The forest quaked as if it, too, feared the war in the heavens. Trees bowed, their canopies thrashing like wounded beasts beneath a sky torn open by the wrath of gods. Thunder rolled, a relentless war drum, while lightning scarred the clouds in jagged streaks of silver fire.
Devavrata strode through the tangled undergrowth behind Parashurama, the celestial bow an extension of his will, its silver glow a lone beacon against the night's relentless assault. The sage's axe swung at his side, its edge gnawed by a thousand battles, yet still thirsting for more. Every step Parashurama took carved a path through the storm-tossed jungle, as if the earth itself bent to his presence.
Rain battered Devavrata's back, drumming against his shoulders, soaking through his garments, but he ignored it. A storm was nothing to him. He had been born of one, his blood carried the river's rage, his spirit the tempest's fury. And yet, as he walked, he felt something stir deep within, something beyond the storm's reach. Expectation. A test unlike any he had faced before.
Parashurama halted at the cliff's edge, a jagged maw of stone plunging into a gorge where the wind shrieked in primal fury. The rain thickened, a silver deluge cascading down, blurring the line between earth and sky. The heavens split apart with a crack that shook the world.
The sage turned, his voice a roar against the storm. "Archery is no child's play, river-son! It is the blade honed in chaos, the eye that sees when the world goes blind! You'll learn to strike true, or you'll break."
Devavrata did not flinch. His dark hair, plastered to his face, dripped with rain. Water streamed from his shoulders, but his stance was steady, unbowed. He met the sage's infernal gaze with his own, eyes burning with defiance.
"I have faced the river's wrath and bent it to my will." His voice cut through the storm like a sword unsheathed. "This storm is nothing. I will pierce its heart."
The celestial bow thrummed in his grip, the runes along its limbs flaring brighter, casting defiance into the night.
Parashurama's lips curled into something between a grin and a snarl, a predator scenting blood. He extended a hand toward the cliff's edge.
Below them, wooden targets, circular disks marked with ancient runes, swung wildly from ropes tied to the overhanging branches. The storm tossed them like leaves caught in a hurricane.
"Hit them all, every cursed one." Parashurama's voice was iron and thunder. "Or I will cast that bow back to your mother's embrace myself."
Devavrata stepped forward. The wind clawed at him, the rain a relentless hammer. The abyss yawned below, hungry and patient.
He drew the bow.
The string sang, a hymn of power. He nocked an arrow, the celestial steel glinting in the lightning's glare. The first target wove drunkenly in the storm, fifty paces out, vanishing and reappearing in the rain's fury.
He exhaled. The world narrowed.
The arrow loosed, a silver comet cutting through the tempest. It struck.
The target shattered, splinters swallowed by the abyss.
A grunt of approval was lost in the thunder, but Parashurama's stance shifted, his interest sharpening.
"Again!" the sage bellowed.
Another arrow. Another strike.
He did not stop.
His arms burned, his fingers bled where the string bit into them, but he moved as though possessed. One by one, the targets fell, wood cracked, ropes snapped, and the storm bore witness.
The sky fought back. The wind howled in defiance. The rain blurred sight, blurred breath, blurred the line between body and weapon. But Devavrata did not waver. He fired through the storm, not against it.
The Ganga stirred within him.
Parashurama's voice sliced through the chaos. "Precision is a start, but power bends the world! Feel the river, boy, summon the wind with your shots!"
He strode closer, his scars gleaming wet under the storm's wrath. He seized an arrow from Devavrata's quiver and thrust it into his hand.
"This bow is not a tool. It is a force. And you will command it."
Devavrata closed his fingers around the arrow, its steel cold as the mountain peaks.
And then, he felt it.
The Ganga's whisper, rushing through his blood. The weight of her trials. The rage of her current.
He drew the bow once more. The runes flared, brighter than before.
He loosed.
The arrow did not merely fly, it tore through the air, dragging the wind in its wake. A spiral of force churned around it, howling through the night. It struck not just the target but the tree it hung from. The trunk splintered, roots wrenching free in an explosion of earth. The gorge swallowed it whole.
The storm itself recoiled.
Parashurama threw back his head and laughed, a wild, primal thing that matched the tempest.
"Yes!" The word was not praise but a challenge. "That is what I seek! Again, river-son! Unleash the tempest within you!"
Devavrata obeyed.
Each arrow screamed through the night, spirals of wind trailing in their wake. The cliffside trembled. Branches bent, stone cracked, the storm itself seemed to bow to his fury.
Hours passed, the night consumed by his assault.
Targets multiplied, ten, twenty, thirty, each smaller, faster, more distant. Yet none survived. His arrows carved through the dark, their flight a hymn of destruction.
His chest heaved. Blood mixed with rain on his fingers. His vision blurred, his muscles trembled, yet still he stood.
The last target fell. Its fragments were swallowed by the abyss.
A rough hand clamped onto his shoulder, and he nearly buckled.
Parashurama's grip was iron. His voice was steel.
"You have fire in you, river-son. But fire alone is not enough. Fire can be quenched."
His eyes gleamed with the promise of what came next.
Devavrata inhaled, his breath still ragged, but his heart steady. The storm raged around him. Yet he no longer felt its wrath. He had taken it within himself.
And he was ready.
For the next trial.
For what lay beyond the storm.
For war.
Dawn bled through the storm's ragged veil, golden threads piercing the night's fading shroud. The rain had lessened to a whisper, a mere ghost of the fury it once wielded. Yet Devavrata's body still trembled, not from cold, nor exhaustion, but from the fire that still raged within him.
He had conquered the storm. But the battlefield was not yet silent.
A slow clap broke through the dying thunder.
"The river's pet plays well in the wet."
The voice was smooth, yet sharp, carrying the kind of amusement meant to cut rather than entertain.
Devavrata turned.
Kshema stood at the forest's edge, his crimson leather armor slick with rain, his own bow resting lightly in his grip. His presence was no accident. He had followed them. He had watched.
His smirk widened. "But let's see if you can handle real chaos, not just tricks from your mother's cradle."
The words were a gauntlet thrown.
Devavrata's grip on the celestial bow tightened, though his expression remained unreadable. "Chaos is my forge, Kshema." His voice was cold, measured. "I shape it while you flounder in its shadow."
Something flickered across Kshema's face, a momentary crack in the mask. Then, his smirk returned, sharper than before.
Parashurama chuckled, his axe resting against his shoulder. "Rivalry's a fine spark." His eyes gleamed with something unreadable, something amused and dangerous all at once. "It will burn you both into greatness… or into ash."
He stepped between them, his presence a wall neither dared cross. "Prove your worth, river-son." His gaze flickered to Kshema. "And you, keep up. Or crawl back to your father's hall."
Kshema's jaw tightened, but he held his tongue.
Parashurama turned, pointing to the gorge's depths.
Far below, a single target still swung, small, distant, barely visible through the storm's remnants. Unlike the others, this one bore no rope, no tether to the world above. It was a fragment of wood carried by the wind, floating, twisting, lost to the mercy of nature.
Parashurama's grin widened. "One shot. No second chances."
Devavrata nodded once. His breath steadied.
He stepped to the edge, where the stone was slick with rain. The wind had not yet settled, still howling through the gorge in unpredictable bursts. The target twisted erratically, a mere speck against the vast abyss.
He exhaled.
The bowstring sang as he pulled it back.
The world narrowed, his vision tunneling, his pulse slowing. The Ganga stirred within him, not with the violence of a raging current, but with the patience of the deep. The wind howled, but he did not fight it. He listened.
The target twisted once more. And in that moment, he knew.
He loosed.
The arrow did not merely fly, it vanished, consumed by the wind.
For a breath, nothing.
Then, a sharp crack.
The target splintered, fragments scattering into the abyss.
A beat of silence.
Then, Parashurama's laughter rang across the gorge. "The river's son, indeed!"
Kshema's smirk was gone. His knuckles whitened around his bow. He stepped forward, his expression neutral, but his eyes were fire.
"Impressive." The word carried no admiration. Only challenge.
He drew his own bow in one fluid motion. No hesitation. No words. Only the silent demand: I will not be outdone.
His arrow flew, a black streak against the sky.
It struck, not the floating target, for the target no longer existed. But the shattered fragments of wood still spinning in the wind.
One of those fragments, smaller than a fist, snapped in two.
Another beat of silence.
Parashurama's grin only widened. "Good." He turned from them both, his interest already shifting to the next trial. "But not enough."
Kshema's jaw tightened. Devavrata simply turned away.