"He touched Nirvana—and turned away."
---
Vāma-Sattva hovered above the fractured soil of the dream garden, flames curling around his form like the prayer of a dying god.
His eyes, once filled with innocence, now held an unbearable stillness—like a soul that had seen the final truth and chose silence.
Asma-Ra lowered his gaze.
> "You bled your name into the root of the world. You erased yourself from time. Why?"
The monk turned.
Around them, the garden decayed—petals blackening, rivers drying into ash, stars above melting into oil.
> "Because I saw what lies beyond the cycle."
His voice cracked like the shell of a dying star.
> "I walked the Eightfold Path, chanted the sutras until I was bone. I stood before the Door of Release. But on the other side… was not peace.
It was obedience.
It was stillness that devoured choice."
---
He raised his hand.
From his palm, a lotus bloomed—and within it, a flickering image: a celestial throne surrounded by endless monks, bowed in eternal prayer. Their faces were blank. Their mantras mechanical.
> "The gods and titans call it Nirvana.
But I saw it was a cage gilded in light.
There was no self.
No sorrow.
No choice."
Asma-Ra clenched his fists.
> "So you turned away…"
> "Yes," the monk whispered, "and for that, I was hunted. By Deva. By Asura. Even by my own karma."
---
Vāma-Sattva stepped forward, and the flames around him dimmed.
> "They offered me immortality as penance. I rejected it.
So they cursed me instead.
To dream forever without form.
To rot beneath the roots of Ashvattha."
Asma-Ra's mask pulsed—Rohu stirred.
> "But why do you return now?"
The monk looked into him.
> "Because you carry the rhythm of dissent.
You wear the mask of Rohu—who danced until the gods wept.
And because the Tree… is waking.
The roots are cracking.
Something beneath the soil remembers what it was before Dharma."
---
Suddenly, the skies of the garden turned black.
From the heavens descended a thousand golden threads—cutting through the clouds like divine blades. Each thread shimmered with law, order, judgment.
> "The Deva have found us," Vāma-Sattva said.
One thread slashed the air beside them—leaving behind a mark of burning mandalas.
> "Come," the monk said, placing a palm to Asma-Ra's chest.
"If you truly seek the truth…
you must now enter the Cycle of Flame."
And with that, the monk's fire enveloped them both—burning through the last remnants of the dream garden, spiraling toward the next trial.
---
END OF CHAPTER XVI
Next: Chapter XVII – "The Cycle of Flame"