The stench hit first.
Sweat. Smoke. Rotting flesh. The low stone building before Shaurya throbbed with noise—shouts, curses, laughter that cracked like whips. Torches danced about its arched doorway, casting long, broken shadows across the cracked ground. Even from afar, the thrum of bodies crowded within could be heard: gamblers, drunkards, slavers, thugs. The type of place that reeked of desperation and control. The type of place where power clung like blood to the walls.
Shaurya's boots ground out slowly over sand and gravel as he approached. The wind buffeted his coat, and beneath it, the Rakta-steel sword—Vijranta—leaned against his back, vibrating softly. The moment beckoned to violence. His fingers trailed the hilt. His breath was calm. His eyes blazed.
He did not speak. He did not blink.
He marched.
And with that, the memory came back—unwelcome, but sharp.
Three years before. The Suyin Fort Siege. Borderlands of the Xianlong Dynasty.
The battlefield was discipline forged into chaos.
The front gates had long since broken hours ago under the power of spirit-crafted vines—great, coiling monsters, thicker than temple pillars, bursting forth from the broken earth like war serpents. At Shaurya's order, they'd grown to gargantuan proportions, crawling up the stone walls, tearing watchtowers asunder with ear-shattering creaks.
The castle proper—if one could call it that—was a demon's citadel. Walls as broad as city streets, charred by spirit fire, rose almost five hundred feet into the air. Spikes rimmed the parapets, dragon heads and demon wards carved into them. Its shadow engulfed battalions.
But Shaurya's army, 5,000 infantry and twelve Spirit Warriors, had cut a path through the horror.
His orders had been simple:
"Capture those who submit. Kill those who fight back."
And the command had been followed. Almost.
Shaurya had wandered into the castle corridors alone, the sounds of triumph still resonating in the corridors of the dying fort, when he detected the blood.
It wasn't the battle's confusion. It was intense. Precise.
He turned around a corner.
And came face to face with Chirag Mithra.
One of the twelve Spirit Warriors.
Wrapped in fire and darkness, his ghostly sword glowed—a shaft of dark fire, wet with blood. Body by body, they littered the ground. Dozens. Some still jerking. Some with arms raised in surrender, now cut off at the wrist. Others—children, wounded aides, medics—killed in mid-plea.
The walls ran red.
Shaurya's frozen. And then, one word and the sweep of a hand, and vines erupted through the broken rock under Chirag's feet, ensnaring the Spirit Warrior in a choking grip.
"Enough."
Chirag spat. "You'd restrict your own from killing the enemy?"
Shaurya moved in, eyes lightly glowing from trace spirit burn. "They'd surrendered."
"They were weak." Chirag's voice is hot, nearing euphoria. "The weak suffer. I gave them mercy."
"You don't decide mercy."
"I am mercy," Chirag retorted. "Better death than chains. Better blood than humiliation. The war has no use for the pitiful."
Shaurya's tone was lethal.
"You have no right to wear that flame if you can't take orders."
Hours passed. In the war camp. Interrogation room.
Chirag sat, still covered in blood, bound in chains imbued with the power of the spirit. His pride had not faded.
"They would've died anyway. At least I let them meet it standing."
Shaurya's voice was ice. "And if I allowed your philosophy to spread, we would be worse than the monsters we profess to fight."
"The strong make the law," Chirag taunted.
Shaurya did not blink.
"Then let the law judge you."
The court-martial was quick. And although the Lord of Mithra Rajya growled, even he could not justify what had been done.
In the present again.
Shaurya's boots landed on the edge of the stone steps outside the slum hideout.
Within were the predators of the poor, the weak, the forgotten.
A gust of wind stirred the dust.
His hand closed completely around Vijranta's hilt.
No more mercy.
No more waiting.
He entered the darkness.
The stone doors did not groan open.
They shattered.
One blow of Vijranta, and the heavy slab splintered inward, stone shards whizzing like arrows. Shaurya stepped through the settling dust like a storm taken form—cloak ripped, boots splattered with desert filth, eyes shining faintly from the Rakta-steel's thrum. He spoke nothing. But death came in his wake.
Within, the building exploded.
"INTRU—"
The warning never ended. Shaurya's sword flashed bright red under the torches, cutting through the thug's chest as easily as butter. His body split in two, eyes staring open in horror. Blood splattered across the broken walls.
Three men came in from the side, clumsy axes and gleaming hooks held up. Shaurya turned. One strike. A slanted slash sent two down in a single breath, the third barely got a growl out before Shaurya closed in and slammed his elbow into the man's throat—cracking cartilage. The man hit the ground, gargling blood and remorse.
"IT'S HIM! IT'S THAT GENERAL!" someone shouted from the back. Panic set in. They'd heard rumors, seen wanted posters.
They just didn't think he was going to be here.
A table was overturned. Bolts were fired. Shaurya ducked, then rolled under the wooden platform, cutting the legs from under two archers who stood above. As they crashed down, screaming, he stood up again—Vijranta hummed, then sang as it cut through flesh and sinew. One man screamed as his arm was cut clean from the shoulder, spinning across the floor like discarded meat.
The others started to retreat, dashing for the rear corridors.
Shaurya didn't let them.
Vines erupted from the broken stone, tearing through the floors and wrapping around their ankles. Their screams filled the air as the tendrils pulled them back, dragging them into the room stained with blood like prey.
He wasn't simply killing them.
He was hunting.
Ten minutes passed like thunder.
And then silence.
Bodies stretched out on the floor—some convulsing, most not. The torches danced overhead, casting shadows of one man standing alone, covered in blood, breathing serenely.
Shaurya cleaned the edge of Vijranta on the arm of a fallen brute, then slid it back into its sheath slowly. He prowled through the inner corridors now, looking, listening.
And then—
"Help! Somebody!" A girl's cry. Faint, muffled.
He trailed it to a barred room—an ageing wine cellar that had been converted into a prison.
There were nine individuals: men, women, even a boy who could not have been more than ten, chained and battered, eyes sunken, lips parched. One among them, an older woman, gasped when she saw him.
"They… they said they'd sell us by morning… to the mines near Jaisal…"
Shaurya didn't answer. His fingers flew. The vines came back, snapping chains as they would break twigs. One of the men fell into his arms, weeping.
"It's over," Shaurya whispered, voice calm. "You're safe."
But one of the prisoners—an older man with a battered face—spoke with fear in his voice.
"Not yet… they… they weren't acting alone."
Shaurya's eyes narrowed.
"What do you mean?
The man coughed blood. "A nobleman… from Ashwan city. He funds them. Protects them. These thugs… they're just the teeth. The real beast lives in the palace shadows."
A cold calm fell over Shaurya's face.
He stood slowly, eyes turning toward the door.
Ashwan City.
So the rot went deeper than expected.
He reached back and gripped Vijranta.
"Then I'll cut deeper."