Darkness congealed into shape.
Hetu's eyes opened to a vast plain that shimmered like glass, stretching endlessly in all directions. The air was thick, almost liquid, and each breath drew in light that coiled behind his ribs. Beneath the glass flowed rivers of memory—flashes of faces, moments, victories, and losses—like reflections trapped under ice.
This was Form.
He remembered the cloaked figure's words: The illusions born from power.
The horizon rippled. From the far distance, a figure walked toward him—slowly, deliberately. Hetu's muscles tightened. At first, he thought it was another projection of himself, but no—this form glowed differently, radiating steady gold light.
It was him… perfected.
The figure wore the robes of a master, his aura balanced, his gaze calm and infinite. When he stepped closer, the air itself bent around him, space yielding in reverence.
"So," the golden form said, voice smooth and melodic. "You've come far, Hetu. You have overcome pain, guilt, and doubt. But tell me—what will you become once you stand at the peak?"
Hetu regarded the double in silence. "That depends on what the peak is."
The golden Hetu smiled faintly. "It is freedom. Power without limit. The capacity to reshape the world's suffering."
"That's not freedom," Hetu said quietly. "That's control."
"And what is control, if not compassion guided by wisdom?" the golden figure countered. "You've seen death. You've seen corruption. Why do you hesitate to become a god if it means saving all who still struggle below?"
The words slid into his mind like honeyed venom. They sounded right. They sounded like every reason he had ever wanted power—to protect, to redeem, to heal.
But something pulsed inside him, warning.
"You're not truth," Hetu said slowly. "You're temptation."
"No," the golden double whispered, stepping closer. "I am the future you deny yourself."
The air crackled. A ring of floating sigils flared around them—each symbol representing one of the Eightfold Path's virtues, fractured and reversed.
Hetu saw Right View twist into Dominion, Right Action into Judgment, Right Effort into Will to Conquer.
Each mirrored his potential corruption.
The golden Hetu extended a hand. "Merge with me. Together, we will create a world without ignorance, without war, without death. Balance perfected through order."
Hetu stared at that hand. It trembled—beautiful, radiant, divine.
And deadly.
He closed his eyes. His mind drifted back to the teachings of both paths—the whisper of the Dharma, the stillness of the Tao.
To act is to distort; to cling is to fall.
"I won't become you," he said.
"Then you will destroy everything you love," the golden form hissed, and its voice lost all serenity.
The plain fractured. From beneath the glass, colossal silhouettes rose—towering figures made of his own energy, wearing the faces of every person he had ever saved or failed to save. They spoke in unison, their voices trembling the air:
"If you refuse perfection, you condemn us to suffering!"
The illusion surged forward, their combined light blinding. Hetu raised both hands, summoning the dual energy—dark and luminous spiraling together in a storm around his body.
The impact was cataclysmic.
Glass shattered; light screamed; his thoughts fragmented into shards.
But through the chaos, Hetu stood firm—not fighting, not yielding—breathing, observing, being.
He let the storm pass through him.
He saw the golden form's eyes flicker—confusion, then rage, then fear.
"How can you resist?" it demanded. "You deny compassion, deny ascension—deny everything that could make you divine!"
Hetu's voice came like quiet thunder. "A god who forces harmony is no different from chaos itself."
He opened his palms. The spiral of energy expanded, then dissolved—like a candle fading into dawn.
The golden Hetu screamed as his radiance imploded, unraveling into a thousand motes of faint, dying light. Each mote drifted upward, returning to the stars overhead.
When the last one vanished, the plain fell silent.
Only Hetu remained—kneeling, exhausted, but unbroken.
The cloaked figure's voice returned, echoing softly:
"You have passed the Second Truth. The illusion of Form no longer binds you."
Hetu looked upward, breathing slowly. "And the Third?"
"The hardest of all," came the answer. "Beyond Self and Form lies Origin—the point where all paths converge, and none survive unchanged."
The world around him began to fade again.
As the Astral Dominion folded into darkness, Hetu felt his consciousness stretch beyond the stars—toward a place older than time, deeper than silence.
And for the first time, he felt fear—not of death, not of pain, but of becoming nothing at all.