The Burden of Saving Tashī Dalāi – Ch. 1.0(1)


    .


    The Jade Chakra Dragon thundered first; her glimmering body rippled like liquid light, slicing through the skies as the avalanche roared and crashed below.


    I knew it. Maybe Master knew it too. That the world created above—all those fierce faces, the chakra lights—was nothing but the false veil of the Imposting Avatar of Yama, the Destroyer exercising his power.


    To counter that, the Enlightened Ones tried, fought, sent out their cosmic message—through the Jade Chakra Dragon’s Grimoire, through the Avatar of the Jade Chakra Dragon—so the truth could reach the Immortal Mountain Abodes, the Three Realms, and the humans, both immortal and mundane, now standing on the edge.


    Thud! The violet, barky-texted grimoire slipped from my hands and struck the deep snow.


    My heart jumped. The sound—too sharp, too heavy—echoed unnaturally, like something splitting apart.


    Drakos froze. His ears pinned back. A low growl rumbled in his throat.


    Drakos, my companion Sheppard since I was younger, the one I had rescued from the corpses site of a sky funeral slaughtering, where the dead were fed to the vultures, their bones left for the wind.


    I stiffened. My breath hitched, and a knot twisted deep in my stomach. This was my doing. I didn’t know how, but I knew it was.


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    What if the book was never meant to fall?


    What if I’d shattered something ancient, something sacred?


    The sound of my heartbeat thundered in my ears as the dragon’s gaze swept across the snowfield, vast and unyielding.


    What if everyone here—everyone there, even where you are—was caught under its shadow (or whatever it was) and destroyed?


    Could Master forgive me?


    Could the dragon? (The apparently angry Jade Chakra creature?)


    The snow crunched beneath my knees as I scrambled to retrieve the block-texted grimoire, my fingers trembling against the cold.


    Maybe if I put it back where it belonged, this would all stop.


    But the thud wasn’t just a thud. It stretched, deepened—a sound too big for the moment, like a bell tolling through the void.


    My stomach clenched, cold twisting inside me.


    On the cover, the title seemed to glare at me, pressing down heavy and disapproving:


    Grimoire of the Chronicle Stages of Dying and Living.


    Snowflakes scattered over it, their perfect white broken.


    Drakos barked, sharp, insistent. Circling the book like it was alive. Or worse—like it shouldn’t be here.


    A chill crawled up my spine, but it wasn’t from the cold.


    Master turned her head toward me, eyes settling on the fallen text.


    She said nothing. Maybe she didn’t know what to say. Maybe she should have done something—some chant, some mantra—but she didn’t. Then, suddenly, she frowned, closed her eyes, and began to chant. Low at first, steady, then rising, building, as if something else was chanting with her.


    I hadn’t learned this chant. Hadn’t even heard it before.


    But Master had. She had trained for this—trained through the long and merciless trials, the breaking and reshaping, the endless recitations to become a Mantra Guru for the dying.


    Who was I to judge? I hadn’t even set foot on the doorstep of learning the Energy Wand of Consciousness. And now, the destroyers were close. Too close.


    I wished the avalanche would freeze.


    Or just skip over us.


    And then—


    The sky split open.