It was raining down tattered human remains, after Kali's tail swipe sent tens of thousands of enemies on the ground flying towards Bhuvar Loka, the realm of celestials. A thick bloody mist now wafted across the battlefield worsening the visibility of the ground troops from Kuru Kingdom. Some of the hundred heads from Kali's Kundalini Snake form vibrated and shiny diamonds appeared in multiple places within the blood mist. They contracted trying to create the Prana beads but only about 20 percent of them succeeded. They assimilated into the dark blue snake's body.
The ground troops amidst the slaughter lost their morale and started retreating from the immense monster that stayed coiled in front of them. The huge Banyan tree in the middle sent forth a green pulse that strengthened the green auras on the soldiers but they didn't stop running away. The look of terror on their faces was satisfying yet pitiful.
More and more thunder clouds gathered overhead as the soldiers of Swarga joined in the process of spell chanting. The earlier lightning strike they had used was nowhere near enough to even put a dent on Kali's body.
The ground army retreated further and concentrated on attacking from a distance, while the sky forces came swooping down like eagles, trying to gouge out flesh from the enormous snake. Kali's hundred snake heads twisted and snapped at the incoming enemies, destroying chariots and shoving away flying horses and golden eagles.
A few of his heads were blasted away from some of the suicide bombings, some were cleanly cut off with the use of melee Astras and some were crushed to a pulp as the floating huge elephants charged through the air and knocked themselves right into the hood of Kali.
In the meantime, Kali uncoiled and kept swiping his tail both at the ground and sky forces, but the former were out of his reach because of their previous retreat and the latter kept somehow dodging his high-speed strikes by a close margin. Aren't the forces of Swarga more impressive than I had thought?
The Devatas following Vudha stood in a formation behind him and started drawing golden Aksharas that floated away from them and joined in multiple points in the sky creating small yet numerous portals. The first amplified lightning strike also came down at this moment like a merciless instrument of judgment cleaving Kali's body into two wiggling parts.
It was hard to watch. What is he doing? I thought this battle would be a breeze for him. Did I expect too much?
Another lightning flash lit up the sky, then another, then another, and another...
Four of them fell one after another as the thunder finally reached us rattling our bodies from within. The smoke cleared after a while, revealing Kali's butchered body.
His heads were scattered all around the field, his tail and body were blasted into a few hundred pieces of Kundalini flesh.
I glanced at Somi for a while to observe her reaction, but she truly was expressionless.
"Don't worry. He's not going down that easily. Taking down such a huge army, requires patience and planning. He's perhaps setting things up. Let's make sure to watch and learn." She said concentrating on the battlefield a dozen miles away from us. The barren environment with dark grey thunderclouds above created scenes of an epic fight taken right off the pages of mythologies and legends.
His body parts slowly sizzled away and disappeared, melting into the earth, leaving only his upper part of the body, with five heads that were still attached somehow to the cobra hood.
"Every Yuga and every story with an Asuran uprising has a savage like you. Who somehow receives a Blessing from the Trinity, and lets it get to his head." Vudha scoffed, looking down at the lifeless main body of Kali, the part with five heads. "But you should know by now that every one of those blessings had a caveat. Mahishasura underestimated women, requesting a blessing that rendered all attacks from males useless in front of him. Devi Durga incarnated and vanquished him. Hiranyakshipu asked for a condition where he could not be killed by any living being, whether human or animal, during the day or night. He also couldn't be killed indoors or outdoors, on land or in the sky, or by any weapon. Lord Vishnu still found a way to bypass those conditions by incarnating as Narasimha, a half-man, half-lion, to defeat him. Narasimha appeared at twilight, on the threshold of a palace, placed Hiranyakashipu on his lap, and tore apart the demon king with his claws. Jalandhara was supposed to be invincible as long as his wife stayed faithful to him. Well, we all know how it turned out. Why do you think you are invincible when all these Asuras met the same fate?"
Kali didn't answer and just lay there. More and more of his severed Kundalini body parts continued to disappear into the ground.
"Since your blessing is kind of tricky, we made sure to borrow this instead... It might not be the original one, but with this many, it will be enough for you. The people of Satya have been corrupted for far too long because of you. Your mere presence leads them astray, away from the path of attaining Moksha that they are supposed to follow. We cannot let an infection like you fester in this world. The Manavas have turned greedy, lost basic moralities, and have given themselves up to addictions and gambling, they have lost the values of a family, and the respect they need to show their elders. We cannot afford to have two Aliks. For the betterment of this World, please disappear." Vudha completed his monologue and all the Devatas behind him chanted a name in unison.
"Brahmadanda."
The smaller golden portals among the thunderclouds opened up and sent down long needle-like pillars, their upper parts carved into the shape of an elegant lotus. They fell like meteorites and pierced the main body of Kali as it wiggled, trying to break himself free of these pillars. The twelve pillars stood at the vertices of a polygon and shone brightly, shattering the Kundalini body like glass.
The huge snake that once terrorized the armies was deleted from this World just like that. But the person who was supposed to be inside the Kundalini Snake Form was also nowhere to be found. A circular hole on the ground only remained, where his body should have been.
A momentary silence enveloped the battlefield until the huge Banyan tree which was once situated in the middle of the ground army started shaking violently. Its leaves rustled and branches broke off, falling on the front line of the army now totally located behind the huge tree which was being used as a cover.
A horrible explosion originated from within the tree trunk, its dark red light blanketing the scenery like an incoming solar eclipse. And a huge shock wave spread out from the tree sending gigantic pieces of wood, leaves, branches, stems, and roots away from it destroying the barren landscape in the process.
The remnants of the huge tree didn't fly too far away as thin red threads tensed and brought them back to where the explosion had occurred. Kali was standing there, where the trunk of the tree once was, as he stretched out both of his hands outwards.
A huge red vortex appeared over his right hand that sucked up all the incoming pieces of the blasted tree, while his left hand created a long thin projectile that started hovering over his shoulders giving space for another one.
The blast had already wiped out two-thirds of what was left of the ground army and the remaining one-third was scampering away without even looking back. The panicking horses and elephants brought forth much more damage than Kali himself, had he decided to engage every soldier directly.
Vudha looked down in panic and summoned a new portal that gifted him with another Brahmadanda. It is also known as the nullifier of Blessings and is often used against enemies who have strong authorities bestowed by the deities. He had said something about it being a copy or something. The forces of Swarga might be trying to recreate the effects of Deity Level Artifacts and manufacture inferior yet still powerful weapons.
Without wasting time, Vudha hurled the staff that left his hand with a shockwave, impaling the stomach of Kali who was concentrating on creating the dark red projectiles.
There were eight Devatas who were shining brightest among the forces of Swarga and there were eight projectiles. One for each of them.
Kali didn't care about the needle-like pillar that went right through his body and simply looked up at the Golden forces of Swarga.
"Fall." His voice reverberated through the ground, the vibrations traveling up to our rib cages from our legs that were attached to the soil.
Thousands of chains and shackles broke out from below the ground and travelled up like waterspouts trying to meet their other halves that came down from the sky. As if they had a mind of their own, the chains wrapped around or pierced right through the bodies of the humanoids and the majestic animals that accompanied the Swarga Forces.
The chains tensed, pulling down all the soldiers and animals that were looking down at Kali till now. They fell helplessly to the ground as the chains appeared again after disappearing underground for a second, wrapping the fallen bodies with more vigor. They now looked like Boa Constrictors who were choking their prey before preparing to swallow them whole.
The projectiles rose high up into the sky after leaving his shoulders and changed trajectories mid-air, now falling towards their targets: the eight Devatas including Vudha.
The eight Devatas struggled with all their might, desperately trying to free themselves from their Kundalini bindings as they watched the projectiles barreling toward them helplessly.
It seemed like a successful attack till the very last second. When the thin projectiles met the Devatas, they seemed to miss their marks by only a few centimeters, plunging into the ground instead of the flesh of Devatas.
"Apsaras' illusions." Somi mumbled, "I wonder how long they have been at work on that battlefield."
Kali pulled out the pillar from his stomach, which left a gaping hole there. It closed up in real-time as a healing red aura cloaked his body. He looked a bit disappointed from the results of his projectile attack but it soon disappeared behind a smirk.
The projectiles that stood upright on the ground started vibrating right beside the Devatas' faces. They covered themselves with Kundalini and their phantom humanoid Ayudhapurushas as a last resort sensing the approaching danger, only a couple of seconds before the dark red needles burst outwards creating domes of energy of the same color, devouring everything within a few meters around them.
Kali with a victorious smile stretched out his hand and clenched, like he always does while activating Vajra Kavach but his expression turned sour after two or three tries.
"Do those nullifiers have a long-lasting effect?" I wondered, feeling down as the possibility of gathering Prana beads for the Gate-Blocking-Kavacha disappeared right in front of my eyes.
Three of the eight Devatas were lying there lifeless and the rest five who sacrificed their Ayudhapurushas were in a really bad shape but somehow still alive. They got up with great effort, the blast setting them free from their Kundalini chains. But the rest of them were still stuck glued to the ground, their limbs bent in weird angles.
"We don't have a choice. It is time to deploy the Alik barrier. Kalpa!" Vudha gave up and resorted to getting more backup from Kalpa.
"This is your last chance Vudha." The voice of an old lady rang inside our heads, "I have tolerated enough failures from everybody. Destroy Kali and bring me the girl. It took some time to find where her wretched mother sent her, but to think she was right in the palm of my hands. I have to punish Tara for not notifying me as soon as she found her... Bring her to me and I'll make sure to fulfill my promise. Remember, disappoint me and you'll be the first to receive my wrath."
"She thinks Tara is still alive... The head Rishika must have been acting on her own accord till now... But I thought everybody who borrows Kalpa's vessels to Awaken themselves sends back information to her whether they want it or not." I put out the facts and looked at Somi.
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"Something was wrong with the facility underground. I have no idea how they managed it, but my connection to Kalpa was cut off when I entered the room. It also resulted in them being so helpless in front of Kali who didn't have Kalpa's vessels to begin with. Having Shukracharya's vessels, the facility couldn't put any constraints on him. Whatever happened in that room, I suspect Kalpa had no way of knowing." She theorized with a calm tone. As if bygones were bygones. No need to worry about that anymore.
A dark green portal opened up in the sky this time, and a custard-shaped fruit fell from the heavens. I thought Kali would try to stop whatever that was happening, but he simply stood with his arms crossed, standing firm on the remains of the Banyan tree.
A green hemispherical pulse spread out from the point of impact, that crossed the whole battlefield and stopped a couple of miles away from our location. A green translucent dome now covered the whole battlefield as the Kundalini chains that were binding the enemies till now disappeared into thin air.
Kali braced himself as the divine energies were severed, making the area inside the dome same as that of Alik. He was now surrounded by the Satya Manava army which had retreated away before, and the Swarga army which was tied to the ground just a few minutes ago.
"Your body once strengthened might retain its effects even inside the Alik barrier. But without your Kundalini, will you be able to triumph against these numbers? Struggle till you meet your end, Kali. The Manavas who have come to me for help will indeed sleep peacefully once I take your head today." Vudha, the celestial deity representing the planet Mercury closest to Surya the Sun God, scoffed at Kali and grabbed a golden axe etched with emeralds from an attendant who kneeled beside him presenting the weapon as soon as his speech ended. Two of his lower hands grabbed a Gada, a weapon with a cylindrical handle and a huge spherical attachment at the top.
"You know..." Kali suddenly smirked at Vudha, "I'll be doing Brihaspati a favor by taking your head instead. Maybe he'll even bless me watching me cut you down. Your existence itself is a blight in his eyes, the result of your father's immoral actions."
The crowd went quiet at his remark.
"That was quite the diss." My lips couldn't hide my smile at Kali's savage reply. He didn't think twice before bringing parents into the discussion.
Chandra, Vudha's father, representing the Moon of Bhuvar Loka, had kidnapped Tara giving in to his lustful desires, who was the wife of Brihaspati a.k.a Jupiter. This Tara was not the head Rishika but the Celestial being representing the stars of the sky, well people just like to name their children after those of celestial beings hoping they would get the blessings of their namesakes; she gave birth to Vudha from her union with Chandra. This was a huge slap to Brihaspati's face and from then on, a huge animosity had taken root among the two celestials. The details were quite gruesome I guess because this was the only thing that went around as rumors in the space dimension.
Vudha's handsome four-armed appearance got ugly as his body got red with his veins popping up.
"You just had to say this huh, Kali? I was thinking of giving you a quick and clean death. But your words made me reconsider my actions. Heavenly Troops, let's finish this. Show this barbaric demon not an ounce of mercy." Vudha's voice was not rude or loud. It was like the steam from a pressure cooker, right before it started going off wildly.
The two armies which were now reduced to their one-third size converged towards Kali's position with battle cries thundering across the battlefield.
Somi suddenly gripped my biceps which were now a bit pronounced from wiping the floors of the meditation hall for two years and whispered, "Is there nothing we can do to help? Even this might be too much for him."
I looked at her with a surprised expression. "Whoa, I thought you had stopped feeling anxious." I blurted out instead.
"I don't know... maybe because I now share a part of his vessels. But a feeling of dread is shaking my whole body. It had been quiet till now, but right now it is going crazy." She only mumbled.
'Kali.' I stared at his tiny body getting swallowed by the huge wave of crawling Manavas and Devatas far away from me. 'Don't go dying on me now. Not after showing me glimpses of the light beyond the tunnel.'
Is there even a God who I can pray to? One that'll help him? When everybody is on his other side?? When did praying even work for me? My Mummy and Papa never returned. Neither did I find a family that loved me and gave me a chance to grow up properly. Every Manava from Satya had a devotion that the Deities and Devatas yearned for. Who have I been giving them to for all these years? Did I truly feel grateful for any of the beings that were lying around comfortably in the upper Lokas? How many unfortunate people were there like me living in this Satya Loka? Everyone in power kept getting more corrupt and greedier. Destroying innocent lives for their own sake. If anything, everything is blamed on Kali's shoulders. Kali is truly needed to round all of them up and take them out in one go. This is what had happened every Yuga. To bring peace to normal people an existence like Kali is essential. He's already surpassed his mortal limits as he had said. Is he now on the same level as the Devatas? Or even the Deities?
I left the gates of the institution and brought my hands together, looking at the disappearing body of Kali. "You who arrived like a storm in my life, and opened numerous doors for me, know that I'm truly grateful for what you've done. It might have been a coincidental meeting but I don't care. It gave me hope after numerous years. It doesn't take a long time to give someone what they truly need at that moment. Even a small action or a single sentence can reinvigorate their will to live, and their need to dream. Thank you. I'm truly grateful. I know this is just a chump change compared to what the other divines get, but right now this is all I have to give you. Please accept my offerings..."
I looked back at Somi and smiled awkwardly. "Guess it won't help him much." I pondered.
"So many people ask for a multitude of blessings from the God they are worshipping. They keep saying, give me this... give me that. Ultimately, their worship and 'devotion' is derived from their selfish desires. But this was different. I doubt many divines get a prayer filled with gratitude as selfless as yours. The difference is just you've already gotten something from him I guess." Somi smiled back maybe for the first time after her vessel transplant operation. "Then again, if peoples' wishes are somehow truly granted, maybe they too will pray like you one day."
"How are your vessels doing?" I asked grinning at her. Something about her change in expression brought out my maternal instincts. I wanted to give her a long hug and say that everything would be alright, even if I didn't believe in it myself.
"They have settled. I realized after a while that they were simply getting excited, at the prospect of finally having a proper fight." She answered placing a fist over her chest.
"Crazy guy." I grinned as the full-scale melee fight ensued in the middle of the battlefield. Kali rushed towards the Satya Manava army side and pummeled the first set of Surakshaks with his knees and bare fists. Since the dimensional pockets were not working, he probably wasn't able to bring out any of his weapons. Soldiers flew back like heavy sacks of potatoes being chucked by a powerful mechanical contraption. The Manava Surakshaks tried to surround Kali with their shields but he kept brute-forcing through their boundary, denting their armors and circular Dhaals. The Yoddhas behind the Surakshaks jumped towards him and sliced their weapons through the air, scraping off skin and meat from Kali's already scarred body. But he didn't stop. Like a mad elephant, he kept throwing his punches crushing helmets along with their heads, disfiguring torsos, and leaving a trail of mangled bodies behind in his path. He picked up a sword with a Ruby set onto its hilt and started slashing it through the hordes and hordes of enemies that were surrounding him.
The Devata army was making their way through the Manava army but struggled to reach Kali as he strayed deeper and deeper into the latter. His collapsing body was now filled with wounds, cuts, gashes, and punctures. His blood was dripping from his body like a small mountain stream that mixed with the blood of his enemies who were writhing on the ground with dismembered body parts. It was a horrible sight that clenched my heart with an unknown emotion.
Kali with his blood-bathed body jumped onto a chariot after wading through hordes of Surakshaks and Yoddhas. The other chariots turned towards him in response as the Dhanurdhars on them aimed in his direction. They didn't spare Kali any time to defend and riddled his body with arrows that pierced through the right side of his body which he exposed deliberately at the last moment. Without letting anything stop him, he clasped his fingers around the Dhanurdhar's head who was sharing the chariot with him, and crushed it into a pulp, throwing his wobbling body off the vehicle.
The charioteer had brought out a sword and somehow managed to pierce Kali's back while he was killing the Dhanurdhar and twisted it ruthlessly. Kali gritted his teeth and swiped his hand at the charioteer whose head bent unnaturally, making him lose his footing as he tumbled down the chariot.
Before another volley of arrows could assault Kali, he took hold of the reins and charged towards the other chariots head-on.
"This is going nowhere," Somi commented. "He'll die like this. Let's think of a plan so that we can get rid of the barrier."
"The seed that fell on the battleground from the heavens is being guarded by Vudha himself. There's no way we can go against a celestial deity right now." I noticed that even when the whole army seemed to be congregating around Kali, Vudha stayed where he was, standing right in front of the fallen seed.
But something was wrong with the battlefield. Black fumes rising from thousands of felled warriors slowly seemed to snake their way toward Kali's chariot and were slowly engulfing the whole area. Kali was an unstoppable force. Even through all the damage he had taken, he pushed through crashing his chariot into another, veering both of them off course to crash into other vehicles starting a chain reaction of dilapidated wheels, carriages, and runaway horses. The descendants of Airavat, the huge four-tusked elephants moved forward stepping right over the rest of the chariots and putting them behind, as the Manava army tried to keep their damages to a minimum. The Swarga Army had also caught up by now, as the Yoddhas from both armies rushed towards him.
The black fumes also reached him at this moment, since he had stopped moving after disembarking from the chariot right before starting the chain reaction.
"Corruption. The prophecies say that Kali gets stronger feeding on the corruption of Manavas. The more corrupt they get, the stronger he becomes. Now I realize why I used to have those dreams even while staying in Alik. Traits slowly become part of your physicality. It is no longer a magic, but a phenotypic characteristic. Like venom in snakes and modifications in a mongoose that makes it somewhat immune to snake venom. Might look like magic to normal humans, but in actuality it is not." Somi was almost trying to convince herself with her explanations.
"These corruption snakes, barriers, and illusions all seem to be influenced by Maya. It's omnipresent, right? Even if Shakti or Kundalini can't reside inside the Alik barrier, the barrier itself is a product of Maya. I have heard some deities are able to manipulate it. Is he also doing something like that?" I speculated instead, adding onto her theories.
We watched in awe as the black fumes converged into his position and became a part of him. His wounds and bleeding slowly disappeared, covering his body with a strong dark aura that should have sent chills down the spines of his enemies.
"Those are simply illusions." Vudha announced from the back. "Do not lose sight of your target. He'll try anything to get out of this situation. I can guarantee you he isn't recovering. Only High Deities can wield Maya. He's not on their level if he's struggling with just this. End this fast. I want to go back and help my father."
Kali laughed out crazily after hearing Vudha's statement. His voice spread across the barren land filled with innumerable enemies.
"So clever of you Vudha. I was hoping to get out of this predicament by using this technique. Let's end this as you wish. Come." Kali, now covered with a thick black fog ran towards the thirty feet high four tusked elephants and jumped up on one of them using its trunk as a foothold. The elephant riders got swallowed within his black smoke for just a second and burst out of the cloud with deformed bodies one after another tumbling down like a rag doll from a fatal height. Kali raised his hand over his head, clenched it to make a fist and brought it down mercilessly right into the head of the elephant he was riding, sending a shockwave of air around him.
The elephant collapsed sideways foaming from its mouth as the blunt trauma passed through its brain and popped out its eyes. What a horrible sight! Would have been awesome if the eyeballs had actually left the sockets.
Spears, tridents, and bidents traveled through the air but failed to damage Kali as he jumped and dodged gracefully through the gradually increasing mountains of dead elephants. The elephants were now panicking and running away from the black mass, trampling on their allied forces and crushing them to bloody pulps. The elephants, disobeying their master's orders ran amok, destroying more chariots and troops in the process. Even the horses that were once flying: probably by using Kundalini, were now galloping over the heads of the soldiers, joining the frenzied stampede of the animals.
"The corruption you all have cultivated till now is only serving to make me stronger. The demon Kali didn't make you choose the wrong path. Your choices gave birth to me. I wonder, Vudha, you who was born from your father's greed, lust, and corruption... will you give off this black smoke after you die? Maybe you are afraid to find it out? To face the truth after all? Is that why you keep sending your subordinates to die instead of coming here yourself?" Kali was laughing crazily while he taunted Vudha with a maniacal expression on his face all the while continuing his slaughter. His body was no longer recognizable and seemed to have become one with the grotesque mass of corruption. It was now flowing from one corner of the battlefield to another, like a swarm of locusts, leaving nothing but death on its way. His laughter kept getting higher in pitch as he seemed to lose his sanity. The corruption of so many people... their motivations, experiences, and their thoughts are probably becoming one with him after their death. All the evil deeds these dead people have committed throughout their lives were now fusing with his being, making him go through those same experiences.
"Kali can't take on so many enemies anymore. He needs to find a different way. Absorbing this amount of corruption just to sustain himself is probably driving him crazy. The one who went there to fight, and the one who'll return back to us will probably not be the same person." Somi looked down leaving me wondering what she was thinking.
"Let's go to the battlefield. We need to take care of that seed. Kali might have wanted us to stay here, but considering how things turned out we can't just relax here waiting for things to end." I said desperately.
Kali's black smoke was getting bigger and bigger, its size now rivaling a herd of a dozen Airavats. The Manava army was reduced to bits as the black mass finally changed targets and clashed against the golden soldiers of the Divine Army from Swarga.
"Come on. I have a plan. Considering what I've heard from Kalpa's ultimatum to Vudha, we might be able to trick Vudha." Somi said, her face shining with determination. I gave a slight smile at her expression. She might have lost her feelings, but her face seemed to know what to show when someone spoke words like those.