Chapter 2 – The Test Without a Name
Morning in the Seven Lakes Pavilion was quiet—always quiet, as if the mountains were afraid to speak too loudly.
Ved stood at the back courtyard, eyes closed, sword resting across his lap. Not meditating. Just… listening.
Master Haejin's words echoed faintly in his mind:
> "The world will start watching you too."
He didn't understand what that meant. And he wasn't sure he wanted to.
---
Inside the main hall, the Pavilion elders had gathered, speaking in hushed tones.
> "The Azure Peaks Sect sent a request. They want to test one of our disciples. A simple exchange."
> "It's no coincidence they asked for Ved. They're curious. Or cautious."
> "We should refuse. He's not ready."
But Haejin raised a hand, silencing them all.
> "He's been ready since the moment he walked through our gates. He just doesn't know it yet."
---
By noon, a group of five riders arrived, robes stitched in blue and silver. Their leader dismounted—young, broad-shouldered, his face confident to the point of arrogance. Jin Su-Ryang, heir to Azure Peaks.
He bowed to the elders with just enough grace to be respectful, but not humble.
> "I've come to test the blade of your Pavilion."
> "Then test me," Ved replied, stepping forward.
Su-Ryang blinked. "So you're the one they all whisper about?"
Ved said nothing.
---
The duel was not loud. It was not grand. But every motion spoke volumes.
Su-Ryang moved like water channeled into stone—powerful, exact, practiced.
Ved moved like a shadow that remembered light—reflexive, strange, silent.
Their wooden swords clashed, once… twice…
And then Ved dodged a strike he shouldn't have seen coming. Turned. Pivoted. And in a moment of impossible instinct—tapped Su-Ryang's chest with the tip of his blade.
The courtyard fell still.
---
Later, as Su-Ryang nursed his bruised pride and rode off with his men, one of his guards muttered,
> "That form… it didn't belong to any known style."
Su-Ryang frowned, eyes narrow. "It wasn't Murim."
He said nothing more. But that night, he would write a letter—not to his sect, but to someone further north. Someone older. Someone watching.
---
In the Pavilion garden, Master Haejin poured two cups of tea. Ved sat beside him, quiet.
> "You fought like someone remembering… again," the old man said softly.
Ved stared at the steam rising from his cup.
> "Master… those dreams I have… they're not mine. I know it. They belong to someone else. But I don't know why I see them."
> "Because you've begun to walk toward something the world has forgotten."
> "Aryavart?"
Haejin said nothing.
But from inside the incense smoke, a voice whispered once more:
> "शरीरं यदवाप्नोति यच्छाप्युत्क्रामतीश्वरः।"
"As the soul acquires new bodies, it also sheds the old."
---
Far from the Pavilion, in a hidden hall beneath the Southern desert, a man in blood-red robes placed his hand on an ancient map.
He smiled.
> "The boy has moved. The wheel begins to turn again."
And next to him, pinned to the stone wall, was a torn piece of a forgotten banner—its emblem: a golden falcon with wings of flame.
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