Vir felt the effects of the Crown in a way that no other Chakra ever had. The aura was more than just a suppression field. Vir’s existence felt heavier, more grounded, and more solid than it ever had before. Something about him had suddenly become more.

  It wasn’t a change with his body, as was the case with Aspect of the Demon God or of his mind, but something deeper. Something tied to his soul.

  What’s more, his mindscape changed, and not in the way it had until now.

  Vir expected it to expand to encompass Brij, and while it certainly did, that only seemed to be the beginning of the changes it brought.

  The world seemed to fall away before Vir realized it was he who was rising—far above the meadow, the forest above the entirety of the human realm.

  Casting his gaze to the horizon, Vir found he could see anything he wished—the tiny old house where he grew up, the halls deep inside Sonam’s castle, the floating city of Alt Ashani. Alt Siya, Kartara, Balindam.

  Nor did it stop there. Casting his gaze even further, Vir saw Samar Patag. If he wished to walk its streets, he was suddenly there. As real as the heat of the blazing Hiranyan sun.

  Like the other locations, it was an empty city populated only by animal life, devoid of humans or demons, yet it was perfectly represented, down to the very last detail.

  “What is this?” Vir wondered, reaching out and touching the stone of one of the thousands of benches in the Champions’ Coliseum. It felt cold to the touch.

  Considering how even locations he’d never visited appeared with perfect clarity, this could not be a product of his memory. Not that Vir’s memories were ever this vivid to begin with.

  Furthermore, he could even visit locations he didn’t know the location of. His mindscape would take him there with a single thought.

  And then, understanding dawned.

  Vir hadn’t manifested an ordinary Crown.

  He had manifested the Crown of a deity.

  Vir cast his eyes to the Ashen Realm—to Mahādi—finding his consciousness pulled without warning.

  Despite not wishing to travel there, he found himself being irresistibly drawn to a location deep within the city, at its very center and far underground.

  A vast chamber as tall as any building Vir had ever seen, though as for what it held, Vir hadn’t the slightest clue.

  An enormous contraption of metal rose from the ground, dozens of spindly arms and girders formed the superstructure, while innumerable hoses snaked around it, resembling tendons or muscle. They were of the sort he’d seen on Ashani when she was injured.

  Vir saw all this through Prana Vision, for while there was not a shred of light in this enormous chamber, the place absolutely burst with prana of all elements.

  It was why Vir was late to notice when a section of that prana broke off to flood the room, gathering in the form of a man.

  “If you are seeing this, then it means we succeeded,” the prana projection spoke. It was a voice Vir knew well.

  “Though, I suppose it might help to explain why I’m even recording this,” Janak said with a chuckle. “I fear the replication process may be compromised. Whether by their design or my own shortcomings, I cannot know, and I fear it will not be fixed in the little time I have left in this life. As such, I’ve erected chambers across the land. Breadcrumbs for myself, as it were. But they reveal only the basics. Far too dangerous to seed anything more. I would not dare utter even these words were it not for the sanctity of your mindscape.

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  “Now, I know the road must have been long, but know that there is hope. If we have made it this far, then there is hope for us all. There is hope for her! Crucially, they cannot find this place,” Janak said, gesturing to the great contraption. “Gather the keys I created—seeded into the new creatures’ very blood. Gather them all, and then come to this place. But do not venture here without first gathering them all. Each is critical to the success of the grand project. Each with their own role. Without even one, only disaster awaits. Perhaps, one of us might finally end this nightmare.”

  Before he could say a thing, Vir’s mind was wrenched away, once again pulled back to Godshollow.

  “What in the realms?” Vir cast his eyes back at the chamber, which he could still clearly see. But unlike every other location, he found himself unable to move his mind to that place—it was barred shut.

  “Well, this is quite the development,” Jalendra said, stroking his great beard.

  “Have any of you opened your mindscape to this degree?” Narak asked.

  “Never,” Shardul said.

  “Nor have I,” Jalendra replied. “This despite having opened all of my Chakras. How fascinating.”

  Without warning, Vir’s Crown closed, shrinking the mindscape back to the forest and no farther.

  “Curious,” Jalendra said. “So you can only access this extended mindscape with your Crown open.”

  “Seems that way,” Vir replied, flexing an arm that suddenly felt so very mortal. The Crown’s effect upon his psyche was like that of the Third Eye, only far more pronounced. Where the Third Eye gave him near-omniscience in a local space, the Crown enhanced his mind, body, and soul to such an extent that he might very well be on the level of a god.

  But he was not a god yet.

  That was his destination, and as such, he could only tap into that potential briefly.

  He could only imagine the degree to which it would augment his other capabilities. With the Crown open, there might not be a soul in any realm that could challenge him—not even Prana Swarms or Wyrms. With such power, Vir wondered if he might be able to take them on alone.

  Yet for all his godly might, the Crown did nothing to mend the gaping wound at the core of his existence.

  “This is where the real work begins,” Jalendra said, turning to Vir. “This is both the riskiest and most challenging step. You will have but one chance to reforge your soul. Should you fail, your existence will end—or worse—you will persist as a broken being, unable to think, a hollow husk of the person you once were.”

  Though not a shocking revelation, hearing Jalendra’s words once again drove home the magnitude of what he was about to attempt.

  “Then you’d best tell me everything,” Vir said. “Everything that can help me prepare me for this ordeal.”

  “We shall, boy,” the old man said, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder “For the sake of the realm, we shall.”

  To Vir’s chagrin, the preparation was both less rigorous and far shorter than he would have liked. He’d expected to spend months, if not years, studying every aspect of the procedure and only attempt it when he’d mastered everything he possibly could.

  It turned out that process took no more than a week, as Jalendra could only offer him the general process. First, the shards of Vir’s soul were to be allowed to decompose into nothingness, as was the fate of all souls at the end of life.

  This was Jalendra’s theory as to why memories and identity never transferred across reincarnations. While the core of the soul was retained, all else was stripped away, lost to the void of time.

  In Vir’s case, he was a being that carried his memories forward, and it was this quality they would exploit to bring him back.

  In essence, to reforge his soul, Vir had to die first.

  Jalendra believed that by using the Crown to force the shattered pieces of his soul to stay together, Vir could restore his soul immediately upon disintegration. Rather than wait the several hundreds of years it normally took to reincarnate, Vir would thereby avoid any degradation to his identity.

  If it worked as Jalendra hoped, then Vir would return with a fresh, intact soul while retaining all of his memories.

  But it was ultimately only a guess, and the process might very well kill him.

  If that happened…

  Vir shook his head. He could not persist in his current state. Even if he somehow endured the agony, his soul was deteriorating at an alarming rate and would collapse soon after entering the real world.

  He was dead if he didn’t try, so from that perspective, he had little to lose.

  From another, however, he had the world to lose. Now, more than ever, he wished for the comfort of Maiya by his side. He wished he had spent more time with her—told her just how much he loved and cherished her, along with everyone else in his life. Cirayus and Greesha, Janani, Annas, and even Princess Tiyana.

  As he’d learned with such difficulty, life was far too short for regrets.

  But none of that could be changed now. All Vir could do was ensure he survived the process so he could return and fix the wrongs he’d wrought. And that began by reforging his soul.

  Vir sat down in the middle of the meadow, a few paces from the river—one of his favorite meditation spots—and crossed his legs. Looking up at his predecessors, he took a deep, full breath and exhaled.

  “I am ready.”

  Jalendra nodded back. “Then let us begin.”