The Sapta-Niyantā

Irnis was heading back to Princess.

"Now it feels better. Haven't hit someone in a while. I am in a good mood now. Well then..." She saw one of the guardsmen who looked a bit shocked. "What's wrong? Let's go back." 

He was looking behind her so she turned back to see.

K was still breathing. 

And then, in a move that belied the agony that had just ravaged his body, K stood up.

Unbroken. Unwavering.

"Ugh, I hate these persistent humans." Irnis face-palmed and looked at him. "Don't you think you should just lie down and act dead until I'm out of this place?"

K stayed silent.

"Well, not that I'm complaining. If you remain standing long enough, it might become a good workout for me."

K remained silent.

His hair fell across his eyes. His breathing was unnatural.

Irnis frowned in disappointment because K was silent. "At least try to waste some time talking while you prepare yourself again. You humans do lack some intelligence."

Irnis bolted towards him, carelessly and tried to smack him again at the same place. The pressure crushed the surface of the ground. With a smile on the face, she struck.

But she only punched the air. "Wha-"

K dodged it.

Irnis' eyes widened in surprise *"What was that?"* but she didn't stop. 

Undeterred, she stepped forward and tried once more, only to miss her mark again. *"What's wrong with my aim? I don't get it, I'm usually on target."* She thought.

Without wasting time, she launched several attacks but missed again and again.

*"Why can't I hit him?"*

On the other hand, for K, she looked way too slow to him. He can see her every movement. It was almost as easy as breathing. He was dodging while maintaining a close distance from her.

For a moment, flickering, his hair lifted a bit. His eyes were glowing, intensely. His pupils shone like moonlit water, their depths burning with an eerie, otherworldly light. But it went unnoticed. 

Irnis got frustrated. She jumped forward and landed a punch, finally. A bit of dust blew up around them. 

"Hah, too bad for you. You were fast but I am the fastest Dramon alive. I might have lost my grip these days but not enough to be defeated by a human. Quite unlucky, aren't y-"

K blocked it!

He stopped it with his hand before his chest.

Irnis jumped back. *"How can a mere human, withstand an attack from my fist? Is he really that strong?"* She pondered.

K stood there like a statue and then he shook like he gained his consciousness back. He was in complete shock. His mind was trying to comprehend what just happened.

"What was that? For a moment everything I did, it just felt like a reflex action."

He smiled a little, "I don't care what was but now I can defeat her" and jinxed it.

Then his face twisted into a sneer expression, raised an eyebrow, and let out a mocking laugh. "Was that all?" he taunted, his voice laced with disdain.

"I thought you were some big shot among Dramons." His words were laced with sarcasm and teasing, and he took a step closer to Irnis.

Irnis got furious as K's taunt struck a nerve. Her face twisted in a snarl. "A mere human dare to mock me? That's it, I've had enough! You're going to die, no matter what...." her armor started glowing and its energy field began to pulsate with intense energy.

She flicked her thumb, like a button and a huge greatsword materialized in her hands, much like teleported out to her.

"...And my Dephon will end this."

At the same time, some people started coming towards that park. They were all, somehow, acquaintances of K.

"What's this now?" Irnis got distracted.

Those people from before, who had run away when the duel was starting, had gathered the crowd and called some1 news reporters too.

Recognizing K, some of them collectively gasped in horror, while some ran towards K. Their faces reflected their shock and dismay. The crowd's murmurs turned into noise.

"Go and quickly set up Megravent! I'll deal with them later. I don't want interruption right now." Irnis ordered the guardsmen.

*"I've never seen humans coming out of their homes to see a duel. This is the first time humans are gathering against a Duel....just for one human?"* The sudden turn of events seemed to shift the balance, as Irnis' grip on Dephon tightened, her eyes flicking between K and the agitated crowd. 

Those guardsmen came out from that mini spaceship with four sleek, silver boxes with weird, futuristic patterns etched into them.

Each one was about a foot tall and had a fancy, see-through screen on the front. There are some glowing blue lines and a handle on the side. They looked intimidating as if something was emanating from them, like Irnis' armor. Those four boxes had a rugged, industrial feel but it was still somehow sleek and modern.

They put them on the four corners of the park and erected a barrier effectively trapping K and other Dramons within the park, isolating them from the frantic crowd.

Megravent is just a smaller version of another barrier, Regravent, which was used in Shadowfall to prevent any damage to Dramon's army. But still, the Megravent barrier is strong enough to stop some nuclear weapons. 

Unlike its stronger version, Megravent was limited to a single place. It cannot be moved without removing the barrier. Once four of those, pyramid-shaped machines are placed, it starts to generate a rough outline of the area to cover and simply starts to create the barrier block by block, but the process is always too fast for someone to notice. It is just a self-sustaining, energy-latticed, impact-neutralizing, meta-material barrier with geometric patterns on it.

As such, it works greatly but only from the outside, because from the inside, it neutralizes everything.

Those people got blocked by that barrier.

The townspeople's attempts to breach the barrier were met with futility, their blows and screams echoing off the impervious energy field.

"Seriously, these humans annoy me." Irnis swung Dephon with her one hand which made the ground beneath Irnis crack. "Do you know about my Dephon, Human?"

"I know only what everyone else knows. I mean, many have heard in the news about this... Dephon. It was strong enough to tank around hundreds of hypersonic missiles and it remained unscathed. It was the MVP of The Shadowfall, after all. Cutting through the armies of many strong nations and doing all that in a few hours was its most known feat... maybe."

"You are well informed but you should know that without me being its user, it can't do any much. And look who is your enemy right now."

"Don't tell me you're trying to say my luck sucks. I already know that."

Well seeing how things turned out, it couldn't be something else.

"Heh. You bet. I don't usually kill humans without orders but I guess you are already going to die by my hands. I hope you are ready."

K was right. Those people knew what she was holding was Dephon. And as they saw this, their anger and sorrow reached a fever pitch.

The reporters and some people were recording this scene but no one knew this fight was being recorded by something from the start. 

A drone was flying above the park, watching everything happening there.....from the start.

••

In a heavily fortified, high-tech command center building, the third floor was full of staff, lazily sitting on the chair and looking at their computer monitor screens.

There was a noise coming from some computers while others were just on.

Dust was in the air.

The noises were coming out from those screens, though not too loud, but almost every person there was just looking bored and slacking off. What was being displayed by those screens were people getting brutally killed by Dramons and the noise was basically their screams but it wasn't even fazing these people sitting on their chairs.

Those screens were showing all the Duels happening in the world and right now, twenty Duels are going on. It was being recorded through high-tech drones controlled by the satellite.

These drones always reach the duel location as soon as it even starts and record all of it.

"Oye, Berth. Want anything? I'm going to get cold coffee downstairs."

"Yeah, get some orange juice for me." He pointed at a person sitting next to him "And get this guy something too. He looks like he's gonna pass out anytime soon." 

"...ok then."

"Wait a minute!" Berth's eyes widened in surprise. "Come here, Ajit."

"Hm? What's going on?" Ajit turned back towards Beth.

"Just look at this!"

And now both of them are shocked.

That guy beside Berth looked at what they were looking for. And now he doesn't look sleepy at all.

Watching them some other people around them also gathered there and saw the same thing and were shocked.

They were watching Irnis and K's Duel.

Some of them started talking. 

["Is that the third Dramon Commander?""Wait, he's still standing?""Why are there so many people?""He made Commander Irnis use Dephon!""What's with this guy?""He can block her punches too!""Look! He's dodging that!""What the hell is going on?"]

The ruckus caused their supervisor to come there. "What are you people doing? Go back to your places!"

"Sir, look at this." One of them said.

"Hm? It is just a Duel. What are y-" and now he had the same expression too. 

But he calmed himself down. "Give me its location."

He took the coordinates and ran towards the elevator and hastily pressed the....wrong button...so he ignored it and pressed the button for the twentieth floor with his finger shaking and then....he waited for a while...then it opened up on the wrong floor so he waited more...and then he was going to go out when the lift stopped but someone had pressed for the elevator on sixteenth floor and left it... so he waited more...

And then he rushed out towards one of the rooms with some numbers written on it and then got interrupted by someone.

"Woah there! Are you okay?" He came in front of a pale-looking man in a white suit with glasses 2on.

"Ah, Mr. Noah, I-I'm just-I want to show you something."

"Hmm... I believe you are from the 9-H block of the third floor."

"Yes, you are correct. Sir, I want you to check the drone's Duel recording of this area."

He gave him a device that looked like a glass slate and entered a few numbers which made its transparent screen opaque and showed the recording.

"I haven't seen someone standing against a Dramon for this long and like this before and his enemy is a commander on top of it. Just who is this person?" 

"I think it should be informed to the Eccen. This is something that needs thei-"

"Yes, it indeed is a serious matter. I should tell it to them as soon as possible. Thanks for showing this to me." He started rushing towards the elevator.

"Ah, sir w-wait!" 

"Hm? Is there anything else?"

"uh, I'd like if you, uhh, I mean- not now but...f you would.."

"Oh, yes, sure. I will tell them about you." Noah smiled and went away in the elevator.

That supervisor waited for him to go away. "Haha, finally I'll get promoted too. yes!" He was happy....for a minute at least. "Shit, I forgot there is only one elevator and others are still being repaired and he took away my Sphurna3 too. Fuck it!"

Meanwhile, Noah, in the lift, was concerned about the consequences of this Duel. He was looking at its replay and thinking about something.

He arrived where he wanted to and moved towards a hall as quickly as possible.... he wasn't running though.

"Wait a minute, Sir." A security guard stopped him. "The five of Sapta-Niyantā are inside for an important meeting. Please wait."

"Well, I would have waited but this is more important."

"As much as I believe, it cannot be more important than an emergency."

"Oh, but this is an emergency too." then Noah lowered his voice down a bit, "And I don't think they would even mind me interrupting their meeting but you can surely be punished as 'you' are stopping me from informing them something which is probably more important than your life. You can not even imagine how important this information is."

That security guard silently stepped aside.

Noah opened a door and entered a small room, as big as a closet. He straightened his clothes.

There was a futuristic metal door in front of him so he used it as a reflection. He then came closer to it, entered a password by just tapping on the door, and went inside that meeting hall. 

"I hope I am not interrupting you all." 

"Oh, certainly not. Instead, we were anticipating you and we even know why you are here right now. We are just talking on that matter too." A feminine voice came from the seat written "II" on it but Noah couldn't see her face in the dark.

"Then, I guess I should not be here. Lest I 'disturb' your meeting." But he does know her.

"Haha, just ignore that guard from before. He's just a newbie here. You should stay here because I think you will probably have to deal with it later."

"So, what do you think about this guy?"

"Well..... it depends on what would be the result of this Duel."

As she said that, a three-dimensional holographic image popped up showing K. Its light fell on other chairs written I, III, IV, V, VI, VII. 

A holographic image on the V chair said first. "It's not going to be good no matter who wins but if that man wins, we are going to have a weapon of war in our hands." 

"We cannot decide this without all the seven leaders present here." The lady on the II chair raised her voice. "And we still haven't got the results yet."

"Yeah, yeah." Someone said among them

They all went silent and were looking at the hologram. 

"He's not going to sit back and watch." Noah hinted to the lady on the II chair

And then in the hologram....

••

Irnis lifted her sword.