The world hadn't healed from Vikraal's judgment.
It adjusted.
Skies thinned. The stars over Navaksara Temple shimmered unnaturally, like blinking eyes—watching. As if the battle had sent tremors upward, not downward.
Luv sat sharpening his dagger under a banyan tree. Sparks of lightning danced along its edge. A new scar stretched across his collarbone, already healing. His new silver armor had reformed, slightly cracked, but humming with contained energy.
Naira was meditating atop a stone slab, her talismans orbiting slower than usual. Something about their divine fight had strained even the threads of mantra she was used to pulling.
Astha stood alone, where Vikraal had vanished.
Smritidhaara coiled loosely around his arm, tip glowing faintly orange, like embers resisting the wind.
"He was a probe," Astha muttered. "They wanted to test if we'd break."
Luv looked up. "And we didn't."
"That's the problem."
---
[Incoming Threat]
A sonic boom cracked through the forest canopy—followed by silence.
Then a faint tremor… growing.
The ground sank beneath them in a wide radius—just slightly. Subtle. Like something enormous was crawling beneath the earth.
Astha's eyes narrowed. "That's not divine energy."
Naira opened one eye. "It's older."
---
[The Combat Begins]
Suddenly, from the clearing's edge, the trees split like paper.
A serpent.
But not of this realm.
A nine-headed draconic Naga, coated in molten obsidian scales and armor made of woven prayer-plates, each one inscribed with dying languages. Its eyes glowed with an ancient violet hue, and from each mouth—it screamed a different divine dialect.
"I am Khandava-Naaga, Heir of the Broken Pantheon."
The ground boiled beneath it.
Astha's cloak flared open.
"Finally," he whispered, summoning Vaayutal mid-air, spinning it once. "A target with weight."
---
[Battle Choreography Begins]
Step 1: The Flank
Luv vanished in a bolt of white-blue lightning, reappearing above the central head.
"I'll keep the loud ones busy."
He hurled a thunder-spear downward, impaling one of the creature's mouths mid-chant.
CRACK-KOOM!
It roared, reeling back.
Step 2: The Control
Naira summoned five talismans into a triangle formation and activated a mantra of spatial delay, causing the creature's left side to repeat its own movement every two seconds—trapping half of its body in a loop.
"The left is caught. But it won't last."
Step 3: The Charge
Astha burst forward, dragging Smritidhaara behind him. The chain split mid-swing into three flaming trails, wrapping around the beast's other heads. One head bit into his shoulder—but he didn't flinch.
"Vikara Mode," he growled. "Full release."
The sickle transformed into a halo of rotating blades, orbiting his arm, then shot forward in a spiral strike—cleaving straight through two necks.
The heads fell. But new ones began growing, made of mantra-gold and cursed smoke.
"It regenerates through forgotten prayers," Naira warned.
"Then let's make it remember pain," Astha snarled.
---
[Combo Strike]
Astha:
He summoned Vaayutal, swung upward, then kicked the ground so hard the earth plate launched him mid-air. While airborne, he lashed Smritidhaara around a new growing head—then yanked, causing the growing spine to rip off with it.
Luv:
Summoned Vajranetra, his lightning javelin. "Let's blind it." He struck the sixth eye on the central head, causing a cascading thunder-flash that paralyzed three heads at once.
Naira:
Activated Mirror Mantra—briefly reflecting the serpent's own mantra chant back at it. The serpent's spell hit its body—causing internal collapse along its lower ribs.
---
[Final Phase]
The serpent coiled, desperate. Its heads merged into one massive maw, roaring in all nine tongues at once, unleashing a shockwave of divine pressure.
Astha knelt, palm on the ground.
His voice was low.
"You want to swallow existence?"
He rose.
"Swallow this."
He snapped his fingers—Smritidhaara spiraled around him, then extended outward in a wide crescent arc, forming a flaming rune sigil across the air.
"Smritidhaara—Divine Binding: Netra Stambhana!"
The rune carved itself into the beast's hide.
Luv hurled Vajranetra into the rune.
BOOM.
The serpent burst—body tearing into threads of burned scripture.
---
[Aftermath]
Only a scorch mark remained.
Naira coughed. "What was that thing?"
Astha looked up at the sky, where clouds were forming strange geometric shapes.
"A trial. Sent from something higher."
"They're watching again," he muttered.
Luv folded his arms. "Then we give them something worse to watch."