1.47 What Has To Be Done... (8.4k)

"Be perceptive of your surroundings. Of the people around you. Don't reveal your intentions. Never show your weaknesses. People will always use them against you." My older sister used to always warn me.

"Jhanvi, you'll soon have a massive advantage over other people. Learn to make use of it properly. Most people approaching you won't have good intentions, so train yourself to develop a good eye for people."

Just basic information overall, but I had felt what she told me also hid a sinister truth.

Be a better judge of people... Consider properly before associating yourself with others... These words soon became a curse for me.

Deep down, I grew afraid of other people. I couldn't help suspecting them and their actions. Why did they do this? What were they thinking and trying to achieve? I became paranoid, overthinking about useless stuff like these.

I used to consider myself quite lucky compared to the 'acquaintances' I've had over the years. My parents were caring and a little too protective of me, shielding me from everything wrong in this world.

It only made me all the more susceptible to it.

They would often go into Satya for the business our family conducted there, but whenever they were around, they made sure to spoil me rotten.

My sister, who was four years older than me, in the momentary absences of our parents, took it upon herself to educate me in the ways of this world.

She had our cousin to support her and be her friend, being similar in ages, but I had no one like that. Everyone in the family except my sister and the cousin considered me to be some brittle glass doll that only needed to be protected.

My sister, who took a different approach by being harsh and pragmatic, became my pseudo-mom. As I grew older, she slowly became the source of all my comfort and safety, the one I trusted the most and could confide in all my thoughts and feelings.

Home afterward became a suffocating place that seemed to confine me after she left for the Gurukul.

The only words I used to utter in there were: 'Yes', 'I understand', and 'I'll keep it in mind'; in response to all the do's and don'ts, I was constantly reminded of by my mother.

I still remember the first time my sister returned home during summer vacation. She was a changed person, with an aura of maturity and overflowing charm.

Her excited eyes when she recounted the events of the Ashrama, which ofcourse were severely censored by Kalpa, and the way she described her friends gave me a bit of hope in finding genuine connections.

"You'll go through so much shit together that somehow it will feel like you could trust them with everything." She had said. "Don't worry. I feel like you'll get what you're looking for there. Just wait for four more years. Keep practicing archery until then. I can't wait to show you what lies on the other side..."

I was genuinely happy for her. But this phase didn't last long. Every time she came back after that, it seemed as if her burdens kept increasing.

The excitement was gone. The aura she exuded had also diminished. She looked tired and lost.

Her storytelling sessions got shorter, and she would suddenly stop midway through the story, looking pale.

I asked our cousin what was wrong since she was a batchmate of my sister, but she too never said a thing about what had happened to my sister in the Ashrama.

It went on for her whole sixth and seventh-grade years. And finally, at the start of the eighth grade, she found someone who made her happy and complete. That was how she described it.

'To become complete', this notion didn't make sense at all at that time. Aren't the ingredients of completing one's self, present within themselves already? It was a bizarre enigma. How is one supposed to complete themselves when the person they are looking for can be anybody among seven billion people?

But she was already seeing the world in a different light, having been mentally alive in the Ashrama for 18 years, if we consider six years per grade—5 in Satya and 1 in Alik.

Her demeanor also changed for the better, returning her to her old, cheerful self.

I had already made up my mind not to go to the Gurukul after seeing how depressed she had gotten, but seeing her new vibrant form, the fire in me that had died out slowly, reawakened again.

It took quite a bit of convincing from my side since my parents had already decided to keep me at home. But seeing me articulate my desires for the first time in a while, they succumbed to my wishes.

It had been the first time in a long while that I had used more words from my vocabulary. My parents were already on the edge for a few years, finding both their daughters turn cold and unresponsive. I wonder if they ever thought properly about who actually was responsible for that.

Watching their tensed faces relaxing and the wave of relief that washed over them, complicated emotions also burst within me that I still have trouble dealing with.

I realised that I too had failed to understand what my parents were going through because of my actions, since I only kept running away from them, instead of facing my feelings honestly.

I only had a year to prepare after that. I've heard from my sister that students usually study for two to three years for the Gurukul entrance exams. To have that many people applying, there must be a lot of people who have connections to Satya.

"Make sure to listen to your teachers well. Study hard. Follow the routine and don't forget to..." My mom had started lecturing me again after settling me in my room at the Gurukul. I had somehow gotten in, even to my surprise.

"It's enough." My father had stopped her, "She wanted to come here and worked hard to achieve that. She knows what she wants, and all we can do is support her. So stop your bickering and send her off with a smile."

He had hugged me briefly, whispering something I'll remember for a long time to come, "Find something you truly wish to do, and I hope you'll regain your cheerful self that got lost because of our actions. I'll also try to be better so that no matter what happens, you can always find me by your side."

Hearing my father say that, someone who never spoke his mind and always seemed to keep his emotions in check, melted whatever anger and frustration I had towards him.

For a few seconds, I hoped for a chance that I would find a new environment the next time I go back home for summer vacation after a few Alik months.

Find something I truly wished to do? For starters, I wanted to find people I could call friends.

My last school was like an elite school for girls. Business must have been booming back in Satya, allowing my parents to send me there.

My experience in the previous school was not good. From stuck-up teachers to rules that made absolutely no sense, quite a number of things plagued my life. The students there were all awkward, just trying to survive through the day.

There were some acquaintances who used to greet me in the morning and before leaving, but that was all. I suppose most of them were taking extracurricular classes back home to not have time for hanging around after school.

Everybody's parents there always had this competitive look as if their child was something like an expensive furnishing that they could show off to other people.

We were just a bunch of lifeless dolls without a will of our own. Dancing to the whims of the ones who gave birth to us.

We indeed make mistakes when we are young, and it's true that we don't think through the consequences that might follow our decisions. But aren't people supposed to learn by actually doing something and then failing or succeeding in it?

I wanted to be around people who were also looking for things they wanted to do, just like me. I wanted to watch and learn from them. Even help them if required. I was done being around robots that were programmed to do whatever their owner wanted them to. I was done being a robot myself.

The fact that I never spoke up sooner made me loathe myself. If only I had let them know what I was going through properly, would things have been different?

If it is a weakness to share your true feelings with others, I'm now willing to face its consequences. That's the only way I can change for now.

I still remember the day eight weeks ago when I first met my roommates.

Shreya was strong. She knew what she wanted and worked hard to get it from the very first day. Being aloof from the beginning, it took an arduous journey to Vitala, the second Loka below, for her to open up in front of us. I was jealous of her qualities, and it got even worse the week before the forced teleportation.

The fact that someone could so effortlessly display the very qualities I was searching for as if they were second nature, really disturbed me.

I was very surprised, to my dismay, after finding out her true nature. Hiding inside her hard outer shell was a lonely girl sent from an influential family in Satya to rearrange the hierarchies among the seven prominent families.

Kalpa bestowed rankings to the families depending on their various deeds, and these ranks came with many powers and privileges.

From her accounts, with the selection of the seven, another cold war erupted within their ranks, where young children became the tools of war.

Her strong persona that she had created was only a coping mechanism in response to her environment. She became a really good friend afterward, and talking with her would remind me of my older sister.

My jealousy had vanished into thin air within a handful of days.

Especially because of her eyes. They had the same glitter my sister had when she entered eighth grade.

Esha, on the other hand, was underconfident and innocent like a newly blossomed flower. She came here wanting to change. She was the easiest to trust and get along with. But everyone around us kept picking on her just because they were envious of her unique power.

Aditi was stubborn. She did whatever she wanted and never considered other people's feelings. She was the hardest to come to terms with. After Esha lost two of her lives, Aditi got a little too overprotective of her, reminding me of my situation back home.

I tried to be an existence to Esha that my sister was for me. I made sure she always had an outlet for her feelings, the very same thing I desperately needed when I was suffocating within the safety of my home.

After I found my 'friends', I started thinking about my goals for the future. Till now, my only target had been entering the Ashrama and staying away from the home that imprisoned me. I had not even thought about what I would do after.

While pondering about this, I met four new people during my first dungeon crawl. The dreaded existences my sister had repeatedly warned me about.

I had no idea what interacting with them entailed, but from the very beginning, they seemed to be following some weird set of rules that I couldn't make sense of.

One moment, they were having fun among themselves, and suddenly, when the activities included us, they would get all fidgety and try to keep a distance. Honestly, it was amusing to see them acting like that.

Do they get dangerous as they grow older? It's mysterious why my sister had a negative perception of them.

The way they made crude jokes among themselves and teased each other would undoubtedly seem like bullying from an outsider's viewpoint. How do they just brush those insults off as if their skins are made of rhino hide? I would think that my friends are hating me for no reason.

Meeting them also made me realize how different people were. Everyone may not have had a lot of experiences being only twelve years old, but they all tackled problems in their own way. By trying to reduce it to a simpler one that they have already solved before.

I also realized, taking myself as an example, that the environment people grow up in... dictates a lot of characteristics of a person's behavior.

I also met my outstanding seniors, especially Yashvi. Being around her gave me a warm fuzzy feeling that made me wonder what those emotions actually were.

It made me feel all happy and giddy inside. For the first time in my life, I wanted to be someone else. If I can become like her, will I also be able to spread the same happiness I had felt to other people?

Archery, which I continued only because I had started long back, became a bridge that connected me to Yashvi. Watching her try her best every day, practicing in that dungeon, made me want to like it, too.

I worked day and night after the dungeon raid to improve my shooting skills, got familiar with my new bow, tried my best in the Siddhi battles, and excelled at all the events in the Divyastra Utsaav. I was this close to getting a Blessing... But everything fell apart.

The scene before me left me trembling. I'm sure none of my arrows will fly to their target in my current condition.

A guy who seemed even younger than us, covered in a dark red aura, was now soloing our sages. Three more children, the same age as us, were attacking my batchmates while exuding a terrible numbing aura.

If I die here, I will only have a single life left... Is all I could think of at this moment.

"Focus!! We need to stay alive!!" Dweep shouted while he and Aditi stood before me, Anik, and Esha.

"Why isn't Saiyan and Shreya coming to help us? Why are they protecting people they don't even know??" Anik complained, readying his bow.

"They don't want us to lose lives if they happen to die while fighting the invaders." Esha calmly said with her eyes shining green. A sign of her trait activation. She removed her specs and glanced at the enemy for a second, only to bend down and start retching out her breakfast.

"That girl is dangerous. The sages had imprisoned her easily, but we don't have a chance against her." She grimaced, wiping her lips on her white sleeve. "The man with the gauntlets has a three-layered Kavach over him. It is swirling with Asuran symbols. The guy with the staff... He's demonic. I have never seen a more putrid Kundalini than him. The younger guy fighting the sages... He's on par with the highest-level Asuras. It's impossible to gauge his strength currently. I don't see an end, only a never-ending abyss." She described.

"It's better not to catch their attention trying to attack them. Dweep and I will keep you all safe from any stray attacks from the fight." Aditi suggested.

Their tall frames stood like a fortress before us. I gazed over the vast expanse of the arena, which was now divided into three parts.

The west side had us students, the east had sages who were conducting the God Caller rituals, and the middle had terrorists who had their backs against each other, taking on two different enemies at the same time.

"These people must have some connection with Rahu and Ketu." Anik mumbled to himself, loud enough for us to hear. "To suddenly find them after not discovering a single trace for weeks... It has to be coordinated. They knew about Ashwatthama's vow and that he won't sit still when they are found."

"It seems he still didn't learn a thing from his old days." Esha blurted out something outrageous, "He's still as hot-headed as before. Always jumping head first into battles and massacres."

We had nothing to say to that. We all knew what had happened in the past. Ashwatthama, during the events of Mahabharata, lost his father Dronacharya, to the Pandavas and broke the code of conduct for Kshatriyas, carrying out the first dishonorable surgical strike in history. Dishonorable according to the norms of that Yuga. In our current one, anything goes, I guess.

In the rules of war, it was forbidden to fight after the sun went down. Despite that, burning in the flames of revenge, Ashwatthama had snuck into the tent of the Pandavas and accidentally killed their five children instead.

In a single night, a whole bloodline that had emerged from Draupadi, the wife of the five Pandavas, was wiped out.

His current curse is also related to the Karma of his sins from that night.

Not having him here significantly reduced our chances of escaping this predicament alive.

"What is even going on there?" Dweep stared at the east end of the arena, where a battle beyond the realm of humans was taking place.

The constant vibrations that followed the bright explosions from there took some time to get used to.

On the central-west side, in front of our group, the six Chosen Rakshaks started engaging the group of three invaders.

"The other sections must already be aware of what's happening to us. We'll get reinforcements soon!" Dweep assured us with fake optimism. He had begun losing his cool after Esha started feeling sick.

This is no time for all that.

"Keep your eyes peeled to the front. We need to avoid any stray attacks that might lash out at us." I instructed our Surakshaks from the back.

For the first time, I concentrated on the battles before me. If we can find some pattern, some delay in our opponents' attacks which we can exploit, maybe we can turn the tides.

Only a single team of six people was engaging the enemies, and the rest of us were trying to save our hides. If only we could somehow put together our strengths... A path will definitely open up. But who's going to step up first?

Saiyan, Shreya, and another guy were confronting the female invader with a giant ivory sword. The purple snake aura covering her body was a deterrent to melee fighters. The fumes released by it left a trail of dead grass in her wake.

On our side, a male Surakshak was protecting a female Dhanurdhar who kept launching her arrows toward the invader with a twirly staff.

Unfortunately, all her attacks got blocked by the boy with gauntlets on our opponents' side without even breaking a sweat. That madlad was punching her arrows away as if they were mere sticks.

Lastly, a male Vaidya holding a staff with a white gem at its head was standing at the end closest to us, supplying Kundalini to the Dhanurdhar using a Tether.

That skill is usually taught at the end of sixth grade, according to Esha. If Dhruva and this guy can learn skills by themselves that will be taught to us later on, maybe I can ask Yashvi to suggest some Dhanurdhar-based skills I can try teaching myself beforehand.

The invader with a staff finally finished chanting under the protection of the gauntlet user and slammed the lower end of his staff on the ground with a thud.

"Get ready. Dweep, Aditi... Strengthen your shields. Something huge is being summoned." Esha was clearly panicking.

The air above the staff user rippled as a crack shaped like a horizontal ellipse manifested itself.

Something was pushing the thin spatial film over the portal from the other side, bulging it to its extreme curvature...

Like a tidal wave, thousands of crab-like monsters the size of a football burst out of the crack, their legs reminding me of human hands. They touched the ground, falling from a considerable height, and started spreading like cake batter over a flat surface...

They were slow but dense and devastating.

"I'll need help!!" The Chosen Surakshak summoned an invisible wall separating the incoming wave of monsters and the students behind him.

I could see Dweep's leg twitching as he considered going up there and supporting the guy who set up the wall.

He glanced back at us for a second and stayed rooted to the ground, taking his decision after watching our expressions.

"If it breaks, we are doomed anyway." He sighed and slammed his shield on the ground.

The soil behind the invisible shield that the incoming tide of insects had slammed into erupted like a mud volcano, drowning the crab-like critters in a paste of exoskeleton and appendages.

This must be the skill he's been developing for the last two weeks, according to Esha. It was impressive!

"Thanks!" The Chosen Surakshak gave a thumbs-up after finding out that the pressure on his shield had lessened considerably.

Unfortunately, the three Yoddhas and the girl with snake aura were still battling it out on our side of the invisible barrier.

The four warriors were moving too fast. Even if I try to support them from the back, I might end up missing, wasting my energy, or hitting a friendly unit.

The sounds of their weapons clashing against each other reminded me of a pile bunker that used to operate every morning in the plot beside our home whenever I went to school. That sound used to reverberate deep within my brain, giving off a really uncomfortable feeling. It would not cease rattling my skull until my second or third period at school.

Their strikes were heavy, sending out fireworks of metal, and how they dodged each others' attacks reminded me of antelope fawns trying to trick a cheetah in pursuit from the shows on Discovery channel.

The white dress Shreya had was stained with her blood, with cuts in multiple areas exposing her wounded skin. Saiyan was not doing any better. His face had a gash across his nose and right cheek that seemed to be worsening. The female invader, on the other hand, had an ecstatic smile. It was so creepy that I didn't even want to think about the motivations and reasoning behind her actions.

The other Yoddha had already lost an arm not even a minute into the fight. He had kicked his arm away from the heat of the battle towards the crowd of Rakshaks behind him and burned his wound with his yellowish Kundalini. He joined into the fight with a single arm right after that.

The Chosen Vaidya, seeing the third Yoddha's determination, decided to help the Surakshak in keeping his barrier intact instead.

Our makeshift team here had only a single Vaidya. If Dhruva had been here, we could have sent him or Esha to support them.

What the hell are the other Rakshaks doing?

I looked sideways and backward to find all the students grouped like us. They were also thinking of themselves first.

What will happen once the Chosen ones die? We will only be getting slaughtered mercilessly. Only they can keep those invaders at bay, being massively over-leveled than us from their secret training with Kalpa.

"Anik, let's support them. The others will also join in following our lead." I suggested to him.

"Leave the greatsword user to Saiyan and Shreya. Our arrows from behind will only add complexity to their movements when they are already struggling to dodge those attacks from the girl." He noted, "Let's try taking down as many insects as possible before the barrier breaks. I've had enough experiences to guarantee that we don't even have a minute."

The pressure from the insect wave was continuously building up as more and more of them gathered on the other side.

Our arrows sailed through the air and started taking out the insects climbing on top of one another like a giant red wave of crustaceans.

Thankfully, the barrier set up by the Surakshak on our side allowed attacks to pass through it, taking down those agents of nightmares.

Those hellish insects had legs with palms for lower ends and appeared severely gross as they thumped against the barrier while wiggling their grotesque red shell-covered toes.

Even the two invaders on the other side of the barrier were steering clear of those insects. Just a few seconds later, another set of purple symbols appeared over the guy who had summoned the insect wave. He must be using another spell in quick succession.

This time, multiple small cracks appeared over his head, summoning gray-colored malevolent translucent spirits- Bhootas. They are infamously known as Prana suckers and can often inflict low-level curses if they happen to take over someone's body, even for a little while.

They swooped in and phased through the barrier put up by the Surakshak with ease.

The female Dhanurdhar among the Six brought out shiny Kundalini arrows from her quiver and knocked several of the Bhootas down.

That was like a signal to the other Dhanurdhars. Arrows of different kinds, from physical iron and steel to energy-based ones, all started dropping like hail beyond the invisible wall. Some arrows even collided together, creating small-scale explosions and destroying the red outer shell of the insects.

The Bhootas primarily got attacked by more energy arrows than the crabs, disintegrating to ash as they fell like grey snowflakes.

They are immune to physical attacks but deadly when their targets are out of Kundalini. Without concentrated internal energy, it is tough to take them out.

I recovered my quiver that contained my physical arrows from my dimensional box and created new ones with my Kundalini. My bow shuddered, complaining about my actions.

"I don't need it right now. Stay quiet." I whispered.

I stayed alert, aiming at targets the other Dhanurdhars missed. Another volley of glowing arrows streaked overhead from behind, attacking the Bhootas breaching the barrier.

The other Dhanurdhars distributed the jobs among them. Some only attacked the ethereal beings, while others concentrated on the crabs. Just when I thought everything would be going well, Anik's warning came out to be true.

A dark red laser suddenly appeared from the east side and dispersed into a thousand strands after getting blocked by the wall. Those strands lashed out, destroying hundreds of insects, but also left a massive crack in the middle of the invisible wall several feet above the ground.

The insects started stacking upon one another to reach the crack like a gradually rising dome of wiggling hell insects.

More arrows appeared from the mass of students gathered behind me that removed sections of the insect hill slowly yet steadily, ensuring the insects couldn't reach the breach in the wall.

The teams to my left, i.e., the northern part of our defense line, kept attacking the Bhootas, leaving the crabs to the fellow batchmates behind.

Anik and I were also getting rid of the crustaceans, but to my horror, the physical arrows I had in stock were depleting at an alarming rate.

I glanced at the 3v1 going on in front of us while shooting arrows at a particular angle since I now had the leisure, knowing the general direction and the elevation I needed to launch my arrows that would surely take out some critters since they were so densely packed.

Saiyan and Shreya were now gasping for air. Their shoulders heaved and slouched from the intensive and long breaths they were taking, while their wounds were changing colors to a deeper shade of greenish purple hue.

The third guy was limping, yet putting himself out as bait to give the other two an opening for a counterattack.

The female invader also had a bunch of wounds on her legs and arms, her scaly silver Armor cracking and breaking off at multiple places. She also seemed a bit out of breath, but she was definitely holding out better than her opponents.

I suddenly heard the sound of an arrow getting released somewhere from the far northeast beyond the watery dome that surrounded us. For a split second, I thought Ashwatthama had returned. But to our horror, it was not the case.

The Surakshak, who was holding up the crab-blocking barrier, suddenly collapsed. His head burst open, splattering gray matter on the ground, as if someone had triggered a small-scale explosive inside his skull.

His knees gave out, and a fountain of blood rose from his neck as he fell sideways. His body twitched a few times before going limp.

Another ray of dark red energy slammed against the barrier, tearing it apart and unleashing the crabs from hell upon us.

As the barrier broke, I saw the two invaders covering themselves with a few more Kavach walls and rushing toward us.

That same vibration from a bowstring stimulated my eardrums, taking down several Rakshaks towards the north side on my left. They fell with a massive hole in their bodies as the arrow traveled undeterred through their defenses.

"We can't keep ourselves safe like this. We have to join in." Dweep persuaded us, summoning another quagmire surrounding our location, forcing the insects to slow down before reaching us.

The fact that he still had some energy left to use was praiseworthy.

Aditi erected a spherical bronze-colored barrier that also created a safe zone, marking the limiting boundary of our movements. Under no circumstances should we be stepping outside that barrier.

"We don't even have a Yoddha with us. If we try to kill each and every insect by shooting an arrow, we'll soon get overwhelmed." Anik brought out a few more steel-tipped arrows distributed in our Dhanurdhar course from his dimensional box and started stabbing the insects with their pointed ends.

Handing myself and Esha two arrows each, we both started following Anik's lead.

Esha suddenly looked up, gawking in the northeast direction.

"Another arrow is ready. It must be a powerful one, considering the shine it is emitting. The sniper should be on the roof of the boy's dorm." Her bloodshot eyes were still looking into the distance. "It's coming in our general direction."

Last time, it had targeted the northern part. And now they are going for the Rakshaks in the south, huh? They were sweeping through the whole area, making sure that all regions were hit with some attack.

I felt my body getting super focused as if it was preparing for a flashback sequence before death.

"Take it." I ordered, as my bow grew out thorny vines that wrapped around and pierced right into my palm holding it.

I could feel my Prana getting sucked up as the bow charged itself.

"It will hit the top part of Dweep's shield if my angle calculation is correct." Esha kept directing me.

I calmed down, taking a long breath and holding it; my ears focused on the sound I had already heard twice. I pulled back the bowstring as an energy arrow powered by my Prana manifested between my fingers.

'Twang'

"Hah!!" I let my arrow loose while exhaling the breath I was holding as soon as I heard the vibration.

"Dive right!" Aditi shouted and we jumped, falling into the quagmire ourselves.

My arrow had missed. It sailed through the air and disappeared after touching the water dome that the invaders had prepared for imprisoning us.

The arrow of the sniper grazed across the surface of Dweep's shield as he slanted it sideways, deflecting it to our left.

A chunk of his shield broke away and lodged itself somewhere behind as the arrow kept traveling, taking down a few Rakshaks in a straight line behind us.

Dweep stared at the devastation behind him with a look of pure horror in his eyes. He wasn't aware of his surroundings anymore, ignoring all the insects approaching him across the quagmire.

"It's not your fault." Esha jumped to the front, stabbing at the insects that were nearer to Dweep. "Get up. Another will be coming soon. It is not the time to act like this!"

The insects had already surrounded us and the other Rakshaks. Their bodies were now crawling all over the western side of the arena, leaving small islands of groups of Rakshaks who had set up barriers to stop them from coming near.

Dweep and Aditi also set up two more translucent bronze spheres, probably utilizing their remaining internal energy.

The two invaders who had followed the swarm of insects also engaged with the three Yoddhas who were fighting three versus one against the female invader till now.

The fight, which had already achieved entropy, again scaled in favor of the invaders, making things even harder for our already wounded friends.

The Chosen Vaidya and Dhanurdhar left the Surakshak's lifeless body without a second look and positioned themselves behind the three Yoddhas to support them. It was now four and a half versus three.

The frustrated look on the invaders' faces was a sight to watch. They probably had tremendous confidence that they could take us down without much difficulty.

It might have been true had the sages not been here. If that young demonic guy had participated in this fight instead, we wouldn't have lasted for the five minutes we somehow did.

The Vaidya behind the Yoddha trio on our side started healing them. Saiyan and Shreya stood in front, taking on three enemies, while the third Yoddha was having his hand attached.

It was only possible because of the female Dhanurdhar supporting from behind. Whenever Saiyan or Shreya was going to be attacked by the gauntlet user from their blind spot that was being taken care of by the third yoddha till now, she would send out her strategically aimed arrows that would neutralize the attacking stance he was taking, forcing him to step back and defend either himself or the twirled staff user behind him.

After the insect and Bhoota summoning, the invader Vaidya was again preparing some spells.

Coming to terms with their current predicament, the Chosen Dhanurdhar chose to engage with the gauntlet user with her swift arrows. At the same time, the general Dhanurdhar body from the Rakshaks gathered at the back set their sights on the invader Vaidya.

He had to stop chanting and step back, dodging and jumping to evade the incoming wave after wave of arrows that our Dhanurdhars sent after him.

I glanced at Anik, and he gave a nod, signaling that he too, was ready to attack the terrorist trio—especially the snake aura girl.

"We'll need some kind of a signal to alert Saiyan and Shreya whenever we are shooting the arrows." Anik brought up the difficulty of our undertaking.

"I know for a fact that Shreya has her notification alert sound system activated. We can establish a method to inform her through those notifications a few seconds before shooting." I suggested.

"Okk, I'll try this with Saiyan." Anik agreed, aiming his arrow at the snake aura girl. "If only we could keep our attacks hidden behind something till the last moment..."

"Guys..." Esha handed me and Anik some energy arrows, "Take these. I'm only using my Prana anyway, so it's better to transform my Kundalini to manufacture healing arrows. Hit our friends who are injured with them."

I stared at her with a proud look on my face. Healing arrows are an excellent concept. Why didn't Dhruva think about it? He needs to teach her how to keep these arrows intact even after making them beforehand, just like those healing dolls he had given only to Dweep. Then us Dhanurdhars can also act as pseudo-healers in worst-case scenarios.

"Calculate the interval." I sent a message to both Saiyan and Shreya, hoping they would see it, even though it was pretty unlikely that they had the leisure to open up their status right now.

The way they were twirling and twisting their bodies to duck or sidestep the line of attacks made by their enemies seemed beyond the realm of humans.

"....." I sent a blank message with dots to Shreya after coordinating with Anik.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five... Nine, Ten.

"Shoot!" Anik and I both counted and shot at the same time, aiming for the backs of our friends.

They flinched when the arrows struck them out of nowhere as a delayed reaction to a blind spot attack.

They must have been starting to feel better since their bodies became swifter after that.

"Did you put anti-venom characteristics in the arrows?" I asked Esha.

"Yeah, kind of. If they were the usual healing arrows, I could have made a lot more."

"Nice!"

I sent another blank message and then counted to ten, trying to keep the same rhythm as before. Anik was also following me while standing on my right side.

We shot another couple of healing arrows.

Saiyan and Shreya both didn't flinch this time. They just shared a glance and kept attacking with a newfound motivation. Simply knowing that there are people willing to support you from behind the scenes can provide a lot of confidence.

This time, I kept sending multiple blank messages, one after another, as a sign of warning for what was yet to come. I hope they got that the subsequent delivery has to be avoided.

On the count of ten, both of us shot an arrow toward the snake aura girl and the gauntlet user, respectively, while Saiyan and Shreya kept blocking their view of us till the last moment.

Both of them ducked simultaneously, swiping their curved swords at their enemy's legs, which they jumped up to avoid.

Our arrows struck against the enemy's barriers, spreading new cracks and deepening the previous ones.

With their rhythms now disrupted, Saiyan and Shreya got the chance to use their skills.

According to Shreya, the twin swords have a skill option, which, when activated, is supposed to produce a synergy effect, where each blade can do an extra proportionate damage that's dependent on the other one—allowing them to stack multiple instances of damage on top of another until it reduced to very small numbers that made no difference at all.

A single strike forced through numerous lacerations across the barrier, finally removing two out of three layers from each of the two melee invaders.

Saiyan chained his previous attack with another one, drawing a golden fiery horizontal line instantly with an almost invisible swipe of his arm, taking out both their final layers.

This is probably the third time my friends destroyed all the barriers before they started to deal proper blows to our enemies.

Shreya engaged the gauntlet user in a flurry of slashes, not allowing him to coordinate or summon a new set of Kavach around his teammates, pulling him away from Saiyan and the snake aura user.

The enemy Vaidya, in the meantime, was still being heavily bombarded with arrows from the Dhanurdhars behind, who had now started full-on assisting the Chosen Five, after their team's Yoddhas and Surakshaks started eliminating the insects around their protection domes to give them some respite.

The third Chosen Yoddha, with his hand now attached back to his body, also joined into the fray, going for the greatsword user to assist Saiyan.

He now had a small circular shield, as well as a curved Talwar. Standing side by side with Saiyan, he created a vibrating aura film over his sword, like the ones I had seen over the seniors' weapons during the Rakshak Vrata.

Saiyan gave him some directions, and they both took battle stances, facing the greatsword user. She kept staring back with a disinterested expression with a slight color of restlessness.

She shifted the greatsword's handle from her right hand to the left, slamming it heavily on the ground.

"You five here must be Kalpa's special candidates... Being way beyond all the other dregs behind you." She talked with an air of authority. "We have been training for this for the last eight years. Do you still think you can take us down with your puny experience?"

"What makes you think that we haven't been either?" The Yoddha beside Saiyan glared back. "If you didn't have that sword, its accompanying poison aura, and the Kavach from your friend there, what else will you have left? All you can do is use that sword a bit skillfully. Had it been our seniors, your attitude here would have been entirely different."

She laughed sarcastically at his comment, giving a victorious smile.

"If you didn't have Kalpa's support, the extra stat points, and lives that you steal from your friends here, what will 'you' be left with?" She kept snickering, "Do they even know the purpose of their existence?"

She focused on the Rakshaks whom the Chosen were protecting. "Your experience, your stat points are only being used for their sake. Your existence and achievements are also for their sake. Do you all even know what Kalpa has been doing behind your backs? Have you never thought about how they have been growing so strong while you keep staying where you are... Helpless and frustrated?"

The Rakshaks shared glances among themselves. One of them soon spoke up. I think I have seen her in the female Dhanurdhar's team.

"That doesn't change anything. Having them in our batch gives us more opportunities than our seniors. We are supposed to help each other and derive meanings of our existences from how we impact the lives of others anyway, no matter how self-centric one becomes. Right now, I can only feel grateful... Since they have been trying their best to keep us safe." She talked in a rapid-fire tone.

But the vibrations in her words were suspicious. She seemed to be using some pacifying skill that was related to speech. Is she from some political family?

"Why do people start standing quietly and listening whenever the enemies are speaking!!" Aditi complained while smashing the bugs around us.

"Let them have their rest." Esha intervened, "Even two minutes of fighting in full force against an opponent much stronger you can be really tiring."

"That was a nice answer. Not that I was listening." The snake aura around the female invader visibly contorted, becoming a black snake with red-orange eyes. It seemed to be hypnotizing me, making me light-headed. "Since you answered my question with so much interest, can you die now?"

A few swift motions registered at the edge of my vision in the very next second.

Saiyan slapped the blade off the third Yoddha's hand and karate-chopped the back of his neck. And the girl who had answered the invader's question stabbed herself with the sword she had in her hand.

"Does anybody else want to talk? I can guarantee that I'm a great listener." The female invader smiled and slowly walked toward Saiyan, who kicked the unconscious guy beside him away from the site of the battle.

This useless guy... How long will it again take to bring him back to commission?

The crowd got deathly quiet, fearing that even the slightest sound could be registered as an answer to her earlier question.

Saiyan glanced back in our direction once and nodded. We also got ready with our arrows. Sidestepping until he eclipsed us from the invader's vision, he stood his ground.

This time, our notifications started ringing.

Ten seconds from now!

I found Anik aiming at Saiyan and the snake girl, so I aimed at Shreya and her opponent instead.

"Take it. Create a big one." I whispered to my bow, which again drew in my Prana along with some of my blood, creating a big-sized arrow.

I witnessed Shreya going hard in a hand-to-hand cum sword battle with the gauntlet user, as she parried his punches with her right hand and slashed at his face with the left that held the sword. His left pinna was halved and bleeding, with sword marks across his face running from the cheek to his forehead. For some reason, his eyes had escaped damage from sheer luck.

It seemed like an underground boxing match from the Western movies with all the blood splattering around in their fight.

His gauntlets smacked her face like small explosives, spraying blood into the air, but her sword still managed to leave deep gashes on his neck and chest.

Her white dress was now fully dyed red with both their blood. She wasn't backing down at all. Her straight dark chocolate hair was now unruly, waving wildly in the air while following the rhythms of her body. She looked like the terrible incarnation of Shakti: Goddess Kaali.

The wounds she had sustained during the fight with the female invader had healed from Esha's healing arrows, but it didn't take long for more to appear.

This time, they weren't cuts but bluish-black blood clots from blunt force trauma. The gauntlets were sending sonic waves deep into her body, rattling and hemorrhaging her insides. It won't be long before she collapses.

Then suddenly, both Saiyan and Shreya ducked down when we counted eight.

The invaders, anticipating the arrival of another volley of arrows, stepped aside, exposing themselves by the time we reached the count of ten. The brief moment of confusion when nothing attacked them like before created a much-needed opportunity for us.

"Go. Put a hole through their forehead!" I mumbled and let my arrow loose.

It warped through the air like a bullet and penetrated his left shoulder after bending at the last moment unnaturally, separating it from his body.

Anik's arrow also pierced halfway through the snake girl's stomach, reappearing from her other side.

Both of them fell back to their Vaidya while bleeding profusely, who slammed his staff on the ground in a hurry. The twirly staff started growing like crazy, thickening and spreading out branches to create a mushroom-shaped tree. Its leaves were shining with a bluish-iridescent color.

The arrows from the Dhanurdhar Rakshaks assaulted the bigger exposed target, but they all seemed to strike at nothing and fall helplessly against another invisible barrier.

Giving out pulses of blue energy, the tree slowly reattached the arm of the gauntlet user and the wounds of the snake girl.

The multi-layered Kavach around them reappeared, and the snake aura, which was flickering before, changed back to its purple color, regaining its previously lost regality.

"Ayudhapurusha: Nagaraja Padmaka!" The girl with a greatsword shouted, her voice echoing throughout the arena.

The purple snake started shifting from its smoky appearance and gained opacity, growing larger and coiling around the mushroom tree.

"Being summoned here to defeat insignificant beings like this... I wonder if it was a good idea to gift my fang to Maya..." A voice boomed inside my skull as soon as the snake completed transforming. Its scales now glimmered with a bluish-purplish hue, shining like amethyst gems. A diamond-shaped gem in its forehead shone and reflected light like that from a lighthouse, blinding us in irregular intervals without warning.

My knees were threatening to stop working, trembling unnaturally. My fingers felt a chill unlike anything I had before. I couldn't even feel the bow I was holding from the intense pressure the Ayudhapurusha was exuding.

The greatsword is made from the fang of the fifth Naga king, Padmaka? And it also contains a bit of his essence to summon a miniature version of him as an Ayudhapurusha?

What the hell... This is so unfair!

"Divya. End this fast! I believe we have gotten enough fighting experience for now. If you can't finish it before the timer ends, we'll need to use that, as planned from the very beginning." The gauntlet user reminded the greatsword user. Apparently, her name was Divya. Let's call her that from now on... Hope I even have time for that.

My Prana was about three more arrows away from hitting single digits. My Kundalini was also suffering from scarcity. We are supposed to regenerate Kundalini automatically within the arena, but for some reason, that feature also didn't seem to be working.

"Second phase?" Anik mumbled with a dry smile.

"Looks like that." I affirmed, "How much energy and arrows do you have left?"

"It's never enough. We need to find what we can do considering this situation. I don't know how long their timer will run, but I don't think we can end things before that. Just my intuition." Anik speculated.

"Guys, we also need to take care of the sniper. They had been hitting multiple regions and taking out numerous Rakshaks at once. You guys were too engrossed in your little schemes to notice that. I think the sniper can't see what's happening inside and is sending arrows in every possible direction that will cover most of the battlefield." Esha talked with a worried tone.

Her arms were trembling from the fatigue of continuously punching holes into the bugs surrounding us using the arrows I had provided. Without her, Dweep, and Aditi, things would have been much more challenging.

How can I be an asset to this battlefield? What has to be done to keep these people around me safe?

I glanced back to find the dead bodies of the Rakshaks that had died from the arrow Dweep had deflected.

And I remembered the other guy who was missing from this battlefield. How would he have tackled this scenario?

'I'm willing to do whatever it takes to keep you all safe...' he had said something along those lines.

Is this the frustration he had felt that forced him to do the things he did?

In the end, I was just a despicable hypocrite. After acting like I had the moral high ground and rejecting his method, I too am going to do the same thing he did now that I have the means for it.

Will I also be as unapologetic as he was, after everything is said and done?

Fuck it. I'll think about this later.

"You see those bodies back there...? Take everything you need." I commanded the sinister bow I was holding, sending it into an excited frenzy.

Thin threads burst out like tentacles and slithered greedily toward the rows of corpses that have been felled in battle.

As my bow charged up, I wanted to go back and apologize. In a more genuine way. Maybe, only then, will he stop holding his grudge and talk to me again, properly like these people around me.