Several seconds after Facade’s warning, Kurukshetra seemed to forget the battle around it. The breach remained somewhere beyond the southern horizon, hidden beneath the colossal cloud of stone dust still climbing into the sky, yet tremors continued travelling beneath Herald’s sandals as though the destruction refused to stay distant.
An Asura screamed somewhere to his left, followed by the wet impact of steel entering flesh, and the battlefield lurched back into motion. Spears lowered, wounded soldiers stumbled toward the rear, and smoke drifted between formations already breaking apart beneath the renewed charge.
The fighting had resumed, but something inside it had shifted. The Knight lowered Pinaka and turned his crimson gaze away from the south until it settled on the people still standing before him.
Herald felt that attention before the Knight moved. A violent shudder ran through his veins, tightening every finger around the Yama Danda while the same instinct that had warned him earlier now screamed without subtlety.
The Knight started toward them, and the Asuras nearest his path moved aside without being commanded. Creatures that had thrown themselves against chariots and spear walls without hesitation lowered their bodies or twisted away from the black armour as though proximity alone demanded obedience.
Ludicrous stepped into the space they cleared and brought his hands together. "Stay back," he said, while the first currents of wind tugged sharply at his robes and lifted loose sand around his ankles.
An ancient mantra left his mouth faster than Herald had ever heard him chant, and Kurukshetra answered almost immediately. Sand ripped from the ground in spiralling sheets while shattered weapons, strips of armour and Asura corpses rolled into the rising currents.
The storm tightened around Ludicrous until Herald had to brace the Yama Danda against the sand to keep his balance. Grit struck his cheeks hard enough to sting, and the roar of the wind swallowed most of the screams still coming from the battlefield.
Ludicrous thrust both hands forward, collapsing the entire storm toward the Knight. Sand became a moving wall around the black armour while broken blades spun through the gale and nearby Asuras were torn from their feet.
For several breaths, the Knight disappeared inside it. Herald raised one arm against the blast and stared into the churning brown curtain, trying to catch even the outline of a body through the debris.
A dark shape emerged through the storm without slowing, and the Knight’s first step split the gale around him. Sand and broken metal peeled away from his armour while Ludicrous’s expression hardened and another mantra tore from his throat.
Veins rose along Ludicrous’s forearms as he forced more power into the attack. The wind screamed across Kurukshetra, accelerating shattered blades until their edges became silver streaks inside the storm.
The Knight took another step, and the gale ceased so completely that the sudden silence felt unnatural. One heartbeat the storm was tearing everything around it apart; the next, sand dropped straight from the air while broken weapons clattered harmlessly across the ground. Find the original chapter at g.com.
Ludicrous stared through the settling dust as the last loose folds of his robes fell against his legs. "What... are you?" he asked, his voice sounding strangely small now that the wind had abandoned him.
The Knight disappeared before any answer came, and Herald blinked against the grit trapped along his lashes. Ludicrous remained standing several paces away, apparently untouched, long enough for Herald to wonder whether the Knight had simply moved elsewhere.
Then Ludicrous’s head shifted sideways and slipped cleanly from his shoulders. Blood erupted upward in a hot arc, striking Herald across the cheek and lips with the metallic taste of iron.
Ludicrous’s body remained upright long enough to take one useless step before his knees sank into the crimson sand and the rest of him followed. His head landed several paces away without a scream, a final word, or enough time for surprise to settle properly across his face.
Moments earlier, he had been throwing Asuras across Kurukshetra and humiliating a Yuddharajya soldier as though the battlefield belonged to him. Now the wind around his body was gone, and sand had already begun gathering against one side of his motionless hand.
"LUDICROUS!" Madam Althea’s cry tore past Herald as she ran toward him, the spiders across her shoulders scattering before she reached the body. Silver strands poured after them, racing over blood-soaked sand toward Ludicrous’s severed neck and fallen head.
"Come on..." Althea breathed while the threads stretched farther and her fingers shook with the effort. When they still failed to close the distance, her voice sharpened into a command. "Come on!"
Something black crossed Herald’s vision before he could identify it, followed by Althea’s scream. Her right arm spun through the air and struck the sand several paces away, fingers still half-curled from reaching toward Ludicrous.
The silver strands attached to it collapsed across the ground. Althea remained upright for an instant, staring at the empty space beneath her shoulder before blood poured from the stump and drove her onto one knee.
Her spiders surged back toward her, disappearing beneath fabric and crowding around the wound while silver threads wrapped tightly over the torn flesh. Fresh blood cut through the smoke and burnt meat already coating Herald’s throat, warmer and sharper than the battlefield stench around it.
Peril stopped fighting when he saw her, and the stillness settling across his face frightened Herald more than shouting would have. He had seen Peril irritated, afraid and angry before, but nothing in those expressions resembled what remained now.
The Vel trembled in Peril’s hand as golden light crawled along the spearhead. Lightning wound down the shaft and across his forearms while the mark of Kartikeya burned against his skin, bright enough to cast pale reflections over the sand around him.
"Peril—" Herald tried to call him back, but thunder swallowed the name before it travelled far. The sand beneath Peril’s feet trembled while golden-white currents snapped around the Vel and nearby Asuras began backing away.
The Knight did not alter his pace. Peril lowered the spear, his face frighteningly still as the light surrounding the weapon intensified.
"VAJRA VEL!" he shouted, twisting his entire body into the throw. The spear vanished inside a burst of lightning, and the shockwave struck Herald a heartbeat later hard enough to nearly tear the Yama Danda from his hands. Read the latest chapters at NovelPing.
Sand exploded along the Vel’s path as it crossed Kurukshetra faster than Herald’s eyes could properly follow. For the first time since the Knight entered the battlefield, Herald expected him to defend himself.
The Knight merely raised one hand and closed his fingers around the Vel. The lightning died instantly, leaving only dark metal in his grasp while his arm remained exactly where it had been.
His boots had not shifted through the sand, and the force behind the spear had not driven him backward even a fraction. Peril stared at the impossible stillness, his throwing hand still hanging empty in front of him.
The Knight turned the Vel slightly and examined it for a moment. He then tossed it aside with one hand, sending the spear across Kurukshetra like a javelin.
The Vel tore through the remains of an ancient stone structure and vanished into the settling dust beyond it. Masonry burst outward from the impact while Peril remained where he had thrown the weapon, staring toward the ruin without a word.
Herald had never seen him at a loss for something to say. Even now, with battle still raging around them, Peril only stood there with his empty hand slowly lowering.
From his chariot, Erudite took in everything at once. Ludicrous’s headless body lay in the sand, Althea knelt beside him while spiders crowded around the stump of her arm, Peril stood without the Vel, and the Knight continued walking through every attack Vishishtarajya had thrown against him.
Something finally broke through Erudite’s composure, and a quiet "No..." escaped him as his hands tightened around the side of the chariot until the wood creaked beneath his fingers. His gaze moved from one position to another, searching the battlefield as though another formation might still exist if he looked long enough.
Herald had watched him calculate through chaos since they left Divyabhawan, shifting people before problems fully formed and issuing orders before anyone else understood why they were necessary. This time there was nothing left to calculate, because no formation had contained the Knight and no attack had slowed him.
Whatever answer Erudite reached settled visibly across his face. He lifted his head, drew enough air into his lungs to make the command carry, and turned toward every surviving Siddha who could still hear him.
"RETREAT! EVERYONE RETREAT! There is no victory here!" His voice tore across Kurukshetra, cutting through steel, screams and the uneven roar of the battle.
The surviving Siddhas turned toward him, startled less by the order than by what they heard inside it. Erudite had commanded through charging Asuras, shattered formations and friendly fire without hesitation, but none of them had heard fear in his voice before.
Now it was there, unmistakable beneath the urgency. The Knight kept walking while everyone who heard Erudite understood exactly why.