Ashan didn't attempt to label the nature of the [Combat Bolt] mantra this time.
The words kill, strike, destroy—he let them drift away, let them dissolve into the silence behind his eyes.
He abandoned preconceptions, abandoned the frameworks he had been trying to force the mantra into, and simply let his awareness flow into its patterns.
He was not analyzing it as a weapon, not as a technique, not as anything with purpose or function.
He was seeking to understand its pure, unclassified essence.
Viksana gives me an edge.
He let the thought surface, examined it, let it go.
Not in speed of understanding, but a point of deep introspection others might lack.
Soon, the faint, distorted sound echoed in his inner ear once more.
It was not louder than before, but clearer, as if something had been removed that had been in the way.
He continued to mutter the profane syllables under his breath, letting them fill the space of his hut, letting them become part of the rhythm of his breath.
The words felt different on his tongue now—sharper, cleaner, as if they had been forked, as if they had always been meant to be spoken this way and he was only now learning how.
It's starting to sound more intimate. He let the thought carry him deeper. I just have to keep this up, to move closer to its truth.
The faint sound was no longer just in his ear. It resonated directly within his mind, vibrating along the pathways that connected thought to intention, intention to action, action to the shape of the world. He furrowed his brows, focusing inward, letting his awareness sink into the space that was not quite physical, not quite imagined.
Chit Sagar.
The bizarre sound erupted again within his sea of consciousness—a hum that was not quite a hum, a voice that was not quite a voice, a presence that was not quite a presence.
But this time, the psychic weather remained stable.
The waves that had risen so high before, that had crashed against the shores of his mental island and left cracks in its foundation, now lapped gently against the sand, curious, exploratory, but not destructive.
No terrifying waves. No new cracks.
He tread with extreme caution, each movement of his awareness a deliberate choice, each breath a measured thing.
I don't want another fracture. The thought was cold, clear, absolute. I might become a mind-broken retard, or worse.
The echoes of the sound lapped against the shores of his mental island, not disturbing its depths, not threatening its foundations. They were testing, perhaps. Or waiting. Or simply being what they were, without intention, without purpose.
In his state of deep concentration, he began to parse what the sound contained. Just a little. A fragment. A whisper at the edge of hearing.
Oh.
The realization surfaced, sharp and clear.
The faint echo... it's also muttering the [Combat Bolt] mantra.
But it sounds strange.
He listened harder, let the sound wash over him, let it fill the spaces between his thoughts.
More than strange—the accent is profoundly different.
It sounded like gibberish.
Words that were almost words, sounds that were almost meaning, a shape that was almost recognizable.
The mantra he knew, the one he had been casting for weeks, was a translation, a simplification, a door that had been built to let anyone through.
This was the thing itself. This was the sound that had been there before there were words for it.
Ashan, cautiously, began to imitate the gibberish sound. The syllables were wrong in his mouth, the shapes alien, the rhythms unfamiliar. But he kept trying, kept reaching, kept letting the sound that was not quite sound fill the space behind his eyes.
....
I really can't stand this place.
The air carried a strange, cloying fragrance—a blend of perfume, sweat, and something fundamentally indecent, the scent of debauchery given form. It clung to the walls, the floor, the very fabric of the building, as if it had seeped into the stones themselves and would never be washed out.
The person walked down a dimly lit corridor.
Faint red lights glowed from sconces set into the walls, casting a sultry, infernal illumination that turned shadows into suggestions and suggestions into promises.
Wooden doors lined the hall, their surfaces polished to a high shine, their handles worn smooth by the hands that had opened them, closed them, opened them again.
They did little to mute the sounds from within: the rhythmic pounding of flesh, sharp cries that might have been pleasure or might have been pain, moans that rose and fell like waves against a distant shore.
One door swung open a little too widely.
A young woman stumbled out, her movements weak and uncoordinated, her hair disheveled, her clothes hanging loose.
In a dazed state, she looked back, saw a fox-masked figure approaching, and hurriedly bowed before scrambling away, clutching tattered rags to her bare chest.
Her clothes barely covered her lower body. A slick trail of liquid gleamed on the floor behind her, catching the red light, holding it.
The fox-masked person stopped, observing the trail for a silent moment.
Fuck it.
They knocked lightly on the door she had exited.
"Come in!" A raspy, amused voice called out, followed by another muffled cry of pleasure that was cut off mid-rising.
The person entered.
The air inside was thick, stinging the nostrils—a heavy mix of bodily fluids and that same, overly sweet fragrance that seemed to be everywhere in this place.
The lighting was worse: a single dim red lantern hung from the center of the ceiling, casting just enough light to see, not enough to understand.
The person's eyes scanned the room.
Three beds: one large and opulent, draped in silks that shimmered in the dim light; two smaller ones, simpler, pushed against the walls.
To the left, three women huddled together under a single quilt, their faces slack, their eyes glassy, all wearing expressions of vacant ecstasy that did not quite reach their eyes.
To the right, the same scene, but with men.
On the large central bed lay a voluptuous, enchantingly beautiful woman.
Her hair was the color of scarlet wine, cascading over her bare shoulders and chest in waves that seemed to move even when she was still.
She held a glass of some dark liquid in her left hand, drinking lazily, her eyes half-lidded, her lips curved in a smile that might have been welcoming or might have been assessing.
On either side of her sat more undressed men and women, attendants to her presence, their hands moving across her skin in ways that were casual and intimate at once.
"Refill it, dear," she spoke in a languid, cheerful tone, and one of the men quickly complied, reaching for the bottle that stood on a low table beside the bed.
She turned her gaze to the newcomer.
"You may remove your mask."
The fox-masked person nodded, and for a moment, the mask was a weight in her hands, the face beneath it bare, exposed, known.
"Praise the Lady of Lust!" Damara said, saluting, her voice steady, her eyes fixed on the woman before her.
"So, have you decided to take the next step in your training?"
The woman's alluring gaze fixed on Damara, and there was something in it—not warmth, not cold, something that was both and neither, something that measured and weighed and found value in things that others might overlook.
Damara hesitated.
The silence stretched, filled with the sounds of the room—the soft rustle of silk, the wet sounds of mouths on skin, the low, rhythmic breathing of bodies moving together.
When she spoke, her voice was slow, deliberate, the voice of someone who had made a decision and would not be unmade.
"I don't wish to sell my body." Her jaw tightened. "Especially not for... physical pleasure."
I hate it.
"Haha!" The woman laughed, a coquettish, bell-like sound that seemed to fill the room, that seemed to push back the darkness.
"Of course you aren't selling your body, child." She reached out, grabbed a nearby girl by the waist, and pulled her close.
The girl's eyes widened, then softened, her smile turning dreamy, her body relaxing into the woman's grip.
"You must learn to control lust—your own, and that of others. What is the difference between you and a beast otherwise?"
Her hand moved, fingers tracing the line of the girl's jaw, her throat, the curve of her breast.
The girl's breath caught, her lips parting, a sharp, pleasured "Ah!" escaping her as the woman's touch found its target.
"And," the woman continued, her voice dropping, becoming something softer, more intimate, "if you change your mind along the way... the pleasures are here to be enjoyed."
She released the girl, who slumped back against the pillows, her face flushed, her eyes still dreamy, and turned her full attention to Damara.
"Pay close attention," she said, her tone shifting, becoming something that was almost instructional.
"We of the Fox Faction are masters of seduction and control. We are not like those goat-fuckers of the Goat Faction, who are merely blinded by their own lust."
Damara nodded, her face still, her eyes fixed on the woman before her.
I wonder how the others are doing. She let the thought surface, let it drift through her mind like smoke. Ashan... I need your guidance.
She bit her lower lip, felt the sting of it, the taste of blood.
No. I can't always depend on him.
.....
Yawn!
Helma yawned, her face a portrait of profound exhaustion.
The yawn was cavernous, unstoppable, the kind that seemed to come from somewhere deeper than her lungs, somewhere that had been empty for so long it had forgotten what it was like to be full.
She looked as if she hadn't slept in countless days, and she hadn't.
Her eyes were a deep, bloodshot red, the whites shot through with burst vessels, the skin beneath them bruised and dark.
One little snooze couldn't hurt...
As her eyelids began to droop, as her head began to nod, a sharp, electric pain lanced through her body—not in her head, not in her chest, but everywhere, all at once, a pain that was not quite physical, that bypassed her nerves and her flesh and went straight to something deeper.
She jerked awake, her eyes snapping open, her breath catching, her heart pounding.
"Stay awake!" The voice was cold, utterly sleepy, a voice that had been saying the same thing for a very long time and would keep saying it until the lesson was learned.
It lashed out from the front of the room, from the figure who sat there with his head bowed, his eyes half-closed, his body swaying with a rhythm that was not quite sleep and not quite waking.
Fuck! Helma's hands clenched on her knees, the nails digging into her palms. Fuck it all! I just want to sleep!
She wasn't alone.
Dozens of other members sat on the hard floor in similar states—eyes blood-red, bodies swaying, heads nodding, repeatedly drifting toward oblivion only to be jolted awake by the same mysterious, painful stimulus.
The room smelled of sweat and fear and the particular sour scent of bodies that had been pushed past their limits and were beginning to fail.
The sleepy-voiced instructor continued, his words slurring with his own apparent need for rest, his eyes opening for just a moment to sweep the room, to find the ones who were failing, to wake them with a glance.
"If you cannot control your own sleep..." He paused, his head dipping, his voice fading, then snapping back with renewed force. "...how do you ever expect to control the sleep of others?"
The time in the cave is starting to look good.
Helma forced her eyes to stay open, forced her body to stay upright, forced her mind to focus on the words that were being said, the lessons that were being taught.
At least I could sleep there. I just hope the others are suffering as much as I am right now.
She held the thought close, let it anchor her, let it keep her in the moment.
And somewhere in the darkness at the back of her mind, she saw Ashan's face, calm and certain, and she held onto that too.