Night fell without announcement.
Ayodhya slept.
And beneath that sleep, something moved.
Siddharth stood within the depths of his secluded cave, eyes closed, senses stretched far beyond flesh. Space folded around him like a familiar cloak, every fluctuation within his domain reflected clearly in his mind.
The pressure on Shubham had crossed a line.
A Rishi-realm cultivator—unrestrained, arrogant, sanctioned by the Yadav family—had made his move.
Siddharth did not hesitate.
A single command pulsed through the mental link.
Deploy.
The Acharya-rank puppet stepped forward.
Unlike the others, his presence was profound yet restrained—an existence that bent the surrounding prana into quiet obedience. Behind him emerged his formation:
One Yogi-rank puppet, aura sharp and lethal.
Two Sadhak-rank puppets, silent, perfectly synchronized.
No words were exchanged.
They vanished into the night.
The Rishi cultivator sensed danger only moments before death.
He was seated in meditation within a temporary residence, confidence unshaken, cultivation steady.
Then—
Space twisted.
The Yogi puppet emerged first, blade already descending, sealing escape routes with flawless timing.
The Sadhak puppets struck simultaneously—one suppressing prana flow, the other severing tendons with surgical precision.
The Rishi tried to rise.
Tried to roar.
Tried to summon his cultivation.
The Acharya puppet stepped through distorted space and placed a palm against the Rishi's chest.
There was no explosion.
No clash.
Just a single, absolute suppression.
The Rishi's eyes widened—then dulled.
Ten breaths.
That was all it took.
By dawn, the residence was empty.
No signs of struggle.
No residual aura.
No witnesses.
Even the insects had forgotten.
The corpse arrived before Siddharth moments later.
Space folded once more, and the lifeless body of a Rishi-realm cultivator lay before him, cultivation extinguished, expression frozen in disbelief.
Siddharth looked down at it in silence.
This was not a battle.
Not survival.
Not retaliation.
This was execution.
For the first time, the truth settled heavily in his chest.
> This is no longer defense.
He closed his eyes.
The board had changed.
And whether the world realized it or not—
A shadow had begun to hunt back.
The cave was sealed.
Space bent inward, isolating the chamber from the outside world as if reality itself had agreed to remain silent.
At the center lay the corpse of the Rishi-realm cultivator.
Prana had already fled the body, yet its bones, blood, and meridians still carried traces of power—traces most refiners would never dare to touch.
Siddharth did not hesitate.
He extracted the remains with meticulous precision.
The bones were refined first, stripped of lingering resentment and tempered with Yogi-rank blood essence until they shone with a dull, ancient luster. Each refinement cycle was accompanied by ruin inscriptions drawn from the Beast Emperor Scripture, incomplete yet terrifying in potential.
Then came the core.
Unlike lower-rank puppets, this one did not require a monster core alone.
Siddharth fused the residual will of the Rishi corpse with his own blood and intent, crushing resistance through absolute dominance. The ritual was violent, dangerous—something no orthodox refiner would even record.
Prana surged.
Space trembled.
The inscriptions ignited.
Light filled the cave.
When it faded, a new figure stood upright.
Its presence was deep, layered, restrained—an existence standing firmly at the Acharya realm.
Eyes opened.
Clear.
Calm.
Aware.
The puppet knelt without being commanded.
Another pillar had been added.
From that day onward, the cave became a battlefield.
Siddharth did not allow stagnation.
Under his command, the puppets began formal combat training, no longer acting as simple executors but as coordinated weapons of war.
They learned:
Rishi-rank fist art, refining every strike into condensed destruction.
Rishi-rank mobility art, moving through terrain as if the world itself bent aside.
Rishi-rank sword art, blades flowing like living extensions of intent.
Mistakes were corrected instantly.
Movements were synchronized.
Timing was perfected.
Formation tactics were introduced.
Two Sadhak puppets anchored suppression zones.
The Yogi puppet executed rapid kills.
The Acharya puppets controlled the battlefield—one dominating, the other adapting.
They did not tire.
They did not hesitate.
They did not fear injury or death.
Living cultivators who would have boasted superiority by realm found themselves overwhelmed, dismantled, and outpaced.
A Sadhak puppet could suppress a Yogi.
A Yogi puppet could threaten a Acharya.
Together, they erased advantages that cultivation realms were supposed to guarantee.
Siddharth watched in silence.
No pride.
No excitement.
Only calculation.
Power was no longer something he wielded alone.
It had become systematic.
And once power becomes systematic—
It stops being challenged.
The world had not noticed yet.
But the gap between shadow and throne was closing.