They entered Vanrajgarh at twilight.
The jungle greeted them not with birdsong, but with silence. Trees leaned unnaturally inward, their roots above ground, twisted like limbs reaching for prey. Thick vines coiled across old shrines, covered in rusted bells that never rang.
Kiran unsheathed a dagger and nicked his arm.The blood hit the ground… and sizzled.
"This place isn't alive," he muttered. "It's remembering."
Ravi stepped forward. "The Sixth Limb — Manomaya — it's tied to the mind. We're not walking through a forest…"
"…We're walking through our own thoughts," Meera whispered.
They went on.
And the jungle began to speak.
The Mind Bends
It started with flickers — a glimpse of Ravi's childhood home between the trees. His mother's voice humming a lullaby that hadn't been sung in twelve years.
Then Kiran gasped.His brother stood in front of him, mouth sewn shut, hands begging for help.
Meera dropped to her knees, staring into a puddle that reflected her with bloodied hands.
"None of this is real," Ravi said.But his voice sounded… distant.Like it came from behind a wall of water.
The jungle was inside them now.And the deeper they went, the more it fed.
Mirror of the Mind
They reached a clearing.
A pool of black water sat at the center, smooth as glass.Above it floated a stone idol with no face, ten hands covering its head.
It pulsed.
And suddenly — Ravi was alone.
Meera and Kiran were gone.
The forest vanished.
Only the pool remained.
And from it… he rose.
Another Ravi.Same face. Same eyes.But smiling — cruelly.
"Still playing the savior?" the double asked."You think this power can save people? You've already killed more than you know."
"I do what I must," Ravi said.
His mirror laughed. "No. You do what feels noble. But nobility won't stop what's coming."
The Trial of the Sixth Limb
The water surged.
The false Ravi lunged, wielding a mirror-sword — it didn't cut flesh, it cut memory.
Every blow shattered a piece of Ravi's past. His mother's smile. His first touch with Meera's hand. His father's whispered stories. Gone, one by one.
Ravi bled not from his body — but from his identity.
Until finally, the mirror-Ravi stood over him. "Let me take the burden. Let me become what you're too weak to accept."
And Ravi whispered:
"Then you don't understand.Strength isn't forgetting who you are.It's carrying it — even when it breaks you."
He thrust his palm forward.Shunyam Hasta: The Third Seal.
A silent burst erupted — not to destroy, but to contain.
The mirror shattered.
The forest blinked.
Reunion and Revelation
Meera and Kiran gasped, waking beside him. Time had not passed.They all stared at the pool.
Now, at its center, floated a crystalline heart, pulsing with violet light.
The Sixth Limb — Manomaya.
Ravi stepped forward and touched it.
In that moment, a flood of emotion — every thought, every fear, every guilt — surged into him.
And then calmed.
Like the jungle had exhaled.
Elsewhere…
Far away, in a red hall carved from bone, Bhargtanaya sat in meditation.
He opened his eyes.
And bled from the nose.
"So," he whispered, "he passed the trial of mind."
A girl stepped into the hall — Meera's likeness, but corrupted. Her skin cracked like porcelain. Her voice hollow.
"Shall I begin breaking the others?"
Bhargtanaya nodded.
"Yes. Start with the healer.Make Ravi choose who gets to live."