[23 August 2115]
Manikarnika Ghat, Kashi
Arya (eyes narrowing): Aare yaar, Told you not to stay with Maharshi for long.
Pratham : what !? Now where Maharshi came from !?
Arya : I guess, You are also infected by his cursed tongue. What ever you guys says in the next second it became reality.
The serpent's many mouths roared in sync—a screech of corruption that made the Ganga itself recoil. Buildings nearby shook. Birds fled the sky. The moon dimmed behind cursed mist.
Surya Pratap Singh (serious): Prepare for assault formation. This isn't just a threat. It's a challenge.
Arya (softly): A message… to me.
The beast's central head locked eyes with Arya, as if it recognized her. As if it had waited for her.
The Naag's hundred heads hissed and twisted, screeching in a discordant symphony. Its enormous, coiled body rippled with Srapit Shakti, forming whirlpools in the sky and waterspout and cracks in the earth.
But despite its terrifying form, it didn't move forward.
It felt it.
The burning aura.
The silence before a divine storm.
Arya stepped forward, her eyes calm—unshaken. No fear. No hesitation. Just the sharp focus of a predator.
Arya (adjusting her gloves): Tch. One hundred heads, one brain, zero strategy.
Divyansh : How can you say something like that. It is Top tier Maha-khatarnak Srapit Aatma already !
Arya raise her one hand and Activate her Vayu yantra.
Arya : "ओम् वायवे गतिसंहारक, अनिलशक्ति संचारय, यंत्रं प्रवर्तय".
Jinen step forward to help her. But Pratham hold his solder and stop him.
Pratham : Arya fight better when she is alone.
Arya's Vayu yantra created a tornado storm in on ground. To counter whirlpools of the poisonous water of river.
That Naag roar on that storm. And Arya again raise her another hand.
Her team memeber shocked after seeing her.
Tamanna : Is she serious!? She is realty going to this.
Divyansh : A combo ?
Arya with her another hand activate her Agni Yantra.
Arya : "अग्नि यन्त्र! धर्मस्य दिव्यज्वाला प्रकटस्व, सर्वापदां दाहं कुरु"
Agni Yantra just created bottom of the tornado. The whole tornado converted into the fire storm tornado.
Both launch their tornado on each other. The clash of 2 tornado destroyed the area.
The twin tornadoes—one born of cursed water, the other of sacred fire—clashed mid-air with a thunderous boom.
A blinding burst of steam and flame shot into the sky, casting a golden-orange glow over the darkened riverbanks. The shockwave shattered windows across the ghats. Airships nearby were forced to stabilize their engines.
Tamanna (shielding her eyes): Is she trying to burn down Kashi itself!?
Divyansh (staring): No… she's trying to burn down fear.
The Naag reeled backward. Fifteen of its heads were scorched black, hissing and retreating into its body. But the other eighty-five bared their fangs with renewed fury.
It wasn't dead.
Not yet.
But it had finally realized—it wasn't fighting a warrior.
It was facing a force of nature.
Arya stood in the crater formed by the impact. Her hair, lifted slightly by residual heat, moved like the flames she conjured. Her breathing was steady. Her stance—perfect.
Arya (wiping a cut from her cheek): Hmph. Could've done better, honestly.
The Naag roared again, this time from every single mouth.
Surya Pratap Singh (commanding): Formation BETA! Shields UP! Protect the civilians and backline!
But Pratham didn't move.
He was watching Arya.
Pratham (quietly): No formation required… She's not done yet.
The Naag lunged forward, all heads snapping at once. A monstrous tidal wave of Srapit Shakti came crashing toward Arya.
And yet—
She didn't blink.
Instead, she crouched.
Her fingers traced a sigil in the air with lightning speed.
Arya: "आकर्षय स्वयमेव, चेतसा गृह्णामि ते चित्तम्"
Srapit shakti bent mid-flight. The Naag's own attack curved, redirected, and spiraled back toward one of its own heads—slamming into its left flank and causing a massive internal explosion.
The creature screeched in confusion. It had attacked itself.
Jinen (jaw dropped): She just bent… cursed energy?
Tamanna: That's not a Yantra combo… That's warfare.
Arya raised both hands now—her fingers forming a new seal, more complex than anything they'd seen before.
Arya (chanting low): "Agni Chakra… Punaragni—Maha-Pralay Roop.".
Twelve glowing wheels formed around her—rotating with violent speed.
Divyansh (whispering): That's Agni Yantra... but it's not the regular form.
Tamanna : Wait, Is she controlling Twelve Agni Chakra at once.
A sudden silence. Even the Naag paused—sensing something shift.
Arya looked up. Her eyes glowed—not just with energy, but with absolute control.
Arya (smirking): You've got 100 mouths. Let's see if you can scream with none.
She vanished.
In less than a second, she was atop the beast.
WHAM!
The first wheel struck.
CRACK!
A head flew off.
Another.
Another.
Twelve hits. Twelve heads. Gone.
The rest of the team could only watch. Even Surya Pratap didn't interrupt.
Because for the first time…
Even he was reminded—
Why Arya Singh was one of the seven.
Why she was the seventh Ati-Khatarnak Srapit Jadugar in the world.
And why some monsters feared her more than death.
Because death is kind.
But Arya Singh is not.
The Naag—this towering abomination of a hundred screeching heads, forged from ancient Srapit Shakti—finally understood.
It turned.
It tried to retreat.
Its hulking mass twisted toward the river, coiling back with a guttural hiss of desperation. But—
Too late.
Arya exhaled slowly. Then—
With one smooth motion, she unfastened her battle-cloak and flung it aside.
The cloth fluttered in the storm-winds, catching fire mid-air from the heat radiating off her body… then disintegrated into embers.
Arya (smirking): It's time for the real action.
From her back, a thin pulse of light traced an ancient seal—and in a flash of searing flame, her blade materialized.
A long, curved sword forged of condensed Agni Shakti. Its edges shimmered with divine heat, like the molten breath of a sleeping volcano awakened.
In the next heartbeat, she vanished.
FWOOOSH.
Divyansh (staggering back): She also knows how to fly!?
Pratham (barely watching): I guess… it's your first time seeing Arya in action.
Above the battlefield, Arya hovered—boot heels barely touching the cursed mist, her sword burning brighter than the moon.
Arya: "अग्नि यन्त्र! धर्मस्य दिव्यज्वाला प्रकटस्व, सर्वापदां दाहं कुरु!"
The runes along her blade flared. Flames coiled upward from the hilt, fusing into a vortex of sacred fire. Her sword was no longer a weapon.
It was a verdict.
She descended.
With divine agility, she leaped from one serpent head to another—each step a deadly blur. Her blade danced. With every swing:
SLASH. One head fell.
WHOOSH. Another ignited.
THUMP. The third crashed into the poisoned river.
Like a meteor streaking across the sky, Arya carved a trail of burning justice across the Naag's body.
From the riverbanks, the Strike Team could only stare—silent, reverent.
Even the cursed sky seemed to pause.
Tamanna (awed whisper): This isn't a battle.
Jinen (wide-eyed): It's… judgment.
And above it all, amid the fire and ruin, Arya's voice rang clear—calm, unwavering, divine:
Arya: One head for every soul you've consumed.
One swing for every prayer left unanswered.
I'm not your destroyer.
I'm your debt collector.
And the Naag… finally screamed—
Not from fury.
—but from fear.
Its heads twisted, shrieking. A grotesque hiss slithered from all directions as it unleashed a dense, putrid green gas into the water and then—bursting through the surface—into the air.
A cloud of poison.
Thick. Burning. Alive with Srapit Shakti.
Arya suddenly halted mid-air, her boots flaring with anti-gravity seals as she pulled back.
Pratham (alarmed): Arya!
The noxious cloud spread like a plague across the ghats. The sky turned pale. Birds dropped mid-flight. The river itself recoiled again, bubbling where the gas touched.
Floating just above the vile fog, Arya's eyes narrowed.
Arya (thinking): So this is the true corruption. This gas… it's what poisoned the Ganga.
The gas pulsated—not just chemical, but cursed. A fusion of death and Srapit Shakti.
Divyansh (gasping): It's not natural… that's real poison mixed with cursed energy!
Jinen: No wonder the readings were off the charts. This is ancient, weaponized filth!
Tamanna (shouting): Arya! Fall back to the ghat! You'll get infected!
But Arya didn't budge.
Suspended over the writhing gas, she stared down into the heart of the monster's trick.
Arya (low): Tch… You think I'll let you run again? Think again.
The Naag dove back into the depths, but not before summoning a waterspout—a spiraling tower of tainted water and gas that tore toward the sky like a cursed tornado.
The gas merged with the spout. The air shrieked.
And still—Arya flew toward it.
Surya Pratap Singh (horrified): Is she out of her mind!? She'll die if she breathes that in!
Arya: "अग्नि यन्त्र! धर्मस्य दिव्यज्वाला प्रकटस्व, सर्वापदां दाहं कुरु!"
A blast of divine flame erupted around her. It clashed with the poisonous spout, vaporizing the edge of the cloud, turning water to steam and chaos to strategy.
She saw it. She understood now.
Pratham (grabbing Surya Pratap's cloak): Sir, she knows what she's doing! That spout—if it expands—it'll sweep into the city. Thousands could die.
Surya Pratap (jaw clenched): …Didn't she thought this before ?
Arya accelerated toward the eye of the storm—a blur of heat and defiance.
Arya (chanting):
"ओम् वायवे गतिसंहारक, अनिलशक्ति संचारय, यंत्रं प्रवर्तय!"
Her Vayu Yantra unleashed a furious wind tornado, wrapping around the cursed waterspout. The winds howled like a beast from myth, clashing with the unnatural updraft of the Naag's venom.
Tamanna (staring in awe): She's… she's making a tornado inside another tornado…
The cursed waterspout was now caught—trapped—within Arya's own whirling storm. The poisons, the pressure, the Srapit mist—all began spiraling into Arya's construct.
But it wasn't enough.
Not for Arya Singh.
Not when people were in danger.
She raised her hand once more, eyes shining with the light of righteous wrath.
Arya: "अग्नि यन्त्र! धर्मस्य दिव्यज्वाला प्रकटस्व, सर्वापदां दाहं कुरु!"
The outer tornado ignited.
A massive inferno tore through the air—
Fire and wind merged into a divine juggernaut. The poisoned spout inside began to melt, screaming in its own monstrous way. The gases ignited. The cursed water boiled. Steam exploded outward, rising like pillars of purification into the heavens.
Jinen (awestruck): That's not just destruction… that's purification.
Divyansh (voice breaking): She's purging the Ganga itself…
Arya remained in the center of the storm—her figure barely visible amidst flame and vapor, like a goddess of war descended from heaven.
And finally—
The poisoned storm collapsed.
The waterspout shattered, falling back into the river in harmless waves.
Arya hovered above it all, her sword still glowing, her breath calm.
Arya (softly): Run all you want. But even the river won't hide you from me.
The massive Fire Tornado shrieked as it consumed the poisonous waterspout, vaporizing the cursed mist and sending steam billowing across the ghats.
Civilians far from the blast radius looked up in awe, unaware that their lives had been moments from devastation.
Arya hovered above the dissipating chaos, her flame-imbued form flickering like a divine being cast in light and wrath.
Arya (panting slightly): It's done... for now.
But the Naag wasn't gone.
The river surged suddenly—a violent pull from its deepest trenches. The beast was diving again.
Arya (to herself): No. You're not slipping away this time.
She pressed a finger to the side of her collar. A BhattTech hologram HUD flickered in front of her—river mapping, temperature signatures, energy pulses—all accessed from the Kashi Branch's battlefield server.
Arya: Route all sonar feeds to my interface. I need Srapit movement traces now.
System Voice: [Connection established. Srapit core energy detected. Depth: 170 meters.]
Pratham (calling out): Arya! That thing's retreating! What now!?
She turned to her team, floating above them like a symbol of fire and fury.
Arya (commanding, loud and clear): Team! Dive in.
Tamanna (blinking): What!?
Arya: We're taking the fight underwater. That poison's not just gas—it's leaking into the Ganga, corrupting it. We end this now, or we'll be fighting a thousand cursed births in the next decade.
Divyansh (uncertain): But that thing's massive… and fast underwater. What's the plan?
Arya (with fire in her eyes): You don't chase a snake. You corner it in its own den.
She landed lightly on the edge of the ghat. With a swift motion, she drew her BhattTech Dive Mask, sealed it onto her face, and activated the internal Srapit Filtration Protocol.
Arya: Everyone. Equip dive filters. Set your Yantras to support mode. We're going in three… two—
Without hesitation, she jumped.
A blur of flames and steam, and Arya plunged into the cursed river.
Pratham (smiling faintly): Of course she didn't wait for us.
Tamanna (activating her mask): She never does.
Divyansh (grinning): Let's go hunt a hundred-headed serpent.
The team leapt in after her—slicing through the water in synchronized form, like warriors descending into the belly of an ancient history.
Beneath them, the Ganga no longer glowed with purity—but with sickly green veins of Srapit Shakti, curling like tentacles into the deep.
And down below, waiting in the shadows—
The Naag coiled, wounded... but not defeated.
Its remaining heads hissed.
And its curse pulsed.
To be continue