, they stepped out onto the sacred stone of Devlok, the weight of a thousand years of prophecy pressing down upon their shoulders.