Sohajan and Sohika sprinted through the chaos, leaping over crumbled walls and mangled corpses, there breath was ragged under the sky piercing roars and howls of the unrelenting beasts. The very earth beneath them shuddered and cracked, rippling the powerful shockwaves u leashed from the brutal clash of the four captains and the crimson wolf.
Beneath the ground slithered something far more worse, the land crawler, a gigantic stone leviathan churned through the soil. Erupting at random spots it destroyed temple towers and massive blocks of monuments with a single sweep of its stone armored tail. Then, just as quickly it disappeared back into the ground, leaving behind gaping craters, powdered bones mixed with dust and pulverized remains.
"Where are we heading to?" Sohajan asked in midst of all this mess.
"Some of our clan members are battling assassins, we need to help them!" Sohika replied.
CLANG CLANG CLANG
A sharp metallic clang echoed through the rubbles. Sohajan and Sohika leapt into that direction to spot a few black cloak assassins brutally smashing their swords at a warrior from their clan. The warrior defended and reflect every strike with precise movements and swings of her sword. Upon closely focusing did they realize that the warrior was none other than Vedna.
Sohajan drew out his sword with a sharp metallic ring of the blade and dashed towards one of the assassins, whereas lunged at the other assassin. Sohajan leapt ahead and swung his sword down in sweeping arc. But the assassin was no ordinary as he sensed sohajan and blocked the attack with its sword.
CLANG
The blades collided, grinding with each other. Sohajan drew his sword back and delivered a furious punch straight to his face. The assassin staggered back a few steps before rooting his feet in the ground. The assassin regaining his balance, darted towards Sohajan. The assassin smashed his sword at Sohajan with a brutal swing. Sohajan reacted at the right time and leapt aside, evading the sword smash attack. The sword smashed onto the ground, penetrating through it and embedding itself deep into the earth. Sohajan was about to throw an elbow cut straight to the assassin, but suddenly he was punched onto the ground by someone else.
He hurtled away, somehow managing to regain his composure, Sohajan looked at the other assassin who had delivered the punch, that guy was right now busy distracting Sohika from her main opponent. Sohika delivered a string of consecutive sword slashes at her opponent, who was barely able to evade them all, taking some those slices.
Sohika moved with a swift grace until the other assassin attacked her, Sohika immediately shift into a defensive stance, crossing her sword before her, blocking the opponents blades. On the other side, Vedna, alone by herself was able to put the her opponent on knees, as she was about to slit his throat with her blade, she was forced to move away by the other assassin.
This other assassin had become fly in the nose for everyone in just a few minutes, annoying all three of them to the core. This time the other assassin again targeted Sohajan, leaping towards him, ready to slash his blade at him when his foot suddenly halted.
SWISH
A metallic swish echoed, as the very next moment the assassins head was thrown into the air, whereas it's body stayed in its place. Blood began to ooze out from it headless neck, streaming down it's throat and onto the ground. The headless body fell down on the ground without any further motion with a thud.
The head hurled away, spiraling in a sweeping arc before crashing into the ground. Gallons of blood began to stream out of the head and paint the ground slick with blood. Sohajan stared at the head for a few moments before shifting his gaze to a figure that stood right before him. The figure held a long spear in its hands, it's drenched in blood trickling down it's edges drop by drop.
The figure was clad in a sliver armor filled with multiple scars and scratch marks, completely bathed in blood, the figure didn't seem less than a menace. At the center of the armor was carved a seal, constituted of intricate patterns within it. The seal made the entire armor completely distinguishable from any other.
Everyone stared at the figure in utter disbelief upon witnessing what had just happened. The figure then looked at another assassin and lunged at him like a beast. The assassin swung it's blade, deflecting every attack from the warrior in front of him. Sohajan, taking advantage of the situation, dashed towards the assassin and swung his sword at him, distracting him for just a few moments.
The warrior seized the opportunity and plunged his spear deep into the chest of that assassin. Out of nowhere another silver warrior emerged out of the dust who lunged at the assassin near Vedna and embedded his sword deep into his chest. With only one assassin left, it didn't take them much effort to take him down.
Sohajan, Sohika, and Vedna stared at the two silver warriors before asking "Who are you? I haven't seen you before!" asked Vedna.
The first warrior glared at all three of them before saying "I am Seal warrior Skandha, and this is Da, trained by Skambha clan under the Skambha seal team and this is soldier Dahana, one of my subordinates, we come under the designated seal warriors, only designed to operate in such situations and secure the critical tasks employed upon us. Right now our task is to safeguard our clan's remains."
"How can we believe you?" Sohajan asked.
"You have to, our clan will be destroyed, only your belief in us can save it's last pieces." Skandha said.
"Fine then, but we need to save other of our entangled members." Vedna said.
"You don't need to worry regarding that.
"Our other subordinates must have secured them…..," Dahana spoke before taking a pause.
"But, we need to hurry, we don't have much time,"
Skandha nodded his head to Dahana, using hand signs to order him to go ahead, "Follow him." he said as Dahan sprinted towards the clan base, and the other three hesitantly followed his trail, where as Skandha stayed at the back.
Leaping over the rubbles and debris, they kept running until they approached the destroyed field where there was nothing except dust. Powerful shockwaves tore through the air, rippling through everything around. The three elders were somehow able to suppress Raaksha , pinning him on the ground, with their blades embedded deep into his limbs, and into the ground.
Skandha looked at that direction for a few moments "Stay quiet, and keep moving!!"
"Where are we going?" Sohika asked.
"You will know very soon!" Dahana said as he swiftly sprinted, hiding behind the debris, moving towards the destroyed clan base. Sohika, Sohajan, Vedna, and Skandha followed his exact steps. After a few minutes of sneaking around amidst the brutal clash among the four of those people, they arrived at the back of the clan base.
The back area was completely destroyed, except of a large tree, it's branches spreading long and heavy, but unfortunately, all of its leaves were burned to ashes in the fire, leaving behind a barren tree structure with chunks of charred wood. Everyone stopped right beside that tree.
Skandha glanced around, and knelt down, using his spear to dig out a huge chunk of soil from the sides of its roots, revealing a large circular metallic plate stuck very intensely with the ground. Skandha stood up as he looked at the other three people and then at Dahana.
"Any information on where Taranga and kshata are?" Skandha asked.
Before Dahana could say anything else, another seal warrior ran out of those rubbles with two of the skambha clan members following him, that seal warrior drifted in front of Skandha, coming to a halt, he said "Commander Skandha, Taranga reporting here, two heirs Veeryan and Mehul have been secured from the marketplace, the other two Divyansh and Manav were assassinated."
"Alright,"
Within just a few minutes, the fourth seal warrior emerged out of the rubbles, "Commander Skandha, Kshata here. No heirs were secured, but I extracted a royal soldier who claims to have some information about the missing heir Mayra!"
"I somehow got it out of him, he said that Mayra was attacked by the silver wolf's class, throwing her off the defense wall into the forests.
"I then incorporated with Chaya and searched the entire nearby forests upon hearing this but didn't find even a single trace of her,"
"Hmm…." Skandha took a pause before asking "Wait a minute! Where is Chaya?"
"He said he was going to the secret library of the clan! He should be here by a few minutes!" Kshata said.
"Okay then me and Dharana shall escort these people to the safe haven, Kshata and Taranga will wait for Chaya and watch our back." Skandha Commanded.
Sohajan, Sohika and Vedna just stood there carefully listening to them. Upon hearing that Mayra is missing, Vedna suddenly asked "Then what about Mayra?"
"I am sorry, but he wasn't able to find Mayra." The injured seal warrior said.
"how is this possible? She must be there!
She was sent there by the elders?" Vedna panicked as she said.
"Leave it for now, we will think about it later, right now we need to do what's important," the Skandha said.
"Are we going to leave Grandpa here?" Sohajan asked.
"We can't do anything about it, he won't come with even if we pleaded to him in such a situation." Sohika said.
Skandha bent down and lifted up the huge metallic plate, which was stuck to the metallic entrance frame due to its powerful magnetic abilities. Beneath that plate was revealed a hole that lead to a tunnel passage under the ground. Darkness looked everywhere in the tunnel, blocking any vision of what was inside.