In a quiet hall, in front of a seat of power stood a little girl. She looked younger than ten and yet, her body was tattered and torn with blood flowing out of the injuries. Soft sobs were filling the quiet and vacant hall but the sound of sobs was soon drowned out by the footsteps of the man approaching the little girl.

“Why are you injured?” The man asked in a chillingly cold tone. His red eyes dug deep into the little girl’s soul and she choked on her whimper.

“I’m sorry, Lord Father.” The little girl answered in a feeble voice. Her lip was torn open and every word she spoke was excruciatingly painful. She struggled to not whimper anymore and pressed tightly on her torn lip to stop the escaping sobs.

The man walked up to the little girl and caressed her cheek softly. He moved his hand on her injury and slowly touched the torn lip with his thumb. Gradually, he started to apply force down on the lip and a painful scream escaped the little girl’s mouth. The man only let go after a few moments and the girl’s knees buckled. She sat down on the floor with her hands on her mouth, not to stop the pain or the bleeding, but to stop her crying voice. She held her hand tightly on her mouth with her head stooped down low. She struggled to stop her shoulders from quivering but failed to do so.

“Are you crying, Adhara?” The man asked again.

“No, Lord Father.” The little girl answered weakly among the sobs.

“Truly a failure on the Heavens’ part. The longer you take to get stronger, the more the people will suffer. Do not shame your destiny, Adhara.” The man turned around to walk back to the seat of power, “You know your punishment.”

The little girl nodded and unfurled her Heavens’ Gift. Hundreds of whips like limbs were attached to her back that moved according to her will. Most of them were still unusable as she still couldn’t get them under control but she could still use a couple perfectly. She extended the whips and then brought them towards herself with a force high enough to put a cut in the tree. The whip hit the little girl’s hand and took away a chunk of her flesh while leaving. The little girl shivered in pain but clenched her jaw tightly to try and get through the self-inflicted punishment. The sound of the whips was heard from the quiet hall for a long time that day.

******

Adhara cleared the blood from her torn lip, an injury that flashed an uncomfortable memory in her mind. She applied enough mana to stop the bleeding on the necessary parts and focused around her. Corpses littered around her were starting to turn into specks of light and the living survivors were starting to back away slowly. Their plan to stall for a time seemed impossible and thoughts of withdrawing started swirling in their minds.

The girl who was directing the survivors had a dry throat at this moment. She tried to remember that this was just a trial and she wouldn’t actually die while fighting, but the gruesome atrocities she had laid her eyes on had turned her steps into mush. She stood there, without any will to continue.

Adhara had clad her entire body in mana for the first time in the trial. Not only that, the mana in the surrounding area was rushing towards her like a tide. Her whips, the Heavens’ Gift, all unfurled as they pushed her off the ground. None of the people present could see the whips with their eyes and to them, Adhara looked to be levitating off the ground while showering them with her deathly cold gaze. She looked like a wrathful god descending from the sky, to bring judgement to the foolish worshipers who dared to look at her.

“Everyone attack!” The leader of the survivors screamed. She had barely gotten over her fear of ‘The Calamity’. Her will to pass the trial had stomped upon her fear of Adhara. Her death in the trial was fake but if she failed to clear the trial, it could very well become the reality. She would be thrown away by her House and shunned by the entire royalty. Children who hadn’t come of age yet were always dispensable after all.

However, the Heavens and the hearts of humans were cruel. One didn’t show her love during the appeasement, and the other betrayed her at this moment.

She was the only one who had moved towards Adhara. The rest of the survivors had started running away already. With their backs turned, they were nothing but targets for Adhara. She moved past the leader who was sitting on her knees after watching her compatriots run away. Adhara would pick up rocks and rip out trees with her whips and throw them at the escaping survivors.

“This is your life.” Adhara spoke to the girl behind her, “People like you will be nothing more than pebbles of the path that great people take on their journey. You will follow the truly powerful without question and die for their wishes. Your legacy will be nothing but a forgotten name in someone's memory.”

The girl looked up at the back of Adhara who was still throwing trees at the people. Their bodies were being crushed and the land was slowly being dyed crimson.

“Your pathetic life will be nothing but an example to other people. Your path, broken and your soul, shattered. That is your destiny.” Adhara’s scathing words continued, “You knew they would betray you and yet you still stood with them. You had realised that victory was never yours to begin with, and so you came with numbers. From the beginning, you had decided to be a nameless pebble.”

Adhara stopped and looked back at the girl. The girl’s eyes were red with anger at this point, yet she didn’t attack. No, she couldn’t attack. Within her view were myriads of corpses that were turning into specks of light. The destruction of the nearby land was enough proof of the prowess of the one called ‘The Calamity.’

“Look at the ones running away. Do you see their faces right now?” Adhara asked.

The girl didn’t reply and just kept staring at Adara with disgust, hatred and fear.

“This was their chance to be noticed by someone great and yet, they showed their backs. This was a chance to make their deplorable lives worth something and yet…... You are just like them. You have been noticed by me though and I will remember your face for a few more moments. And this will be your greatest honour. You will go around the mainland telling stories of how you once fought Adhara, and that will be your greatest achievement. That is all you have earned in life.”

The girl had closed her eyes tightly by this point. Her breathing had become ragged and she was clenching her sword tightly in her hand. Adhara didn’t speak anymore and the forest had gone back to its oppressive silence once more. She was standing there looking at the girl when suddenly the girl sprang to her feet and ran towards Adhara. The girl had clad her sword in mana and her eyes showed the hatred she felt right now. She was pushing off the ground with as much strength as she could muster to get close to Adhara and impale her sword into Adhara’s heart.

She had gotten close enough to strike Adhara when a mana strike from another direction hit her weapon and forced her off balance. She struggled in the mud to get up and noticed that Adhara was looking at the person who had thrown the mana strike. She tried to look at the person but he was extremely far away. Her attention was pulled away by approaching Adhara, and she looked straight into her eyes for the first time.

“Tell me your name,” Adhara asked in a cold tone.

“Meera, from House Gauras.” The girl replied with much difficulty.

“Well, Meera. Good job. Now I’ll remember you.” Adhara said and turned around to the person who was approaching her.

“What do you mean?”

Adhara turned and looked at her for a moment before saying, “Destiny is what we make of ourselves. If you were born a pebble, you just need to roll over and push the rocks aside to make way for yourself. And you, Meera, have succeeded in trying today. Pushing aside the fear in your heart and moving forward to battle an impossible enemy will be your greatest achievement from now on. So, try and push the ceiling some more. That is what it means to walk the path of Great people.”

Adhara left the girl alone with her thoughts. The girl was still sitting in the mud as innumerable thoughts attacked her mind. Only after a few moments did she look up at the departing back of Adhara. A weak-looking girl with injuries all over her body was walking through the wasted forest on which she had rained the destruction down. That small back now felt bigger than the fear in Meera’s heart as she said meekly, “I withdraw.”

Adhara was walking towards the person who had thrown the mana strike from an unimaginable distance. As soon as Adhara got close to the person, he removed his half cape and gave it to Adhara.

“Your clothes are barely covering your body. Take this.”

Adhara stood motionlessly, effectively refusing to take the half cape.

“I understand that you do not like me but I don’t really know much about the world. I have spent almost all of my life in either the castle or training away from people. Today is actually the very first day that I was allowed to come to the outside world. I don’t know how the commoners live. I don’t even know how other nobles live. But I would like to learn all that. I would like to understand how everything works and the intentions behind them.”

Adhara kept looking at the person with her emotionless gaze and asked, “Do you want me to teach you the ways of the world, Heir of Frye?”

“No no, that is not what I meant.” Sirius said in a flushed tone, “I will learn those things with my friend gradually. It might be a bit difficult at first but I believe we will ultimately be able to change things for the better. I just think that you seem like a nice person and I hope we can get along in the future.”

Sirius raised the half cape again, gesturing to Adhara to take it. Adhara first looked at the innocent smiling eyes of Sirius and then at the half cape he was holding. She slowly raised her hand and grabbed the half cape to cover her body.

“I do not dislike you, Heir of Frye,” Adhara said.

“You know, you can just call me Sirius.”

“I do not dislike you, Sirius Frye,” Adhara repeated in the same cold tone and turned around to dash towards the hill. The people that had successfully escaped should have been close to the badge at this point and she needed to hurry.

“Why do you always do this? We have the same path obviously and we can just go together.” Sirius said while matching her pace.

“Or you could just silently follow me,” Adhara replied without looking at him.

“Wow, is every one of my age as sarcastic as you and Mehr?”

The duo of Adhara and Sirius had almost reached the top of the hill at this point. They had expected to see the remaining swarm of survivors battling among themselves for the badge but all they found was silence. No one could be seen on the hill and the sparse forest that covered it seemed deathly quiet. So, they moved towards the top while talking among themselves.

“What sort of a name is Mehr?” Adhara asked.

“It’s a bit funny, isn’t it? But he is a really nice guy.” Sirius answered.

“Are you worried about him?”

“Not really. He’ll be fine. I don’t think there is anyone stronger than Mehr and I in this trial.”

Adhara turned her head towards Sirius. She looked at him with an inquisitive gaze and was just going to say something when she noticed Sirius looking at something happily. She looked in the same direction and noticed two people sitting on top of the hill with the badge sitting safely behind them. A girl in a red frock was dusting her clothes off while complaining and a boy whose black clothes had turned a shade darker due to the amount of blood he had spilt. The boy was cleaning blood spots from his spear when he looked in their direction and waved with a smile on his face and said loudly,

“Late as usual, Sirius. Looks like I won this one.”