A hooded figure seeks Rishabh under moonless skies. Not to fight, but to flee. Lanka, a former demon of Kalnemi’s legion, bears a secret that could unravel everything—if he can be trusted.
The forest near Prayagraj was older than any road that cut through it. Even the trees bent low, not from age, but from memory—like they remembered what lay beneath.
Rishabh walked alone, staff in hand, barefoot. He had not told the others he was leaving the safe house. Not because he feared their concern.
But because of who had called him.
The meeting place was simple: a ruined archway covered in creepers, a circle of stones once used by Vanara warriors for trials.
Tonight, it would hold a very different kind of test.
He arrived at midnight.
And waited.
The wind didn’t move.
Even the insects stayed quiet.
Then—
A flicker.
A ripple in the air.
And from the shadows stepped a figure—tall, hooded, wrapped in black.
Rishabh’s grip on his staff tightened.
“You come late,” he said.
The figure pulled back the hood.
His skin was ash-grey.
His eyes—deep red, tired, but alert.
And the symbol burned into his collarbone…
A twisted trident, broken at the center.
The mark of Kalnemi’s Third Legion.
“My name is Lanka,” the demon said. “I served him. I bled for him. And now I run.”
Rishabh said nothing.
Lanka raised his hands slowly. “I come unarmed. I come with truth. Whether you call me defector, coward, or betrayer—I will take the title, if you take the knowledge.”
Still silence.
Then Rishabh asked one question.
“Why now?”
Lanka’s voice cracked—not with weakness, but with something deeper.
“Because I saw a man walk through fire.
And the fire bowed.
And I remembered… what we once feared.
Hanuman.
And what we did to him.”
Rishabh’s brow furrowed.
“What did you do?”
Lanka looked up.
Eyes wet.
“We lied to him.”
He knelt.
“I bring you a map. A name. And a key.”
He reached into his robe, slowly, carefully—
And withdrew a shard of dark obsidian, wrapped in prayer-thread.
Rishabh’s eyes widened.
“From the Gate of Screams…”
Lanka nodded.
“They plan to open it again. Not to escape. Not to invade. But to trade.”
“Trade what?”
Lanka looked him in the eye.
“Souls.”
Far away, Makardvach stirred from sleep in his meditation chamber.
The gada, resting beside him, pulsed once—
Not in warning.
In recognition.
As Lanka confesses his past to Rishabh and the team, the true nature of Kalnemi’s plan comes to light. Long ago, a dark covenant was formed between forsaken gods and Paatal’s demons—one sealed in Vanara blood. Now, Kalnemi seeks to fulfill it.
They gathered in the underground briefing chamber.
Makardvach had arrived first—woken by the gada’s subtle pulse, like a whisper from below. Akshay paced nervously behind his monitors, and Megha sat cross-legged with scrolls open before her.
At the far end of the room, Lanka stood—unbound but closely watched.
No one trusted him yet.
But everyone was listening.
The walls flickered with Akshay’s holographic projections—charts, maps, faded photos of ruins too ancient to catalog.
Lanka pointed to a jagged red circle near the base of one scan.
“The Gate of Screams,” he said. “One of the twelve blood doors buried beneath Paatal Lok. Closed for millennia. Sealed by Hanuman’s final act after the war.”
Makardvach folded his arms. “We know Kalnemi’s trying to reopen it. But why now?”
Lanka turned to him.
Not fearfully.
Respectfully.
“Because the deal is ready to be honored.”
Rishabh spoke then, calm and grim. “You’re talking about the Pact of Svapanth.”
Megha’s head snapped up. “That’s a myth.”
“No,” Rishabh said, his voice hollow. “It’s worse. It’s a truth forgotten on purpose.”
He walked slowly to the table, laid down an old relic—an obsidian triangle bound in red hair.
“A long time ago,” Rishabh said, “when the gods feared the rise of Vanaras—that they might someday challenge the heavens—some among them struck a secret pact with Kalnemi’s kind.”
Akshay’s voice cracked. “The gods helped demons?”
Lanka’s face hardened.
“No. Not all. Just the ones cast out. The ones who called themselves ‘The Broken Pantheon.’ The ones who craved power but were denied faith.”
Rishabh nodded grimly. “In exchange for a thousand Vanara souls, these forsaken gods promised Kalnemi a weapon. One that could slay even the divine.”
Megha whispered, “The Shivnadi.”
Lanka looked at her, impressed.
“Yes.”
Makardvach stood now.
His voice was steel.
“They already tried to open it. Raktanjali started the ritual.”
“She failed,” Lanka said. “But the blood she spilled awoke something.”
He pulled a parchment from inside his cloak—a hand-drawn sigil surrounded by thirteen dark eyes.
“This is the mark of Shesha-sarpa, the guardian of the river’s final gate. It only awakens when enough Vanara essence has been taken.”
Makardvach stepped forward slowly.
Eyes burning.
“You’re saying I’m not the first?”
Lanka nodded. “You are the last.”
Silence.
The air in the chamber tightened like a fist.
Makardvach closed his eyes.
And heard the gada hum at his back—not in confusion, but in shared memory.
He had always thought his bloodline was dormant.
But it had been hunted.
He turned to Rishabh.
“We stop this. We shut every gate. We tear up every pact.”
Rishabh met his gaze.
“Yes,” he said. “But first, we need to find the others.”
Makardvach froze. “What others?”
Lanka’s voice was quiet.
“The scattered ones. The half-Vanaras who survived. Kalnemi needs them to complete the offering.”
Makardvach clenched his jaw.
“Then we find them first.”
The monastery was carved into the cliffside, overlooking a silent stretch of the Tungabhadra river.
It had no name.
Only a sigil.
A broken chakra, carved upside down over the entrance.
Rishabh stood before it, unmoving.
“I never thought we’d return here,” he whispered.
Megha adjusted her satchel, eyes wary. “This place was erased from every archive I searched.”
Rishabh nodded.
“That’s because the gods made us forget it.”
Inside, they found the crypt buried beneath the prayer floor.
Locked behind seven seals—each inscribed in Vanara script, each bound by an element. Wind. Fire. Ash. Dust. Bone. Water. Blood.
Makardvach’s bracer pulsed as he approached each one.
One by one, they opened to him.
Not because he forced them.
Because they recognized him.
At the final threshold, Rishabh hesitated.
“Once we open this,” he said, “there is no unknowing.”
Makardvach answered with a step forward.
The stone slab lowered.
And inside, resting atop a folded mat of bark—
A scroll.
Black parchment.
Gold ink.
Alive with divine breath.
Megha reached for it, trembling.
It whispered.
“He who reads this bears the burden of memory.”
“He who remembers must stand alone.”
Rishabh touched her shoulder.
Together, they unrolled it.
The glyphs unfurled like wings.
A list of names.
Seven.
Etched in the language of the heavens.
The Broken Pantheon.
- Devalokaṇa – The god of faded visions, once a seer. Banished for attempting to rewrite fate.
- Mahaṇḍra – A storm-god denied the throne of Indra, now bound to the drowned halls beneath the sky.
- Vritanu – The weaver of hunger, cast out for consuming prayer instead of earning it.
- Suryomukh – A sun-echo, jealous of Surya, who sold warmth to the highest bidder.
- Kartri – Once goddess of mercy, now mistress of forgetfulness.
- Bhasmaraja – The ash-king, who declared death a right, not a passage.
- Nilastra – The child of shadows, who sees only what is hidden and fears what is true.
At the bottom, written in bleeding script:
“Together, they struck a pact with Kalnemi.
Let the Vanara line be scattered.
Let the Shivnadi be forged in sorrow.
And let no blood remember its name.”
Makardvach stepped back.
The gada at his side flared—
Then calmed.
Because it had known.
All along.
Rishabh looked up from the scroll.
“There is more,” he said.
At the very edge of the parchment, written in vanishing ink, visible only when Megha passed the bracer’s glow across it:
“When the last Vanara walks through fire and breathes the wind—
The pact shall shatter…
or be fulfilled.”
Makardvach didn’t speak.
But the resolve in his eyes burned brighter than any divine fire.
He turned to the others.
“We break the pact.”
Kalnemi moves swiftly to silence the defector. A pack of illusion-cloaked beasts descends upon the team’s safehouse. As battle erupts, Makardvach must make a choice: save the demon who once served evil—or let vengeance answer first.
It began with a silence too quiet.
The forest around the safehouse stilled all at once.
No wind.
No birds.
No breath.
Megha looked up from the scroll table. “Anyone hear that?”
Akshay froze mid-keystroke. “No… and that’s the problem.”
Makardvach stood slowly.
The gada glowed.
Then—the room dimmed.
Like the light itself was retreating.
From something coming.
Rishabh whispered, “They found him.”
Outside, in the misted undergrowth, black shapes melted from trees.
Not walked.
Not ran.
Melted.
Their forms constantly shifted—cloaked in smoke, their limbs bending wrong, their heads splitting into wolf-maws then snapping back into humanoid frames. Teeth glistened under impossible eyes.
Shadow-Beasts.
Illusions made flesh.
Spawns of Shitala, Kalnemi’s sorceress.
A dozen of them, circling the clearing.
At the center—Lanka, hands up, eyes wide.
“No,” he murmured. “No, no—they weren’t supposed to come this fast—”
Then they attacked.
The first shadow-beast lunged—
And met Makardvach’s fist mid-air.
Its body shattered into swirling smoke, re-forming behind him in an instant.
Another came from the side—
Makardvach spun, letting the gada extend, tracing a golden arc that caught two more creatures and scattered them into embers.
But the illusions kept shifting.
Each beast struck with a new face—a child, a soldier, an old monk.
They were designed not just to kill—
But to confuse.
Lanka was on the ground now, bleeding from a gash across his side, three beasts closing in.
Akshay shouted from the ridge, “They’re only visible when you’re calm—emotion amplifies their tricks!”
Makardvach gritted his teeth.
Too late.
A beast struck from behind—bit into his shoulder with searing claws.
He screamed.
The gada flashed.
And a wind burst outward, clearing the field for two seconds.
Lanka looked up.
Eyes pleading.
Makardvach stepped between him and the nearest beast.
The demon whispered, “Why?”
Makardvach answered, breathless.
“Because you switched sides.
And I don’t punish people… for choosing right.”
He dropped low, spun the gada wide—
And unleashed a pulse of divine clarity.
Not fire.
Not wind.
A sudden wave of stillness.
Every illusion froze.
For a heartbeat—
They were visible.
Makardvach charged.
One by one, he struck the real shadows—targeting the core of each entity, not the form.
Each kill echoed with a faint scream that didn’t belong to a beast.
It belonged to Shitala.
Watching.
Feeling each loss.
When it was over, the clearing was littered with evaporating smoke.
Lanka lay panting.
Alive.
Makardvach stood over him, arm bleeding, breath uneven.
He didn’t speak.
He simply offered a hand.
Lanka took it.
The pact was sealed—
Not in blood.
But in grace.
The wounds were closing, but the room remained tense.
Lanka sat against the old stone wall, breathing through cracked lips, his robes torn and soaked in dark ichor. Akshay hovered nearby, eyes flicking from Lanka to the exit every three seconds. Megha stood with arms crossed, her expression unreadable.
Makardvach hadn’t spoken since the fight.
He cleaned the gada with a cloth soaked in rainwater—slow, deliberate, methodical. Not to polish. To think.
“He saved your life,” Rishabh said quietly, not to anyone in particular.
“That doesn’t mean he’s safe,” Megha countered.
Lanka’s voice was hoarse. “I don’t expect trust.”
“Good,” Akshay muttered. “Because you don’t have it.”
Rishabh ignored them all and approached the wounded demon.
“Take off your cloak.”
Lanka blinked.
“What?”
“Now.”
Lanka obeyed, slow and wary.
Beneath the layers of ash-grey cloth, his chest bore countless scars. Demonic sigils, branded commands, binding oaths. But across his left shoulder blade—
A mark no one expected.
A Vanara glyph.
Faint.
Barely visible.
But unmistakable.
Makardvach stood, stunned.
“That’s… the mark of Shringi.”
Rishabh stepped closer, gaze hard.
“The Vanara seer who vanished after the Great Pact was signed.”
Lanka’s breathing changed.
“I don’t know what that is,” he said. “That mark appeared a year ago. I thought it was a curse.”
Rishabh shook his head slowly.
“It’s not a curse.”
He looked to the others.
“It’s a birthright.”
Megha frowned. “You’re saying he’s… part Vanara?”
“Not blood,” Rishabh said. “But fate. Shringi was the only Vanara who volunteered to infiltrate Paatal Lok. The legend says he gave up his form and memory—became one of them—to plant a seed of collapse from within.”
Makardvach stared at Lanka.
“You were meant to betray Kalnemi.”
Lanka looked down at the mark, shaking his head.
“I didn’t know. I just… couldn’t follow anymore. The lies. The blood. The Shivnadi…”
He looked up.
Eyes suddenly clearer.
“I think I’ve been waking up for years.”
Rishabh nodded.
“That’s how all revolutions begin. One broken chain at a time.”
Silence fell again.
But it was a different silence.
Not suspicion.
Calculation.
Makardvach finally stepped forward and offered a fresh cloth to Lanka.
“Then you’re with us now.”
Lanka took it.
Gripped it like a sword.