The sanctuary nestled along the winding river was alive with an otherworldly glow. The sacred waters, once merely a place of refuge, had become the crucible in which Devavrata was being forged. Day by day, the mysterious lotus mark emblazoned on his chest grew brighter, pulsing with an intense, almost fierce light — a radiant beacon illuminating the shadows of his young existence.
Ganga sat by his side on the smooth stones, her hands folded gently in her lap. The soft ripples of the river mirrored the flickering light of the lotus on Devavrata's skin, as if the very essence of the river had chosen to pour itself into him. She could feel the energy vibrating through his tiny frame — raw, potent, and mercurial.
With each passing moment, the power within her son grew stronger, but so did the burden that came with it.
"See how it shines," Ganga whispered, her voice thick with a mixture of awe and sorrow as she brushed a stray lock of hair from his forehead.
Devavrata looked down at the glowing lotus with quiet fascination. The light seemed alive, shifting with his breath and heartbeat, a fiery pulse of destiny he could not yet fully understand.
"You carry not just the curse," she said softly, her eyes meeting his, "but the hope of the Vasus."
The boy's gaze lifted, searching her face. "Mother, what does that mean? Am I cursed?"
Ganga shook her head, a bittersweet smile touching her lips. "It means your path is unlike any other. The Vasus, divine beings themselves, once dwelled in the heavens. Their punishment sent them into mortal forms, but you, Devavrata, must endure this life in full — every joy and sorrow, every hardship."
Her voice faltered for a moment, and the weight of her words hung in the cool air. "You are the river's child — bound by water, yet destined to shape the course of history."
Devavrata's small hand rested over the glowing lotus. "I want to be strong, Mother. Strong enough to protect everyone."
Ganga's eyes glistened with unshed tears. "And you will be. But remember, true strength is more than power. It is the courage to bear what others cannot, to carry the burdens of many without losing yourself."
She leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss on his glowing forehead. "Your power is a gift, but also a responsibility."
The boy's lips quivered, and he nodded solemnly, the weight of his destiny pressing down like the deep river currents beneath them — invisible but unyielding.
Still, the core was not freedom. It was a responsibility made real.
In the year he was Twenty Two summers old, his meditations changed. Meditation was like stilling the river's surface—only when the waters were calm could he see clearly into his own soul and gather the scattered threads of his power. His body remained, but his spirit began to wander—through dreams, through history, through threads of fate. He conversed with ancestors, wrestled with astral beasts, and once wept for a version of himself that led thousands to slaughter.
This was the mark of the Nascent Soul. An echo of his essence—luminescent, self-aware, capable of traveling through the subtle planes. Karma began to wrap around him like mist. His presence carried weight not just in the world, but in the soulscape beyond it.
And then came the moment of choice.
On his twenty-fifth birthday, Ganga summoned him to the river's heart—a place where no mortal could step. There, amid stillness so deep it seemed to erase thought, she spoke:
"To walk further is to burn what remains."
Devavrata felt those words settle deep within his bones. The river was no longer just water—it was the boundary between what he was and what he must become.
Devavrata closed his eyes, feeling the weight of countless lives—his own and those who came before him—pressing against his heart. The river's stillness seeped into his very marrow, demanding sacrifice.
A fierce heat ignited within his chest, spreading like molten fire through veins and spirit alike. It was agony and ecstasy intertwined—a burning purge that seared through ancestral threads, desires, and fears.
His lotus power flared, no longer raw and wild, but honed by the fires of transformation. As his soul writhed in the flames of change, the very air shimmered and bent.
What am I, without father, without mother, without crown?
What remains if I am not son, not prince, not disciple?
What if… I was only Devavrata—the soul beneath the name?
Each question cracked open something hidden inside him. His pride, long guarded like an heirloom, shattered first. Then the iron bitterness he carried since childhood—his unspoken rage, his grief at Ganga's distance, his yearning for Shantanu's full embrace—all these emotions erupted like poisoned steam from within.
He let them burn.
He chose not to resist.
If Soul Formation is a fire, then let it consume all that I am not.
Visions burst behind closed lids—paths he could have taken, lives he had touched, futures yet unwritten.
The world disappeared.
He was floating in a void—neither water nor air, neither sky nor ground. Around him bloomed visions made not of light, but of memory woven with spirit.
—The Vision of the Child—
He saw himself, a boy on the banks of the river, reaching for Ganga's hand and finding it empty. Tears welled in the child's eyes. "Why do you leave?" he asked.
But the child said nothing. Instead, he turned into water, and was gone.
—The Vision of the Father—
Shantanu stood, bathed in regal golden aura, his eyes proud yet weighed by sorrow. "Would you choose the world, my son," the vision asked, "or would you burn for a throne that may never be yours?"
Devavrata stepped forward, but the king dissolved into smoke, revealing a reflection of himself sitting upon a throne of iron vines—every vine a choice he could never unmake.
—The Vision of the Lotus—
A massive lotus bloomed in the void, as large as the sky. Upon each petal shimmered a life he could have lived:
A quiet monk meditating in a cave of stars.
A tyrant-king, soaked in conquest.
A savior, worshiped by generations.
A martyr, forgotten by time.
Each life reached for him with hands of light.
But he raised his hand and said aloud:
"I choose none. I choose the truth."
The lotus ignited, its flames a purifying white, and from its center emerged a radiant seed—his soul, bare and boundless.
In a thunderclap of silence, his cultivation broke through. The spiritual sea within him surged, reshaping everything. His Lotus Qi transformed—becoming calmer, deeper, tinged with gold and silver hues, the color of judgment and mercy. His Divine Sense extended into realms beyond the mortal plane, touching threads of karma, sensing the weight of causes and consequences. His Soul Core was born—not as a fixed gem, but as a luminous lotus, its petals ever-unfolding, eternal and incorruptible.The heavens stirred.
Clouds formed above the river, though no wind blew. Celestial eyes turned toward him—observers from other planes, cultivators long ascended, star spirits who marked the awakening of a soul capable of influencing fate.
A voice echoed from beyond comprehension:
"A soul tempered in fire. A will that will fracture destinies. Thus begins the path not of a prince, but of a Sovereign."
When he opened his eyes, the river seemed to glow with a new light—a reflection of the soul he now commanded.
He had entered Soul Transformation.
Memories surfaced. His father's hand on his shoulder. The warmth of palace fires. The taste of sweet rice. One by one, he offered them to the flame. Identity peeled away. Devavrata, the prince, dissolved. What remained was essence without attachment. Spirit without weight.
He emerged from the ritual more than human—less, too. Not a boy, not a son. A presence, tempered and translucent, like the moon reflected in water.
And then, the world paused.
Stars above the Ganges blinked slowly, as if watching. The river stilled. Even time hesitated.
The water around him had stilled.
Then it froze—not into ice, but into a mirror, reflecting not the sky above, but the hidden currents of karma flowing beneath reality.
From this reflection, something stirred.
First came the whisper of a thousand prayers—some fulfilled, some abandoned. Then, rising slowly like a mountain dragged from the depths, emerged a beast draped in golden mist, with antlers like branches of the World Tree and eyes that held lifetimes.
It had no true shape. Its body rippled through memories: a jackal's snarl, a serpent's coil, a lion's stride, a man's tears.
"You who have burned through identity," the creature intoned, "must now bear the weight of consequence."
Ganga did not interfere.
She had stepped aside—arms folded, gaze lowered. This was a confrontation that no mother could shield a son from. A cultivator walking the Soul Formation path had to answer to karma itself.
Devavrata stood, spine straight, eyes steady. The beast circled him, its voice layered with voices of those he had affected—friends, foes, the forgotten.
"You carry the grief of kings and the pride of mothers. You who have bound yourself to vows yet to be made… Are you prepared to pay the price for what you will shape?"
Devavrata said nothing. But he placed his hand over his heart. His Lotus Core glowed faintly—soft, unyielding.
"Then face the Three Threads."
First Thread: Regret
Suddenly, he stood before a battlefield.
Ash and blood choked the air. At his feet lay the corpses of men he had never met—but whose deaths radiated a sorrow intimately known to him. Soldiers. Sons. Sworn blades.
"These are the lives that will fall because of your choices. Will you carry their names?"
He could not deny it.
"I will remember them," he whispered.
The battlefield burned away.
Second Thread: Desire – The Hollow Heaven
A throne of lotus petals rose beneath him. At his side, a radiant queen. In his arms, a son who called him "Father." Peace wrapped around him like dawn's first light.
"This can be yours," a voice whispered. "No war. No vows. Only love."
His heart clenched. He almost stepped forward.
But then— He saw the sky. It did not move. The breeze held no scent. The stars repeated the same pattern.
A perfect prison.
He smiled, bitter and knowing.
"A lie, no matter how sweet, is still a chain."
The throne turned to ash. The stars blinked out.He walked on.
Third Thread: Rage
He stood again before Ganga—this time, not the calm guide, but the mother who left him behind. Her coldness. Her silence. The child in him roared.
"Strike her. Let your soul be free of her chains."
His fists clenched. His lotus power surged in his blood. But instead of lashing out, he knelt.
"I have already burned through this anger. I do not need to hurt to be free."
And with that, the fire in his veins turned inward—becoming light.
The void held him—silent, infinite. Around him swirled the remnants of the three threads:
Regret, dissolved into forgiveness.
Desire crumbled to truth.
Rage, transmuted into light.
And then—nothing. No voice. No vision. Only the weightless sense of being unmade.
Until— A single lotus bloomed in his chest. Not summoned, not forced—only awakened.
From its petals, light unfurled, not to dazzle, but to reveal: He was not forging power. He was remembering it. This strength had always been within, layered in silence, tested by illusion.
The air trembled with sacred energy as Ganga rose slowly from the river's surface. Her form blurred and shimmered, shedding mortal guise like a serpent its skin. Constellations blossomed across her flowing robes, woven from starlight and mist. Her eyes, once warm with motherly love, now burned with the cold fire of the cosmos—eternal, unyielding, sovereign. Waves of pure Qi radiated outward, bending the river's current into swirling sigils of ancient power. Even the heavens seemed to pause, as if bowing before the celestial queen of the waters.
Ganga, now revealed in her full divinity—a Celestial Sovereign—stood upon the water, robed in constellations and mist. Her eyes no longer maternal, but eternal.
Ganga stepped forward, a rare softness touching her expression.
"You have stepped beyond the river of mortality," she whispered. "The soul you forge now is your own sovereign realm. Walk it with courage, Devavrata, for the heavens watch, and your choices will echo beyond time."
"You stand at the edge," she said. "Beyond this, cause and effect blur. Step forward, and the cosmos will know your name."
Devavrata bowed—not as a child to a mother, but as a soul to the current that bore it.
Far above, the celestial court stirred. Fate turned a page.
The river whispered anew.
Ganga's heart swelled with pride, but she quickly masked it with a cautioning tone.
"Do not let your power blind you," she warned. "The river's strength lies in its flow, in harmony. To command without understanding is to invite disaster."
But even the river cannot warn of every storm.
To listen is to learn — but to act is to risk becoming a lesson.
And some truths can only be found by being broken first.