The cracks in the sky above Shree Yan slowly began to fade, and the vast chasm that had opened up before him closed with an eerie calm, as though it had never been there. The universe itself seemed to exhale, its breath soft and unrelenting.
For a long moment, Shree Yan remained frozen, his heart a cold, hollow pit. His hands, still crackling with the energies of countless lifetimes, fell limply to his sides. The truth—the bitter, suffocating truth—had been revealed. He was not the master of his fate. No amount of power, no manipulation of time or space, could alter the fundamental laws of the world that held him in place.
The illusion had won.
In the distance, a faint glow appeared on the horizon—a single, shining figure moving toward him with purpose. The presence was familiar, a faint light cutting through the suffocating darkness of the world.
Shidhara Gautami.
Her figure became clearer as she walked across the barren landscape, the soft, rhythmic steps carrying her forward like an unshakable force. She wore the same regal attire, though it was worn and weathered, as though time itself had been kind to her in a way it had never been to Shree Yan. There was no sorrow in her eyes, no anger—just a quiet acceptance, an understanding that he had never truly grasped.
"Shree Yan," she called softly, her voice carrying across the void. "You have come so far, and yet you are still lost."
Her words struck him like a physical blow. For a brief moment, he allowed himself to look into her eyes, the eyes of the one person who had once held his heart, the one person who had known him before the descent. But now, all he saw was the reflection of his own failure in her gaze.
"You..." he began, his voice hoarse, as if he hadn't spoken in an eternity. "You... have found peace in this illusion too, haven't you?"
Shidhara paused before him, her expression unreadable. The quiet acceptance in her face only deepened the wound within him. She had found her place in this world, the world he had cursed for being a lie. She had made her peace with the impossible.
"I never sought immortality," Shidhara replied, her voice steady, unwavering. "I sought understanding. I sought truth. And in the end, I realized that we are not meant to escape what we are. We are meant to embrace the cycle. We are part of it."
Shree Yan's hands clenched into fists at his sides, the rage that had once defined him flaring up in the pit of his stomach. How could she say such things? How could she accept a world that had so clearly betrayed them both? Had he not suffered enough? Had he not endured pain, loss, and countless betrayals in his search for a way out?
"And that is where you are wrong," he spat, his voice shaking with barely contained fury. "You have surrendered. You have accepted the lies, the traps, the endless cycles. But I will not. I will not let this world be the end of me!"
Shidhara stepped closer, her gaze soft but firm. "I never surrendered, Shree Yan. I accepted. There is a difference. Acceptance is not weakness—it is the strength to find meaning in a world that has none to offer."
"You've forgotten everything. All of it," he growled, stepping back as if her presence itself was an affront. "Your love for me, your trust, all of it—was it a lie? Did you only follow me to watch me fall?"
Her eyes softened, and she shook her head slowly. "No, it was never a lie. But I understand now, as you must, that we cannot hold onto what is fleeting. We cannot bend the world to our will. It is not the illusion that breaks us—it is our refusal to see it for what it truly is."
Shree Yan's chest tightened as her words echoed in his mind, each one reverberating like a hammer striking against his skull. He had been wrong. He had been so wrong. But admitting that truth, facing the reality that he had been blinded by his own ambitions, felt like a slow death. The illusion had devoured him, just as it had devoured so many before him.
"I never wanted this," he whispered, his voice breaking as the weight of his own journey finally crashed upon him. "I never wanted to become this... this monster."
Shidhara reached out slowly, placing a hand on his arm. Her touch was warm, grounding him in a way he hadn't felt in so long. "You are not a monster, Shree Yan. You are a man—a man who has lost his way. But you are still capable of finding it again. It is never too late."
For the first time in years, Shree Yan felt the tremor of something other than ambition, something that felt close to hope, something he had long buried. Could it be that his entire journey had been driven by the wrong pursuit? That he had forsaken everything—his past, his love, his humanity—all in the name of something that did not exist?
The silence between them stretched, but it was no longer the oppressive silence of defeat. It was a moment of reckoning. And for the first time, Shree Yan truly felt the weight of the choices that had brought him to this place.
"I don't know if I can stop," he admitted, his voice barely above a whisper. "I don't know if I can undo everything I've done."
"You don't have to undo it," Shidhara said softly. "But you must understand: you are not bound by the chains of your own making. You are free to choose a different path. The illusion can hold no power over you, not if you choose to let it go."
Shree Yan stared at her, searching for any trace of mockery, any hint of false hope. But all he found was truth—a truth that was both bitter and liberating. For the first time, he realized that the real journey wasn't about breaking free of the world. It was about breaking free from himself.
And in that quiet moment, as the world itself seemed to hold its breath, Shree Yan made the hardest decision of his life.
He let go.
The illusion of immortality, the false hope of eternal life, and the desperate need to escape—he released it all. The darkness that had consumed him for so long began to dissipate, leaving only the barest remnants of his former self. And in that emptiness, he found something he had lost long ago: peace.
---
Shree Yan had taken the first step on a new path, a path that held no promises, no grand destinies. Only the truth of what it meant to be human.
And perhaps that was enough.