Rise: Garbhamravati and a Wanted Criminal

"Hehehehe…my nephew must think his uncle is cool as hell." Rudra thought. He was feeling pretty smug about his collection.

"You are my uncle, right?" Arya asked.

"Ahem…" Rudra shook himself out of his thoughts and replied, "We can come to that later."

Rudra turned right, at the end of the passage and they came to a wall. Rudra approached the wall and pressed his hand on it. His palm print glowed on the wall.

Many hexagonal patterns appeared on the wall resembling that of a beehive and they glowed blue. As they disappeared, the wall also disappeared along with it.

It revealed another passage. The passage was lit from the top and bottom by lights that had been installed into the ceiling and the wall.

The wall was behind a thick glass case and on it hung numerous weapons– assault rifles, shot guns, revolvers, pistols, short swords, knives, double handed daggers, throwing scythes, bombs and many other types of weapons.

Arya didn't know what to say. He could recognise some but others were just not recognisable. His uncle took out some weapons.

"This is a Kn-64 dagger, called Snayu. You see this?" Rudra said, holding up the dagger. It had a very short blade that was curved and had a sharp pointy tip. It had no sharpness or the edge of a normal knife. From the bottom of the edge ran a purple column, right up to the tip of the dagger.

"This was made not to cut but to inject a lethal poison that attacks your nerves damaging every bit of the system ultimately killing you." Rudra lightly tapped on the purple column.

"This here is the poison and the discharge of it is only possible if it comes into contact with warm blood. So you have to first stab to enable the poison discharge."

Rudra handed him the knife.

"Isn't it dangerous…handing me such a weapon? Will it be alright? I have never used a knife…I am so so sure…" Arya was fidgeting.

"You have to grow out of your fears." Rudra didn't let Arya finish his sentence. "It's a dog eat dog world, you don't fight, you die."

Rudra proceeded to pack some more weapons for himself. He looked at Arya, who was still looking unsure.

"Look, you will be seeing worse things from now on. You see these?" Rudra lifted a revolver. "This is a Rev-987 model, a heavy duty energy revolver, Bheda. It will reach its target, no matter what. Nothing can stop it…no barrier, no shield, no weapon, nothing. This one here."

He lifted the pair of throwing scythes. "This is a throwing scythe, Devil's Fang, famous for reaping heads in one throw. It always returns to its owner. And this is…"

"Stop…please stop uncle…this…this is…" Arya was having a hard time looking at these blood thirsty weapons. He was fine with admiring the weapons' craftsmanship and beauty but nothing beyond that.

"Aru…you will be facing them from now on. Weapons, bloodshed, murders, and many of the gory truths of this world. You cannot avoid them."

"But why are you not telling me anything?" Arya cried out. "What is it that you are hiding? Why do I have so many weapons? Who are you really?" he started sobbing. "I don't want to kill anyone. You can keep your secrets, I am fine with it, but don't make me kill anyone, please."

Rudra drew Arya in his embrace. "I am not telling you to kill anyone. Just protect yourself when that time comes. I won't always be there, although I would be, if I could."

Arya continued to cry.

After a while, Rudra said again, "Let's go…we need to get there before long."

The duo set out on their journey.

"You have the ring right? Close your eyes and touch them with the ring." Rudra said.

Arya did so without hesitation. The ring glowed red before returning to normal.

"That was to hide your appearance. You will see why." Rudra spoke before Arya could ask anything.

"Remember to keep that ring under your clothes. Put your hands in your pockets, if you have to, but don't let anyone see the ring."

They began walking through the busy city, entering further into the slums. It was then that Rudra revealed their destination.

"Garbhamravati. That's where we will be going." he said.

"What's that?" Arya's mind was suddenly struggling to understand the word and make sense of it.

"It's a place. It's the real city of Amravati, one where all the secrets of the city have been kept and which was built 4000 years ago."

"WHAT!!"

"Not so loud now."

"There is a place like that?"

"Haha…yes there is and now if you would look around a little."

Arya saw a wanted poster, one with a hefty reward of 5 million higher coins*. The prize was certainly surprisingly large but what was more surprising was the fact that the face on the poster belonged to him.

Somehow he had become a wanted criminal.

"Heh! Someone's pretty famous, you know." Rudra smiled.

"This ain't funny!!" Arya was on the verge of tears again.

Arya started panicking. He started walking briskly, closely following his uncle, but he had this strange feeling that everyone was onto him. As if everyone knew who he was.

"Calm down! No one knows you." Rudra spoke without turning back.

Arya continued looking here and there and that was when he saw two men, dressed in red armour, carrying a spear and that poster asking around.

Arya became more anxious and his heart would not stop banging in his chest. He stopped in his tracks suddenly and turned around attempting to go in another direction.

Rudra had not expected this sort of problem to pose itself in this situation. "Shit!"

Arya bumped into another man and his hand came out of his pocket revealing the ring and its stone.

"Shit ! shit ! shit !" Rudra could see what was about to happen next. "How could I make this mistake!!" he thought to himself.

He grabbed Arya's hands and almost dragged him in that direction. The man who Arya had bumped into had caught a glimpse of Arya's face after the magic had been undone.

The commotion was already enough to attract attention and it garnered the same from the red soldiers too.

"Halt!" they shouted, suspecting something.

"He! HE, HE…ONE ON POSTER! HE!!!" The man shouted, almost rejoicing at the thought of the reward.

One of the red soldiers started chasing them while the other stayed behind to talk to the man about his reward.

"Sir…"

"The money, give me the money." the man demanded.

"Yes, please come to this side." the soldier said, leading the man to a secluded corner. "Did you see his face? Are you sure he looked like this?"

"Yes man…give me the money now."

"Very good, just a moment." the soldier said, pretending to take the money out of his pouch.

He looked around and suddenly slashed a knife on the man's throat, precisely enough to just cut his vocal cords, disabling his speech, before immediately stabbing his stomach and killing him.

He joined the pursuit with his partner soon after.