The sun hung low over the Kalindi Valley, a swollen orb of bruised violet and copper. It cast long, distorted shadows across a landscape that had, only hours before, been a theater of divine slaughter. The day's warmth was receding, replaced by a rising, artificial heat—the collective breath of a hundred funeral pyres.
The open field in front of the village turned into a valley of Ash.
The air was a thick, suffocating braid of scents. The clean, sharp ozone of Deva lightning and the sulfurous rot of Asura remains had vanished, overwritten by the heavy perfume of sandalwood and the acrid, oily smoke of burning wool.
Along the riverbank, the pyres stood in disciplined rows, a grim architecture of wood and grief that stretched into the thickening mist.
At the center of the clearing stood the largest structure, crafted from the pale, dense heartwood of the temple's sacred groves. Upon it lay Verman. His battered armor with his uniform had been stripped, replaced by simple white linen, his face and eyes completely submerged beneath a mound of fresh rose petals and marigolds. Only the firm set of his jaw remained visible, a final testament to the man's stoicism.
Arjun stood at the pyre's base. He felt the weight of the ceremonial torch—a branch of resin-soaked pine—vibrating against his palm. His skin was tight with dried salt and woodsmoke, his eyes bloodshot but fixed. Behind him, the survivors of the village formed a silent semi-circle. Smita and Gopi stood closest, their frames slumped, drained of the energy required for outward mourning. They were beyond tears now, existing in that hollow space where the mind refuses to acknowledge the scale of its loss.
The Final Rite started.
"Let the fire return what was borrowed from the earth," The priest said calmly, standing in front of the villagers serving as the leading priest for the last rite of funerals and praying for everyone." May god grant peace to every departed soul from this valley.
Arjun hearing him as an indication lowered the torch. The seasoned wood caught instantly. The fire did not merely burn; it surged, a wall of gold and orange that hissed as it consumed the floral offerings. He did not flinch from the sudden, blistering heat that singed his eyebrows. He watched with a detached, clinical intensity as the flames climbed.
As the wood collapsed inward, the physical form of Verman began to transition. Tiny, incandescent particles of ash caught the updraft, swirling into the darkening sky like a swarm of golden fireflies.
On either side of him, the movement was mirrored. One by one, the villagers touched fire to the pyres of their own kin. Fathers, daughters, and brothers were surrendered to the heat. The valley became a sea of embers, a shimmering grid of light against the encroaching evening. The individual plumes of smoke rose high into the atmosphere, eventually merging into a single, grey shroud. It was the quiet, mechanical end of an era.
The Sentinels on the Ridge
High above the village, the Sentinels stood like statues against the shining evening sky reflecting it's orange light on the celestials.
At the vanguard was Ares. He was a man who looked carved from the very stone of the ridge—tall and deceptively slender, but with the corded, rugged muscle of a warrior who had survived a thousand battles. His face was sharp and lethal, his features set in a grim expression of duty. He held his golden helmet tucked against his hip, letting the mountain wind lash his long, blonde hair and crimson cape across his face.
Beside him, Kaelen, a junior commander, shifted restlessly. His dark hair whipped in the gale, standing out starkly against the polished silver plate of his shoulder guards. He didn't look at his commander; instead, his eyes were fixed on the flickering orange glow in the valley below.
The silence between them was heavy, filled only by the rhythmic snapping of their cloaks. Finally, Kaelen broke it, his voice tight with the pragmatism of a soldier.
"Why do we remain mere spectators here?" Kaelen asked, his eyes never leaving the boy. "Why didn't you tell him the truth of his origin when you were in front of him. Why didn't you reveal him his real identity. What did you wait for, Ares? Every moment he believes he is merely a mortal child is a moment wasted."
Ares did not look away from the valley. His expression was calm, yet beneath the surface, his features were clouded by a deep, compassionate ache. He looked like a man watching a mirror of his own past.
"I understand all your concerns but, for a moment just look at the fires below, Kaelen," Ares said softly, his voice carrying the resonance of a cello. "Count them. Every plume of smoke represents a severed thread. In every house, a chair sits empty. A father a mother, a sister, a friend—everyone down there has just closed the most terrible chapter of their lives. Including the boy."
Ares finally turned to his junior, his eyes shimmering with a hard-won wisdom. "To snatch him away now, to sever him from his mother when they are all that remain of their world... it would leave them both truly alone. Grief is not a hurdle to be jumped, Kaelen; it is a forest that must be walked through. If we force him into a restless, immortal journey while his heart is still back there in the ash, we will not be saving him. We will be breaking him."
Kaelen snapped his gaze toward Ares, his frustration sparking. "But the Asuras? They do not care for the 'forest of grief.' you talk of, They only care for the harvest. If they return tomorrow, we cannot guarantee the boy's safety under these conditions. In Devlok, he is atleast safe under our wings. Here, in the mud of the Prithvilok, he is nothing but an easy target."
Ares placed a heavy, gauntleted hand on Kaelen's shoulder. The weight of it seemed to ground his anxiety.
"The shadows have their laws, my friend, just as we do," Ares explained. He didn't look at Kaelen; his gaze was fixed on the far horizon, where the stars seemed to pulse with a hidden rhythm. "The rift between worlds is not a door that stays open. It requires a thinning of the veil—a moment when the barriers between the Devlok and the mortal realm grow weak."
He paused, the wind catching his crimson cape. "The Asuras can only cross into this world in great numbers when the lunar eclipse falls upon a Friday night. That celestial alignment has now passed. The window has slammed shut, and it will not open again for another six years."
Below them, the roar of the funeral pyre had faded. Ares looked down at the small, dark figure of Arjun. The boy was no longer standing; he was kneeling in the cooling dust and grey ash where the fire had once burned.
"We will return in a few weeks—perhaps a month. We will give him the time to bury the man and find the warrior. When the tragedy has settled into resolve and his mind has hardened against the shock, he will be ready."
He paused for a moment to settle down his words, than whispered again "A savior cannot be built on a foundation of raw trauma. He must be mentally strong enough to carry the weight we are about to hand him."
Ares donned his golden helm, the visor obscuring his eyes. "Let him have his peace, Kaelen. It is the last he will ever know."
We must depart," a senior celestial named Gozen commanded, stepping forward. With a sharp flick of his hand, a portal tore open in the air before them, glowing with a fierce, shimmering heat.
The transition from the mortal world to the heavens was not a journey of miles, but a shift in the soul. As the Deva host ascended, the mud and the bitter smoke of the Kalindi Valley dissolved into a blinding, rhythmic white light. The air grew thin and sharp, eventually solidifying into the cold, diamond-hard reality of the Devlok.
Awaiting them was a congregation of the high-born. Celestial warriors in ceremonial plate, scholars draped in starlight, and ancient looking saints stood in a tense, disciplined silence.
At the vanguard of the crowd stood Acharya Zayarsha. He was a man who looked as though he had been carved from a mountain peak—tall, broad-shouldered, and draped in ornate warrior-monk armor that bore the scars of a thousand aeons. His long white hair fell over his shoulders like a frozen waterfall, framing a face that had watched the birth of stars.
As the portal hissed and flickered, the Devas began to arrive. When the last of the warriors stepped onto the solid stone floor, a collective breath was held by the thousands watching. The crowd leaned forward, their eyes searching the space behind Ares for a smaller silhouette—a mortal frame, a child, the living sign that the prophecy had been fulfilled.
But the rift simply sputtered and died. Ares stood alone at the front of his men. No boy followed him.
The Echo of Doubt
The silence that followed was brittle, like thin glass. Then, like a sudden wind through dry leaves, a frantic whispering erupted from the ranks of the gods.
"The boy... where is the Avatar?"
"Has the lineage been severed? Is the light extinguished?"
"Did Mihirkul succeed? Is the Great Darkness already upon us?"
The murmur grew into a storm of doubt until Zayarsha raised a single, massive hand. The silence returned instantly, heavier than before. He looked at Ares, his gaze piercing through the commander's golden visor.
Ares," Zayarsha urged, his voice a deep, resonant rumble that acted like a calm hand upon the rising tension of the crowd. "Speak. Why does the path behind you remain empty? Is the boy lost to the light?"
"Everything is as it should be, Acharya," Ares replied, though he did not immediately remove his helm. He tilted his neck toward the elder, his posture weary. "For now, the balance holds."
The Council's Fury
"If the balance holds, then where is our savior?"
The voice belonged to Master Hugen, and it cut through the air like a cold blade. He was a sharp contrast to Zayarsha's mountain-like bulk—a thin, wiry man with a half-bald head and a silver beard that reached his waist. He wore a deep blue kimono that seemed to shift like the depths of the ocean. Though his voice was steady, it possessed a furious clarity—it was the sound of a storm held behind a closed door.
"Is the boy alive?" Hugen demanded, his eyes narrowing with a clinical, biting concern. "Or are we standing here discussing the logistics of a failure?"
"The boy lives," Kaelen snapped, stepping forward to defend his commander. His voice was defensive, echoing sharply against the cyclopean pillars. "But Ares deemed it... unwise to extract him at this time."
Hugen's gaze shifted to the junior commander, cold and unimpressed. "Unwise? We have waited an age for the Seventh Seal to break. We have watched the shadows grow while we sat in silence. And now you tell us that the moment of our salvation was 'unwise'?"
Zayarsha's brow furrowed, the lines on his face deepened "Explain your reasoning, Ares," he commanded, his voice a low thrum that vibrated through the stone floor. "We do not leave the key to save our universe in a house of mud and straw without a grave reason."
Ares finally removed his helm, revealing a face etched with the grim reality of what he had witnessed. He looked at the gathered immortals, men and women who had forgotten what it felt like to bleed.
The reason behind my decision was the boy's current stability", his voice hard
"We arrived late after the defence was collapsed," Ares began, his voice dropping an octave. "The damage was already done. Our old companion—our brother in arms, Nandverman—is dead. He fell holding the line against Mihirkul and his host."
A ripple of genuine shock broke across the assembly. Even among the gods, Verman was a name of legend, a hero whose exile had never dimmed his glory. Ares continued before the whispers could take root.
"Arjun witnessed it all," Ares said, his voice dropping an octave, thick with a heavy, human sadness. "He didn't just see a warrior fall; he saw his father die in the dirt. He is enduring a fracture of the spirit—a wound that no celestial armor could ever deflect. Right now, he is fragile and broken. He is tethered to the only reality he has left: his mother's side. To tear him away now would not be a rescue."
Ares stepped closer to Zayarsha, his eyes flashing with a fierce, protective light.
"If I had brought him here today, he would be a prisoner in a paradise he doesn't understand. I chose to leave him so he could grieve. A boy who is forced to save the world before he has even finished mourning his own will only grow to hate the very people he is meant to protect. He needs time to harden. He needs to find his own reason to fight."
Hugen's 'furious' calm seemed to waver, replaced by a grim understanding. Zayarsha looked up at the great stone pillars of Devlok, then back at Ares
Zayarsha's stony features softened, the tension in his massive shoulders finally dissipating. He looked at Ares with a gaze of approval and a glimmer of pride. A small, knowing smile tugged at the corners of his mouth—a silent acknowledgement of the wisdom behind the soldier's restraint.
"Once again, Ares, you have proven that your value to this council extends beyond the reach of your blade," Zayarsha remarked, his voice echoing with a warm, gravelly resonance. "You possess the rare ability to balance the cold logic of the strategist with the pulse of a living heart. A commander who ignores the spirit of his soldiers is merely a butcher; you have chosen to be a mentor."
The Acharya turned his attention toward the gathered assembly, his presence expanding to fill the vast stone plaza. The murmurs of the crowd died away as he prepared to set the new course of their design.
"The boy needs his silence," Zayarsha declared, his voice carrying the weight of an immutable law. "The trauma of the Kalindi Valley is a poison that must be drained before the nectar of our teachings can take hold. We will not return in days, nor weeks."
He paused, looking at Master Hugen and the other high-ranking saints. "We shall grant him two months. Eight weeks to walk the earth as a son, to mourn the man he lost, and to settle the accounts of his soul. This duration will suffice for his mind to recalibrate, ensuring that when he finally stands before these pillars, he does so with a steady hand and a clear eye."
Ares felt a surge of relief, though his face remained a mask of disciplined calm.
Around the Oculus, the celestial warriors and white-haired scholars bowed their heads in unison. There were no further objections; the fury of the council had been transformed into a collective, patient vigil. The decision was sealed in the crystalline air of Devlok.