The main palace gates, now a grim frame for the carnage within, stood open.
Varun, his form still slick with crimson, walked through them, a figure of chilling finality.
The screams from within had reached the ears of those outside, but fear held them captive.
Not even the police constables, usually figures of authority, dared to approach, their hands trembling, their faces ashen.
Among the terrified onlookers, one man stood particularly rigid, his eyes wide with a dawning horror.
It was the same man Varun had questioned earlier, the one who had recounted the grim tale of the assassinations and pointed him toward the Nizam's palace.
Now, as he watched the crimson-soaked figure emerge from the gates, recognition struck him like a physical blow.
He trembled, his body shaking uncontrollably, as the pieces of the puzzle fell into place.
He remembered the man's chilling smile, his eerie questions about the Nizam's location, his unsettling interest in the ongoing murders.
The realization was sickening: 'the man who had stood beside him, feigning naive curiosity, was the architect of the carnage that had just unfolded.'
He knew, with a certainty that chilled him to the bone, that he had witnessed something truly terrible, something that would haunt his nightmares forever.
Varun glanced at them, his eyes devoid of any emotion, then turned away, dismissing them as insignificant.
He walked into the streets, his footsteps echoing in the sudden, terrified silence.
He moved through the city, a ghost among the living, until he vanished into the labyrinthine slums, their stench of poverty a stark contrast to the opulence he had just left behind.
He was gone, swallowed by the shadows, leaving behind only the echoing screams and the crimson-stained palace as a testament to his wrath."