The Completed One
Arhat (अर्हत्: Arhat) meant “the completed one.”
Varuna had addressed the sage by that title because he had been born a mortal yet seized immortality through his own hands. To the gods, humans were imperfect, finite, and insignificant creatures. Thus, a sage who had become a god solely by his own power, without any external aid, was one who had completed himself. The title betrayed the gods’ arrogance, yet it also revealed how flawed humans truly were in comparison. Having cast off the limitations of birth through sheer effort, how could one not respect such an achievement? At least, Varuna seemed to think so.
“The Completed One, is it……”
The sage, however, found the phrase distasteful. What exactly had been completed? He remained nothing more than a fool still struggling against his own defilements.
—Kwaaang!
Agni’s axe slammed into the earth, and flames the size of mountains erupted skyward. Scorching air, crashing waves of fire, blades of flame—each strike was devastating, yet deceptively easy to evade. Their sheer scale was one thing, but their speed was far too sluggish. The real problem was Vayu’s presence. Agni’s flames rode the winds and grew fiercer still, setting the entire vicinity ablaze. Left unchecked, the inferno threatened to consume all of Shindu, yet Varuna raised a barrier of water that confined the blaze within a fixed radius.
It would have been simpler if only Vayu and Agni had been present. Indra, restored by Varuna, once more assaulted the sage at lightning speed. The searing heat that could scorch even the soul spared only him; Varuna had wrapped a thin membrane of water around Indra’s body to shield him. Agni did not merely hurl flames from afar. He plunged into the fray between Indra and the sage at blinding speed, axe swinging. Though the slowest of the three, he was still a threat. Like ceaselessly raging flames, he harried the sage without pause. Every swing of his axe triggered explosions that melted skin.
Even so, whenever the tide seemed to turn against them, Surya would rain pillars of light from the heavens above, or Vayu would strike and retreat in rapid succession. Yet the sage did not yield. Even while facing two Lokapala head-on, he continued to endure. His Mind’s Eye had never been clearer. He dodged the erratic Vajra with ghostly precision and parried Agni’s axe. Hundreds of hands lashed out to keep Vayu from launching distant winds, and when Surya unleashed light, the sage conjured colossal hands to block it.
“How is this possible?”
Varuna had not joined the battle directly. Her role was support, allowing her to observe the fight from afar alongside Surya. What she witnessed defied understanding.
“How can he keep enduring?”
The sage’s divine rank was surprisingly close to Indra’s—an impressive feat in itself—yet it made no sense that he could hold his own against multiple Lokapala. Moreover, aside from Varuna, every god present was a high-ranking deity well-versed in combat. The battle should have been decided long ago.
“It wasn’t my imagination.”
Agni’s face hardened. Indra’s expression mirrored his. Having traded blows directly with the opponent, they were the first to sense the anomaly.
“This brat…… he’s growing stronger as we fight!”
With each passing moment, his fists grew heavier. His speed increased. Now there was scarcely any difference between him and Indra.
“Don’t lose your composure. We still hold the advantage!!”
Varuna, reading their unease, spoke up. As she said, the situation favored the Lokapala. The sage stubbornly endured, yet wounds continued to accumulate across his body. Skin melted, flesh tore away, blood streamed from his mouth. If they kept pressing, they would eventually bring him down. Even so, Varuna could not dispel the strange disquiet growing within her.
“……”
The sage entertained no idle thoughts. He simply focused, and focused again. The Mind’s Eye was the pinnacle of human achievement in the realm of nothingness, yet it was not absolute. Wide-area assaults—Vayu’s sweeping winds, Agni’s flames, Surya’s light—left no answer but to escape their range. Moreover, Indra’s Vajra moved with exquisite timing, making complete evasion difficult. For now, all he could manage was avoiding fatal wounds. As time dragged on, injuries mounted and the strain on his body intensified. This fatigue differed from the exhaustion of battling Mara’s countless slaves. No path to victory presented itself. Yet the sage did not care. Victory or defeat in battle held little interest for him. Even if he perished here, it would not matter.
—Thud.
At last, Agni’s axe severed the sage’s arm. The blow had exploited the instant his center of balance collapsed while blocking Surya’s light. The Vajra followed, piercing his abdomen, yet the sage never lost focus. In a state where he had forgotten even pain, he used his authority to replace the lost limb and fought on. Though unintentional, the process of discarding defilements and completing Paramita had greatly expanded his spiritual domain as well. That expansion elevated him to a higher existence during the extreme concentration that emptied even his mind—if only for a moment. Once more, he advanced a level.
The instant Indra’s sword aimed for his neck and descended, the sage caught the blade of lightning in his left hand.
“What!”
Indra recoiled in shock. The sight of his lightning blade being casually halted barehanded was enough to stagger him. Agni tried to strike the sage’s back with his flaming axe, but a brilliant light suddenly erupted from the sage’s body, hurling both Indra and Agni away.
“What?”
“That is……”
The Lokapala cried out in unison. In that moment, only Vayu gathered his power and stomped down upon the sage. A ferocious vortex erupted, sweeping the surroundings clean. Even Varuna’s water barrier vanished beneath the overwhelming force.
“……This is blocked?”
The sage had seized Vayu’s foot with his now-regenerated right arm.
—Crack.
When he clenched his hand, Vayu’s foot crumpled like dry twigs.
“Gwaaaaaah!”
The sage swung the screaming Vayu and slammed him into the ground. A crater formed as though a meteor had struck. With that single blow, the god of wind lost consciousness. Though Vayu had never possessed exceptional durability, being incapacitated in one strike was another matter entirely.
“Haah……”
The sage exhaled deeply. His vast divinity, no longer merely radiating outward, took on tangible form. Behind him floated a white halo with eight spokes.
“Could it be?!”
“……Divine Manifestation.”
A divine rank rivaling that of the destroyer god Shiva. The Lokapala’s bodies stiffened of their own accord. At that moment, starlight bloomed before the sage. He reached into it and drew forth a sword. The blade, somehow reminiscent of a rhinoceros horn, filled the Lokapala with even greater dread. Its presence reached even Surya in the distant heavens. Sensing instinctive peril, Surya unleashed a colossal pillar of light. The sage swung Paramita toward the descending beam. The pillar split. Not only that—the clouds themselves parted, and Surya beyond them was cleaved in half.
“Damn it!”
“Surya!”
Varuna rushed to catch the falling Surya, rejoining his severed body and breathing life back into it.
“Why isn’t it healing?”
Varuna bit her lip. The one saving grace was that, though the wound was fatal, it was not immediately lethal. Left alone, Surya might yet recover. Even Surya could not survive being bisected. Varuna realized a single truth: from the beginning, the sage had harbored no intent to kill Surya. Without the will to kill, even beheading would not bring death.
“What on earth is this……”
“Varuna! The fight is not over yet.”
At Indra’s shout, Varuna snapped back to the present. In that instant, the sage swung his sword, and a vast mountain range split apart, forming a canyon. Fortunately, no god had been incapacitated by the slash.
“It is not over. He is considerably exhausted. We still have a chance!!”
“……Understood.”
Varuna nodded. The three Lokapala once more raised their weapons to halt the sage. The sage regarded them with indifferent eyes and leveled his sword at them.