Swadhisthana chakra has a special importance to warriors. Apart from being so useful in essence cultivation, Swadhisthana houses the prana of water element which strongly resonates with a warrior's body which itself contains water in abundance.
It is this relationship between Swadhisthana and a warrior's body that enables warriors to use its prana to augment their body. If used to augment his eyes, a warrior's vision rivals that of an eagle. If used on his auditory sense, he could easily listen to things being spoken at a great distance.
What would then happen, if one were to augment his sense of smell using Swadhisthana? The answer to this question was the reason why Sesha was running towards a forsaken warehouse with a red scarf clutched in his hands.
As to how the red scarf came to be in Sesha's possession, it belonged to Ananya and had given to Sesha by an sceptic Vaishali who, if not for the circumstances being dire, would have definitely attacked Sesha with much more than words before allowing him to make himself scarce.
What a fearsome girl.
Sesha still remembered the exchange that had taken place between himself and Vaishali before he had left the partially damaged Scented Rose.
Sesha: Could you give me something that is laced with Ananya's scent? Preferably her inner clothing??
Vaishali: You want her undergarments??
Sesha: Yes.
Vaishali: (anger creeping into her face) Why??
Sesha: I need something that has her scent in abundance..
Vaishali: You want to sniff her undergarments??
Sesha: Yes.
Vaishali: (with a furious expression) WHY???
Sesha: (cowering a little before her gaze) Umm.. her scent... to.. find.. her..
Vaishali: (almost punching him) YOU REALLY WANT HER UNDERGARMENTS???
Sesha: ... ye... no, No.. actually, anything with her scent would do..
For the life of him Sesha hadn't been able to figure out why Vaishali had looked at him with such disgust for merely asking an undergarment. Sesha's reason was, after all, sound. Undergarments did indeed contain the richest smell of a human body making it easier to track a person. Vaishali's reaction had been quite mean towards him. Though, in her defense, had it been some other time, the playful Vaishali would would really have sneaked one or two the forbidden clothing of her sister Ananya for pure mischief. But her mistress was gravely injured and she was in no mood for jokes.
Speaking of her mistress...
Really, that woman is quite tenacious.. and she's not even a warrior !
Sesha had already been at a hand's distance away from the Scented Rose's mistress and in no way could a warrior of Air realm or less have escaped his eyes at that distance. As such, Sesha had concluded with confidence that either she was not a warrior or she was at the fifth realm, Void realm, or greater and was deliberately hiding her aura or using a powerful seal of suppression. Somehow, Sesha was convinced that it was the first case.
However, precisely due to that reason, he couldn't help but be appalled at her vitality.
Perhaps she took some herbs?
Yes, that had to be the case! How else could she not die despite of such severe internal injuries? That sort of regenerative power only came if one used the essence of Swadhisthana to heal his damage. She, however, was not a warrior and consequently could not use the prana from Swadhisthana Chakra let alone its essence.
But still, it would take her a week.. no, two weeks to recover.. I wonder if I the right thing..
Immersed in his thoughts, Sesha was making a beeline towards the warehouse at a speed which could easily shame even the fastest of the horses. Suddenly, he felt something.
Five people. One here, four ahead..
Sesha calculated at once. Right now, his senses could be said to be inhuman and nothing could escape him, let alone a bunch who couldn't even properly hide their presence. However, despite of sensing them so early, Sesha did not stop. Nor did he evade their path. He just continued on forward as if nothing was amiss.
"HALT !!"
A man suddenly stopped Sesha. This man was carrying a long spear on his hand and by his ruthless face, one could feel that this man had killed quite a lot.
Sesha was yet to reach the warehouse. In fact, he was quite a distance away from it. Why then was this man stopping his path?
The reason was because the Baron, being an extremely prudent person, had stationed many of his men at some distance to the warehouse. They were there to signal the Baron if any anomaly occurred; like an uninvited carriage or a platoon of soldiers. Sesha, however, was neither of them. He was just a...
"Child," the guard said, "do not move forward. Turn around and return at once."
The fact that this man had even bothered to warn this child could be said to be an extraordinary occurrence already. Had it not been a single child, the guard would have immediately notified the Baron and his men instead of confronting him like this. Sesha's appearance of a pubescent child had thoroughly fooled him into overlooking his duties.
"No. I am in search for a friend who is being kept at that building. I won't return." Sesha stated in a matter of fact tone, looking towards the warehouse.
Whom did the warehouse belong to? Of course the guard knew that. Not only that, he also knew what the owner of the building was currently doing in there. To offer a chance to the kid before him already exceeded the extent of mercy that he was willing to show.
Without any further warning whatsoever, the guard thrust his spear at Sesha with the intent of piercing his heart.
Naturally, the spear did not connect. Rather, it hit the empty air. Surprised at the evasion of his strike, the guard attempted to regain his footing and strike at him once again but before the guard could even recover, his chest exploded and blood rained in all direction.
The guard couldn't even feel it but after swiftly evading the spear, Sesha had taken a step forward, and punched the guard on his chest. This exchange had not even lasted for a heartbeat.
"Chhe!" Sesha made a displeased expression at the body lying on the ground before continuing forward.
Why did Sesha have this displeased look about his face? It was not because he had killed the man. It was because he had not wanted to kill the man.
Spending his life in the forest, Sesha didn't have much combat experience. More appropriately, he did not have combat experience against a human. He had indeed fought with many beasts in the forest as per his master's order, to hone his fighting ability but every single one of those beasts had been vicious and ruthless, not to mention ridiculously strong.
But humans? Sesha had known only recently that humans were quite weak. To the point that even if he were to limit his strength to his absolute minimum, he would still end up killing them. For comparison, the punch that Sesha had just landed on the guard would at most ruffle some furs of an Iron Ape, a relatively weak beast of the forest. Not burst open his chest like that !!!
A yogi must have a complete control of his strength. One who can not contain his power is no better than a beast, was his master's teaching. Naturally, Sesha would never do anything that would go against his master's words. Thus, he wanted to have an absolute control over his powers, which is to say, his opponent must die if he willed it and not if he did not will it. But much to Sesha's displeasure, the latter was had not been the case.
Reminding himself to limit his power even further, he continued forward. By now, he had already wrapped the scarf around his face. His master did not want Sesha to show his full strength before others until he was strong enough. Although Sesha was far from using the full extent of his powers, he still felt that he should be more prudent by not revealing himself.
Before he could even reach the warehouse, Sesha felt a strong fire aura emanating from its direction, as if someone was battling inside there. Weak though it was, Sesha also felt a small water aura.
Fight between warriors of Water and Fire realm? Sesha thought to himself.
But before he could confirm it, four soldiers instantly surrounded him.
This time, none of them spoke any word at all. They just charged at the masked intruder with killing intent.
Swords and spears rained on Sesha but he nimbly dodged every single one of them. However, dodging was not the only thing that he did.
*BANG*
Chest did not explode and blood did not rain but a man died still. Although Sesha had visibly reduced his power even further, the body of the soldier that he punched still dropped at the ground lifelessly.
Sesha was not here to kill anyone. He simply wanted to rescue Ananya. Killing a person without him wanting to kill was not pleasing Sesha in the least. With an annoyed expression, he continued.
Three guards were still remaining and they were charging at him despite of witnessing their comrade's death.
*HIYAAA*
One of the guard raised his sword high above his head and swung it down to Sesha's head with the intent to smash it open. Sesha nimbly sidestepped and punched him lightly on his rib.
*WHAM*
He dropped on the ground with eyes devoid of life.
Why are they dying!!! Sesha shouted inwardly
From among the two remaining soldiers, one sneaked up behind Sesha and thrust his sword towards his unguarded back. Unfortunately for the one who did the thrusting, it was not fast enough.
Sesha took a turn, his back grazing the side of the sword and carefully elbowed the side of the soldier's face.
*SMASH*
The soldier's head rotated to an unnatural degree as life escaped him.
"What the ...!!" Sesha almost shouted something that would have undoubtedly earned him a disapproving gaze from his master. Understandably, his inability of not killing his opponent was beginning to annoy him extremely.
In this frustration, he lashed out at the remaining soldier but midway he realised that he had applied too much power to his blow.
Realizing his mistake, he hastily stopped his fist before it landed on the now stunned soldier. It was by a hair's width that Sesha's punch had failed to connect to its target.
Just as Sesha was about to breathe a sigh of relief,
*BANG*
A loud sound burst from his fist blowing the guard a great distance !!
"WHAT IN THE NAME OF.. !!" Sesha now clearly shouted at this blown enemy. Even after stopping his fist at the last moment, the man still ended up.. dead?
Sesha moved towards the guard who had flown from Sesha's unintended blow and inspected him.
Alive??
Sesha was stunned at first. He had stopped his fist in time but somehow Sesha had ended up punching so fast that the air itself had exploded before his fist, blowing the guard back!
But now when he inspected the last man, he found that the man was still alive.. although not entirely unscathed. He would still die after a while but at least it won't be an immediate death like his other soldiers. Sesha was clearly showing progress.. probably.
"Phew!" he finally breathed a breath of victory. Finally, he had managed to not kill a human at once!! The method itself had been an accident but now that Sesha thought about it, he felt that it was quite interesting.
Just when he was trying to memorize the details of that last punch, a huge fiery aura bursted out from inside the warehouse..
"Essence of Manipura!!" Sesha exclaimed!!
* * *
"Inferno!"
Was the first thing that Sesha thought after he had kicked open the nearly burnt door of the warehouse. And the one who was in the center in this inferno was a half burned man who almost looked like he was laughing despite of hardly having a face on his head.
It was only a split second after that Sesha noticed three people cowering inside an Orange aura. He understood the entire situation in a flash. A hundred different methods instantly surged inside his head to suppress this raging fire but he picked up the fastest among them.
Sesha's dark eyes instantly became red like the color of blood as a great feeling of power came inside him. With the activation of these eyes, Sesha felt like a mighty god looking at lesser beings scuttling about. It was as if he knew that each and every single one of them would bow before him if he so much as wished it. As if the earth itself was quivering before his gaze like a timid maiden, fearful of a new master.
Sesha gazed at the burning man with his now blood red eyes. A powerful feeling surged into his eyes and he willed this power towards the man.
It was nary an instant before Sesha's eyes activated but the burning man stopped in his tracks. He had been completely suppressed by Sesha.
What a fearsome power!! Sesha mused to himself.
He did not use these eyes too much due to his master's explicit orders of restrain. In fact, this was the third time that Sesha had used these eyes in his entire life. But whenever he did use it, he would end up remembering why exactly the gods had banished the basilisks to the Dark Forest. So fearsome was this technique that perhaps even they themselves had feared it !!
Sparing a glance at the now stunned man, Sesha wondered whether he overdid it before dropping the thought entirely out of his mind.
The raging inferno inside the room too instantly vanished along with the man's consciousness. With the sound of the blazing fire now gone, the room became eerily calm.
"I.. I'm alive?" said the man who had been at the source of the protective aura of the Swadhisthana.
After intently gazing at the present condition of the room, the man stood up and asked Sesha,
"Who.. are you?"
Isn't this Asru?
Sesha instantly recognized the rogue warrior who had been one of the notable warriors of the otherwise boring tournament.
Right now, this rogue warrior had sustained burns and wounds all over his body due to him taking the most of the outburst from Manipura.
Even though Sesha wasn't exactly *using* his eyes, they were still the color of blood from before which was why the rogue warrior was trembling quite a lot before him.
Sesha remembered that Asru had asked him his identity. Of course, he couldn't reveal it.
I wonder if I should give a false name. Sesha thought to himself.
For a couple of seconds, Sesha tried coming up with a false name but none were to his liking.. When he finally decided to give up on conjuring a cool name, Sesha noticed that Asru was still waiting for his reply. This made Sesha quite awkward and to hide it, he decided to ignore the rogue warrior. Without answering his question, Sesha went towards the two girls at the back.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Sesha bent down to take a look at them. He recognized Ananya right away but it was a while before he noticed a small girl who was being clutched protectively inside Ananya's tight embrace.
Rosey!! What is she doing here!! Sesha was alarmed to discover this small child here.
Not only that, her face was showing unmistakable signs of injuries indicating that someone had hit her rather ruthlessly. This, for some reason, made him furious.
"They are unconscious due to the heat, I shielded them as much as I could. Hopefully their body isn't damaged much."
Asru's words snapped Sesha out of the fury that was starting to take root inside him. From the start, he was quite thankful to Asru for protecting Ananya.. but now that Sesha saw that Rosey too was protected by him, he couldn't help but offer a heartfelt gratitude.
"Thanks for protecting them."
"Huh? *ahem*.. I mean.. don't mention it." Asru replied.
Sesha inspected both Ananya and Rosey closely. Rosey, except for the injuries on her face, was unharmed save for one or two small burns on her body. Ananya had shielded her from the greater part of the fire. But precisely due to that, Ananya's back had burnt quite badly. It was evident to him that if not treated, her wounds could really be fatal. In fact, even if they were treated, it would undoubtedly require two or three painful months before it could heal completely.
Ananya had only suffered this much damage because she had placed herself in front of the child. If not for her protection, Rosey, small that she was, would have definitely lost her life. This stirred something inside Sesha's heart and he, deciding on something, lightly touched Ananya's exposed back with his finger.
Ananya was unconscious so she could not feel it but had she been awake, she would have undoubtedly enjoyed the cool and gentle wave of energy rapidly surging inside her body through her back, healing her back first and then her entire body. The wounds that should have taken Ananya many weeks to completely heal were now rapidly fading to the point that not even scars remained where there had been severe burns.
Sesha had, somehow, healed Ananya with a mere touch of his hands. What was even more amazing was the speed of the process. Not even Asru, who was standing not a great distance from both of them, could notice the healing process. But in his defense, he hadn't really been paying attention to Sesha and the girls. Instead, his gaze was checking the now fallen warrior Mrita.
"Have you killed him?", Asru finally broke the calm of the room.
"No," Sesha replied, "but he can do no harm right now."
"Ahh.. I must thank you then. There are some things that I needed to ask of him. Can you bring him back.. from.. ugh.. you know.."
Stupor? Sesha completed Asru's question in his mind.
"He will wake up after a while. Although, I don't know if he would be able to answer your questions." He replied honestly.
In the first place, the man had been burnt so badly that his being alive was a miracle in itself. That, coupled with the fact that Sesha had just used his *eyes* on him meant that it would be at least some weeks before the man would be able say anything at all.
Sesha looked at the two girls some more and then turned back towards Asru.
As he looked the twenty five-ish year old warrior Asru, Sesha noticed a peculiar thing about him which had somehow escaped his notice earlier. With the *eyes* that Sesha possessed, he noticed that the warrior Asru's face had interesting traces of prana from the second chakra Swadhisthana.
Sesha unwittingly blurted,
"Interesting.."
"umm.. what.." Asru asked in a small voice and withdrew his gaze.
Why is he so timid?
The warrior who Sesha had witnessed at the tournament a day earlier had been swift. He had used great precision to incapacitate his opponent with the smallest amount of prana. If not for this encounter, Sesha would never have believed that this warrior was, in fact, so timid. Amusingly, Sesha had forgot that his eyes were still *red*, a small side effect of him using the art of Ajna a while earlier.
Sesha decided to feign ignore Asru's unsettled appearance which could be said as him being considerate.
"Take these girls back to their places. And apply these herbs to your wounds, they'll help with the burns." Sesha tossed a few herbs at him which he knew were effective for the burns.
Asru fumbled with the catch and dropped the herbs but then immediately picked them up from the grounds and offered him his thanks.
"I shall take my leave then. If we meet again in future, then I--" would definitely remember you, was what Sesha would have said if he was not interrupted by a loud booming voice.
"YOOOOOOOUUURRRRR HIIIIGHHHHNESSSS!!!"
"Oh shit!" Asru said as the ceiling came crashing down from above along with a man.
"WHO DARE HURT YOU!!!" A furious looking man, whom Sesha instantly recognized as the one named Krishna, the Royal retainer of prince Kartik was now standing before the both of them.
All of a sudden, a fierce fire aura exploded from Krishna which instantly covered the entirety of the room while leaving only Asru out of it. If it had been some other time, Sesha would have been quite amused with the control that this furious Krishna was showing with his aura but right now, he did not have the luxury.
Sesha instantly jumped between the girls and Krishna spreading out his water realm. Krishna's aura was even more potent than Mrita's and had Sesha not protected the girls, they would have definitely suffered a much more vicious burn this time.
Krishna, looking at his prince's disguised body which had a lot of wounds and burns and the third warrior standing before him, easily concluded what had transpired here. Unfortunately, he was wrong, so very wrong!
* * *
Krishna always worried about Kartik. First, there was the fact that his prince had a strange habit of infiltrating dangerous establishments and apprehending criminals but what was even more troubling than that was Kartik's absolute order to never accompany him during his dangerous adventures.
At first, Krishna had demanded that the prince stop such foolhardy missions and leave this work to the royal army or even to Krishna himself but Kartik hadn't budged. Although Krishna found it extremely frustrating at times, Kartik was still his prince and he had to obey his prince's orders, thus, he begrudgingly restrained himself from accompanying him.
This would have made Krishna exasperated had he not found a loophole in his prince's absolute words. Kartik had explicitly ordered him to not accompany him, but he had said nothing about not protecting him or rescuing him in dangerous circumstances.
Therefore, Krishna always used to keep an eye out for his prince from a safe distance. Whenever his prince would get himself in danger, he would appear to rescue him in time.. or at least that's what he had initially thought. Over all the years that Krishna kept a close eye on his prince, much to Krishna's amazement, Kartik had never gotten himself into trouble. Not even once!!
It was only then that Krishna had realized just how formidable his prince was. He was calm, collected, prudent and always kept his wits about him even in the direst of circumstances. So impressed was he by his prince that Krishna had ended up teaching the most secret art of disguise of his clan to his prince; an act which he would have never done for any other outsider.
Over the years, Krishna had grown less vigilant, partly due to his prince's prowess. Even today, when his prince ventured out towards the slums, Krishna had not felt the need to keep an eye out for him. After all, it was just a bunch of lowly nobles who couldn't possibly hire a warrior. Besides, even if they had indeed hired some warriors, his prince himself was quite strong. He even had a "Yantra" on him which contained the *Wind Step* art of the Air realm (fourth realm). To Krishna, it was plain that he was unneeded.
This was precisely why when his bracelet had flashed in agitation, Krishna had practically thrown aside the young girl who he was enjoying a moment earlier, and had hastily bolted out the door, not even dressing himself properly.
He had leapt from roof to roof in such fearsome speed that many of them had caved from being unable to support his leap. The time between him finding out that his prince was in trouble and him reaching the warehouse was no more than five or six minutes. But to Krishna, it felt as if a lifetime had already passed. His prince Kartik was his younger brother, his pupil, his lord, and his friend. What would he do if it turned out that his prince had died due to his carelessness?? How would he face his clan, his emperor.. Worse, how would he face himself?? Riddled with all sorts of fearful thoughts, Krishna had arrived at the warehouse. To even spare a single moment was a folly to him, thus, instead of stopping to enter through the door of the warehouse, he directly charged into its ceiling, completely destroying it in process.
* * *
His fury knew no bounds when he witnessed his prince's body. There were burns, cuts and bruises all over him!! His clothes had already melted and his face was deathly pale.
"WHO DARE HURT YOU!!!" He bellowed, his fire aura bursting out in all its might.
The movement caught his eyes. It was a man, that much was clear but his facial features were hidden behind a red cloth. He looked quite tall and had a toned body but what was most noticeable about him were without a doubt his two eyes. They were red; the color of blood.
The man had imposed himself in front of Krishna, wearing his water aura around him. His red eyes, which were already quite frightening, had anger written all over it. This man was undoubtedly a warrior and, Krishna could tell it from the thickness of his aura, a strong one at that.
At this point, Krishna was too furious to even bother to notice why the man in front of him was so enraged at him. Let alone that, he didn't even notice that the man was, in fact, shielding two girls behind his back or that there was another burnt person beside him. All Krishna knew at this moment was that the man in front of him was dangerous and judging by the frightened look on his prince's face, the one who had caused his wounds.
Reason left him as he viciously charged at this masked intruder.
"YOU DARE MOTHER FUCKER!! HAAAAAAAA"
Armored in the yellow of Manipura, he ran towards the masked boy with a burning sword on his hand.
* * *
The reason why Sesha was angry at this mysterious half naked intruder was his blatant intention to harm Ananya and Rosey. Although it looked as if he was an acquaintance of the warrior Asru, who had went out of his way to protect the girls, Sesha was dangerously close at lashing out at him.
However, all of his restrain was for naught because the warrior Krishna himself charged at him.
"HAAAAAA"
In one of his hands was a sword. Moreover, it was on fire!!
Endowment??
Endowment was, just as its name implied, an art of pouring one's inner prana into a weapon, thereby endowing it with the elemental properties of prana. This half-naked warrior that was charging at him had clearly endowed his sword with prana from his Manipura, endowing it a fire attribute thereby setting it ablaze.
Endowment was something that required a great skill to perform. After all, to manifest prana outside one's body in such a controlled form was not really easy. Only the warriors with formidable control over their prana could perform endowments. Sesha was forced to acknowledge that the one he was dealing with wasn't of ordinary calibre.
In but a moment, Krishna arrived before him and fiercely slashed his sword towards him. Sesha's nose felt the fire from the sword as he dodged at the last second.
Seeing as his first attack had missed, Krishna became more furious. With the fire of his sword increasing, he thrust it to Sesha's abdomen. Sesha graciously dodged that one too but fire from the sword ended up grazing his clothes a little, burning it in process.
Truth be told, Sesha's actual speed even surpassed that of Krishna so it should have been quite easy for him to dodge his strikes. Why then was he limiting himself and only dodging the burning sword at the last possible moment? The answer to that question were the girls behind him. Krishna was in his full fury as was reflected in the heat of his aura and it was Sesha's own aura that was protecting the two unconscious girls from harm. Using one's aura to cover oneself was straightforward but to control it to envelop others required a great precision. Precisely due to this, Sesha couldn't make greater movements lest his protection over the girls wavered and they suffered grievous injuries and had to limit himself to dodging with minimal movement. But it was abundantly clear to him that he couldn't guard against this furious warrior for long, at least not without compromising the safety of the girls behind his aura.
Thus, Sesha decided to go into offensive.
*BOOM!!*
Air itself exploded when Sesha suddenly stopped his fist. This particular attack had only been a little stronger than the one that Sesha had performed outside so he was sceptic about its effectiveness.. But as it turned out, his worry was needless.
For an extremely small moment following Sesha's unusual attack, Krishna's charge had stopped. But that was already enough. Enough for Sesha to easily throw Krishna on his back and plant his foot above his chest.
"AAAAAGHHHHH!!!"
Krishna cried in agony due to the foot that was planted over him. To Kartik who had been observing this bout between two greater warriors, it seemed a little exaggerated for Krishna to be in such pain over the weight of a mere foot. How was he to know that what was pressing over his retainer was not, in fact, a foot. It was a mountain.
* * *
Author's Note:
Hello everyone, author here.
First of all, I'd like to apologize about the chapters being a bit late but believe me, it was not entirely my fault. I recently moved into another place and then there was no internet. Even now I am uploading this from my office (sshh.. don't let my boss know!).
As for the chapter itself, I think most of you will have a question or two after reading it. While I will be answering them in the upcoming chapters, you are welcome to fire them anyway.
Lastly, if you have any suggestions, criticisms or comments, do drop them below. Till next time then!