"You're gonna stay here for a while, until the deal with Kalpa gets finalized. Don't try anything funny and stay put. Not that you can, with these shackles binding you. It's better to start training your body to become Kalpa's first Avatar, since you don't have anything left to live for. Word came in that the Sapta family has been annihilated, and with your curse, it is as good as extinct. It is a good proposition I think, one that anybody would have volunteered for had they gotten the chance." The head Rishika of the Saraswati temple shoved a young girl a little younger than me into a room that I knew was meant for apprentices who broke the rules. I had to stay there without food or water for about two nights on three different occasions before. I shivered, remembering how hungry and thirsty I had felt during those punishments.
"Vidisha." The Rishika called my name capturing my attention, "You'll be incharge of her wellbeing for a week and have to provide her with three meals a day from the kitchen. Recharge the suppression shackles twice a day to make sure she doesn't get any ideas. Go to Saswati Rishika if you have any queries, am I clear?"
"Yes, head Rishika." I mumbled looking down, unable to meet the female sage's ferocious eyes filled with greed.
After she walked away in a hurry, I wondered whether to close the door and go on my way, or stay with the pitiful girl to pass my time, since I'm probably exempt from my other duties for this week.
I decided to strike up a conversation, since it had been two years joining the temple. I had no idea what was happening in the outside world.
"What's your name?" I asked her, while standing at the door and got taken aback witnessing her expression.
She was like a tiger, waiting for the perfect moment to pounce on a prey, aiming to take its life in a single decisive attack. A stark contrast from the defeated expression I was expecting.
"Relax.There's no reason to look at me like that. I'm only tasked with taking care of you, so whatever the Rishikas are thinking, I have no part in that." I explained, "I'm Vidisha, a second year apprentice. I'm sorry for what happened to your family."
Her fierce stare softened a bit. With a sigh, she said, "Since you're here, guess you do understand what I'm going through. Tsk. Why was I sent here? What the hell happened after Dad attacked me? Grandma, Mum, Arvind, Divyani... Did they really?" She clutched a handful of her hair, thinking deeply about something.
Her disheveled look brought out my sympathy. I wondered what had happened and how she suddenly appeared in our meditation hall from a dimensional crack. The head Rishika seemed to already know about her situation and had been acting quite differently than usual after her arrival.
"I'm sorry, Vidisha. I'm not sure how to react, when someone just tells you that your whole family has been ended out of nowhere. Why did my mother send me here? Instead of Alik or Ashrama? Did she not know what the Rishikas were thinking? I used to think that they only wanted me to join out of tradition... Why are the people here trying to make me an Avatar of Kalpa, when I'm already her Guardian?" She kept muttering things I had a vague idea about. Until I get to know her, it will be difficult to understand what she's saying.
"Calm down for a while. Overthinking like that won't help at all. I'll bring you some snacks for now. We have freshly picked mangoes and bananas from our orchard, do you wanna try both or only one?" I asked trying to break her train of thoughts. Sitting here like that won't help her in any way. Like me, she's currently powerless. She's got no choice other than following what the Rishikas have decided for her.
We sat down side by side inside the punishment chamber, which was about 6 by 6 feet in size, while eating the fruits I brought for both of us. I don't mean to brag, but I'm quite an expert in climbing trees. Looking down at things from above, gave me an irresistible feeling of superiority. It was just a momentary delusion before my current situation humbled me again. The Kuru-Ayodhya War had been devastating for most of the Kshatriya families in recent times. I also lost my parents, and wound up here as an apprentice after shifting from one relative to another until one of them decided to get rid of me and sent me to this institution.
In just a few years, I had gone from a girl, filled with dreams about my future to an empty husk with nothing to look forward to in this monotonous life, totally isolated from the outside world. After a few years, I'll just become an old lady like the Rishikas and slowly wither away to nothingness. What a wonderful life.
People often rebuke me for not trying at all, when they see me chilling about. What's the use of trying harder when nothing changes no matter what you do?
The girl beside me also had her dreams and aspirations but everything came to a halt because of factors outside her control.
A week later, she'll again be sent somewhere according to the head Rishika. She might be able to leave this place, but my intuition told me, that another hell awaited her.
Let's just provide her with some companionship, until she is transferred away. Atleast she won't feel lonely with me around.
"So you're from the Ashrama? I've heard that the Rakshaks are just guard dogs that keep the Asuras at bay. Not an ounce of respect wherever you go huh?" I started off rude, but I didn't care to be honest. I've long given up on trying to get people to like me. If I can rile her up a bit, I might have some entertainment for a while. She also seemed quite understanding of her current situation, maybe she'll treat my jabs as sarcastic comments.
"Yep. What do you think I am being treated as, being bound like this in such a small room? My parents are actually from Satya, but gave birth to me in Alik. I was brought up by my aunt who fell in love with a Forgotten while attending Ashrama and decided to live the rest of her life in Alik." She said looking up and remembering something. "I only spent a week in Ashrama, before all this happened."
"Well, life and this world generally sucks. I have learnt that a while ago. If you had power like the ones controlling your fate, your actions would also have consequences like these, for innumerable other people. These powerful people might have also been in our positions at some point, so there's that." I talked about my general outlook of life and its power dynamics.
"So, how was Ashrama? I'm quite curious. Is it just like this, or livelier?" I asked changing the topic from getting too heavy.
I was weirdly trying hard to make sure we were conversing without falling into an awkward silence.
Over the next four days, we talked about a lot of things, and I started sleeping right beside her in that cramped room. I felt she was slowly coming to accept how her life turned out. Might have been because of my pessimistic attitude though. Negative emotions usually spread to others easier than the positive ones. Still, coming around to this kind of defeatist mentality took a while for me. She broke down much faster.
I felt a bit glad seeing that. Maybe, nobody would have endured as long as me. A feeling of superiority washed over me as I glanced at the girl lying beside me. If I had the life and opportunities like her, hearing from her stories, would it have turned out better?
These thoughts didn't even hurt my conscience. There's no use being a good person in this kind of world. As long as you're taken care of, you don't need to think about others.
Me feeling sympathy for her was an indication of my hypocrisy? Naah, watching someone with a worse outcome than me, made me feel quite good. Sympathy can only be felt by people who are above others, who have the luxury of feeling that. Being able to experience it, even for a while, was a thing I genuinely welcomed. Like a little glimpse of things I'll never ever have.
During my stays in other people's homes, I have seen so many stories play out. The good guys never had an happy ending. They were used, worked to the bone and then abandoned. What do they even get by helping others? Is it just a momentary elation from achieving something? Or feeling a sense of wholesomeness derived from the empty words of gratitudes that the people you save simply utter?
Would have my life turned out different if my parents had not left for war, thinking selfishly only about themselves instead of honouring their duty of protecting others as a Kshatriya?
There's no use thinking about that anymore. Let's just use this girl for my momentary intellectual entertainment and get on with my life.
This girl, named Somi was actually one of the Rakshaks with the most potential back at Ashrama. I was surprised to see someone with such capabilities turn out like this. As she kept recounting her experiences at the Ashrama, a few things became evident. The new friends she had made were Forgotten from Satya. That she also has a childhood friend who keeps competing with her about the littlest of things which she finds quite annoying. Her experience at Atala was horrific, it honestly gave me nightmares. How she still managed to retain her sanity through all that is a mystery to me. I even had to take a timeout and go to the washroom for a quick vomiting break.
Then I heard about her family situation, and about her curse. Shit was so depressing. Guess she had no other choice than coming here. Her mother must have thought that this was a safe place, considering her aunt from her father's side had come here. Maybe her aunt doesn't even know how her niece looks like to help her from this predicament.
Things get weirder and weirder the more I hear. Well, I'm sorry. I wouldn't even want my worst enemies to have a life like this. I didn't know it could get so low. Yes I had things that happened to me out of my control, but this is a whole other level of divine intervention from all directions. It is way worse than mine, because she knew and had accepted the fact from the very beginning that the life she was born into was already doomed.
On the fifth day, the head Rishika arrived and found us gossiping inside the cramped room. Without even giving me a second glance, she got hold of Somi's shackles and dragged her out into the corridor. I followed silently, with a heavy dread rising within my chest. Something is going to happen. Is it already time for her to go?
The head Rishika met up with Saswati, her right hand attendant, and all four of us descended down a flight of stairs, that gave access to somewhere deep underground. Are they fine with me around?
We arrived infront of a wooden door, that was carved with symbols, and a weird metal snake that encircled the rectangular boundary of the entrance. The door knobs were like two lotuses, that had to be turned in different angles before it finally opened revealing the secrets inside.
The smell of a pungent chemical blasted us as soon as the gap between the two door sections widened. Inside were long jars with a yellowish orange liquid that was preserving chakra organs from God knows whom. This was not something I had expected.
"Is this what happened to the daughters of Sapta family?" Somi glared at the head Rishika, the aura around her growing fierce. I trembled at the thought of what might have happened had she not been binded with the Kundalini neutralising shackles.
"Don't worry. There's a reason why everything happened. And also why you awakened your heart chakra first. Things have been at play right from your birth, and these experiments... These are just a prologue to my story. Don't worry, you'll only become a vegetable, with your body to be used by Kalpa as she pleases. And we will finally get a hold of Sapta family's precognition bloodline trait." Head Rishika revealed everything in excitement. It's better to leave now. Things never go properly once words like these have been said.
"I can't see this." I stated clearly. "I'll just leave."
"Oh, you were still here? Do as you wish." Saswati looked back at me with an uninterested look and shooed me away.
These two were so engrossed in their goals that they have lost bearings of their surroundings.
I simply walked out of the room and took a deep breath of fresh air, with needles of guilt poking around in my heart. It was uncomfortable. But thinking about it properly, I made the right choice. Who would I be helping staying there? No one. I did not have a single chakra awakened, while the Rishikas had all seven. I can't take a risk for someone I haven't even known for a week. If I do something stupid I'll be left out into the lonely outside world, while here my food and shelter is atleast taken care of.
I didn't want to be Kshatriya like my stupid parents, sacrificing my life for others. The honor and duties that entails a Kshatriya have stopped binding me the moment I became an orphan.
After I reached the top of the winding stairs, I was surprised to see people panicking and running around. What's happening??
"Where's the head Rishika?" One of the elder apprentices grabbed my shoulders and asked me with an urgent tone.
"Down there. I'm not sure they would entertain the idea of getting interrupted right now." I flatly said.
"Have they already started the ritual? Then we have no choice other than stalling the intruder." She said looking away and asking another passerby apprentice, "How many barriers have been breached?"
"All of them." The other person who I have often seen in the yoga practices mentioned with a pale face. She was in panic.
"People without chakra are gathering at the main sanctum. Take shelter there, fast." The apprentice who was holding my shoulder pushed me gently towards the right where the main sanctum was situated a further bit down the path.
I felt the gears in my life finally turning. I knew revealing your plans like that never works. Someone always comes to thwart them... Someone who broke all the barriers this easily must be really powerful.
I followed the apprentices and Rishikas who were gathering infront of the main entrance, the one which always stays closed, unless the supplies from Kuru Kingdom arrives. Is this actually an experimental facility supported by the kingdom itself? Lots of questions... But I felt the world getting more interesting. The vibrant colors were returning to my grayed vision. Finally something was happening other than just cleaning the halls and picking fruits. The main gate made out of strong obsidian metals disintegrated into dust and spread everywhere as soon as I reached a corridor overlooking the central garden which the entrance opened up to, revealing a lean silhouette.
"See..." A deep voice emanated from the silhouette as the dust slowly settled around him. "You can either walk away alive or stay here to die in vain. It won't even take a second."
I suppressed a smile. This guy is a savage. Not even a second, he says.
"Don't underestimate the Rishikas of Saraswati who have been training for decades to keep monsters like you away." One of the Rishikas at the front who researches in offensive magic answered back with a confident tone.
"To utter the name of your God directly without even using her honorifics... Devi is truly kind to a fault. To still let trash like you live guilt free in this world. Sometimes it truly makes me glad, that I was assigned this wretched duty. This isn't Saraswati Devi's institution anymore. You can give it my name instead." The young man said with an aura of arrogance.
I finally got to have a look at the invader. Since he came here guns blazing at this moment, he should be somehow related to the girl being operated right now. Wait, isn't he already a bit late?
His face was filled with scars, and his right eye was a black hole, totally hollow. His face structure might have been decent in the past, but right now with wounds all over his face and body, it is beyond any hope. It looked like he had arrived from a huge fight, where multiple divine weapons have been used. How he managed to come out alive, is only a thing of mysteries.
Stolen novel; please report.
"As long as we can buy even a few minutes... It will be enough for the ritual to end." Another Rishika muttered and gave hand signals to all the defensive forces to activate their spells. Chanting resounded and Aksharas manifested, floating around in the central garden, forming barriers and Kundalini missiles that pointed towards the intruder.
He had a pale expression. Is he finally shitting his pants after coming this far?
"The ritual has started then." His voice scraped against our eardrums, whatever warmth that was present in it before, no matter how minute, had vanished away into nothingness. It now was cold and flat, devoid of emotions.
"Release!!!" With a command from the Rishikas, hundreds of different spells rammed against the young man who just stood there with a disinterested expression.
"Why do little fries keep blocking my way..." The voice sighed in disappointment. "All these fucking curses. Fast but never on time. Black cat crossing your path every once in a while... Everything just keeps wasting my time."
He raised his hand, palm facing upwards into the sky.
And he clenched, his fingers turning into a fist.
Each and everyone of the Rishikas and Apprentices that were blocking the way started shining as a diamond shaped translucent barrier appeared around them.
They looked around confused for a second and then splat!!
The diamonds decreased to the size of a grape in an instant, compressing whole human bodies into super dense pieces of meat. The sounds as the bodies constricted uncontrollably, crushing and collapsing into itself because of a tremendous pressure from all angles sent a shiver down my spine.
My seniors and teachers were now nowhere to be seen. Their remains now littered the garden in the form of red diamonds. A second, he had said.
One of the diamonds started floating towards him as if it was getting reeled in with the help of some invisible string and nestled itself gently over his palm.
He nodded his head while having his eyes shut close, while clutching the diamond, as if he was communicating with it.
Then, he was gone.
"You're quite the curious little girl. Sorry for what you had to see. You had some friends in there?" His voice now appeared right behind me.
Calming myself down I smiled at him awkwardly. "Follow me instead of wasting time like this. I'm powerless by myself so all I could do is watch. But with you, we can save her."
It didn't even take a second for me to choose my side. The institution is already done for. Their greed brought such a monster right at their doorsteps.
"We need to go down a long flight of stairs, so if you can do that teleportation again, we might still arrive on time." I said, looking back at the young man. Why is he so casual about this? By the time we reach, her chakra might have already been extracted.
"It's no use. I have a deity level curse." He said with a tone of acceptance. "I'll never arrive on time. All I can do is pick up the pieces after everything has ended. I was prepared for the seventh day, but who knew things were pushed forward like this. Kalpa has been playing her cards aggressively."
Kalpa. Deity level curse. Is something huge happening in this world beyond our knowledge? Or only we didn't know being isolated from the outside world?
I ran down the stairs not waiting for him. I now had a chance, to turn my life around. For that I needed Somi to stay alive. You never know when this monster can turn on you. I need Somi to prove my association with her. If he's here to rescue her, then I might be spared and even rewarded... If he's here to take care of things in a different way, I'm doomed anyway.
I was blocked by a barrier right at the entrance of the experimental facility. Guess I ran here like an idiot for nothing.
"Move." I heard his voice again right from behind. I thought he would be strolling down in a relaxed manner till here. Has he marked me or something? Using me as a handy teleportation point?
With just a flick of his fingers, the barrier shattered and the door fell back, broken off from its hinges.
The same chemical smell assaulted my senses, but this time it had a ferrous taste to it.
"Guess this is still salvageable." He muttered beside me and stepped into the facility.
Somi was sprawled on an operating table, blood flowing from her like waterfalls down a plateau. As if they were draining her of everything that made up her existence. Her body was badly damaged, and a bloody cut ran down her sternum, that exposed a hole, supposedly the place where her heart chakra once was.
The head Rishika was just standing there with wounds all over her body, yet gloating in her success. Saswati had a slash right across her left eye socket, which was missing. Somi didn't go down without a fight.
But still, how does this look salvageable from any angle?
A huge pressure suddenly erupted from my right where the one eyed young man was standing, I could actually see thousands of reddish brown threads covering the whole area now, making their way towards Somi.
"She did tell me that this is how Tara stole the precognition ability. But this is way worse than I had imagined. To implant and replace your seven chakras with the first ones awakened by the daughters of the Sapta family... She's even more crazy than I am." His whispers were loud enough for me to hear.
All these jars, had multiple same chakras stored in it. For how long were these experiments going on? How many people had been slaughtered for the sake of this plan? Technically, taking into consideration the concept of chances, to get seven distinct chakras, you need to extract dozens and dozens of first awakened chakras since a lot of them would be common. Just thinking about it is making me nauseous.
"You were late. The ability is already within my grasp. There's no use fighting me anymore. I will suggest trying to salvage whatever of her consciousness that is left. But again, it will be swallowed by Kalpa after she is offered this body." The Head Rishika was apparently named Tara. I never knew even after staying here for two years.
"You don't need to worry about her. I have multiple back up plans ready for different worst case scenarios. It's been years carrying this curse... But aren't you getting a bit too relaxed? What makes you think I won't punish you for what you've done to her?" The man beside me asked her directly.
"Because I know. You won't be able to hurt me at all." Tara replied with a smug expression, fully confident of her new abilities.
Suddenly, she doubled down holding her right thigh and started gasping for air. Panic slowly overshadowed her face.
"So? Do you still think I won't be able to hurt you at all?" He slowly stepped forward.
She now grabbed her arms, pressing them close to her body.
I kept looking in awe as the man broke her down with some kind of mental attack. What is he doing? She literally had no wounds on her body, but her eyes were tearing up. Ahh... Watching her acting like that gave me a sense of weird satisfaction.
Saswati came up and stood between the man and Tara, looking up at him. Daring him to move a step forward.
"Still hiding behind your subordinates? What happened to your almighty power of precognition? How does it feel to know that you two are alive only because I'm allowing you to? How many ways did you already see me destroying you? How many more do you wanna see?" He laughed coldly, raising goosebumps on my skin.
Tara was already on her knees with a blank look on her face. And Saswati was still standing like a wall between the two of them.
"Saswati, move away from there... You'll..." Tara stopped as a crunching sound spread across the facility.
Saswati too had been turned into a blood diamond, in just a few milliseconds.
"No..." Tara didn't even have the energy to speak the word properly. She was in crippling despair. Now, she would either fight back, or give up on her life succumbing to the insane pressure that the guy was emitting.
He squatted right in front of Tara, their faces now on the same level. "You actually lived long enough. If I was not riddled with tons of curses, you wouldn't even get the chance to activate your Precognition. Hmm? You still want to fight? Well, I don't mind. I have already gotten what I came here for, so I can humor you a bit."
Tara shook her head sideways communicating that she wasn't interested in fighting at all, unlike what he had just said.
"I don't want to...aarghhh!!" Tara halted abruptly as a hand shoved itself into her mouth. What the hell is the guy doing?
With a jerk, he pulled out his bloodied palm from inside her mouth, throwing away her tongue somewhere to the side.
"You just can't give up like this." He said, "Even your attendant had thoughts of blocking my way and fight me if it came down to it. I can't properly punish you if you don't feel any hostility towards me... You did all this for the sake of your dream. C'mon... Are you really willing to die without even fighting?"
Tara nodded her head saying yes, blood still gushing out of her mouth. It reminded me of how Somi was bleeding just a few moments ago. She now looked stable and her wounds were healing up visibly too. Those innumerable thin threads connected to her were doing their work it seems.
"Finally, you said you didn't want to die without a fight!!" The man rejoiced. "Right?!!"
Tara kept nodding violently, but it was upto him how he interpreted those actions. Without a tongue to talk, she can't tell what her standards of nodding were.
Is this also because of a curse? Not being able to hurt people who don't feel any hostility towards him? Is this why he was talking sensibly with me? And with her like this?
Without her tongue, she could only make sounds that came from deep within her throat. Her shrieks echoed throughout the room as he touched her palm.
Pop!
It condensed into a small flesh pearl, detaching itself from her body. The sounds got more unbearable.
He shoved his hand right into Tara's chest and yanked Somi's chakra out of her body. Placing it carefully beside Somi's comatose being, he again squatted down in front of her.
"Next is a leg..."
It went on for a few minutes until her body disintegrated into several minuscule red pearls that rolled on the floor.
It was anti climatic. So one sided. And here I was thinking that things were finally getting interesting. What a way to be disappointed.
After the deed was done, he stood beside Somi and made a cut on his wrist. He was trying to pull something out from within his body.
"Why do everything in a roundabout manner?" I asked trying to make sense of his actions, "You could have simply killed her. Why did you need justification? Like you'll only hurt them if they are hostile towards you? Things don't add up."
"Yeah. Normal methods work too. But I like it that way. I can only defend against someone who wants wants to hurt me. Once I confirm their hostility in one way or another, I can use the Kavach as a barrier separating us. There's a kind of word play involved, but that's just how curses are. Vajra Kavach comes with its caveats. And ..." He stopped and glanced back, as all the flesh beads that were once my fellow apprentices and teachers arrived inside the facility, floating in the air.
He reached out his right hand and absorbed all of them, into a vortex of red energies.
"All these essences help me get stronger. If I simply kill them by slicing them up, it will be hard to convert them into Prana beads. So the conditions help me use the Kavach, which in turn helps me to manufacture the Prana beads. I hope your curiosity is satisfied." He smiled back at me, as the wrinkles on his face stretched and got more hideous. I looked away, trying to avoid his gaze. His hollow right eye socket was unsettling.
"So what are you doing now?" I asked changing the topic back to Somi, "How do you know her? I have been taking care of her for the past few days but she never mentioned someone like you."
"You can say that I used to know her. I am just keeping my promise. It was something I swore on my life many years ago." He stopped, staring into the void for some time and again concentrated on his hand. "I'm severing her connection to Kalpa. We can't let her be discoverable by that bitch anymore. I had a solid plan when I arrived here, but it looks like I'll be needing the help of my once fellow Manavas."
Things were getting complicated. Seriously, what the hell was happening outside?
"Can you elaborate that? Since I feel like I'll be getting roped into that. What kind of plan are you talking about?"
"The artifact recovery plan. Kalpa has pushed forward her plans, deploying most of her forces in the Ashrama to recover the seven artifacts. I have helped the Asuras cross over to Satya and have engaged them in a struggle to buy some time, until I can train my own team to get them for myself. I realised that I have transcended my mortal limits and am now unable to raid the temples dungeons that only Manavas can enter, to retrieve the artifacts all by myself. This could have been much easier otherwise. This is why I decided to go for this plan instead." He described everything properly, binding me with knowledge. It's like one of those: 'Since you already know everything you have no choice other than joining me in this mission' scenarios.
He went silent for the next few hours, as I kept watching his incredible handiwork. He kept pulling out white thin threads from within his body, twisting and knitting them masterfully to create a flower like shape. Then more and more threads were pulled out that were connected to the flowery fist shaped model with a star carved over its surface which was not present there before.
I have seen the structure before. It was a heart chakra, the Anahata. He was creating an artificial chakra with his own vessels...
But he already retrieved her chakra that was stolen by the head Rishika. Why is he creating a new one? He again reverse operated Somi, carefully placing the artificial heart chakra inside her, as the threads connected to it started wiggling like some kind of a parasite attached to her body. They slowly disappeared inside after slithering through the hole on her sternum. It was pure nightmare fuel.
He healed all her wounds in the next twenty minutes, and fed her red blood potions to recover whatever blood she had lost.
"Will she be the same without her actual heart chakra?" I asked after everything was wrapped up. "Why did you not put the real one back inside her?"
"I have a personal use for that. Technically it concerns her too, in a way." he grabbed the chakra with a slight jerk as I realised that there were thin threads connecting her actual chakra to her body all this time, only to be separated right now. He brought out a tree bark in the shape of a face, and started scraping off its back part with a red instrument that had a flat head made from condensing his own energy. I have no idea what that's called, but I had seen it in carpentry shops before.
He placed Somi's heart chakra in an indentation on the other side of the face that was sculpted on the bark.
"Whose face did you carve on that bark? You're quite good at art it seems." I asked, acting to be curious.
He simply glanced at me once but didn't say anything.
Let's not ask this again since he seemed upset. Mental note on things not to do that might offend this man has been updated!
He gently brushed his fingers over the face and looked at it with longing eyes, sorry, with just an eye. There's some deep history with that tree bark I guess. Someday I'll be able to know about it, since I'm gonna be in this team he talked about.
"Are the Asuras also training their own team of Manavas for the retrieval? Can't we just join hands with them?" I asked after thinking about it for a while.
"No, they simply wish to destroy the artifacts to stop Kalpa from choosing who gets to move on into the next Yuga after being entrusted with the Renewal duty. I'm also doing the same thing as her, only making sure that the souls of people in Alik, my family and my friends are safe. If the Renewal is completed without the artifacts, the next generations of Asuras, Manavas, Devas, and all other lifeforms except the deities, will lose their essences having their souls ripped apart in the name of purification for the sake of creating the new living beings. I don't want that to happen." He dropped some bombs casually.
The Renewal like he said refers to a blink of Lord Brahma's eyes. Time in the topmost Loka where he resides moves so slowly, that in every blink of his eye a cycle of four Yugas is completed. It's like we are all living in his dream that spans the momentary darkness between the closing and reopening of His eyelids. The higher you go in terms of Lokas in the Brahmand, the more resistant you are to the Renewal process.
That is why people are so keen on achieving Moksha. It makes your soul strong enough to fight against the chaotic energy that rips apart your soul during Renewal and Reincarnation. People who have attained true enlightenment leave that soul reconstruction cycle and are able to manifest with their own souls no matter how many times they are reborn.
"Since it is impossible for the people in Alik to attain Moksha, Kalpa's plan will be beneficial for me if I can implement it instead." He continued, "She's thinking of creating three new Lokas, protecting them using the seven artifacts, and letting the current Brahmand go through the Renewal. Only the people she chooses will be entering the new Lokas, being able to protect themselves through the Annihilation process. I didn't get to see how things turned out before, but I'm sure there was something more to Kalpa's plan that I was unable to uncover. It keeps tugging at my intuition leaving me worried."
Wait. He's already seen it before? Has he been alive through other Renewals?
"Did you already attain Moksha?" I asked getting surprised, "Why are you concerning yourself with these affairs then?"
"Someone like me isn't qualified for that." His voice lost its power as if he was regretting all his life choices till now, "Things are complicated. The Brahmand you're talking about is only a cell in Lord Vishnu's celestial body. I'm just a bacteriophage that's infecting them one after another. You might think that this analogy is rude, but I was given this authority by The Preserver himself."
Bacteriophage? Some of the terms that he's been using are quite bizarre. But also...
"Wait. Why would He do this? It makes no sense!" I tried to understand the motivations of the Great Deity. Wait, am I even eligible to question the decisions of one of the Great Three?
"In Alik, people willingly inject themselves with medicines that are usually harmful, but modified in such a way that they affect only the cells that are infected and dangerous to the body." He started explaining again. It seemed like medicine took a different turn in Alik in absence of Shakti or Kundalini. Manavas are truly incredible. They find out solutions with whatever they have, no matter what the problem is.
"After countless Renewals, Lord Vishnu realised that even the souls that attained Moksha had been withering away. Or getting corrupted." His ranting again started, but surprisingly I was enjoying it. "Our body sheds its current cells and replaces them with newer ones multiple times in our life. Sometimes it also gets mutations that might lead to cells multiplying uncontrollably, giving rise to tumors. Like every cell components has some DNA that determines how it is created and for what function, every Brahmand has a set amount of souls that can attain Moksha: which are in turn responsible for maintaining the structure and the functionalities of a Brahmand. What happens when the higher beings get corrupted? You get beings like Kalpa who are harming the celestial body of The Preserver from within."
I thought about this for a while. "So you appear whenever the souls who have attained Moksha start acting suspicious. Right?" I tried to summarise what I have heard. This guy uses lots of words to explain even the littlest of things. "But your actions doesn't conform to your duties. You are also selfishly protecting a certain group of people instead of destroying the cause of the anomaly."
"He knows everything already. My motivations and even my hidden goals. But he still isn't stopping me. Somewhere down the line, I suspect everything is going to fall into place. So I'll just do whatever I want, in any way I want. Only making sure to reach the same goal as intended by Him." He's making excuses right now. Well it also makes sense. Everything has a reason and will make sense later on. Who am I to question it right now...
"So on one hand, you're in charge of making sure that the Renewal process is completed in the natural way. And on the other, you yourself are trying to become what you're supposed to stop. It truly is the Kali Yuga." I sighed, exasperated.
"Right? My actions should also be true to my name. It only makes sense if you think about it." His laugh comprised of a single clear and momentary exhalation.
"Wait!! That means..." I suddenly realised with a jolt. Like things finally falling into place.
"Yep." He nodded with a smile, but this time I didn't look away, "I am the End Bringer. Supposed to do it in a natural way though. Manava turned Asura, The Demon Kali. Having a whole Yuga named after myself is seriously cool. Isn't it?"