The note still sat on the desk when Rudra left Base Zero.
"You're not losing to a ghost. You're losing to a mirror."
He folded it into his coat and stepped out into the pale morning. The roads were empty. The bunker beneath Noida was empty. But Zyris had left fingerprints , not literal, but strategic ones.
One of the smaller shell companies rerouted a logistics tag too soon. It had been used before. The duplicate drew a customs flag.
The flag hit Rudra's feed in Kathmandu. He didn't smile. He just leaned forward.
two days later,zyris sat at a steel table in a room in a new facility further out from Noida.
It was quiet and hidden under a fake poultry refrigeration business.
He was reading a trade log when something changed.
He didn't hear it.
He felt it.
His soul, expanded like a skin across the facility, whispered back that there are 6 men,with assault rifles.
They were professionals.
Zyris didnt move.
He didnt reach for a gun.
There were none.
He never kept weapons at any base,not out of pride or oversight, but because he couldn't afford to be raided for those charges. A single illegal weapon on Indian soil, tied to his shell networks, and the government got a reason to involve force.
He stood up.
He let the pressure collapse.
The six intruders died in a single breath.
There were no screams,no shots,no nothing.
They just dropped,as if the strings holding them had been cut.
Their souls, still warm, flowed inward,absorbed and disassembled.
Zyris took a calm and focused breath.
That was when the seventh presence appeared.
He didn't need to check.
it was rudra kaul.
The soul at the edge of the corridor was still untouched.
Zyris turned.
Rudra stepped through the doorway, rifle pointed down but ready. He scanned the room. His eyes passed over the dead without emotion. He wasn't surprised. He was confirming.
Zyris narrowed his gaze.
He sent out a tendril of pressure just to test.
It did nothing.
Rudra stood untouched, like a nail in stone.
Zyris already knew why.
People like Rudra,ex-special forces,didn't feel fear like others.
in simpler words,Rudra was unique.
The Vivec cultists had been the same.
there was no panic,no grief and there was no spiritual slack to grip.
Zyris couldnt pull what wasnt there.
rudra broke down the door to the room.
he didnt shoot yet
zyris mind was already working.
The room had two exits. Rudra was now standing between both.
The only weapon Zyris had,for now atleast,was silence.
And time was now bleeding.
They stood there, facing each other.
for the first time in years,he felt true pressure.