Main hall – Heart clone
The message arrived as a calm pulse in his mind.
Heart clone closed his eyes briefly, a weary yet deeply satisfied smile spreading across his face.
He had felt it coming.
Days ago, staring at the stars, the first true flicker of Divine Sage insight had whispered: something immensely beneficial waited on Astruo—tailored for the Solar clone's path. He had passed the feeling along without hesitation.
Then, clearer still: no other hand would claim it.
Now, confirmation.
The Divine Sage profession was bearing fruit—subtle, quiet, but undeniably real.
Yet he knew the truth: the heaviest lifting belonged to the Third Eye clone.
That clone's birthplace, third eye core—fully integrated with Ankit's soul at Substage 4 of Stage 4—granted perception beyond anything Heart clone could match alone. Faint karmic threads appeared as clear luminous lines to Third Eye; planetary whispers became audible voices; hidden probabilities unfolded like open books.
Heart clone had guided the foundation—texts, theories, ideas—but the piercing clarity, the raw sight, came from Third Eye.
So, with quiet grace, he had stepped back.
"The Divine Sage profession is yours now," he had told Third Eye clone earlier that day. "I'll assist when needed, but you are its true master."
Third Eye clone had accepted without protest, already lost in star charts and karmic webs.
Heart clone rose now, stretching slightly.
Time to install the new Vyuhas. They are:
Aquaduct Vyuha
This specialized vyuha forms an invisible, ethereal pipeline of woven water runes and spatial threads, stretching dozens of kilometers to the underground lake. It selectively extracts pure water-type essence (vital, flowing energy symbolizing renewal and adaptability) from the lake's depths, filtering out physical water entirely—since the fortress already receives that through existing channels. The essence is then channeled directly into the fields, infusing soil and plants with enhanced water type essence flow for accelerated growth. Activation requires a simple intent trigger, with built-in safeguards to avoid over-drawing and maintain ecological balance.
From this day forward, the Sacral clone's sacral essence remained his own—no longer needed to "water" the fields and plants.
For years, he had personally channeled portions of his own sacral essence into the fields—careful, measured infusions to nourish the plants and maintain the gardens' extraordinary fertility.
Now there was no need. The fortress had taken another step toward true self-sufficiency.
Then came: Gravity Storm Bastion (Wind + Lightning + Gravity)
Surrounds the fortress in a swirling gravity-enhanced storm barrier. Winds reach supersonic speeds, laced with crushing gravity fields (up to 50× normal) and lightning strikes. Intruders are pinned, shredded, or electrocuted before reaching walls—while allies move freely inside.
Eternal Flame Dark Wall (Fire + Space + Death)
A ring of black space-flames encircling the fortress perimeter. Fire essence burns eternally without fuel, folded space makes the wall infinitely deep (attacks vanish into space), and death essence erodes life force of anything crossing. Impenetrable offense-defense hybrid.
Celestial Anchor Array (Light + Gravity + Space)
Anchors the fortress in stabilized space while channeling stellar light essence and gravity control. Prevents teleportation breaches from outside, allows instant internal repositioning, and crushes aerial assaults with pinpoint gravity wells under radiant light beams. Ultimate anti-siege system for fortress.
_____
Meanwhile, New Delhi, official residence of prime minister.
Prime Minister Mordan sat alone in the dimly lit isolation chamber, three holographic screens floating before him. On each screen appeared the stern, tired face of an allied leader—translated in real-time by the new multi-language AI system, voices rendered flawlessly in Hindi for Mordan, while he spoke and was heard in their native tongues.
Vlim, President of the Eurasian Union, spoke first, his gravelly voice carrying the weight of Siberian winters.
"Our forward teams on Astruo have confirmed the anomaly site is now… an abyss. Five kilometers deep, hundreds of kilometers wide. The ice simply vanished from beneath the surface layer. The upper shelf collapsed inward to fill the void. No explosion, no seismic activity—just gone."
He paused, letting the implications sink in.
"Our analysts—especially the think-tank of novel readers and web-fiction experts we assembled—agree on one likely explanation: spatial manipulation. Something or someone folded or teleported the entire structure away. Or it could be the work of the same thing that emitt high level of Magic Energy. We don't know if it was a living entity, an artifact, or a natural phenomenon of the that thing … but whatever it was, it held world-changing potential."