The smoke from the destroyed fifty-ton stone pillar slowly began to clear, revealing a nightmare. The mutant Stalker Shadow stood over the rubble, its new dark-gold bone armor gleaming with terrifying, corrupted energy.
Narrator:-
From the beginning of time, true talent is rare. Kanha had been born with it. From the moment he first awakened his Chakra as a young child, he had been a prodigy. He was the grandson of the Mirror King, destined for greatness. In all his years of training and dueling, he had never felt truly outmatched. He had never faced an opponent he couldn't ultimately crush with his sheer talent and Matter Manipulation.
Until today.
Looking at the beast that had casually shattered his fifty-ton masterpiece with its bare hands, Kanha felt a cold, alien emotion seep into his bones: Hopelessness.
"Karma", Sambhab whispered from the ground, coughing up ash. His blue aura was gone. "Analysis... conclude. We... cannot win this."
Karma stood next to Daizy, his body aching from his previous recklessness. He looked at the monster, then at his fallen teammates. He tightened his grip on the dark wooden sword Lord Rudra had given him.
"You're right, Sambhab," Karma replied, his voice calm, but stripped of all emotion. It was the calm of a man who had already accepted his fate. "None of us, individually, can defeat this thing. It is a level of power we aren't ready for."
Hearing this, something snapped inside Kanha. His pride, the legacy of the Mirror King, refused to let him lie down and die.
With a painful groan, Kanha forced his trembling legs to push his body off the cold ground. He staggered, almost falling, but used his reduced-size iron rod as a crutch to stand upright. He wiped blood and ash from his mouth, looking at the beast with defiance.
"I am still alive!" Kanha roared, though his voice was hoarse with exhaustion. He channeled his last drop of raw willpower into his weapon. The short iron rod expanded back into a full-sized fighting staff. "I am the grandson of the Mirror King! I don't lay down!"
Karma looked at his friend's desperation, then he looked at his own wooden sword. A memory flashed through his mind a memory of the training arena.
Flashback: Professor Agni's giant Fire Titan. Karma throwing the sword. Kanha catching it. The fusion of teal and orange Pran energy creating a colossal weapon that sliced through the fire.
Karma knew their combination attack was based on brute force. He also knew that this mutated beast had physically destroyed fifty tons of solid rock. This beast was not fire; it was solid, armored, and fed on pure Pran.
Karma looked at Kanha. He knew throwing the sword might be useless. It might just give the beast another target to break. But they had used everything else. It was their last, desperate gamble.
"Kanha! Last resort combo! Now!" Karma shouted.
Without waiting for an answer, Karma unleashed the raw speed of his stabilized 1st Chakra. He didn't run toward the beast; he twisted his body and launched his only weapon, the dark wooden bokken, spinning through the air directly toward Kanha.
Kanha didn't hesitate. He dropped his iron staff. Despite his exhaustion, his prodigy instincts kicked in. He caught Karma's spinning wooden sword perfectly.
"Matter Manipulation: MAXIMUM EXPANSION!" Kanha screamed, pushing his final bit of Chakra core energy into the wood.
Because the sword was Lord Rudra's specialized Pran-conductive weapon, it accepted Kanha's 3rd Chakra instantly. The normal-sized training sword exploded in volume, transforming into a monstrous, fifty-foot Greatsword that pulsed with chaotic orange energy.
High above, the Elite Mutant watched them, its faceless head tilted in curiosity.
With a final roar of effort, Kanha swung the fifty-foot sword down toward the beast's head, aiming to crush its armor and the ground beneath it.
High up on the dark cliffside, in the shadows, Sera watched the fight. Seeing the massive, glowing sword, her purple eyes narrowed in annoyance. "Hmph. Still trying? Talent is useless without power."
Down below, the Greatsword slammed into the monster.
CLANG!
A deafening sound of metal on metal echoed through the Deep Zone. The shockwave blew all the ash away, creating a circular clear zone.
Kanha's eyes widened in horror. His arms were vibrating, the blood flowing down his palms.
The Elite Mutant hadn't dodged. It hadn't even been pushed back. It was standing with its head tilted back, holding the massive, sharp edge of the fifty-foot wooden sword in its bare, dark-gold hand. It had caught the Greatsword like a child catches a toy.
SNAP.
With a lazy flex of its fingers, the Mutant broke a piece off the massive wooden blade.
Kanha groaned, his energy completely spent. He let go of the Greatsword. The fifty-foot weapon instantly shrank back to its toothpick size and fell to the ground, broken. Kanha collapsed onto his face, completely defeated.
The Mutant dismissed Kanha. Its glowing red eyes slowly turned toward the final support line. It looked past Karma and fixated on Daizy, who was lying weak on the ground, struggling to maintain a healing loop.
The Mutant understood. Daizy was the life force of the team. As long as she was alive, the boys would keep fighting.
The beast opened its central vertical jaw on its stomach. Corruption, darkness, and mutated energy began to vortex inside its throat. A sickly, dark purple energy point ignited.
It was preparing a Shadow Beam. The concentrated energy contained enough corrupted power to erase a normal student from existence.
Daizy looked at the forming beam. She was too exhausted to move. She couldn't even form a shield. So this is the end, she thought, closing her eyes.
Karma, who was standing twenty feet away, saw the beam forming. His Kinetic Vision told him exactly where it was aimed.
"Daizy!" Karma screamed.
His brain entered "Flow." He didn't have time to analyze the pressure of the environment. He didn't have time to worry about his internal organs tearing.
"I made a promise," a voice inside him whispered. "I will be your sword."
Without thinking, driven by pure, primal, obsessive devotion, Karma launched himself forward. He ignored the speed limits of his 1st Chakra. He pushed past the breaking point.
He covered the twenty feet in a microsecond.
The monster released the Shadow Beam. The concentrated stream of dark purple corruption fired like a railgun shot.
Karma arrived just as the beam reached Daizy. He didn't just stand in front of her; he dived, positioning his entire body as a shield to block the trajectory entirely.
From his position on the ground, Sambhab saw Karma jump.
"KARMA, NO!" Sambhab screamed, reaching out his hand. He watched in slow-motion as the beam struck Karma directly in the center of his chest.
BOOM!
A massive explosion of dark energy rocked the clearing. Daizy was blown backward by the mere shockwave of the impact, crashing into a dead tree.
Karma was blasted into the air like a broken doll. He hit the ground hard, rolling across the sharp obsidian stones before skidding to a halt.
He lay there, completely still. His clothes were charred, his dark wooden bokken was lost in the wreckage, and his breathing was erratic. He was barely holding onto life. Blood pooled beneath him. His physical body was sacrificed.
Daizy gasped for air, forcing her eyes open. Through the dust, she saw Karma's broken body. Her heart stopped. The world went silent. "No... no... Karma..." She tried to crawl, but her body refused to move. Tears of pure agony flooded her face.
Sambhab lay on his back, staring at Karma's body, his expression one of pure, numb defeat. The boy with the wild energy... the boy who refused to break... he was gone.
The Elite Mutant let out a satisfied, demonic rumble. It raised a foot to step toward the defenseless girl.
But in the deep darkness of the void inside Karma's chest, something was happening.
Karma wasn't dead. He was standing in the infinite darkness of his own mind, looking at his original, flickering, "Cracked Core" (his 1st Chakra). But further down, in his abdomen, raw, agonizing pain from the beast's attack was turning into a vortex. The sheer force of the dark gold corruption from the Shadow Beam had slammed into his chakra core, mixed with his desperate, sacrificial willpower.
If I don't get stronger... she dies.
The vortex began to spin wildly. The pain transformed into raw energy. The deep desire to protect, to exist as her weapon, crystallized.
POP. DRIP.
The sound of water dripping into a perfectly still lake echoed inside Karma's soul. A new center of energy ignited in his abdomen. It didn't look like standard Pran energy. It was a dense, incredibly deep teal that contained flecks of the Dark Gold corruption he had just absorbed, purified by his own willpower.
It was the 2nd Chakra.
Back in the reality of the Deep Zone, Karma's broken body suddenly flinched.
Warmth, thick and powerful, flooded his veins. The internal bleeding stopped. The capillaries in his lungs healed in an instant. The agonizing pressure of the environment became irrelevant.
Karma slowly pushed his broken body off the ground.
High up on the balcony, Sera's smirk instantly evaporated. "Impossible. His core was almost gone."
Karma stood up. His eyes, usually filled with fear, were now terrifyingly calm. A new aura radiated from his body. It was no longer the wild, leaky teal of his 1st Chakra. It was a dense, stable, and deeply potent teal energy that seemed to pulse with life.
Karma slowly turned his head to look at the Elite Mutant that was about to kill Daizy.
For the first time since they arrived, Karma didn't feel like the victim. He exhaled a calm, cold breath. His 2nd Chakra was awakened. The storm was now fully stabilized.