"No one gets between me and my target." SP Sharma's voice sliced through the night, sharp and unforgiving, as if the very air recoiled from it.
The Asura turned, slowly and deliberately, his hands still glowing faintly with healing energy. His gaze settled on the man holding a blood-covered knife.
Drops of blood fell from the blade, landing with a quiet hiss on the sacred ground. Each one disrupted the ritual markings, smearing the symbols beneath. SP's face remained composed, but underneath that cold surface pulsed the recklessness of a man who had gone beyond the point of return.
"You..." the Asura said weakly, feeling life drain from him like water slipping through open fingers. The attack had landed at the worst possible moment. His defences had been focused entirely on healing the boy, and that was when the blade struck true.
"You do not understand the mistake you have just made."
Blood foamed at the edge of his lips. He did not collapse. He did not scream. Instead, the Asura started laughing. A low sound at first, almost a murmur, then louder. The laughter grew and shifted into something that echoed unnaturally through the riverbank, a sound more ancient than it had any right to be.
It sounded like stone breaking apart under pressure. It sounded like the years themselves were mocking the foolishness of the living.
"You really think this changes anything?" His voice held more strength than expected, even as more blood spilled from the wound. "You have absolutely no idea what you have set loose."
SP Sharma's confidence faltered. He had expected agony, maybe pleading, but not this. This reaction did not belong to a dying man. Still, panic had hardened him. Panic demanded action. And panic led him to shout.
"Rajendra. Now."
A shadow moved behind the rock nearby. Rajendra stepped into view, slow and precise. In his hand was what looked like a common wooden cane, the kind carried by old men for balance.
His fingers found a familiar spot on the handle. There was a click, soft but sharp, and the outer layer opened to reveal a blade hidden inside.
The sword stick was a quiet weapon. Simple. Elegant. Lethal. Its true nature had been disguised for years. Rajendra had walked with it across cities, through temples, along riversides. He had used it as a prop, leaned on it for effect, pointed with it while explaining maps. But no one had ever guessed the truth.
"I have waited a long time to use this again," Rajendra said, his voice shaking not just with fear, but with something that sounded like release. "It has been two decades since I last drew it in battle. Tonight is only the second time."
The hidden blade pushed into the Asura's back. It slid between his ribs with a sickening noise, wet and final. But the millennium old man did not fall. He turned instead, locking eyes with Rajendra.
Those eyes held centuries of memory. Rajendra froze.
"Twenty years of waiting, of hiding," the Asura said. His voice changed, deeper now, strange in its resonance. "But what are twenty years to someone who has seen centuries? What is your sharp little toy compared to what you have disturbed tonight?"
Both men felt it. A change. An invisible weight in the air. Their blades had drawn blood, yes, but the Asura still stood. Still watched. Still understood. And that realisation terrified them.
Panic stripped them of their humanity.
"Die. Just die already." SP Sharma shouted, pushing the knife deeper into the wound. The blade scraped bone. Blood poured freely. Still the Asura remained on his feet.
Rajendra followed, swinging his concealed sword in sweeping motions. Again and again, he struck. Each slash aimed to silence something that would not be silenced.
Blood flew in arcs. The ground turned red, symbols erased by violence. The ritual site was soaked in destruction.
"You should have stayed out of our way." SP Sharma gasped between attacks. "You should have stayed down. Why will you not just die?"
The number of wounds would have killed any other man a dozen times over. His robes were saturated. His breathing came in jagged, unnatural gasps. But those eyes refused to dim. They still held power. Still saw.
Eventually, his strength began to fade. The light in his eyes dimmed. His body started to shake. Then, at last, it seemed the fight was over.
He slumped.
"Finally," Rajendra muttered, wiping the blood from his sword blade and folding it back into its wooden shell. "I was beginning to think we had found someone who truly could not die."
They let themselves breathe. The battle seemed done. But their relief did not last long.
The Asura's fingers twitched. They moved again. Not by chance. Deliberately.
His head shifted. His body remained still, but those dim eyes opened slightly. The smile that formed on his blood-covered face chilled the air around them.
"No," SP Sharma said under his breath. "No. This is not real. This is not happening."
The Asura answered in a whisper. His voice carried an eerie echo, as though the world itself spoke through him.
"You do not understand. Death is not the end. It is a beginning."
Terror took full control now. Both men stood frozen, like animals who had bitten something far larger than they realised. Rajendra's hands fumbled. He drew the blade once again.
"If the stabbing is not enough," he said in a tone almost too high to recognise, "then we will try something else."
With one clean swing, he brought the sword down. The motion was precise. The metal moved quickly, and the Asura's head was severed cleanly from his shoulders.
There was a sound like wood snapping under pressure. Then silence.
Blood erupted from the neck in a sudden, violent spray.
Rajendra remained standing over the body. His chest heaved. The weapon dripped red onto the stones.
"Let us see you move now," he said, voice cracking with the fear he could no longer conceal.
They watched.
One minute passed. Then another. The body did not move. The air changed. The invisible pressure lifted.
The presence that had filled the night began to fade.
Both men turned their attention to disposal. They dragged the two bodies toward the river. Neither spoke.
"Two less problems in the world," SP Sharma said, pushing the corpses into the current. The river accepted them without hesitation, carrying the bodies away.
But the story was not over.
Below the surface, unseen by either man, something was taking place.
The Asura's body was gone. His brain destroyed. His heart silenced. But his spirit remained. It clung to the world, bound to it by the broken ritual and the unfinished task.
The binding is not complete. The boy must live. It cannot end like this. Not when I have come this far.
"Dead or breathing. I always close my accounts."
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