Out of nowhere, the breath was ripped from everyone’s lungs as a brutal vacuum made their footing unsteady. Rudra was startled and knelt down immediately, covering the girl with his body and lodging the spear into the asphalt. The others stumbled to the ground and rolled a few steps back before clutching onto potholes and steadying themselves.
"What the hell?"
Rudra was bewildered. He pressed himself against the asphalt to resist the force, but his heart thundered when he realised the suction was increasing.
He didn’t know what was happening, but he was sure it had something to do with the fight between the giant congress plant and the red giant.
Rudra’s cheek was cut by a wooden shard, and blood didn’t even fall to the ground before it was sucked into the distance.
His companions’ painful howls reached his ears and looking at them, he noticed them being bombarded with the parts of cars, vehicles, and other debris, just like him.
The situation was dire, but maybe it was because he had gone through many life-and-death situations in the span of a few days, his mind remained sharp, and he looked around for a way out.
Rudra caught sight of a boulder not too far from them, and he noticed a phenomenon. The weeds right in front of the boulder were shaking violently, but they were not being uprooted.
Rudra’s mind spun, and he immediately understood. The high-pressure zone all around the boulder had created a low-pressure zone right before it.
It was their chance to survive.
"Crawl behind me, quick!" Rudra roared, only for his voice to be drowned out by the literal storm.
He couldn’t throw a rock or debris towards them either, as it would just be sucked by the wind.
Gritting his teeth and enduring the tyres and debris that started to fly towards him, he crawled forward.
"Gah."
Although he deflected most of the tyres, every time he couldn’t deflect one, it hit his back, and every impact shook his bones, causing him immense pain.
He persisted and finally appeared in Laila’s vision.
Laila caught sight of Rudra and saw him pointing in a direction.
She didn’t understand what he wanted to do, but knowing that he might have figured out the way to survive, like he always did, a wave of relief washed over her, and she started crawling in the direction Rudra pointed without hesitation.
Pranay and Prabhu were several feet in front of Laila, but thankfully, Pranay had turned his head towards the rear in order to avoid the sand and debris hitting his face.
He caught sight of a tyre and a seat hitting Laila’s back and shooting into the distance while she crawled to the right. He also noticed Rudra desperately waving at him and pointing in the direction.
Without thinking much and holding Ranga in one hand, Pranay crawled forward with all his might. Prabhu felt the pull from Pranay, and after noticing what was going on, he joined in and used one of his hands to crawl towards the end of the street.
Rudra heaved a sigh of relief and started crawling towards the boulder himself.
However, moments later, the force of the suction increased once again, and even the asphalt beneath them was beginning to peel away.
Rudra’s legs were pulled towards the suction, dragging his body along with them. He desperately grabbed onto a pothole in the asphalt road with all his might and kept moving inch by inch, as if he were hanging from the edge of a cliff.
His fingers dug into the rough asphalt until his hand bled, but Rudra gritted his teeth and refused to let go. Every muscle in his body strained against the relentless pull as he continued to crawl forward, determined to reach the others.
Moments later, he got out of the asphalt, and he no longer had to endure the debris from cars and trucks that flew his way. Unfortunately, as if he had jumped from one hell to another, it was now fast-moving sand that flew his way.
As if a million ants were biting at once, an excruciating pain shot through his spine, and he couldn’t help but roar in agony.
However, with his steely will and the support of the spear, he persisted and finally got in front of the boulder.
Rudra leaned back and panted heavily. There wasn’t a place on his face that wasn’t bleeding, and he looked like someone who had taken a bath in blood.
He looked at Laila and saw that she was pulling wooden shards from her face and body, while Pranay and Prabhu had just about made it. Glass pieces were lodged in Pranay, while Prabhu’s cheekbones were visible through the blood covering his face.
The most tragic was Ranga. His entire body had been turned into a porcupine, with glass and wooden shards piercing every part of his body.
Rudra felt conflicted as he realised that Ranga had been used as a shield, but being exhausted and feeling numb, he couldn’t muster the words to voice his dissatisfaction.
He used the last remaining energy he had to hold on to a nook between the boulder and stretch out his leg as a support.
Pranay looked like he had found a ray of hope and held on to the leg with all his might and pulled.
Rudra closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and screamed as he felt as though his leg had been tied to a tonne of weight, the immense force stretching his muscles to their limit until his muscles began to snap.
"Ahh."
His voice had already turned hoarse, and his entire body spasmed in pain, with his irises rolling back and only the white appearing.
Every second of such pain felt like an eternity, and Rudra felt it was just better to die.
Thankfully, Pranay and Prabhu were quite desperate as well. They poured every ounce of their strength into pulling themselves in front of the boulder, and they got into the low-pressure area in just a few seconds.
Rudra’s spasms didn’t stop until he could no longer feel his leg. Yet all he felt was relief. Numbness had taken over his body, and he no longer felt any pain.
Rudra knew this was not a good sign, but he never wanted to feel such pain again, a pain so intense that he wished for death instead.
Rudra finally gazed towards the distance with lingering fear.
Already around three kilometres from the town, Rudra could still feel the terrifying aftereffects of the battle. The sheer intensity of it was difficult to comprehend. If the shockwaves and winds were this violent from such a distance, he couldn’t even begin to imagine what the battlefield must be like.
Despite the massive stature of the giant plant, the curvature of the Earth hid most of its enormous form from view. Only its lone trunk remained visible, rising into the distance as it was engulfed by a colossal vortex of dark, swirling winds. It resembled a gigantic whirlpool stretching into the sky, as if the very mouth of the abyss had opened above the earth.
He felt the battle reaching its breaking point, and intuition proved him right.
As if the red giant were burning its very existence, the crimson flames engulfing its body grew increasingly intense. The flames slowly changed colour, shifting from crimson to purple, and then finally to pure white.
Despite the intensity of the wind surrounding it, it was as if the very wind itself disintegrated into nothingness. Surprisingly, the vines that had fallen to the ground began to burn as well, joining the blazing flames. Even the vine that had fallen farthest away, the very same vine that Rudra and his group had crossed, caught fire. It was reduced to white embers and flew into the body of the giant white flame, making it grow larger.
Rudra didn’t know any of this, but he could feel something was wrong when the clouds right above the town parted, and he saw a layer of steam actually rise from beneath the horizon.
Rudra looked at everything with a sombre gaze, but he was startled by a shout from Pranay.
He was astonished to see Pranay and Prabhu rubbing their hands on the ground, trying to put out the flame while Ranga had been completely engulfed in flames.
Before Rudra could understand what was happening, a scream escaped Ranga’s throat as he disintegrated into white flames and flew into the distance.
Rudra’s outstretched hand froze. His eyes widened as the last moment of struggle on Ranga’s face, where his eyes held intelligence and fleeting despair, was etched into his mind.
Another companion gone. Gone while Rudra lay helpless.
Hatred for whoever had brought the rain, disgust for his own weakness, the weight of Ranga’s loss, and so many other emotions threatened to tear his sanity apart.
He felt like he was about to go crazy. Yet the screams of Ranga and Pranay brought him back to his senses.
Without a second thought, he used his bloody hands to crawl over to them. Without hesitation, he pulled the bone knife from his waist and brutally skinned the parts where the crimson flames were spreading.
Prabhu and Pranay screamed in pain, but relief appeared in Rudra’s eyes as the flames were finally put out.
All of a sudden, the suction force disappeared, and a dazzling light appeared in the distance.
A bad feeling arose in Rudra’s heart, and an image of water receding before a tsunami appeared in his mind. In a desperate struggle to survive, he looked at his companions and frantically motioned. "Get behind the boulder."
Pranay, Prabhu, and Laila woke up from the horrific spectacle and stumbled to their feet.
Rudra still couldn’t feel his left leg, so he stretched out his hand and held tightly to the little girl.
"Pull me," he roared.
Prabhu and Pranay held his hand and dragged him to the other side of the boulder.
The bright light in the town disappeared, and as if a nuclear bomb had erupted, all the debris that had been attracted by the spinning vortex around the trunk of the giant Congress plant came spewing out in a molten state with devastating force.
Rudra’s eyes widened as he watched massive chunks of debris tear through the sky like meteors before crashing into the distance, erupting into rivers of lava and scorching heat waves that spread in every direction.
He looked to the side, and the asphalt road was completely obliterated. The violent winds tore through it, ripping apart the surface and carving it into a massive canyon.
He felt violent vibrations against his back as the boulder was repeatedly struck by the incoming debris. Even the large trees and thick weeds were being ripped apart and obliterated before his very eyes.
The sheer force of the eruption made the entire world seem to tremble. Rudra and the others struggled to breathe, desperately gasping for air as the scorching winds and debris swept past them.
Thankfully, the explosion was brief, and although the air they breathed was hot and fuming, they could survive.
Silence took over, and after everything they had experienced, the silence felt eerie and unbearable, causing Rudra and everyone else to feel terror instead of relief. However, after staring blankly for several minutes, nothing was happening. Rudra summoned the courage to use the boulder for support and slowly got up.
"Hopefully, both the monsters are dead." He muttered, and hearing his words, a light of hope appeared in everyone’s eyes.