Chapter 133.

PART 1.

Hatori is listening to Munshi and Sannaphulla talk. The man is concerned with the latest event. Though he is thankful that Hatori managed to save the bride, (again, Hatori has no interest in learning her name), he is concerned by the safety of other people. He cannot endanger people just because of his pride. So, he is thinking of calling off the marriage.

“I will be sad to let go of this relationship; the family is good. not once they have pressured me for anything.” Said Sannaphulla. “But I just cannot put people in danger.”

While Munshi tries to convince Sannaphulla to not make such hasty decisions, due to social stigma, reputation, and people talking behind his back, Hatori is thinking of something else. He does not care about the social problems that may arise for this family if they cancel this marriage. As the conversation between Munshi and Sannaphulla pauses, Hatori takes his chance.

“My apologies sir,” begins Hatori, “But may I ask a question?”

“Of course.” Said Sannaphulla. The boy has done a lot, answering his questions is the least he can do, especially if his questions can help him in solving this crisis.

“Was there any event in your family’s past due to which the soul is bothering you?” asked Hatori.

“Come to think of it, I want to know the same thing.” Said Munshi. “Although I would have phrased it much less bluntly than my student.”

“There is no polite way to ask such questions.” Said Sannaphulla. “To answer this question, there was an event. It took place before my birth. My older sister fell in love with a man of a lower class, but my father didn’t like that at all. He murdered both of them, and my sister was pregnant. I learned of this from other relatives.”

Hatori shook his head. “Talk about bad karma points.” He muttered. “Is your father still alive?”

Letting the sarcastic remark slide, Sannaphulla answers. “Yes, he will also attend the wedding ceremony, should it take place.”

“Master,” said Hatori, turning to Munshi, “Isn’t there a way to trick the soul, and bring it out in the open?”

Munshi strokes his chin in thought. “There might be a way. though we will need your father’s magical signature for that.”

“I can provide that for you,” said Sannaphulla.

“Good. now, follow my instructions Hatori, and we will create a dummy to trick this soul and bring it out in the open.” Said Munshi.

PART 2.

The day of the wedding is getting closer. Just three days later, the couple will circle around the fire in the ritual. The guests have started to arrive in ever-increasing numbers, and Hatori decides that he will never get married.

The dummy with Sannaphulla’s father’s magical signature is moving among the guests, who are told that they should ignore its presence. It looks as close as the man would look like, due to the magic of Munshi. Though Hatori did learn how to create a dummy like this, he still does not understand how can it move, or look like the person in question, all be it a very disturbing duplicate.

Hatori senses the soul nearby, able to sense its presence. It is probably observing this dummy. The real man is also present, though hidden from sight, and covered with dangerous wards to keep him safe from any attack of the soul. Hatori and Munshi are both waiting for the soul to make its move. Their wait pays off, as it appears in its favorite form, an angry face within the dust cloud.

Sannaphulla and his father witness, as both necromancers get in the action, Hatori fighting the soul, and preventing it from fleeing, and Munshi trying to disperse it. the guests are surprised, but given what kind of magic is being thrown around, they stay away in the corner and let the necromancers do the work. Hatori refrains from using most of his destructive magic, using only lightning element. True, it does leave some scorch marks, but he figures some marks are better than a flooded or burning house.

As one of Hatori’s chains trapped the soul, one of the spells Munshi hits it directly, and after giving a hateful snarl at the protected old man, the soul disappears in the cloud. “Phew. I don’t sense it anymore.”

“The soul is gone.” Munshi pats Hatori on the shoulder. “Good job on keeping the destruction to a minimum.” He praised. “Now, you should go and rest, while I talk with our client.”

Hatori was leaving outside, but Ashtadeva stopped him. he gave him an entire room to Hatori to rest, and told everyone that no one was to bother him. Hatori decides to take advantage of this and decides to go to sleep. It is not like he gets to sleep outside of the car. He has gotten no proper sleep ever since they arrived here, due to keeping watch on the house.

PART 3.

Sundar meets Raven after he returns from his assignment. “So, how was the experience, boy?” he asked him directly.

“It was, horrible!” said Raven, thinking that honesty is the best policy in this case. “You said that rioters were the ones who destroyed that city like that?”

“Yes, and they were from that city.” Said the general.

“But why would someone do that?” said Raven. “Destroy their own city?”

“You can contemplate that in your free time. but as long as you’re working, it is not your responsibility to reason why. only how. How you can stop them? how can you stop the same thing from happening again? How can you make an example out of them?” said the general. “Remember, Raven. Running a country means doing a lot of despicable things, much of which the public never learns. Can you believe that some supposed intellectuals think that the military is entirely unnecessary? Can you believe what would happen to the country if they get their way?”

“I think that is where the idealism has gone too far, sir.” Said Raven.

“Exactly. But you see, these are not exactly idealists. These are the same people who would demand protection from us when a crisis hits them. they just like to pretend otherwise.” Said Sundar. “But we can debate these fools at some other time. for now, your lesson is that the aftermath of a battle can be far uglier than the battle itself. Always remember that.”

“Will do sir.” Said Raven with a salute.

PART 4.

A day later, Hatori and Munshi leave Sannaphulla and his house behind, having done the duty for which they were called. However, the car has to stop outside, as a bunch of people surround them, carrying a coffin on their shoulders.

“Well, well. it is my good luck to find you here, spares me the effort to hunt you down.” Said a pale-looking man, clearly a leader. Hatori deduces that by how he stands apart from everyone, the grunt work of carrying the coffin is done by other people, and how everyone is silent, while he speaks.

“Manoj.” Said Munshi. “Get the hell out of my way.”

Hatori has never heard such contempt from Munshi. “On the contrary. You are the one who will get out of my way. men, open the coffin!” said Manoj.

The coffin is lowered to the ground and opened. From the coffin, a person suddenly walks out, a man who looks like he was asleep just a moment ago. Judging by his looks, he looks to be in his thirties and built like a human-shaped tank. Hatori sensed his magic and realized how much power was hidden within him. Manoj laughed, going crazy after seeing Munshi’s face.

“Recognize him, don’t you?” he asked in a mocking tone. “Your student seems to be unfamiliar with him. Why don’t you educate him?”

“A battle mage.” Growled Munshi. “I cannot believe it. you were stupid enough to resurrect him of all people?”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“It doesn’t feel like a soul.” Said Hatori.

“Because it is not. this is a complete resurrection. He called the soul, and put that soul in this restored body.” said Munshi. “Because otherwise, the body would have turned into ash by now.” sneered Munshi.

Manoj laughed. “Of course, you are correct. How wonderful that people preserved his body, in a near-perfect state too!”

“But his soul seems to be incomplete.” Said Munshi. “More like damaged and missing pieces.”

“It doesn’t matter, he is under my control!” said Manoj. “With this, I’ll kill that Porus, you, this boy, Sundar, Zeko, and that monster Corvus. And then there won’t be anyone left to oppose me.”

“Okay, would anyone explain to me who this mage is, and why is he this strong?” asked Hatori, unconcerned with the threat to his life.

Munshi sighed. “His name is Anantayudha. He is a battle mage. I’ll explain what that means later.”

“If you survived, that is.” gloated Manoj. “Kill him!” he points to the master-student pair, and the battle mage moves to follow the orders.

Anantayudha raised his finger, and Hatori sensed the massive buildup of magic. he grabs a shocked Munshi, and physically lifts him, and after undoing his air resistance, avoids the destructive spell. Hatori puts Munshi to the ground. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“Fine. Just shocked.” Said the necromancer. “Watch out!”

Munshi shields them with another spell, as a wave of fire comes in their way, the same spell as before. The temperature inside of the shield increases, but they survive being burned alive. Another fire spell comes at their way, but Hatori is ready this time, using his own fire spell. he cursed his over-focus on lightning spells, because of which he did not create any custom fire spells for himself. Despite that, his Fireball spell clashes with the wave of fire, and holds its own against the spell of the battle mage. Anantayudha seems to get a tiny smile on his expressionless face after witnessing that. his mind is slowly getting rid of the rust, and decides that this opponent warrants the use of his entire hand. A destructive cloud of fire starts to brew right over their heads, and Hatori decides that this is the best time to run.

He looks at Munshi, and they both realize that they have the same idea. Turning invisible, they start to run, and the cloud descends upon their position. In a loud explosion, the entire area is leveled, all the trees start to burn, and the land is scorched badly. But Manoj did not smell the burning flesh of his opponents, nor did he see anybody.

“Search them!” he orders, and his people spread out everywhere. “You won’t escape me this time, Munshi!” he roared.

Nearby, Munshi’s car remains undamaged, but a little bit scorched by the fire.

But Munshi is not thinking about his car right now. the sheer amount of power in just a few spells that the undead mage demonstrated, terrified him. he has not experienced this fear since his childhood. He doesn’t like it one bit. They sneak far away quickly enough that Manoj’s men couldn’t find them immediately. As they continue to walk invisibly with their footsteps silent, they see a camp in front of them. there are three men in that camp, and Munshi recognizes Surendra.

They end their invisibility spell, and the sharmas get alerted, ready to respond with violence. But Surendra recognized Munshi, and Samudra recognized Hatori. “Soooo! Room for two more?” asked Munshi.

After they are invited to the camp of Sharmas, they learn what has happened. “Fuck them!” said Munshi, Hatori is surprised to hear him curse, but ignores it entirely. “No seriously, fuck them. the necromancers have been telling people about this very danger for years, and now we’re the ones with our necks on the chopping block. I’m tempted to let that idiot cousin of yours rampage, to teach them a lesson.”

“Come now, that is no way to solve this problem.” Said Surendra.

Nearby, Samudra is talking with Hattori, while his brother observes. This kid is the one about whom Samudra has talked a lot to him, ever since his fifth year, when he met him first time. the boy looks physically strong, and his height for his age is nothing to sneeze at either. But his magic doesn’t seem that impressive. But then again, Surendra Junior is not much of a sensor.

“Man, oh man. I am impressed by how much you’ve grown, literally and figuratively. You will start towering over all of us soon.” He smiled, clapping Hatori on his shoulder.

“Thanks.” Said Hatori. “So, you’ve been in this camp for a while, right?”

“Yeah,” sighed Samudra. “Any ideas to deal with this zombie?”

“Sadly, no,” said Hatori. “Even Master Munshi was terrified of this mage. I had to physically haul him out of the way of his spells.”

“I’ll pay to see that,” smirked Samudra. “An older mage manhandled by a young whippersnapper like you.”

PART 5.

Manoj is happy to see Munshi scurrying away like a rat, trying to avoid him. “But sooner or later, I’ll find you, and then crush you beneath my foot!” he slammed his foot to the ground for emphasis.

He always gloated his necromantic talent, causing Manoj to suffer the loss of business. It never occurred to him that he was not good, and lacking in people skills as well. To him, Munshi is the sole reason for his loss of reputation, and becoming a laughing stock.

“At least I do have this branch of the clan under my control.” He muttered. “But soon, I’ll have the entire Sharma clan under my heel, followed by this country.”

Does he dare to dream of ruling the world? “Nah, why borrow extra trouble? I’ll control this miserable land. It is large enough… for now,” he smirked.

“But who has seen the future?”

PART 6.

“So, in short, the longer it is, the harder it is to retrieve memories,” said Hatori. “And these memories are the building blocks to form a soul.”

“Yes.” Said Munshi. “In our enemy’s case, they likely used a long ritual, the ones which can be done by multiple mages for a long period.”

“Now, here is how you see the condition of a soul.” Said Munshi. “You have to focus the magic into your eyes and bring it to the frequency of the souls. Once you do that, you will be able to see the condition of a soul. Damaged souls often have their memories missing. Which turned out to be good for us, if Anantayudha were to gain his full memories back, Manoj wouldn’t be able to control him, and we all would die.”

“Okay, thanks for the impromptu lesson.” Said Surendra. “But can we do anything about this monster?”

Living in the wilderness, being hunted from place to place has sapped his patience. He would have never dared to talk with Munshi like that otherwise. “We cannot fight like this. We’re outnumbered, that mage can take out all of us, plus the minions of Manoj and that idiot himself, I don’t think our odds are good enough.”

They all deflate in disappointment.

PART 7: BATTLE MAGES.

Battle mages are defined by one thing: an intense will to fight. their body, their magic, and their behavior, all of this revolves around fighting.

They show these characteristics from an early age, and it is often advised that if a family has a battle mage child, they do not try to curb their will to compete, for they will resent them for it, and they can, and will, destroy them in the future for this. However, if treated with love and caring, battle mages do form attachments.

Most battle mages die around the age of 30, their growing magic, and will to fight others make it impossible for them to live long. However, some of them do live long, the specific example is Anantayudha. He lived for 500 years, a freakishly long amount of time, even by mage standards. He was only killed because he got cornered, and age and the toll of all the battles he fought in his life finally caught up with him.