Chapter 2: The Door and the Devourer

B.S. 2081 Chaitra 30 – Midnight

The blast tore through the farmhouse like a dragon's roar. Wood splintered. Stone crumbled. And the night sky, once pinned by stars, turned the color of a fresh bruise.

I stumbled back, the prophecy slab clutched to my chest. Smoke clawed at my throat, but worse was the sound—a wet, guttural growl that vibrated in my molars. Through the collapsing ceiling, I saw it: a shadow taller than the pomegranate tree, its body a writhing mass of black tentacles and eyes. Eyes everywhere. Pupils slit like a goat's, glowing sulfur-yellow.

"Amaratva…" it hissed, the word slithering into my skull. "Key… Keeper…"

The Asura lunged.

I ran.

The village awoke in screams. Old Mrs. Ghale's rooster coop erupted in feathers and fire. A toddler wailed as his mother yanked him from a crumbling doorway. And through the chaos, the Asura pulsed, its tentacles lashing at everything—goats, haystacks, the ancient peepal tree at the village center. Where it struck, the earth cracked open, oozing a tar-like substance that reeked of rotting flesh.

My fault. The thought cut through the panic. I opened the gufa. I woke this thing.

A tentacle snapped toward me. I dove behind the stone well, the slab still in my arms. The impact sent shards of rock biting into my palms.

"Drop the slab, idiot!"

The voice came from above. A girl stood atop the well, backlit by moonlight, her hair a wild tangle of vines. No—not vines. Actual plants sprouted from her scalp: jasmine blooms, thorny creepers, leaves I couldn't name. She held a bow woven from bamboo and what looked like… starlight?

"Van lineage!" she barked, nocking an arrow that fizzed with green energy. "Stay down!"

The arrow struck the Asura's central eye. It screeched, recoiling as moss erupted across its body, smothering tentacles in seconds. But the relief was short-lived. The moss blackened, died, and the Asura regenerated, bigger now, its maw splitting into a grin of jagged bone.

The girl cursed. "Of course it's a Rudra-born. Nothing kills these bastards."

"Who the hell are you?" I yelled.

"Anika Van. Your babysitter." She leaped down, yanking me upright. Her touch sent a jolt through me—not pain, but a surge of clarity, like drinking mountain springwater. "You're lucky the Dashnami's been tracking your family since your dumb grandmother tried drowning that slab. Now move!"

She shoved me toward the forest. Behind us, the Asura vomited a wave of black sludge. It hit the well, and the centuries-old stone dissolved like sugar in rain.

The Peepal Tree – 12:14 AM

Anika dragged me behind the burning peepal. Up close, I saw her "hair" wasn't just plants—each leaf had tiny faces. Whispering faces.

"Don't stare," she snapped. "Van lineage. We're bonded to the Kalpavriksha's roots. These?" She flicked a jasmine bud. "Spy-cams. They've been watching you brush your teeth since you were six."

"What?!"

"Focus, Giri! Your Shankha mark—is it glowing?"

I glanced at my wrist. The spiral blazed like a welder's torch. "Yeah, why?"

"Good. That means the Door's active." She pressed her palm to the peepal's trunk. The bark split, revealing a hollow filled with glowing blue fungus. "This village sits on the Nepal Mandala nexus. Every holy site here's a thread in Shakti's web. But that slab you found?" She yanked a mossy dagger from her boot. "It's a lockpick. And you're the key."

The Asura's shadow loomed over us. Anika didn't flinch.

"The Van don't fight," she said, slicing her palm and smearing blood on the fungus. "We grow."

The peepal tree erupted. Branches thickened into serpentine coils, thorns sprouting like scimitars. They lashed the Asura, pinning it long enough for Anika to grab my wrist and press my Shankha mark to the tree.

"Open it!"

"Open what?!"

"The Door!"

The mark seared my skin. The world folded.

Suddenly, I wasn't in the village. I stood in a corridor of infinite doorways—some marble, some bone, some made of light. Voices overlapped:

"…Keeper must choose…"

"…the Fourteenth World hungers…"

"…Puri Collective comes…"

Anika's grip tightened. "Don't wander. This is the Antarloka—the Between. One wrong step, and you'll spend eternity as a draft in Vishnu's armpit."

"What's happening?!"

"You activated the Nepal Mandala. Now every god, demon, and Dashnami faction knows the Last Giri's here. Congrats."

Before I could react, she kicked a jade-colored door. It opened to a moonlit meadow… in the Himalayas? Snow-capped peaks glowed under a double moon.

"Where—"

"Van Lokha. Realm of Celestial Flora. Only safe place now." She shoved me through. "Welcome to the family business, Jay. Try not to die."

The door slammed. The Asura's roar cut off. Silence fell, broken only by the whisper of alien wind through silver grass.

Then, from the shadows, a new voice:

"Took you long enough."

A man stepped into the light. Mid-thirties, beard streaked with ash, his eyes twin voids. The Puri sigil on his neck pulsed crimson.

"Alessandro Puri," he smiled. "We've been waiting."