While the world marveled at the Iron Empire's mastery of oceans, oil, and orthodoxy, a new resistance began to stir—in the lands where espionage was once an art form, and shadows ruled more than soldiers.
India, Afghanistan, and the fractured steppes of Central Asia had not yet yielded.
They bore deep scars from colonialism, revolutions, and ideological subjugation. And within these scars, sleeper cells long dormant began to awaken.
[Consortium Signal Intercepted: CODE BLACK | Target: Iron Tsar]
Known as the Kautilya Network, this syndicate of rogue agents, former MI6 operatives, Soviet defectors, and local extremist factions launched a multi-pronged campaign:
Operation Lotus Fog: A wave of subliminal propaganda fed through regional entertainment to paint Mikhail as a false messiah.
Project Ashmirror: Deployment of Zhen-class Spectres, genetically-enhanced assassins engineered for one mission: kill the Tsar.
Silk Saboteurs: Cyber-mercenaries trained to corrupt trade systems and energy pipelines through quantum malware.
[Regional Threat Matrix: Tier Omega | Neural Intrusion Detected in Delhi, Almaty, Tashkent]
Rather than deploy legions, Mikhail activated the Iron Cloak Directive.
His counterintelligence division—Vozd Operatives—emerged from the archives. These were mythic agents trained in truth synthesis, emotion-mining, and zero-light infiltration.
"To fight ghosts," Mikhail whispered to his war council, "we must become folklore."
He also reached out diplomatically.
He sent coded transmissions to scholars in Varanasi, engineers in Bengaluru, and Sufi monks in the Afghan highlands.
He offered not control—but inclusion.
The creation of a Doctrine-aligned Pan-Himalayan Research Corridor to blend Vedic and Slavic science.
A Post-Colonial Reparations Fund backed by Doctrine banks, to finance infrastructure independent of Western debt traps.
A Neo-Silk Rail Grid—the Iron Vein—linking Moscow to Mumbai via magnetic levitation.
Still, the assassins came.
One reached within six meters of Mikhail during a speech in Samarkand. Another poisoned a diplomatic convoy in Khyber Pass. But none succeeded.
And then came the moment that shattered the Kautilya Network's narrative.
At the summit of the Charminar in Hyderabad, before millions watching across Eurasia, Mikhail met with Aman Veer, the granddaughter of a revolutionary who once died fighting Russian forces.
He handed her a pen forged from melted Consortium weaponry.
"You write the charter," he said. "And we will both sign."
The Doctrine-India Accord was signed a week later—ushering in a new age of shared sovereignty, technological renaissance, and spiritual partnership.
[Consortium Influence in South-Central Asia: Neutralized | Trade Pipelines Secured | Cultural Trust Index: Rising]
Thus, the Great Game was rewritten—not with spies and swords—but with symbols and steel.