The house on the outskirts of Noida was no longer enough. For months, Zyris had stayed on the move with cheap rentals, forgotten apartments, untraceable motels.
his business that he so proudly thought to be an 'empire' was a like a donut.
wherever he was,everything was fine but when he wasnt available at a particular place,productivity decreased by a lot.but now that Nepal had hired a man like Rudra Kaul to find and eliminate him, he understood that hiding wont work anymore.
Not against a ghost like Rudra.
Rudra Kaul was brought in by nepal,off the books,with one task,that is,to find and neutralize Zyris.
Zyris sensed the shift. he felt a new kind of pressure.
So, he changed his posture.
First, he built his fortress.
He chose a discreet plot on the industrial outskirts of Noida,abandoned farmland next to rotting construction. It was perfect. He called it Base Zero.
On the surface it looked like a half-finished villa with overgrown weeds.
but beneath it was a reinforced concrete bunker with triple-layered communication redundancy, solar failsafes, hidden tunnels, and insulated power.
The entire project was built in under three weeks. All labor was compartmentalized. No one knew what they were building,to them,it was just a basement, a server room, or a "wellness shelter".
Once the foundation was secure, Zyris began the second phase,not defense, but offense.
To win, he had to destabilize Nepal's government and finances, slowly, subtly. Not through explosions or assassinations, but through economic strain. The only way to stop Rudra's mission was to make it unsustainable for nepal to afford him anymore
He had to make Nepal bleed more resources chasing him than they could afford.
He started by disrupting border trade.
Through a complex chain of shell companies, Zyris bought and redirected spare parts, fertilizers, and diesel components,creating artificial shortages in regions Nepal depended on.
The Terai belt saw delays. Fuel prices shot up 13% in a month. Nepali customs agencies grew flooded with inexplicable problems. Zyris's employees even began buying warehouse spaces in Birgunj, only to fill them with unsellable junk,then light them on fire and claim damages through small, corrupt intermediaries.
Every maneuver was small, but accumulative.it created pressure.
Meanwhile, Rudra Kaul set up base in Kathmandu. He was no bureaucrat. His office was a cold apartment above an old butcher's shop.
Rudra didn't believe in broad sweeps. He believed in signatures. He started by mapping trade irregularities.
An obscure fertilizer company based in Odisha? Overlapping transactions in Bhutanese currency? Trucking firms changing names every 72 hours?
He started narrowing down leads. Every thread he pulled took him closer. He realized Zyris wasn't attacking Nepal's borders,he was attacking its arteries.
Rudra sent scouts to Agra. To Jhansi. To Basti. One night, a contact reported unusual fiber optics activity near Sector 144 in Noida. Rudra took notice.
"Cold warehouse?" the scout said.
"No," Rudra replied. "That's his base."
But Rudra couldn't strike immediately. He needed proof. And Zyris knew time was his enemy.
So Zyris escalated.
His shell companies began mass-purchasing essential truck parts from India and destroying them en route to Nepal. The resulting artificial scarcity strangled border logistics.
Simultaneously, he commissioned a fake internal audit within Nepal's Food Security Authority. The false report alleged high-level embezzlement. It leaked.
a lot of protests broke out.
Even the World Bank delayed a rural investment project due to 'instability indicators'.
Zyris watched from Base Zero. He had never felt more in control.
Meanwhile, Rudra felt the walls closing in. His team was stretched thin. The funds provided by the Nepalese government were nearly exhausted. Higher-ups were growing restless.
"What if he's not worth it?" one minister had asked him.
Rudra didn't reply. He returned to Noida.
He ran a drone over Sector 144 again. This time, thermal imaging caught something new,an underground signature with stabilized temperature, unusual for an unfinished site. The pattern was too regular.
He assembled a team. No authorization, no press. Just an incursion squad and three unmarked vans.
When they entered Base Zero, it was empty.
Zyris had already fled.
But what Rudra found chilled him: maps of Nepal. Economic impact reports. Agricultural yield estimates. Scripts for anonymous whistleblower leaks. The campaign hadn't been random. It had been surgical.
He reached the end of the bunker where a desk stood, spotless. On it, a single piece of paper:
"You're not losing to a ghost. You're losing to a mirror."
Rudra folded the note. He knew what it meant.
Zyris wasn't just surviving.
He was winning.