---
The battlefield smoldered.
Crows circled above.
Ashes drifted down like black snow.
The air reeked of blood and broken promises.
Kara soldiers lay lifeless.
Even Parashu's own allies had fallen by his hand—
Victims of his power spinning out of control.
And then… a stillness.
Something ancient stirred in the wind.
From the edge of the ruins,
a man walked through the smoke.
Wearing no armor.
Carrying no banner.
Only silence.
Jamadigini.
His steps were slow.
Deliberate.
The ground itself seemed to pause for him.
Parashu stood among the chaos, eyes wide—
his hands still shaking from the massacre he didn't mean to cause.
When he saw the man,
his heart stopped.
That face.
That presence.
He knew it, even though he had never seen it up close.
"…Baba?"
His voice cracked.
The word hit the air like thunder in a graveyard.
---
Kamravinash grinned from the shadows.
"Ah, the great father arrives," he mocked.
"Shall I show him what his son has become?
A killer of his own?"
But Jamadigini didn't flinch.
His eyes scanned the corpses.
Then rested on Parashu.
He said nothing.
He didn't need to.
---
"You abandoned me!" Parashu shouted.
The battlefield trembled.
"You let me grow up alone. You watched from the shadows—why?!"
A long silence.
Jamadigini finally spoke.
His voice was soft. Worn.
"Because if I held you… you would never learn to stand on your own.
Because my curse would've touched you too soon."
Parashu fell to his knees.
"I needed you…"
Jamadigini stepped closer, knelt, and placed a hand on Parashu's shoulder.
"And I was always there. Just not in the way you wanted."
---
Kamravinash burst forward, fury unleashed.
"You think a father's love can stop heartbreak?!"
He summoned a wave of sorrow—
visions of every loss Parashu had faced.
But Jamadigini stood in front of his son.
"I've walked through centuries of grief," he said.
"I buried your mother.
Watched empires burn.
Held back my love so you could grow strong."
He raised one hand.
Light exploded.
Kamravinash screamed as his illusions cracked—
his heart-melting power backfired.
The god of heartbreak—
defeated by a father's silent love.
---
Jalandhara, injured but proud, charged next.
"This war will never end!" he shouted.
He raised his blade.
But Jamadigini caught it midair, barehanded.
"You lost the moment you killed for a cause you didn't understand."
With one strike, he shattered Jalandhara's sword.
The general collapsed.
---
Parashu whispered, voice trembling,
"Father…"
Jamadigini nodded once.
Eyes full of regret and pride.
He stood, looked one last time at his son.
Then turned away.
---
No words.
No farewell.
Just a man disappearing into the morning fog.
He walked through the ruins,
through the broken village,
through the ashes of everything they had lost.
And like a ghost from legend—
He was gone.
Leaving behind a son,
a silence,
and the ashes of a forgotten hero.
---