"Power is a parasite. It does not gift you strength—it devours the part of you that was ever weak."
—Inscription on the Gate of Shatarvan
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The sky bled over Ashvattha.
Crimson clouds slithered like serpents above the coliseum. The air was charged, not just with divine energy—but fear.
Down below, the arena floor had been changed.
Gone was the tiled battlefield.
Now stood a graveyard of ancient bones. Skulls the size of elephants. Ribs like bridges. Swords rusted into skeletons. This was The Bone Orchard, the arena reserved for only the most cursed of rounds.
And today… it was Aarav Sen's second match.
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The crowd didn't roar this time.
They whispered.
They watched him step into the killing field like he wasn't mortal anymore. Like he wasn't real.
His first match had turned a god-marked warrior into meat. Everyone had seen it. They had felt it.
They'd seen him burn without fire. Break time in bursts. Wield the forgotten.
But across the arena stood someone older.
Draped in jackal skins. Face masked in bones.
Rakthavira.
A war-priest from the Chola blood cults. The last living Keeper of the Death Bell.
And unlike the others, he didn't underestimate Aarav.
He bowed once.
And whispered, "Let's feed the orchard."
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Round Two. Commence.
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Rakthavira vanished. Literally.
One second he stood still. The next—Aarav was flying through the air, blood spraying from his mouth, ribs shattering.
The priest's elbow had hit him square in the chest, faster than thought.
Before Aarav could even land, a spear made of jagged femurs flew toward him.
He twisted mid-air, letting it pierce only his arm.
The pain was fire.
But he gritted his teeth.
"You want brutality?" he whispered. "Let's dance in it."
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He slammed his bleeding arm into the ground. The mark on his chest ignited—bright violet.
Suddenly, time fractured.
In a blink, Aarav was gone.
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Rakthavira grunted.
Then screamed—as Aarav reappeared behind him, wrapped his chain around the priest's neck, and slammed him headfirst into a jagged spine protruding from the earth.
Blood sprayed.
The priest snarled. "Yes!"
He bit into his own thumb—blood spilling—and smeared it across his face.
The bones around him started to scream.
They moved.
They rose.
Skeletons dragged themselves out of the dirt, each filled with glowing red ash. Ghosts of ancient warriors.
Aarav cursed, backing up.
Too many. Too fast. Too dead.
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Apex brutality had arrived.
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Aarav snapped the chain from his wrist, whirled it like a whip, and charged.
The first skeleton's head exploded on impact.
But for every one he shattered, two more rose.
One drove a spear through his thigh.
Another cracked a rib.
A third buried a dagger in his side.
Still, Aarav didn't stop. He roared.
The mark on his chest bled light—then erupted.
A shockwave blew the army back.
Then, it formed a gate behind him.
No one in the crowd had seen it before.
A thousand glyphs. Twelve eyes. Screaming doors.
And from it came a weapon not forged on Earth.
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A jagged blade shaped like a broken hourglass.
Aarav grabbed it.
The moment he did, everything stilled.
Rakthavira whispered, terrified, "You opened a door… to Kaalshastra."
Aarav's voice was cold.
> "No. I broke it."
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He moved.
The world split with each step.
The sword didn't cut bodies. It severed time around them.
Rakthavira charged, chanting a death hymn—
Aarav cut through his mouth mid-syllable.
Then his hands.
Then the bones rising behind him.
Until all that was left was silence, blood, and—
Ashes.
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The crowd still didn't cheer.
They couldn't.
They'd just watched history break its own rules.
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Quote :
"There are men who pray for mercy. And men who make gods pray to be forgotten." — Rakthavira's final prophecy
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