Chapter 14: Gains and Losses

The moment the pujari ended the loud Mantra Jaap(chanting), suddenly out of nowhere strong winds started to howl and flow restlessly around the sinister black palm-sized statue of Matalikha , at the same time an extremely heavy and terrifying pressure descended upon everyone present within the cavern, the air itself started to vibrate and distort creating several low humming sounds and voices which sounded eerily like several people humming some sort of mantra continuously, the souls of all the people present within the cavern started to vibrate in sync with the low humming sounds produced by the wind.The 12 black cloaked figures and the pujari in particular who were chanting the mantra of Goddess Matalikha started to feel their souls vibrate and resonate with the vibrations and sounds in the air. Following the low murmuring and humming sounds of mantras after a while, they started to hear an extremely faint and low voice that sounded very divine and otherworldly, like the voice of the universe itself.Just by being able to hear those sounds and voices, they started experiencing scenes that they could never imagine, and truths they could never fathom or begin to comprehend, a whole new doorway leading towards the universal truth of chaos was presented to them, it all depended on themselves to comprehend the godsend opportunity to ascend further in their Pathway set by the great goddess Matalikha.The duration up to which they could continue hear that grand voice and remain in the state of Epiphany solely depended on their talents of comprehension and the compatibility/resonance of their soul with the Supreme law of Chaos.Meanwhile, the injured and tied down Atmasars who were lying outside the bloody and sinister Havan Mandal(Altar) suddenly started hearing whispers from around them and in their minds, they felt their souls vibrating and shaking unstably, as time went by, the whispers gradually grew louder and louder ultimately turning into loud incomprehensible ravings, as those ravings grew louder and louder.The tied down Atmasars started to scream and shout while banging their heads on the ground with a horrified and painful look with blood seeping out from their heads, but the ravings did not stop but only grew louder which also started affecting their minds and souls, their souls which were completely stable a while ago, started resonating with the loud ravings which started distorting and tearing their souls apart, among the struggling Atmasars one of them suddenly started undergoing extremely terrifying changes, his body and soul started mutating while resonating with the vibrations in the air and ravings in their mind, soon his body started transforming into a bizarre and unsightly abomination.His Head and neck which were bathed in his blood seeping from his forehead, started to expand, while the rest of his body from his shoulders will toes imploded into a bloody mess of muscles, bones, and organs which spilled all over the ground, while his head and neck started churning and expanding, all his facial features except for his wide lips and mouth were swallowed into his distorted giant face which was just a huge blob of mass , a wide open bloody maw full of irregular sharp pointy fangs, all of which were wrapped into a stretched out blood red skin.His neck in the meanwhile grew a pair of fleshy tentacles, pulling all of his collapsed body parts like his organs, bones, and muscles into his wide open maw while happily chewing and swallowing them all until only a wet layer of blood was left on the ground.Among the violently struggling Atmasars, some of them mutated into bizarre fleshy abominations while some just imploded into a bloody mess, some of them even had their heads exploding into smithereens like water balloons. In the end, only 3 fleshy abominations were left which started crawling towards the remains of the butchered mortal who were brutally butchered by the 12 dark-cloaked asuras, the fleshy abominations started eating and gulping them down while licking the whole place clean like how people lick their plates clean after eating a tasty pasta dish.In the meantime, the statue of goddess Matalikha started to Hover in the air and then turned facing towards the skull which contained all the souls of the butchered mortals, the ancient skull in front of the statue was blasted into dust and the souls contained within it were instantly swallowed by the statue's wide open mouth, the statue then floated towards the 3 abominations, the instant the statue got near the abominations, a terrifying suction force was generated within the statue's 4 mm wide open tiny mouth, the massively bloated abominations with size over 3 ft were swallowed into the tiny mouth of the palm-sized statue like a black hole leaving nothing behind.After feasting on all the offerings presented by the 12 asuras and the pujari, the statue of the goddess flew before the pujari, Meanwhile, the pujari who was constantly chanting the mantras of his Pathway suddenly felt an extremely powerful and divinely sinister presence in front of him, his breathing grew hurried and his soul started shivering.He quickly opened his eyes to see the palm-sized statue of goddess Matalikha floating right in front of him with bright glowing ruby red eyes, he quickly looked down not daring to look at the goddesses eyes, his eyes also started to burn and bleed profoundly even though he had just glimpsed at the statue for only few fractions of second."MORE" he heard an extremely loud and chaotic voice inside his mind enough to drive him to insanity, he wasted no time and quickly Prostrated in front of the floating statue."Oh Great Goddess Matalikha please forgive your children for not being able to provide you with proper offerings, we are-" before he could even finish speaking the statue which was currently hovering in front of him suddenly fell down and returned to its previous dormant state. Looking at the dormant statue the pujari let out a long sigh of relief, and looked around his, there was nothing left inside the cavern except for the 12 cloaked asuras and him, everything else was devoured by the goddess.The pujari then slowly stood up while feeling the changes in his body and soul, it was the same case for the rest of the 12 asuras, they all had advanced further in their path of soul ascension, the overall gains from the ritual were quite plentiful , as proceeding further in any of the Heavenly Pathways can be carried out only by comprehending the various universal truths hidden within each Heavenly Mantras of their Pathways, which was an extremely slow and difficult process.Thus the practice of performing sacrificial rituals were quite a common practice among the asuras as their goddess would grant them some insights regarding the Asura Pathway in exchange for sacrificial flesh and souls of any intelligent living being, and the higher quality of sacrifice guaranteed a higher level of insights, which motivated the Asuras the most.The Asura Pathway was one of the Heavenly Pathways, it was a pathway that led to the universal truth of Primordial chaos, so most of the Atmasar walking on the Asura Pathway are called demonic Atmasar or asuras (daemons), their sole existence was to cause chaos and destruction everywhere they go which helps them to grow stronger and proceed further in their Pathway.As soon as a person awakens in the Asura Pathway, their body, mind and soul would undergo mystical changes, no matter which races they previously belonged to, once they awaken in the Asura Pathway they will be completely reborn in the form of asuras(daemons), they will no longer contain a heart or any internal organs, instead, they will possess a chaos core which can feed on anything, whether its flesh and blood of other creatures, energy or even emotions(negative), their body becomes a powerful chaos generator which converts the spirit energy present in the environment into chaotic energy which is then stored within their chaos core which grows alongside them as they further ascend in their Pathway.The most terrifying thing about the Asura Pathway and asuras is that there are no restrictions in following the Asura Pathway like the other Pathways, by following the Asura Pathway anyone can become an asura and gain powers/abilities related to chaos. This is also the main reason why there are so many asuras all over the world of Devrath, their presence can be found in every continent of Devrath. There are numerous evil cults and organizations run by the asuras, and as beings of chaos they all are mostly fearless psychopaths who love to cause chaos and destruction as well as indulge in various sinister desires.After checking their soul ascension progress so far with a satisfying grin, the 12 cloaked asuras as well as the pujari proceeded to quickly leave the dark cavern and ran as far they could because no matter how stronger they get, in the end, they were no match for the Brahmaputra clan within their territories, just as they were about to leave the cavern an earth-shattering explosion took place right above them,blowing apart the underground cavern's ceiling and walls, meanwhile all of them were sent flying due to the immense shockwave and collided with the cavern walls like cannon balls, some of them started coughing blood and were heavily injured, while others with a stronger build were able to minimize their injuries and quickly got a hold of themselves.Meanwhile, in the sky, there was a gigantic high-tech futuristic silver spaceship which was a miraculous combination of advanced Aerospace engineering and application of spiritual knowledge, hovering over a vast dark forest, "Sir we found them, they're currently hiding in an underground cavern within the forest" reported the captain of the spaceship over his Akasha terminal to his superior,"should we capture them or kill?" asked the captain for confirmation although he already knew the answer to that question, "Blow them up, leave nothing behind" said his superior before cutting the call, after getting the confirmation "Launch the Brahmāstra SR-05" said the officer to the operator beside him, who quickly control the holographic display in front of him in which 13 black figures could be seen with the help of specially designed and developed chaos-sensing sonar devices and advanced peering-vison drones for tracking and hunting down asuras.After getting the confirmation he quickly configured the setting for the aforementioned Brahmāstra which was a terrifying weapon of mass destruction developed by the BURD(Brahmaputra universal research department) for eliminating supernatural beings of various levels. Brahmāstra were generally giant spears, made from spiritually reactive and conductive materials, powered by a chaos engine and inscribed with countless runic array formations and mantras.Meanwhile, all the 12 asuras and the pujari felt a dreadful and terrifying feeling of death creeping over them, when they raided their heads upwards to look, all they saw a flash of blinding white light, at that moment it seemed like time had stopped as everything went still and silent, but the next instant an extremely terrifying deafening BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM!!! could be heard following a massive, absolutely gigantic explosion of golden flames incinerating everything in the area of 5 Km at an sub-atomic level. A gigantic mushroom cloud of flames and smoke could be seen even from hundreds of km away, it was a sight of pure unbridled destruction at a massive scale.