Kalki’s Blade Awakens

The night in Gaya had settled like a thick shawl — warm, slow, uneventful.

A man walked through the quiet streets near the lower market, his pace casual, his back slightly hunched under the weight of a leather carry bag slung across one shoulder. He wore a plain traveler's robe, dust-smeared and faded, and his head was lowered, eyes watching the path.

He passed closed fruit stalls, empty pottery carts, and locked courtyards. A dog barked in the distance. Somewhere, a chime rang lazily in the wind.

Then—

Boom.

The sky lit up behind him in a burst of gold and flame.

He stopped.

Slowly, he lifted his head and turned.

From across the rooftops, a sudden bloom of light flared above the monastery on the hill — brief, silent, majestic. Then came the shockwave, rolling down like thunder. The upper domes of the temple flashed red. A trail of smoke twisted into the moonlit sky.

The man's hand tensed around his bag strap.

His eyes narrowed.

And then—

The scene shifted.

—

Pralay jolted awake, his heart slamming against his chest like it was trying to escape.

He sat upright in the dim monk's quarters, the scent of incense still lingering in the air, now mixed with smoke. The walls around him rattled faintly. Outside, alarmed shouts rang out — not of confusion, but of purpose.

He grabbed the edge of his cot and staggered to his feet.

Pralay (breathing hard): "What the hell was that?"

The narrow corridor outside his room was chaos cloaked in order. Monks in rust-red robes ran past in formation, some barefoot, others strapping bracers to their forearms. Some carried staffs, others short swords, a few even lifted small bows carved from pale wood.

Drums began beating — low, urgent.

A monk shouted down the hallway.

Monk: "To the upper courtyard! Protect the Elder!"

Another monk passed Pralay with two others, sliding a carved panel open on the wall, revealing a hidden rack of weapons — staff-blades, chakrams, and long-handled hooks.

Pralay stood frozen.

The same monastery that had, just hours earlier, whispered stillness and peace… was now preparing for war.

He stepped into the corridor, pulling his boots on as he moved.

He stopped one of the younger monks rushing by.

Pralay: "What's happening?"

The monk didn't break stride but shouted back over his shoulder.

Young Monk: "There was an explosion in the Great Elder's chamber!"

Pralay: "Dalai Pax?"

Young Monk: "He's alive. We think. But they've attacked him. Some dark ones. Hurry!"

The boy disappeared around the bend, vanishing into the growing storm of movement.

Pralay looked toward the central corridor leading to the upper temple halls.

He didn't know what he could do.

But he knew he had to see.

He ran.Smoke coiled upward like a serpent over the rooftop of the upper sanctum.

Cracks split the temple walls, and the scent of scorched sandalwood filled the air. The altar of Lord Buddha still stood—lamp flickering—its base now half-shattered from the explosion.

And in the middle of the ruin, unmoving in the glow of destruction, stood Dalai Pax.

His robes were singed at the hem. His prayer beads dangled in loose strands. Yet his back remained straight, his breathing steady.

Across from him, the two black-robed figures emerged from the dust cloud, robes billowing as they staggered to their feet. Their masks were cracked, and streaks of blood painted the marble beneath them.

Figure 1 (snarling): "What... are you?"

Dalai Pax exhaled, his eyes now lowered—not with pity, but clarity.

Dalai Pax (calmly): "You walked into a monastery… and expected silence to mean weakness."

He reached behind and untied the red cloth at his waist.

Then, with deliberate grace, he placed his palms together at chest level.

Dalai Pax: "I did not want to awaken the earth. But you forced its hand."

He stepped forward—barefoot now—and took a stance. Legs rooted, spine locked, fingers forming the first mudra of invocation.

Then, he whispered:

"LAM."

A deep, resonant hum vibrated through the broken chamber.

The stone tiles beneath him shuddered.

From the center of his back, at the base of the spine, a glow began to form—crimson, molten, and steady. As it expanded outward, a four-petaled red lotus bloomed into existence, spinning slowly like a protective sigil.

The ground beneath him cracked and pulsed.

Dust lifted away in a circle as if the air itself respected the boundary.

Root Chakra: Muladhara — Awakened.

Dalai Pax (firmly): "You seek the Buddh Stone. You stand on its soil. But you understand nothing of what anchors a soul."

He stomped the ground once.

A shockwave of red energy blasted outward.

The first figure barely braced in time—flung backward, his heels dragging grooves into the stone. The second raised a barrier of shadowy force—but the pressure broke it apart like dried bark.

The attackers surged forward, screaming—faster this time, blades drawn from under their robes.

Dalai Pax moved before they reached him.

His eyes snapped open, and this time, he pressed two fingers below his navel.

"VAM."

The chamber brightened with orange light, soft yet liquid in its motion. From his abdomen, a six-petaled lotus spun into being, each petal a curved ribbon of water and flame fused together. It shimmered with emotional heat—wild, alive.

Sacral Chakra: Svadhisthana — Awakened.

He flowed sideways, dodging both blades without stepping back. His movements weren't defensive—they were liquid precision.

Figure 2 (growling): "How—?!"

Dalai Pax (quietly): "You study destruction. I've studied balance."

With the wave of his arm, he redirected the first attacker's lunge with only two fingers grazing the man's wrist—and sent him spinning into the air, crashing against a wall with the grace of a falling tree.

He didn't stop.

The second attacker came at him with unnatural speed—but Dalai Pax slid beneath the strike, turned in a low stance, and with a single palm to the back—

Crack!

The robed man flew forward, skidding along the stones, his robe burning with residual orange glow.

The monks rushing from the outer chambers stopped at the sight.

Dalai Pax stood at the heart of the smoke and splintered wood, both lotuses still glowing on his back and core—red and orange rotating like layered halos.

His breath was even. His eyes, unblinking.

Dust swirled in the air, broken tiles littered the floor, and the twin lotuses of red and orange still pulsed behind Dalai Pax like twin suns caught in orbit.

One attacker remained conscious, staggering, teeth gritted. The second knelt on one knee, chest heaving, blade lowered.

Dalai Pax moved in swift arcs—his movements neither rushed nor hesitant. He pivoted, leaned into a spin, and used a flowing arm motion to hook the first figure's weapon arm with the inside of his wrist. Then—

CRACK.

A precise elbow drove into the attacker's ribs. The man gasped, collapsing. Dalai Pax dropped low, hooked the back of his ankle with a sweep, and pinned the attacker with a knee to the chest.

Figure 1 (struggling): "You… think… this is over…"

Dalai Pax exhaled once—calm.

He turned his body with a twist of the heel, drawing energy from the glowing red chakra at his spine. His palm hovered above the second attacker's heart, a breath away from ending it.

Dalai Pax: "Violence against balance... earns only silence."

But then—

A shrill hum tore through the air.

Dalai Pax's senses snapped forward—his spine arched back.

An energy blast rained from above, black-violet and screeching like it tore through dimensions.

He twisted, rolled off his stance—just in time. The ground where he stood exploded, shards of stone flinging outward.

Smoke filled the room again.

From the top of the monastery's tower, silhouetted by the moon, sat a third figure.

Still. Composed. Cloaked.

Dalai Pax (softly): "Another one…"

The monks who had rushed into the chamber saw the shape and instantly reacted.

One by one, they leapt—gliding from terrace rails, scaling inner beams, summoning mantras with etched knives and hand signs.

Monks: "Protect the Elder!"

They launched a coordinated assault—ten monks from three angles, weapons glowing, mantras on breath.

But the figure above remained seated.

Then—he pulled off his cloak's outer sleeve, revealing a black glove.

Set upon its palm was a Dark stone—pulsing, unnatural, veined with dark light. The glove hissed faintly, as if containing a pressure too great for flesh. With every beat, the stone surged, feeding tendrils of dark aura that spiraled into the air like smoke reaching for the heavens.

Figure 3 (voice echoing unnaturally): "Witness the silence of void."

With one upward motion, a blast of black kinetic force—not fire, not lightning—erupted outward.

BOOM.

In an instant—every monk that approached him froze mid-air, their bodies convulsing.

Their energy shimmered for a heartbeat.

Then their forms fell limp, crashing across the monastery like discarded leaves.

Lifeless.

Dalai Pax's eyes widened. "No…"

From behind, a sound—too soft.

He turned.

And saw a rotting figure, its body veiled in black aura, moving like a puppet. Its face was half-human, half-void—decomposing, yet animated.

A monk's corpse. Possessed.

The blade entered Dalai Pax's side—deep, sharp, twisted.

He gasped, dropping to one knee.

Blood painted the floor beneath him. His hand moved to the wound, but the aura from the corpse kept it from closing.

Dalai Pax: "This… is forbidden…"

Above, the third attacker dropped from the roof, descending like a reaper. He walked with no urgency—only inevitability.

From the outer hall, Pralay arrived—too late.

He saw the monks strewn across the floor. The Elder bleeding. The attacker descending.

And for a moment—he was frozen.

His vision blurred—not from shock, but from memory.

Valli. Her scream. Her death. His helplessness.

And something inside him snapped.

No thought.

Just action.

He grabbed a curved short blade from the hand of a fallen monk. It was warm, still humming with mantra.

He turned and charged, feet pounding the stone.

Pralay: "NO!"

The cloaked figure turned.

Just in time to plant a foot in Pralay's chest.

WHUMP.

The impact lifted Pralay off the ground. He slammed into a pillar, breath crushed from his lungs, blade skittering away.

The figure didn't even look back at him. Pralay crumpled, coughing blood, eyes wild.

Pralay (gasping): "Not again…"

The man raised his hand—stone glowing black.

He walked toward Dalai Pax's broken form.

And Pax—still on one knee—closed his eyes.

But not in surrender.

In… preparation.

The third attacker raised his stone-infused hand, veins crawling with oily black lines. Dalai Pax, bleeding, kneeling, broken—looked up.

And exhaled.

His hand drifted to his solar plexus, where the flame of will still burned.

He pressed his palm flat against it and whispered:

"RAM."

The word struck like a spark against dry leaves.

A sudden, fierce golden-yellow light erupted from his core—a ten-petaled lotus bursting into bloom, each petal flaring like a blade of fire.

Core Flame Chakra: Manipura — Awakened.

Dalai Pax roared—not with pain, but focus, and pushed both palms forward.

A cannon of golden fire surged from his body, spiraling outward in a helix of heat and force. The blast ripped through the broken temple, turning stone to vapor. The third figure shielded himself—

—by yanking one of his own possessed corpses into the blast path.

The puppet disintegrated, scorched into ash.

As the smoke curled away, Pax dropped, breathing ragged. His lotuses dimmed, fading back into stillness. His limbs trembled. He couldn't rise again.

The third figure—burned at the cloak's edges—walked forward.

Figure 3 (coldly): "That was your fire? Now watch it die."

He raised his black-stone hand again.

And then—

The ring on Pralay's finger screamed to life.

A pulse, like a heartbeat, exploded from his palm.

Red light, blinding. White-hot. Alive.

The ground beneath him cracked in a perfect circle.

His breath caught. His chest throbbed. And in the next moment—a sword formed in his hand.

Not just any sword.

A talwar, ancient in design but reborn in flame. The metal shimmered like melted gold, and its edge blazed with ethereal fire, each movement singing with divine resonance.

The air around Pralay shifted.

Time slowed.

Even the enemy paused.

Figure 3 (quietly): "…Interesting."

Pralay looked down at the weapon—then forward at the attacker. He didn't fully understand what had happened.

But the rage in him—Valli's scream, the helplessness—guided the blade.

He surged forward.

Their swords met.

CLANG!

The impact sent a shockwave outward—cracking pillars, blowing out torches. The third figure blocked with a curved obsidian blade, drawn in response, and danced backward. His movements were graceful, almost bored.

Pralay came again.

Overhead slash. Feint. Spin.

He fought wild, but the talwar burned clean, giving form to his emotion.

Figure 3 (smirking): "You fight like one touched by memory."

He summoned a new puppet—another corpse, black-aura-bound—and flung it toward Pralay mid-charge. Pralay sidestepped, blade flashing through the puppet's neck, cleaving it clean. Ash and bone scattered across the floor.

He moved again—diagonal slash, then low sweep.

The figure backflipped, cloak fluttering.

Pralay followed—fast. Faster than before.

Flame streaks trailed behind his swings. His eyes glowed faintly red.

The third figure's amusement began to fade.

He extended his right hand—and from the ring, a black whip of energy cracked into existence. Twisting, alive, snarling like a serpent of shadow.

With a flick—

WHIP-CRACK!

The whip coiled around Pralay's arm and hurled him mid-air, slamming him into a column. He hit hard, ribs burning, blood spraying.

Before he could move—

Another strike.

This time across the legs. He fell, blade rolling away.

The figure walked calmly, standing over him now.

Figure 3 (softly): "You're not ready."

He raised the whip again—

—and something stopped him.

A hand. Bare. Human. Unshaking.

It had caught the whip mid-strike, fingers closed around the energy like it was just rope.

The third figure's eyes widened beneath his hood.

Figure 3 (growling): "You."

Standing at the edge of the shattered courtyard, where moonlight and fire met, was the man from the city streets.

Simple clothes. Leather bag still slung over his shoulder.

But his presence…

was immense.

Man (calmly): "He's not yours to break."

And with a sudden twist, he yanked the whip downward—snapping it in half like old thread.

Dalai Pax, lying bloodied on the floor, managed a weak smile.

Dalai Pax (faintly): "…Finally."

[End of Chapter]