NARAK: The Blood Covenant

The Bone Womb had cracked.

Not shattered.

Not destroyed.

Just… fractured—like a mirror that realized it was being watched.

And from that crack came no fire.

No ash.

No scream.

Only cold.

Not wind.

Not ice.

Something older.

Something that didn't belong to motion, or time, or even reality.

It was the kind of cold that could freeze a metaphor.

And it was coming from Raka.

He stood still.

His eyes were no longer dark.

They were silver-white, glowing faintly like moonlight on frozen stone.

His hair lifted slightly, stirred by a wind only he could feel.

"Raka?" Nayla asked.

No response.

"Bro," Vicki said, stepping forward. "Talk to me. Are you—"

Raka blinked.

And the air between them froze.

Literally.

A barrier of frost rose in an instant, separating him from the others.

And not just frost.

Conceptual ice.

The kind that didn't just freeze water—it froze the idea of temperature.

Avici's voice came through Vicki's lips, sharper than before.

"Step back."

"What's happening?" Nayla whispered.

"He's waking up."

"I am the fire," Avici said, slowly stepping forward, eyes glowing like liquid rage.

"The covenant flame. The one that burns memory, purpose, fate."

He pointed at Raka.

"And you... you are the opposite."

The frost hissed.

Raka spoke for the first time.

His voice echoed strangely—cold, calm, terrifyingly final.

"I am Arkana Arhad. Did you forget me lil' one?"

"I freeze names. Halt desire. Silence consequence."

He looked at his own hands—pale, etched with frostlike glyphs.

"If you are the fire that devours will, I am the frost that halts its birth."

Avici stepped closer, circling.

"You could freeze me."

"I could."

"Would you?"

"...No."

"Good. That's my big bro."

BOOM.

Hiranyaksha smashed back into view, covered in scorch marks and missing half an arm, bone regenerating as he roared in rage.

"You're both too late."

He raised a claw and the sigil of Narakasura burned into the sky.

"The Fifth Seal hears us now."

Narayana landed beside them, his coat torn, blood in his mouth, light still blazing in his fists.

"He's trying to escalate the war. If the Fifth breaks—"

"Then nothing matters anymore," Avici said. 

"Not even your flame." Arkana added.

"Not even his ice," Narayana said it with cold face.

And then—

The Bone Womb screamed again.

Its cracks widened.

Hiranyaksha lifted both arms.

"Let the Ashen One rise."

Avici stepped forward, fire wrapping around his arms.

Arkana mirrored him, frost bleeding from his fingers like the air itself forgot how to move.

They stood side by side.

Two halves of something ancient.

Bound not by blood.

But by Oath.

"Flame that devours."

"Ice that silences."

"Together," they said.

"We burn the past... and freeze its echo."

[SOMEWHERE BETWEEN THE SEALS — IN THE REFLECTED DIMENSION]

The moment Arkana Arhad awakened, the battlefield paused—like even destruction needed a second to breathe.

But silence doesn't last long in war.

Especially not when the traitor is watching.

And especially not when he's ready to play.

A mirror cracked.

Not from impact.

But from choice.

It split down the center like a grin.

And from it stepped a figure.

Tall. Calm. Wrapped in dark ceremonial robes embroidered in reversed glyphs.

Eyes silver-black. Voice like a lullaby gone wrong.

Arvanu Shura.

The third Oathbound.

The one who swore to protect the Arana line…Then lit that promise on fire and danced in the ashes.

He walked through the reflective corridor, dragging a trail of shadow behind him.

And beside him?

A figure with no face.

No voice.

Only reflection.

Vicki's mirror double.

His Shadow.

They moved as one.

Breathing as one.

And behind them—

Mirrors began to break.

"The Fourth Seal is already bleeding," Arvanu whispered.

"The Fifth only needs a little push."

He raised his hand.

And the mirror between realms rippled.

[BACK IN THE REAL WORLD – NARAYA DHARMA SCHOOL]

BOOM.

A pulse of inverted light exploded over the battlefield.

Everyone flinched—Narayana raised a divine sigil to deflect the surge.

Hiranyaksha laughed.

"He returns."

Avici's eyes narrowed.

"No."

"Not now."

Raka stepped forward. His frost spread instinctively across the dirt, forming a wall between them and the surge.

"What is that?"

"Arvanu," Avici said, his voice like steel melting.

"And the part of Vicki he couldn't protect."

[WHISPERED ARCHIVE – DEEP ROOM SEVENTEEN]

Anata Dharma moved quickly.

Not out of panic.

But out of pure, calculated necessity.

He stood before a sealed container, one not labeled in words, and it gives somehow a forbidden aura.

That container is big enough so that when Anata stood in front of it, he looks just as tall as 5 years old boy.

Anata said, "Aequilibrium"

"You wanted balance," he muttered.

"Well... I never believed in it."

He pressed his palm to the seal.

"By The Bloodline of the Thruth Keeper."

It hissed. Screamed. Sang.

And inside?

A shape stirred.

Wrapped in golden cloth.

Engraved in warning.

Older than the Archive itself.

"Go," Anata said.

"You're needed."

[BACK TO THE BATTLEFIELD]

The air cracked open like glass dropped on prophecy.

And out of the rupture came a figure.

Not a warrior.

Not a god.

Not even a person, fully.

But something... deeply aware.

Draped in ancient armor woven from forgotten prayers.

Eyes blindfolded by truth itself.

The moment they landed, the ground stilled.

Even Hiranyaksha paused.

Even Arvanu's mirror flickered.

Avici whispered:

"You... actually sent them."

Narayana exhaled like he'd been holding that breath for centuries.

"Anata really doesn't play."

The newcomers didn't speak.

They raised one hand—

And every sigil within a 100-meter radius froze in mid-cast.

A temporal chokehold on magic itself.

Nayla stared, stunned.

"What... are they?"

Avici replied without humor.

"The Nameless Balance."

"They don't fight often."

"They don't need to."

Arvanu's shadow stirred.

He stepped fully into the real world.

Eyes meeting Vicki's.

And for the first time…

They were the same height.

Same shape.

Same voice.

"Missed me, brother?"

Vicki didn't flinch.

"You're not my brother."

"But I am your reflection."

"And reflections don't lie. They just show what you won't admit."

Hiranyaksha roared—interrupted no longer.

He raised both arms to finish his domain collapse.

"Enough preamble. Let the Ashen One rise!"

The sky pulsed.

The Bone Womb cracked wide open.

But before the ritual could complete.

A voice cut through everything.

Sharp.

Clear.

Cold as absolute silence.

"SABBE SANKHĀRA ANICCA..." (All conditioned things are impermanent)

Everyone froze.

Even Hiranyaksha turned.

"SABBE SANKHĀRA DUKKHĀ…" (All conditioned things are suffer)

Arvanu's smile twitched.

"No... not yet."

But it was too late.

"SABBE DHAMMĀ ANATTĀ..." ( All conditioned and unconditioned things are all without self that lasting)

The frost surged upward.

And Raka's eyes burned silver.

He raised one hand.

Spoke with the voice of legacy.

"ŚĀNTAṂ NIRVĀṆAM..." (Nirvana is calm)

A second fracture tore across the sky.

Not fire.

Not bone.

But stillness.

A domain of frozen concept.

Everything stopped.

Everything held its breath.

Even time blinked.

The battlefield didn't breathe.

Because it couldn't.

The frost that erupted from Arkana Arhad wasn't cold in the traditional sense.

It was absence.

It stripped motion, heat, momentum—meaning itself—from the air.

Hiranyaksha, mid-charge, hovered in the air like a paused cutscene.

Flames from Avici's arms still burned, but they didn't flicker.

Even sound bowed its head.

"I didn't mean to do this," Raka muttered.

His voice was layered now.Like someone else was speaking behind him.Older. Sharper. Final.

"But now that I have…"

He turned, slowly, toward the frozen Hiranyaksha.

"Let me try something."

Arkana lifted a single finger.

Pointed at Hiranyaksha's core.

And whispered:

"Halt."

The frost around them pulsed outward.

And Hiranyaksha's sigils began unraveling.

Not breaking.

Freezing.

One glyph at a time, his Oathbound enchantments stopped functioning.The aura of his Bone Womb?Muted.

His regeneration?

Paused.

"He's undoing the domain," Avici whispered in awe."Not destroying it, denying it."

"That's what Arkana was," Narayana said softly."Not the flame of vengeance.""He was the winter that silenced gods."

The moment cracked.

Hiranyaksha roared, breaking through the freezing hold, but only slightly.

His body shimmered, cracked, then reset.

"YOU WERE DEAD!""YOU WERE BURNED!""YOU—WERE—MINE—TO—END!"

Arkana didn't move.

"You had your chance."

Then, from above—

A new sigil blazed open.

Not frost. Not fire. Not divine.

But distorted.

Inverted.

A voice laughed like broken glass sliding down piano strings.

"Oooooh... two brothers reunited," said Arvanu Shura, stepping through a sky-crack of mirrors, Shadow Vicki beside him.

"How dramatic. How adorable."

"How tragically late."

Vicki took a step back.

His mirror image moved exactly the same, two seconds behind.

"He's here…" Vicki said."Why now?"

Avici turned, fire blazing hotter in response.

"Because this battlefield is complete.""Flame. Ice. Bone. Void."

"And the Fifth Seal is listening."

CRACK.

The sky above the ruins split open.

A black rift tore through the atmosphere like a wound that bled concepts.

Ideas of war. Death. Memory.

They fell out of the sky like ash.

Narayana's voice was sharp:

"Everyone shield—NOW!"

But it was too late.

One word echoed through the battlefield.

Not spoken.

Injected into thought.

"The Ashen One stirs."

Raka-Arkana staggered.

Avici clutched his chest.

Vicki collapsed to his knees.

Only Arvanu smiled.

"Let it burn. Let it freeze. Let it fail."

"We've already lost."