The bluish light beneath Erudite’s palms kept spreading through the blood-darkened sand, carving thin lines outward from where he knelt. Circles formed inside circles while smaller angles connected between them, and Sanskrit characters appeared along the edges one after another as the pattern widened across Kurukshetra.
Erudite pressed harder against the ground as the diagram struggled to complete itself. His shoulders trembled, and his fingers dug into the sand while he muttered, "Come on..." through clenched teeth.
An Asura rushed toward him before the next circle could close, forcing Peril into its path with nothing in his hands. He extended one arm toward the ruined structure where the Knight had thrown the Vel and opened his fingers.
For a heartbeat, nothing answered him. Then something crimson tore through the dust, scattering loose stone as the Vel ripped itself free from the shattered ruin and crossed Kurukshetra in a blur.
Peril caught the shaft and turned with its momentum, driving the returning spear straight through the Asura’s chest. "Do whatever you’re doing!" he shouted without looking back at Erudite, wrenching the Vel free as another creature closed in.
Herald barely had time to raise the Yama Danda before a fused blade struck the ebony shaft with a metallic crack. The impact numbed his palms and drove one sandal backward through loose sand, but he twisted the staff aside and forced the weapon off line while the bluish pattern continued growing beneath them.
More Sanskrit characters ignited as another circle connected. Nearby, Lanthea let her bow fall and her body began changing before Herald understood what she intended.
Her legs bent as bone and muscle shifted beneath her clothes, dark fur spreading upward while her lower body lengthened into the powerful frame of a deer. Her upper half remained human, but small antler-like horns pushed through her hair as fresh green leaves unfurled around them and along her shoulders.
The bridge of Lanthea’s nose darkened into the soft black shape of a deer’s as a wounded soldier stumbled near her. She caught him before he hit the ground, shifted his weight against her side and broke into a run.
Her hooves struck the sand in rapid beats while she moved through the retreat faster than Herald had ever seen her move. She passed another wounded Siddha, hooked one arm beneath him without stopping, and carried both men away from the Asuras.
The leaves around her antlers shivered as faint green light spread across the injured soldiers. Herald had no idea what it did, but both men remained conscious and moving, and that was enough for him to turn his attention back toward Erudite.
The Knight watched without attempting to stop her, his crimson gaze following the survivors with the same measured calm he had shown since the retreat began. Herald could not tell whether that stillness came from arrogance, certainty or something else, and he had no time to guess.
The final line of the diagram reached its place. Erudite lowered his head, arms shaking as he pressed both palms harder against Kurukshetra and breathed, "Vinayaka..."
The completed pattern flashed beneath him, and when Erudite opened his eyes, his voice came out stronger. "No Obstacles."
Bluish light shifted into gold as ancient Sanskrit mantras burst from the diagram and raced outward through the battlefield. They spread beneath every surviving member of Vishishtarajya and the stranded soldiers fleeing beside them, moving like rivers of light beneath the sand.
The mantras reached Herald and passed beneath his sandals before climbing around his ankles like reflected fire. He could still feel grit beneath his feet and smell blood, smoke and dry dust in the air, yet the world around him began to loosen.
Nearby Asuras blurred at the edges while broken pillars seemed to stretch strangely when Herald looked past them. Even the screams of Kurukshetra sounded farther away, as though distance had changed without the battlefield itself moving. This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
Herald looked down at his hand and found it difficult to keep in focus. His fingers were still there, yet his eyes seemed to lose their exact position for a heartbeat before finding them again.
The same distortion wrapped around Peril, Culpa, Althea, Facade, Lanthea and every survivor touched by the golden mantras. An Asura charged directly toward them, lifted its fused weapon, then stopped only a few paces away and turned its head from side to side.
Its gaze passed over Herald twice without finding him. Erudite finally lifted his hands from the diagram and shouted, "Don’t stop! Take the wounded and move!"
Nobody hesitated after that. Culpa tightened her hold around Althea, Facade forced himself forward with his wings still folded against his back, and Lanthea bounded ahead with the injured soldiers she had gathered while Peril ran beside Herald with the Vel returned to his hand.
The golden mantras travelled with them. Herald took one step and nearly lost his balance when a stretch of ground that should have taken several strides disappeared beneath him.
A broken chariot that had been directly ahead of him was suddenly far behind after the next step. It did not feel like running faster; distance itself seemed to fold beneath their feet while the golden distortion kept the Asuras from fixing their senses on them.
The creatures wandered through Kurukshetra searching for prey they could no longer see. Shattered stone, bodies and fractures in the earth slipped past beneath the haze, and with every step the battlefield fell farther behind.
For the first time since Erudite had ordered the retreat, escape felt possible. Herald looked back and saw the Asuras searching blindly through the distortion, but the Knight’s crimson eyes remained fixed on him without difficulty.
The Knight continued at the same measured pace, untouched by whatever confused the creatures around him. Herald slowed without meaning to until Peril caught him by the arm and dragged him into the next folded stretch of ground.
"Herald!" Peril snapped, tightening his grip until Herald stumbled forward. Herald forced his feet to keep moving and answered, "I’m moving."
"Then stop looking at him." Peril released his arm, but Herald’s attention still returned to Pinaka.
The name would not leave him. Nothing in the memories he still possessed explained why one look at the bow had placed the word inside his head with such certainty, and he had not remembered anyone ever teaching it to him.
It remained lodged in his thoughts as the distance between them widened. The Knight stopped behind them, and even through the distortion Herald felt those crimson eyes settle on him.
When Herald glanced back again, the Knight had tilted his head slightly. A faint smile touched the mouth beneath the helm as he said, "...So."
Herald’s pace faltered enough for Peril to look back. "What?" Peril asked, but Herald shook his head and answered, "Nothing," while forcing himself onward.
The Knight remained where he was as the golden mantras carried them farther away. "Run," he said, his voice following Herald despite the growing distance. "I enjoy hope."
Herald did not understand what he meant, but the calm amusement behind the words made his legs move faster. Kurukshetra stretched behind the Knight in broken weapons, scattered bodies and wandering Asuras, while somewhere beyond the southern horizon the Divine Wall carried the wound Pinaka had opened with a single arrow. Find the original chapter at novelping.com.
The Knight made no attempt to follow. He lowered the bow at his side and said, "May your gods bless you... humans," while the golden haze thickened until Kurukshetra disappeared completely.
The screams faded first, then the clash of weapons, and finally the distant roar of the battlefield itself. When solid ground returned beneath Herald’s feet, his next step nearly sent him onto his knees because ordinary distance had returned without warning.
Survivors emerged around him as Vinayaka released them. Some collapsed immediately, while others stood in silence and stared at the unfamiliar faces that had escaped alongside them.
The wounded Yuddharajya soldier dropped to his knees with one hand still pressed against his stomach. Nearby, one of the Siddhas abandoned by another kingdom lowered an unconscious companion onto the ground and looked back toward Kurukshetra, though nothing of the battlefield remained visible.
Nobody celebrated, and Peril stood nearby with the Vel in his hand without offering one of his usual remarks. Lanthea slowed several paces away as her transformed body began returning to normal, the deer-like legs shortening while dark fur disappeared and the small horns retreated into her hair.
The green leaves withered soon after and drifted onto the sand one by one. Facade sat nearby in silence, staring at the wings that had failed him in Kurukshetra as though he still could not understand what had forced them down.
Culpa eased Althea onto the ground while her spiders crowded around the missing arm again, silver threads disappearing beneath blood-soaked fabric. Althea leaned back and kept her breathing measured, her face drained beneath the dust and sweat.
Then Erudite’s knee buckled, and Culpa caught his arm before he could fall. "Easy," she said, bracing him while he caught the side of his chariot with his free hand.
One of the horses trembled beside him, foam hanging around its mouth after the desperate ride. Erudite looked little better, sweat darkening the collar of his robes despite the cold settling over the desert while the fingers gripping the chariot shook badly enough for his rings to click softly against the wood.
"I’m fine," he said, but Culpa only looked at the shaking hand and kept hold of him until his legs steadied. When Erudite finally raised his head, his gaze moved across what remained of Vishishtarajya, and far fewer people stood before him than had marched out under his command.
Herald lowered his eyes to the blood dried across his hands. Some of it wasn’t his, and he no longer knew whose had reached him first during the battle.
The voices that had filled his head throughout Kurukshetra were gone now, leaving behind one thought he could not shake. He searched the broken pieces of his memory again: the desert where he had awakened, Fancy, Croaker’s hut, Erudite, and fragments of dreams that disappeared whenever he tried to hold onto them.
He reached farther into the emptiness where the rest of his life should have been. Nothing surfaced, yet the name remained with the same impossible certainty it had carried from the moment he saw the bow.
Pinaka.