Chapter 18: The Echoes of Revelation
"Welcome to the world of the living, Sealbreaker."
The Monkey Saint stood before me, towering in divine stature. His voice, though calm, crashed over me like a tidal wave. It was no longer the relaxed tone I had heard before. Now, each syllable resonated with ancient power, commanding the air itself to fall still. It was as though the heavens acknowledged his presence, and the earth held its breath.
A shiver rippled through my spine. I had awoken to something impossible—something monumental. And standing in front of me, the Monkey Saint bore witness to it.
I tried to calm my racing thoughts, but my mind was chaos. The memory of the altar, the eyes, the shattering circle on my chest—all of it roared like a storm within me. I was different. My body had changed, not just in strength or appearance, but in essence. The spear tattoo burned faintly along my spine, and the new eye symbol on my collarbone pulsed softly, glowing with an eerie light. I knew—deeply, innately—that I had become something else.
Something more.
The Monkey Saint's sharp gaze swept over me, lingering on the eye tattoo for just a moment. In that flicker of time, I saw something I had never expected from him: astonishment. A blink later, his expression returned to its usual impassive calm, but I had caught it.
"You must have a lot of questions," he said, stepping forward, his hands folded behind his back.
I nodded, but a bitter laugh escaped my lips. "I do. But I get the feeling I'm not going to like the answers."
A smirk played on his lips, fleeting but genuine. "You're not wrong."
He turned and began to walk slowly, and I followed. The golden light of the altar flickered behind us as we entered a corridor adorned with murals of divine battles and long-lost pantheons. With each step, a deeper truth seemed to settle into my bones.
"Let me start with the most important part," he said. "One of the seals was released. Because of that, Indian hunters across the nation are now a bit more powerful. Not overwhelmingly so, but it's as if they've finally received the strength their rank should hold on a global scale."
My eyes widened. The ramifications hit me like a thunderclap. India—its hunters had always lagged behind despite their numbers. Now, that imbalance was corrected. A surge of exhilaration rose within me.
Then a terrible thought began to form.
The circles. The spear. The tattoos. Their numbers...
"Don't tell me..."
The Monkey Saint stopped walking.
"Yes," he said solemnly. "Those tattoos represent the seals. Nineteen in total. Each one linked to a fundamental limiter imposed on this land."
I swallowed hard.
"Your grandfather," he continued, "died handling a monster material that contained the essence—the key—to the first seal. When he died, that energy transferred to you. Your body absorbed it. Gradually, it began forming a unique constitution. One that my constellation—Hanuman himself—identified as a Sealbreaker body."
I staggered backward, the weight of those words pressing down on me.
"Hanuman understood what was happening and suppressed your awakening. If your body had activated prematurely, the first seal would have broken before you were ready. You needed time to grow. At the time, even I didn't understand why. But now... seeing that eye, I have suspicions."
My vision blurred. I didn't even notice the tears until one fell down my cheek.
I had a constitution.
Those words struck deeper than any blade.
I collapsed to my knees. My body shook. Years of endless training, silent suffering, ridicule, and bitter loneliness surged through me in a flood of raw emotion. Every sleepless night. Every whisper behind my back. Every hope I had buried came rushing back.
I had a constitution. Not a gift, not luck. Something earned through pain, sealed because of fate, and now finally mine.
The tears became sobs, and I let them fall.
The Monkey Saint remained silent, letting me break.
But with every drop that fell, something else rose within me. Not sorrow.
Anger.
A bubbling, white-hot fury ignited in my veins. The unfamiliar energy, that foreign force now dwelling within me, surged in response. My muscles tensed. My breath sharpened. I felt every inch of my being coil with explosive potential.
The golden aura returned, brighter and more unstable this time. My body moved on instinct, no longer mine alone, but a vessel of power I barely understood. My hands clenched. My feet planted. The energy converged.
To my eyes.
And then I saw.
The Monkey Saint was no longer the saint I had seen before. Layers of perception peeled away, revealing something deeper. He glowed with that same divine energy—but in him, it was vast and endless, like a sun in the depths of an ocean. My own energy, by comparison, was a flickering spark. A puddle to his ocean. Yet somehow, I had tapped into it. Matched it, if only for a moment.
Our gazes locked.
The Monkey Saint's eyes began to glow, that same sacred hue I'd seen in Hanuman's gaze.
Then he disappeared.
Darkness crashed over me like a tidal wave, and I collapsed.
Monkey Saint's POV
I stood over the unconscious boy, watching the slow rise and fall of his chest. His awakening had begun. And it was both more than I expected and exactly what I feared.
He reminded me of myself—long ago, when I too had awakened to the world beyond limits. I understood his desperation, the bitterness of being overlooked, the hunger to matter.
But what shocked me more was his reaction.
The moment his body touched mana, it surged within him as if it had always belonged. Most new initiates flailed or lost control. He wielded it like a prodigy. More than that—his fury turned it into a weapon. Precise. Controlled. Dangerous.
And then his eyes changed.
Purple.
Not divine gold, not demonic red. A mystical violet hue that held both knowledge and uncertainty. It wasn't Hanuman's gaze, not fully. Something else had taken root. Perhaps when he met that fragment of Hanuman... the seal energy reacted. Or maybe the seal tried to mimic the divine sight and failed. Either way, it created something unique.
Something new.
But his body wasn't ready. The mana overloaded his channels. I moved instantly, appearing behind him in a blur. With a single blow to his neck, I knocked him unconscious. The energy within him subsided like a storm calming at shore.
I crouched beside him, lifting him gently.
"You have a great ordeal ahead," I murmured. "But for now... you need rest."
The chamber was still, but the winds of change howled in silence.
The Sealbreaker had awakened.
And the world would never be the same.