Dawn - Arjun's First Day
The desert exhaled cool morning breath as Arjun adjusted his tool belt. Somewhere in the ruins, a stone shifted—not from wind, but from something stirring beneath.
The New Beginning
Tools of the Trade His trowel (a graduation gift) hummed faintlyagainst certain stones The department's ground-penetrating radar glitched at 7.7MHz His notebook's first page bore an accidental dragon-scale inkblotThe Team's Reaction Professor Iyer praised his "instinct for alignment" when he oriented trenches perfectly north The local workers whispered about his uncanny luckin finding artifacts Only the site's black dog (with one blue eye) noticed how shadows bent toward himFirst Discovery
By noon, his brush revealed: A terracotta shard stamped with the same D7 symbolfrom Ram's hospital bracelet When rinsed, the dirt swirled counterclockwise before settling
The Unseen Threads
Signs Only Readers Notice
His birthmark pulsed warm when touching the shardThe dog's collar tag read "Shambala Kennels - Est. 3122 BCE"His water bottle's condensation formed tiny wings on the glass
Kai's Distant Influence
In 3122 BCE, the comatose warlord's:
Left eye (still showing "2030") flickered to "2029" for seven secondsLead-coated diamonds shed one fleck of yellow into the dust
THE COMATOSE PREDATOR
3122 BCE - 2028 - The Eternal Prison
The ancient Sumerians sealed Kai in a ziggurat of black basalt, chanting spells that bound his coma-wracked body to the stones. They never noticed:
The way dying warriors leaned too close to his resting placeHow the ziggurat's shadow never matched the sun's angleThat their lifespans shortened by exactly 7 years after each visit
2028 - The Bloodline's Curse
When archaeologist Li Wei and his son Taison (7) entered the newly excavated ruins:
The AwakeningTaison's sneeze echoed through the chamber—a perfect Shambalan harmonicThe Black Diamond shard in Kai's chest flared after 5,150 years of dormancyThe SacrificeLi Wei's flashlight beam refracted into a blade of light that bisected himHis last breath froze in midair, forming the rune for "betrayal"The Claiming
Kai's voice slithered from the walls:
The Poisoned Teaching
Lessons in the Digital Age
Diamond Tech Made Taison hack museums worldwide to track artifact energy signatures Fed him data from Arjun's published archaeology papers as "enemy tactics" Dragon Training Forced him to meditate before a VR simulation of Seraphina's frozen form Starved him until he could drain a smart city's power grid The Ultimate Test
On Taison's 12th birthday (2033): Kai fabricated a deepfake of Arjun from stolen university records Ordered Taison to track and eliminate the "threat" Rewarded him with a drone strike on Gandhi Hospital's Ward D7
THE HUNT FOR THE DIAMONDS
2029 - The Global Pursuit
Taison, now 26, stood atop Dubai's Burj Khalifa, his augmented reality visor scanning the planet for diamond signatures. The eight recovered gems pulsed in their titanium case, casting prismatic shadows across his face.
The Conquests
Africa 2025 Seized the Brown Diamond from a volcanic rift in Tanzania Left an entire village in permanent stone stasis as warning Antarctica 2027 Claimed the White Diamond from a melting glacier The ice shelf collapse drowned three research stations Mars Colony 2028 Extracted the Pink Diamond from Olympus Mons The resulting quake cut off Earth contact with 147 colonists
The Missing Two
Shambala's Diamond (Location: Unknown, shielded by residual magic)Blue Diamond (Last traced to a Mumbai slum in 2008 before signal vanished)
Dr. K's 40-Year Obsession
The Hidden Lab Under Geneva
Walls papered with:Satellite images of dragon-shaped energy surgesStolen museum records about a 3122 BCE "comatose demon"A red string connecting Arjun's childhood photo to Ward D7 fire reports
Critical Blind Spot
Knew Taison's face from security footageHad mapped 19 diamond-related mass disappearancesNever realized the homeless man photographed near each event was Arjun
Kai's Fatal Assumption
The Decoy Gambit
Planted evidence suggesting Arjun died in the 2008 Hyderabad massacre Used shapeshifting mercenaries to stage Arjun sightings in false locations K's own research accidentally reinforced the deception
The Reality
Arjun had been:
Living off-grid as a Mumbai chai-wallahUsing his daily routes to monitor diamond energy fluctuationsUnknowingly carrying the Blue Diamond in his grandfather's old pressure cooker
THE BLUE AWAKENING
January 1, 2030 - 6:17 AM
The call came while Arjun was sharing chai with Tom and Praveen at their usual Marine Lines stall. His phone displayed "UNKNOWN CALLER", but the voice knew things no one should:
"Site Gamma needs you. The blue stone whispers your name."
The Excavation
Strange Omens
His birthmark burned ice-cold for the first timeTom's motorcycle wouldn't start until Praveen joked "Maybe walk, dragon boy?"The stray dogs following Arjun howled at dawn though the sun hadn't risen
The Dig Site
First Strike His trowel hit something before touching earth The soil parted like water, revealing: A Nokia 3310 (charge: 77%) Ram's hospital bracelet (Ward D7) A pressure cooker identical to his mother's The Blue Light When he lifted the cooker's lid, liquid sapphire firegeysered upward The explosion: Turned clouds dragon-wing shaped Made every dog in Mumbai sit facing north Left Tom and Praveen unharmed but speechlessThe Revelation
In the crater: The Blue Diamond hovered at chest height Its light showed two reflections- Arjun's face and Ram's A voice whispered: "Seven minutes to remember...
THE AWAKENING
January 1, 2030 – 6:30 AM
As blue light engulfed the Mumbai dig site, three miracles occurred simultaneously:
The Dragon's Soul The bottled spirit burst free, taking the form of a translucent sapphire hatchling It circled Arjun's unconscious body three timesbefore shooting skyward The Prophecy Fulfilled
Seraphina's final words echoed across dimensions:
"When blue fire meets the heir's blood,
My child will wake, the land be good.
But guard your heart—the thief still walks,
His shadow grows where my child talks." The Heir's Mark
Arjun's birthmark reshaped itselfinto: A dragon wing (Seraphina's) A PlayStation controller (Ram's) The number 7(Kai's undoing)
The Aftermath
In Shambala:
The frozen pool cracked openThe soulless heir's body took its first breathBut its eyes opened black instead of blue
In Mumbai:
Tom and Praveen found Arjun floating 3 inches above groundHis phone displayed:
1 New Voicemail (Saved: 2008)
Ram's voice: "They're coming, brother. Push ▲▲▼▼◄►◄►BA."
In Geneva:
Dr. K's monitors suddenly showed:
Taison's location (en route to Mumbai)A second energy signature labeled "D7-ECHO"