Even demons weep when they remember what they were before the war.
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Beyond the stone forest, Asma-Ra crossed into a land known only in whispers: Vairaja, the Withered Garden.
It was once sacred ground—a place where the gods planted mercy, and where Asuras once came not to destroy, but to pray.
Now, it lay in ruin.
Trees twisted with mouths. Statues of deities broken in half—eyes gouged out, hands reaching skyward like the dead begging the heavens. The scent of incense still hung in the air, stale and sweet, like perfume on a corpse.
In the center of this ruin sat a temple made of black marble, humming with sorrow. And inside it, Asma-Ra saw him.
A giant, not in form—but in presence.
He sat alone, cloaked in veils of smoke. Four arms—one severed. Two held a great veena, the ancient instrument of peace. The fourth cradled his own face.
He did not weep. But the floor beneath him was flooded with tears.
Asma-Ra stepped forward.
"Are you the demon?"
The figure looked up.
His eyes were old. Too old for hatred. Too old even for hope.
> "I was called Shataraj, the Peacemaker**," he said. "But the world only remembers what I became."
He strummed the veena.
The sound bent the air. It was not music—it was memory.
And suddenly, Asma-Ra saw it all:
Asuras kneeling before Brahma, asking for understanding, not war.
Shataraj speaking peace in the courts of Indra, his words rejected like dust.
And the day his brothers turned—their thirst for amrita (immortality) overwhelming what little honor remained.
He had wept then. But not because they died. Because he had failed to stop them.
Asma-Ra shook off the vision.
"You regret it all," he said. "So why are you still here?"
The Asura closed his eyes.
> "Because I am the first root. The first to fall. My sorrow feeds the Tree."
And with that, the temple groaned.
Roots burst through the walls—twisted, black, feeding on his grief, locked into his spine. The Tree had buried him here, and made him its wellspring of sorrow.
"I cannot leave," Shataraj whispered. "But I can give you this…"
He reached into his chest and drew forth a tear turned to crystal—the Amrita Fragment.
It shimmered like the stars.
> "This is not immortality," he said. "It is memory—unfading. A blessing. A curse. Only those who accept the weight of all lives may carry it."
Asma-Ra took it.
And in that instant, Shataraj began to fade.
> "When you reach the heart of the Tree, tell my brothers… I sang them peace, even as they tore me apart."
With that, the temple collapsed behind Asma-Ra.
The veena's last note echoed through the ruins, and the Tree shook far above in the mountains—as if disturbed by remembrance.
Asma-Ra moved on.
And behind him, the stone garden grew one more statue.
An Asura, weeping, yet smiling.
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END OF CHAPTER VIII
Next: Chapter IX – "The White Mask and the Hollow Path"