Apocalypse VI-The Golden Carnage

Aditya's POV,

I sleep right after motivating my fellows to go out to war. I wake up in a weird dream. I am in a dark hall. I am at one end of the other hall. The other side is barely illuminated. Two people wearing loads of jewelry, hefty black armor and carrying brilliant dazzling red weapons walk into the room. One of them is holding a staff while the other is holding a spear. They then open a door on the wall and go into it. I can see through the wall so I think that it is a glass wall. I try to listen into what the two people are speaking. There is a glass table and glass chairs around it. The two people sit down and start discussing. I hear the one with the staff speaking, "This won't work. We won't be able to pull this off! This is crazy!!"

The other one says, "Trust me... This has to work. The plan is fool-proof. There is no way that this can fail. Believe in me."

Then all of a sudden the air around me swirls into a vortex and I am sucked out of the hall and into my room. A window pops up: "You have witnessed the beginning of something truly heinous. Figure out what it is and stop it. Quest Success Rewards: AtiMaharathi or higher Status. Quest failure Consequences: Possible end of the world. Time constraints: Until the heinous action takes place. Approximate time remaining: 2-100 years."

"F$#K" Really?!!!! Which dumbass has caused it this time? How in the hell am I to figure this out??? I say, "I reject the quest."

Another window pops up, "You cannot reject this quest." I facepam myself and scream out in rage; punch the wall and burn it in the process in anger. Luckily, my tent is isolated from that of everyone else so it does not raise too much panic.

My sarathi, Keshav, comes running to my tent with a bunch of helpers and puts out the fire with their. He asks me, "What is wrong Sahib? There doesn't seem to be anyone in there? Was it an assassination attempt from the Kauravas?"

I sigh and tell, "I wish that it was just an assassination attempt from the Kauravas."

I see the sky. The sun is rising. It is always beautiful to watch the sunrise. I check my friend list and see that Charles is in range. Since he is in range, he must have come out of heaven. I call him using chat. He picks up and says, "Good morning brother. How'd yesterday night go?"

I say, "Went well. All players on our side are united. What about your end? You out of heaven or did you just reach there?"

Charles answers, "I got out of heaven just now. I will come back to Kurukshetra in a few hours. If you ever face a golden rathi with a bow on the other side, leave him alive. He's my prey. Don't kill him. Take anyone else from his gang."

I say, "So be it." and cut the chat.

I look at my own stats: Level 352. Affinity to fire: 999. Attack power 24710. Hit points 49420.

My affinity to fire is at 999. I did many quests for the gods of fire. I got 9 blessings from Agni- the Indian god of fire. The other 99 points were gained by doing quests for Surya- the god of the sun, Apolo, the Greek god of sun. These quests don't give as much points as those from Agni do. I have been told that using your element more can increase your affinity to it. But not once has that happened.

I get up and put my golden armor and gauntlets on. I equip myself with my golden bow and quivers.

I see one skill on my window that I doubt many have used in the game: One with Fire.

There is a skill through which you can become your element for as many seconds as is your affinity to it. Using it once increases your affinity to the element by one, but it takes 80% of your health away for an attack bonus proportional to your affinity to it. For me, the attack bonus is 49.5%. This skill is ineffective unless you have a very high affinity to the element. I think that it might be worth it today.

I go out and call all the commanders in the camp to my tent. I tell them, "We will be going in a spearhead formation today. The faster we finish this off, the better for us."

The guy who was the first to speak up yesterday spoke up, "I agree. We need to punish them for the heinous acts!"

I check the guy's name. It says, Amit. I was having a good time forgetting my dream but this guy brought it back to my mind. I push it out of my mind and say, "I'll be leading from the front. Today, I will use a skill that will last for approximately 16 and a half minutes. I shall be weakened after that. I want all of you to charge as the spearhead instead of me after I do that. Amit, I want you to lead after I use my skill, until Karthik comes."

We all go to our respective chariots from there and start marching to the battlefield. My chariot already has Keshav waiting at the reigns of the golden chariot with the symbol of Krishna at the top. My chariot has many quivers of arrows in it. Those of my camp organize themselves into the spearhead formation whereas the other side was chaotic and unorganized. A horn blew marking the beginning of the second day of the war. Keshav started my chariot as I led the charge. I took out arrows and started firing them all with all of them draped in fire. Windows popped up next to me one after another saying that I had killed and gained exp.

I get a call from Charles. He says, "Hey, I am about to reach Kurukshetra in about twenty minutes. The first elemental advancement is amazing. See ya!"

So he got another blessing from Indra. Must have gone well then. I can't be lagging behind.

I say, "ONE WITH FIRE!!!" activating the skill.

A window pops up beside me, "You have now achieved the first elemental advancement. You shall receive an extra 20% attack bonus on using it. Next usage of One With Fire shall gain you two affinity points with your elements. You have achieved the affinity required for a Maharathi. You shall automatically gain the status of Maharathi at the level of 375. Curses or Blessings of Fire gods can no longer affect you"

I now get 70% attack bonus. 70% attack bonus is big and 80% health is worth it. My attack power is almost 200000 now. I start firing all my arrows at a very rapid pace. The enemies are unable to bear it. I ask Keshav to go around the battlefield as I search for someone who is capable of using a weak Brahmastra. I go around with little success. But all those killed by me had only one thing in their memories- a Golden Carnage, burning through everything while shining in the bright sunlight.

16 minutes later,

"You have achieved level 356."

"The time period of One With Fire is over. You can use it again after 24 hours."

My health has dropped down to 4800 hit points but 4 levels was clearly worth it.

Just as my skill finished up, an arrow rammed into my chariot pushing it 50 yards behind. I regained my stature and guard and saw the assailant. A golden archer like me in a golden chariot. I say this much, he is a pure rip-off from me. He says, "I didn't think that the golden carnage was so dumb that he would use a skill and become one with his element. But that was powerful. You must have achieved the first elemental advancement. But that is useless when you have less than 20% of your health. Where is the Bloody Azure? You are not worthy of being my opponent. Only he is. Where is he?"

I ask, "Am I not worthy because I will overpower you?"

[Mythology titbits: Today, I shall speak a little about Indian archers. There are many acclaimed archers. But the most famous of them are Rama, Lakhsmana, Lav, Kush, Karna and Arjuna. Rama was the avatar of Vishnu before Krishna. Vishnu came to earth as Rama to kill Ravana who was a Rakshasa(a form of demon) a tyrant king of Lanka. Lakshmana was his brother. Lav and Kush were Rama's children with his wife Sita. The Ramayana is a large story as big as the Mahabharatha, so I will talk about it in a later chapter. The short version is that Rama had three step brothers, Lakshmana, Bharatha and Shathrugna. Keikei, the mother of Bharatha was manipulated such that she did not want Rama who was the eldest prince to receive the throne so she had him exiled out of Ayodhya, the seat of the throne, for fourteen years. During these fourteen years Rama his wife Sita along with Lakhsmana travelled in the forests. There, Ravana kidnapped Sita and held her captive. Rama reached Lanka from India by building a bridge of stones on the water. He then fought and killed Ravana and saved Sita. Lav and Kush were their children. There is another long story regarding the two of them which will be talked on in more detail in a later chapter. Arjuna was the third eldest Pandava. He was an archer with exceptional skills and the only AtiMaharathi on the Pandava side. Karna was the sun of Surya and the eldest son of Kunti but he was born before she was married to Pandu and so he was outcasted and grew up in a low caste. He and Arjuna were rivals. In the competition to win Drauapadi's hand in marriage, Karna was the first to suceed but was denied her hand because he was of a lower caste. Karna was in fact a better archer than Arjuna and if not for Krishna helping Arjuna, then Karna would have bested and neaten Arjuna. Karna is also called the Daanveer which means that he was very philanthropic. He would give away anything in charity if it was asked of him from someone in need.]