"I don't have one."
That line from Arjun silenced everyone.
Three people who had just shared their astras with varying degrees of enthusiasm looked at the person standing in the middle of the group with eyes doing the specific work of recalculating everything they had assumed about how the next four days were going to go. The forest continued its indifferent noise around them. Nobody said anything for a full five seconds, which in a group of five people is a noticeably long silence.
Sophia spoke first. "You don't have an astra."
"No," Arjun said.
"And you still want to become a Soul Fighter."
"Yes."
She looked at him with the focused attention of someone who is not hostile but requires more information before they can proceed. Javier had gone very still behind his glasses in a way that communicated the same question through a different posture. Even Karlos, who approached most things with cheerful indifference to their complications, was looking at Arjun with something not quite concern but adjacent to it.
Rudra, who was the only person in the group not surprised, waited.
The explanation, when it came, was brief and without apology.
To awaken an astra, a fighter needed one of two things — either full mastery of soul energy pushed to its absolute peak, or the kind of extreme situation that Edward had manufactured with his music, the life-or-death pressure that forced the mind to break open something it had kept locked. Arjun had been working toward both for months. What he had arrived at, honestly and without flinching from it, was this: the traditional path required years beyond what six months had allowed, and Edward's method, while effective for Rudra, had not produced the same result for him. There were also questions about age — whether ordinary humans past a certain point retained the capacity to awaken at all, or whether that window had its own closing time nobody fully understood.
So Edward had made a decision. Stop pursuing the astra. Focus everything on soul mastery and develop it to the highest level possible without one. Fight with what was available rather than waiting for something that might not come.
"I'm capable of becoming a Soul Fighter," Arjun said, in the tone of someone stating a fact they have no particular need to defend. "I understand how this looks. But I didn't come this far to stop here."
The group absorbed this.
Sophia moved on first — not because she was fully satisfied, but because she was practical and the forest was not going to wait. She nodded once, the small nod of someone extending provisional trust and intending to pay attention to whether it was warranted.
Javier said nothing, consistent with his general approach, but his posture eased slightly.
Karlos said "Brother, if you say you can do it, then you can do it," with the simple, total conviction of someone for whom that logic is genuinely sufficient.
"Strategy," Arjun said, redirecting. He looked around the group with the collected attention of someone who has been waiting to get to this part. "We have four days. We need to be in the top twenty teams. Based on the gem distribution, I think two hundred points a day is achievable — eight hundred total, which should be competitive."
"Red gems at fifty points each," Rudra said, following the arithmetic. "Four a day minimum. More if we find orange ones."
"Right. We avoid white gems entirely unless we fall significantly behind and have no other option — the risk isn't worth the reward at our current point. The main danger is other teams. Sixty entered this forest. Some will be strong enough to cause problems if we cross paths at the wrong moment. We move carefully, avoid unnecessary fights, and stay together."
He looked at Karlos.
"Which brings me to scouting. Your Flash Blossom can place eyes at range. If you deploy them ahead of our path, we have advance warning of both monsters and other teams before we reach them."
Karlos had been listening with the attentive expression of someone following a presentation they find genuinely interesting. He nodded with the seriousness of a man who has been given a professional responsibility.
Rudra was slightly surprised by this.
"Are we clear?" Arjun looked around the group. Nobody objected. "Then let's get ready."
Rudra and Arjun raised their wrists simultaneously. On each was a watch — simple in appearance, the kind of object you might pass without a second glance. Rudra pressed the button on his.
Yellow sparks appeared around him — not quite fire, not quite electricity, something in between, moving in short arcs before condensing into solid form. The armour settled into place with a sound like cooling metal. Black, with yellow lines running along every seam and joint, tracing the edges of plates that overlapped with precise construction. The helmet was the same black metal, full coverage, the face hidden entirely behind a visor of red glass that tinted the forest ahead into warmer colours.
He flexed his hands inside the gauntlets. The fit was correct. It always was.
Arjun's transformation was different in every respect.
Mostly leather — dark, close-fitted, prioritising movement over protection and making no apology for the trade-off. Metal reinforcements at the shoulders, forearms, and knees — the places where you needed something solid and everywhere else left unencumbered. No helmet. Instead a dark hood pulled forward and a mask covering everything from the nose down, leaving only the eyes visible. On his back, a side bag whose contents Rudra knew and the rest of the team didn't yet.
In the dark of the forest, he was going to be very difficult to see.
Seeing their two teammates armoured, Sophia and Javier reached for their own items.
Sophia's transformation was the most unexpected. A garment appeared around her — light silk in ocean blue, almost the opposite of armour in the way it moved, covering her in something that looked more like formal clothing than combat gear. A mask followed, covering the lower half of her face, the same blue as the garment. Beside her the Leviathan floated with patient indifference. Her second item was a spear — simple in profile, its tip catching what little light reached the forest floor, carried with the ease of someone who has used one long enough to stop noticing its weight.
Javier's equipment left no ambiguity about intent. Pure black armour, full coverage, a helmet that completed the set. A sword at his hip. He looked, standing in the forest in that equipment, exactly like what the armour suggested — a knight. The glasses had disappeared inside the helmet and the overall impression was of a person who had been concealing this version of himself behind round spectacles and a quiet manner and had simply stopped concealing it.
Then there was Karlos.
T-shirt. Shorts. The same clothes he had been wearing since morning. No watch raised, no items summoned, no transformation of any kind. He stood among four armoured teammates and looked entirely comfortable with this fact.
Rudra dismissed his helmet and looked at him directly.
"Aren't you going to summon your armour? Or a weapon?"
Karlos gave him the patient smile of someone about to explain something obvious.
"I didn't bring any magical items."
A pause.
"Brother." Rudra kept his voice level. "We are about to enter a forest full of monsters for four days."
"I know," Karlos said. "But it's summer. Inside armour it's really hot." He looked at Rudra with complete sincerity. "Don't you have any common sense?"
Nobody said anything. There was nothing useful to say to that, which was its own kind of answer.
They began to move. The forest closed around them — the enormous trees, the filtered green light, the sounds of something large and indistinct in the distance that none of them pointed out to the others. Rudra extended his soul awareness outward as Edward had drilled, letting it map the space around the group in a rough moving perimeter.
Then he noticed Karlos was not moving with them.
He turned. Karlos had located a spot at the base of the largest nearby tree — a place where the roots formed a natural hollow, shaded, sheltered, the kind of spot you might specifically seek out if comfort was your primary consideration. He had settled into it. He was using a root as a pillow. His eyes were closed.
"This is a nice spot," Karlos said, to nobody in particular. Then with a pause he shouted. "Make sure to bring back lots of gems."
Rudra looked Karlos rise his eyebrow and asked.
"Ain't forgetting something?"
Karlos rise his head try to think
"OHH yeah. Good luck guys!! God bless you for a good hunt!!"
Rudra open his mouth in rage
"Ain't you going with us? You supposed to the scout!"
Karlos a Make disgusting face.
"It's such a nice spot. Beautiful scenery. The sound of wind through the leaves. Very good weather. You want me leave this? I want to stay here and relax."
One eye opened. Just one.
"An who says I can't scout while sleeping here?" After a pause he says "if you need my guidance shout my name out loud while knocking the tree"
The eye closed again.
A beat of silence in which Rudra became aware that this was genuinely not a joke. The Flash Blossom eyes Karlos had been distributing through the forest canopy since they arrived were still there, still active, still feeding information back to wherever Karlos processed it. From this root-pillow position, with his eyes closed, he could see through a dozen eyes scattered across several hundred metres of forest in every direction.
The scouting was already happening. It had been happening since before the strategy meeting ended. It would continue to happen while Karlos napped.
Arjun put a hand briefly on Rudra's shoulder — not restraining, just acknowledging — and walked on.
Sophia followed without comment.
Javier passed Karlos's tree, looked at him once, said nothing.
Rudra looked at the sleeping figure for a moment longer. Then he turned and followed the rest of the team into the Hungry Forest, leaving Karlos to his comfortable weather and his scenery and his eyes distributed through the canopy like seeds.