God of War - Karmic Cycle [AU]

[juniorsundar]

---

Introduction

I've been writing this fanfiction for a while now, in small increments, ever since God of War Ragnarok. However, I've been struggling in deciding whether to release it or not. The benefit of God of War as a franchise is that it explores mythologies and religions that have already gone extinct. So if the creators make any controversial decisions, they don't have to worry about retaliation from the followers of said religion. This fanfiction, however, explores a mythos that is very well still in practise and is followed by approximately 1.2 billion folks worldwide.

I struggled because I didn't want to get attacked in the comments or in the reviews by people who find offense in what I write. And although I am uploading this now, it does not mean that I am no longer apprehensive about it. But rather, I have come to terms with the fact that it is impossible to satisfy everyone, and there will always be someone who will take offense with what you do.

However, I am writing this preface so that those who intend to read this fanfiction do so with an open mind and without the preconceived notion that I am trying to blaspheme or insult Hinduism in any way, shape or form.

About Me

I am a practising Hindu. I have been so since the day I was born. Though I wouldn't classify myself as a devout follower as I still maintain a healthy bit of scepticism in all the claims my religion makes. I think this is important for anyone, since there is a very thin line between fanaticism and faith that those without the inherent scepticism in place fail to recognise.

I was brought up listening to the stories my grandparents told me about gods and the legends associated with them. This mostly acted as guiding principles for me as I grew up, helping me understand what was right and what was wrong. And in some ways they were also entertaining to listen to since Hindu mythology does not portray the gods as infalliable entities. They have unique quirks and personalities that make them - dare I say it - human in some ways.

As I grew up, I also took the time to read and understand the scriptures that were a part of my religion's history. And though I cannot claim to have read the Ramayana, Mahabharatha in its entirety in its original Sanskrit, I can claim that I know them well enough to recite the key bits off the top of my head.

All of this is to say that I am not someone from the outside looking in. I follow the religion I am writing about. Of course this doesn't mean that those who follow a religion are precluded from being accused of blasphemy or disrespect when talking ill of their religion. If this is what is perceived when you read this fanfiction, understand that I am not doing so intentionally. The right thing to do is to bring this point up in the comments or in my Discord. If it is a reasonable statement then I will address it.

About this Fanfiction

Hinduism is an old religion. Perhaps the oldest religion in the world. Although there are a lot of scriptures within the religion, very few have lasted the test of time. And unlike a lot of modern religions, a good portion of the knowledge regarding the teachings and stories of the religion are transmitted through generations via word-of-mouth.

This also excludes the various branches, sects and subsects that interpret the existing religious texts in different ways. So I can confidently say that no two Hindus will have the same interpretation of an event in Hindu mythos.

I would liken this characteristic like a comic book universe. Take the DC universe as an example. You have so many interpretations of the character of Superman. Every new artist has their own interpretation of the character that it often becomes difficult to place him on a power scale. In some interpretations he is as fast as Flash, in others he isn't. This in and of itself makes it difficult for fanfiction writers to write about the character. What most do is to choose a frame of reference - a fixed universe (lets say Young Justice or DCEU) and work from that.

This means that you don't have to worry about the variations that are inherent to the comic book universes. If some reader comes along and says some nonsense about Superman being able to swallow Kryptonite because one particular trade had the character acheive that feat, the fanfiction writer can simply say that, "This isn't the same universe, and kindly scram!".

To that end, I am going to adopt this same stance when writing this fanfiction. I am creating an, let's say 'author's universe', with regards to the Hindu Mythology. This means that I will be taking some creative liberties when working with the characters that are a part of it. This is necessary so that I can pin down ONE interpretation of the character and stick with that. This does not mean that the gods will be doing something that is out of character.

For example, (and please control your emotions to not get triggered by what I am about to write): Lord Shiva and Lord Vishnu embody the two extents of ethics, i.e. the means justify the end and the ends justify the means. In nearly all interpretations of Lord Vishnu, He is shown to be someone who will go to any extent to ensure that the world is preserved and "evil" is vanquished. Lord Shiva does not subscribe to that, as it is shown that he is more perceptive to the intent rather than consequence.

You will notice that I placed "evil" in quotes as the idea of good and evil are a heated point of debate in Hindu Mythology. As it is an old religion, there are certain indicators of what is right and what is wrong that cannot (and should not) be held up in modern times. But this theme is something that I cannot explore briefly. I will, however, be exploring it in this fanfiction.

Now, coming back to the earlier point, the two characters have common traits that persist through most interpretations. I will use that as a schematic to build a version of them in my universe. Let's say that 90% of the character will be from the shared universe, and 10% will be my own interpretation.

This is important to not just have a believable character that people can relate to and understand, but also to anchor down a timeline (which you will see is important in this fanfiction).

So this means that if you think that I have missed something in my interpretation of a particular character, it is intentional. That is not part of my universe. If you are insistent that this interpretation is incorrect, then I kindly encourage you to write your own fanfiction with that interpretation. You can copy mine verbatim and just change the characters to fit the interpretation that you believe is right. After all, neither God of War nor Hinduism belong to me (the former belongs to Santa Monica Studios and the latter is public domain).

Conclusion

Read this fanfiction with an open mind. If you are someone who gets triggered easily, then this isn't for you. Leave comments if you have opinions. Leave reviews if you like or dislike this work. But please be civil.

 

[juniorsundar]

The tranquil serenity of the fertile river delta was shattered as a heavy storm beyond imagining descended upon the vast ocean that bordered the peaceful farmlands. The once bustling fields stood abandoned as the farmers fled into their sturdy homes, terror etched across their faces. Whispers of divine wrath spread like wildfire. Many posited it as the heavens smiting them for their sins both knowingly and unknowingly committed.

Amidst the deafening cacophony of thunder and the relentless downpour, a sudden and brilliant flash of heavenly lightning pierced through the inky sky. It was as though the very fabric of reality had been torn asunder, leaving a jagged rupture in the cosmic tapestry. Through it, was nothing but an endless void - a gateway into the chaos that existed in the realm between realms.

From this rupture, a figure was ejected, ashen white with a spiralling, red birthmark marking his face and body. His presence was an enigma and his body was battered and broken. Crimson trails of blood dripped from a large, gaping wound in his abdomen, marring his pallid skin. The figure's breathing was laboured and ragged, and he clung to the precipice of death itself. With each struggling breath, he sank into the churning waters below, disappearing beneath the tumultuous waves and swallowed into the unforgiving abyss.

As minutes stretched into eternity, the storm's fury began to abate. The thunderous roars faded into distant echoes, and the relentless rain transformed into a gentle drizzle. It was then that the impossible occurred.

From the depths of the ocean, the near-death figure rose once more, carried by an unseen force. He ascended slowly, his ashen form breaking the surface of the water. It was as if the river itself was cradling him. With uncanny grace, the river seemed to take charge. The near-lifeless body was carried upstream against its current. Against all reason and natural laws, the ashen figure floated serenely like a ghost, caressed by the river's mysterious embrace.

The farmers, peering out from their shelters, watched in awe as the enigmatic figure and the river's inexplicable benevolence defied all natural laws. As the days passed and weeks turned into months, the story of a river ghost turned from a folk legend into an old wives' tale, until eventually it faded from existence altogether.

---

As the first rays of the sun kissed the horizon, casting a golden glow upon the tranquil waters of the sacred river Ganga, a sage stood immersed in devotion. The sage, adorned in simple saffron robes with his forehead plastered with three horizontal lines of dried ash with a thin line of red turmeric bisecting them, stood waist-deep in the flowing currents, his eyes closed in serene concentration. The cool morning breeze gently caressed his weathered face as he prepared to perform the sacred ritual of Sandhyavandanam. He cupped a handful of the sacred water and rubbed his yajnopavita, three sets of three white circular threads that ran diagonally from his left shoulder to his right waist, cleaning it.

His long black hair cascaded down his back. In his arms, which were unusually muscular and calloused for a brahmin, he held a copper vessel filled with water. With each breath, he recited the ancient chants and hymns, invoking the divine forces that resided in the celestial realms above. The sage's voice, resonant and filled with spiritual energy, harmonized with the rustling leaves and the rhythmic flow of the holy river.

His face, etched with wisdom and unwavering faith, reflected the profound connection he shared with the divine. The sage's devotion was palpable as if the very air around him shimmered with a sacred presence. Every movement and every gesture was deliberate and infused with reverence.

As the sun's radiant disc gradually emerged, casting a brilliant glow upon the water, the sage cupped his hands, raising them to the heavens. With utmost devotion, he began the achamanam, the ritual sipping of water, purifying himself to commune with the gods.

"Om Achyutaaya Namaha. Om Ananthaya Namaha. Om Govindaya Nahama."

With each name called, the sage sipped water flowing through the crease splitting his right wrist. Once finished, he moved on to the next step.

"Om Keshavaya Namaha," he said while touching his right cheek with his right thumb.

"Om Narayanaya Namaha,*" he said while touching his left cheek with his right thumb.

"Om Madhavaya Namaha," he said while touching his right eye with his ring finger.

"Om Govindaya Namaha," he said while touching his left eye with his ring finger.

"Om Vishnave Namaha," he said while touching the right side of his nose with his index finger.

"Om Madhusudhanaya Namaha," he said while touching the left side of his nose with his index finger.

"Om Trivikramaya Namaha," he said while touching his right ear with his little finger.

"Om Vamanaya Namaha," he said while touching his left ear with his little finger.

"Om Shridharaya Namaha," he said while touching his right shoulder with his middle finger.

"Om Hrishikeshaya Namaha," he said while touching his left shoulder with his middle finger.

"Om Padmanabhaya Namaha," he said while touching his navel with all four of his fingers and thumb folded inwards.

"Om Damodaraya Namaha," he said while touching his head with all four of his fingers and thumb folded inwards.

He pressed his open palms together and held them in prayer against his chest. After taking a long breath, he continued chanting.

"Om Sankarshanaya Namaha."

"Om Vasudevaya Namaha."

"Om Pradyumnaya Namaha."

"Om Anirudhaya Namaha."

"Om Purushothamaya Namaha."

"Om Adhokshajaya Namaha."

"Om Narasimhaya-"

At that instant, something collided against the sage's torso, bringing him out of his ascetic trance. His eyes turned into daggers as he looked around for the interloper who dared to interrupt the most sacred of morning prayers. Whoever, or whatever it was, would inevitably face his wrath and would receive its due, if not in this life then maybe the next one, or the one after.

But his wrath hitched just as the curse reached his lips because his gaze landed on a figure floating beside him. It was a bald man with pale skin, possibly due to blood loss from the large gaping hole in his abdomen caused by a large sword piercing through, or because he was caked in ash. A red birthmark cut through the left side of his face, over his head and left eye, and another spiralling red birthmark snaked around the left side of his torso, ending on his left shoulder.

For all intents and purposes, the man should be dead. But his chest heaved just barely, meaning that life still clung on to him... though only barely. The sage looked towards the direction where the body came from, it was flowing against the current.

"You want me to save him?" The Sage asked the river. In turn, the water churned and bubbled, returning an affirmation. "Why?"

To that, the river had no response. But the sage revealed a faint smile and answered his question, "Have you gotten so tired of carting away the ashes of the dead?"

"Let me finish, then," the sage said before continuing his prayers. But he was once again interrupted by the body hitting him, and nudging him out of concentration. He clicked his tongue in annoyance and looked at the bright disk that had finally leapt off the horizon. He considered the situation thoroughly before letting out a tired sigh.

"Forgive me today, oh Lord!" He said out loud. "But they do say that saving one life is more meritorious than constructing a hundred temples."

He then dipped underwater and ascended while lifting the unconscious body over his shoulders. The move was effortless, as though the over-a-hundred-kilo, muscular mountain of a man was as light as a feather. The sage walked out of the river with steady steps, while latching the copper vessel in his hands against a hook by his hips. As he stepped onto the river bank, he once again looked towards the flowing river.

"This man should have died, and yet he didn't. It was your action, against the prescribed flow of nature, that has saved him. For that, he will owe you. You may not have expected anything in return, but that only raises the righteousness of this act," the sage orated. He then dipped the tip of his ring finger into the water in the copper vessel by his waist and drew a symbol on the right side of the unconscious man's neck, causing it to glow for a short moment. "This mark will ensure that the man won't forget your act of goodwill. And when the time comes, and you wish to collect the favour you have done him, the mark will assure of his acquiescence."

The undulating river subsided and continued its usual behaviour as the sage's words echoed all around.

After giving one short bow to the Sun above, the River before, and the Earth below, the sage walked towards the dense shrubbery. At that moment, he extended his free right hand outwards, palm open. Through the forestry, the sound of something cutting through the wind resonated, until eventually a hand-axe appeared while spinning dangerously. It whipped straight towards the sage's open palm and its wooden handle landed safely in his grasp.

As the wood made contact with his skin a mysterious and malicious energy started to resonate from the bloody metal, before coursing through his veins causing them to pop out with a molten red shade. The sage bit down on the painful assault, that targeted both his physique and psyche before spinning the tool in his grasp and hanging it against another hook by his waistline.

The sage made his way towards the dense shrubbery. As he did so, he started to sing hymns that mellowed the furious winds that rustled the tree branches.

"Om trayambakam yajamahe, sugandhim pushti-vardhanam,"
We sacrifice to the Three-eyed One the fragrant, increaser of prosperity.
"Uruvarukamiva bandhanan, mrityor mukshiya ma mrtat."
Like a cucumber from its stem, might I be freed from death, not from deathlessness.

---

"You disappoint me, Spartan," Athena's ethereal form said with a disdainful frown. Then, with a sudden yank, she pulled the Blade of Olympus from his abdomen. Blood spurted and gushed out like a fountain.

As he saw Athena's receding figure, which eventually disappeared as her ethereal form dissipated, Kratos could feel his life wavering, flickering away with each passing second. But he wasn't a patient man.

'My vengeance ends now,' he'd promised himself. But Kratos was a weapon of vengeance.

As long as he lived - as long as the weapon of vengeance still burned - his promise would remain unfulfilled.

With great difficulty, Kratos rolled over, causing another burst of blood to gush out of his body. With all his strength, he dragged himself to the edge of the cliff at the peak of Mount Olympus. He looked over the edge and saw an endless chasm below. There was probably an end, but the wrathful storms that affected the world around him clouded his vision - and his current state teetering between life and death definitely did not work in his favour.

Kratos let out a long, laboured breath and absorbed the state of the world that remained. His path of vengeance was unforgiving. He was reminded of a fable he heard from a travelling storyteller during his time in the army. A horse roamed a vast and beautiful meadow with great comfort. It was his kingdom. But one day, his kingdom was invaded, by a herd of deer led by a mighty stag. The herd was hungry and insensitive to the meadow's natural beauty. All they sought was sustenance, and they reaped from the meadow mercilessly. The horse tried to chase them away, but he was unsuccessful. They would leave, disperse, but eventually return and continue their culling. The horse had had enough and decided to recruit help. He approached the humans, even though his mother had warned him against doing so. She told him they were strong and duplicitous, a very dangerous combination. But the horse lacked wisdom, all he could see was the problem before him. Upon approaching a human, the horse relayed his problem.

"Oh, that's easy!" The human man said. "Though I will need your help."

"Anything to get those interlopers out of my meadow!" The horse declared.

"If you allow me to saddle you and mount you, I will carry a set of javelins and get rid of those deer for you," the man promised.

And so, the horse willingly surrendered its freedom and adorned the saddle and bridle, and allowed the human to sit atop it.

"What are you doing?" The horse asked as the man placed two dark cups against each of its eyes.

"Have you ever become distracted and lost your momentum while you galloped quickly?" The man asked.

"Once in a while," the horse admitted.

"These help you focus while you move," the man said to assuage the horse's growing discomfort.

And thus, the hunt began. The man and the horse brought down many a deer of the herd. And amongst the first few killed was the mighty stag that would taunt the horse. In its dying breath, the miscreant said.

"You fool! We were just hungry, looking to survive the coming winter. We would have left, and your meadow would have been all yours. But now, you have truly lost your kingdom."

The horse did not understand what the stag said. It was revelling in its victory.

"Now you can take all of it off, right?" The horse asked the human.

"Not yet, our mission still remains incomplete," the human responded. "But first, I need your assistance in moving some things."

The horse didn't question the human and went on with the assigned task. Days turned to weeks that turned to months. And many years later, on a particular day, while the horse was dragging along something heavy tethered to it, the blinders fell off.

The first thing the horse saw was a tree. It was familiar with that tree. It was the only tree in its meadow that produced red and juicy apples. But everything around the tree was different. The green fields were yellow, with wheat growing on them instead of vibrant grass and flowers.

"W-What is this?"

The horse turned around and saw that it was tethered to a large, shovel-like device - a plough. In some cruel twist of fate, the horse was carrying the very thing that ruined its kingdom.

In its thirst for vengeance, the horse had sacrificed its freedom and lost the very kingdom it sought to protect.

Kratos' world was ending, it was evident. No amount of hope could salvage what remained. And all of this was his fault. Kratos closed his eyes before rolling over and allowing himself to fall off the edge of the cliff. The wind picked up as he fell, cutting into him as his speed grew faster, and faster. Within seconds, he was through the storm clouds that hung below the Mountain. Cold water droplets collided against his skin as he kept falling. He could hear ear-shattering thunder as the charged clouds finally discharged the energy accumulating inside them.

Kratos kept falling. He pressed his lids even tighter, anticipating his end. His consciousness drifted away, as the blood loss sent his body into hibernation.

Whatever happened after, Kratos did not know. But he was certain of one thing: he wasn't dead. The last thing he felt was a sudden end of nature's furious assault. Then it was just cold emptiness... Until suddenly, it all came back. His consciousness returned in short flashes. He saw water; he tasted the sea. He saw a furious storm above him. He felt himself drowning.

He let himself go into the sea's enraged grips. Without Poseidon to tame it, the waters were unforgiving - a fitting comeuppance for Kratos, the man who took the life of the God of the Seas.

It was all going to end, finally... Until it didn't. Kratos could sense his breath again. He could hear, he could smell. He could touch!

His eyes burst open, with confusion and unending rage billowing out of them. The first thing he saw, was a face. A man with long, untamed facial hair and matted hair looked down at him with a blank stare. His forehead was plastered with dried ash and a thin red line cutting through it vertically.

"Welcome to the world of the living," the man said.

Kratos' hand moved subconsciously, with the swiftness of a viper, he grabbed the man by his throat and applied force.

"Why?!" Kratos said with a guttural grunt.

"Why did you save me?! Why didn't you just let me die!"

Kratos could feel the rage growing inside him. What of justice? What of his rightful death? For all the sins he'd committed, why was he still alive?!

His palms crushed down with increasing strength, as Kratos let the anger take over. But to his surprise, the man grabbed Kratos' hand pushed his thumb into the centre of the choking palm and pressed hard.

Kratos did not anticipate such force coming from a man with such a wiry frame. Like a clam, his palm slowly drifted open, releasing the hairy man.

"Look, I figured that you probably attempted to end your own life," the man said while standing up. Kratos tried to follow, but a sharp pain assaulted his abdomen. Looking down, he saw his stomach bandaged thoroughly. "Given the trajectory of the sword strike, it was a coin toss between two possibilities: you were either killed by someone at a much higher elevation compared to you, or you tried to kill yourself. You have a warrior's frame, so the former was less likely..."

"And for the record," the man continued as he returned with a mortar and pestle with a green paste inside it. "I wasn't the one who saved you, technically. I am just the healer. The one who saved you was someone else."

"Who?" Kratos demanded.

"I will introduce you to her, later-"

"Her?"

"Her, him," the man said with a shrug. "They prefer her. She's been a she for a large portion of her existence. But She can be a he too, on very rare occasions," the man rattled.

"Speak sense!" Kratos shot back.

"What matters," the man said while waving his hand. "Is that your debt is to be repaid with her."

"Debt?" Kratos said with a scoff. "I never asked to be saved. Why should I owe anyone anything?"

The man shook his head with a morose frown and said, "A life is a life regardless of whether you deem it valuable or not. It is sinful to blame someone for trying to save another, even if the one being saved did not wish to be. To save someone is a pure act of selflessness, do not disparage it."

Kratos let out an irritated snort and tried to get up from the mat he was lying on. He let out a painful groan while clasping the bandaged stab wound while stumbling and hobbling.

"Do not move," the man instructed forcefully. "You cannot fathom the difficulty I faced in trying to set your internal organs back to the way they were supposed to be."

"I don't care," Kratos spat back.

"What are you trying to do?"

Kratos ignored the man's question and pushed through the wooden door to the thatched house he was in. A flood of sunlight hit his face, partially blinding him as his eyes got used to it. The sounds of songbirds and morning insects danced across his ears while his vision finally turned clear. He was deep inside a forest - a beautiful green and serene landscape.

"H-How?" Kratos mumbled. The world he last saw was in tatters. He turned towards the only other individual in his vicinity and growled angrily, "Undo this witchcraft this instant!"

The man squinted his eyes in disbelief and retorted, "It seems the blood loss has affected your brain."

"What?!"

"What makes you think you are being subjected to witchcraft?"

Kratos pointed aggressively at the beautiful scenery and yelled, "The world! It- It should have ended..."

"As evident with what you can sense before you, the world is very much intact," the man denied. "Why do you believe the world to have ended?"

"Because-" Kratos started, but upon absorbing the apparent reality before him, he was stumped. He had no answers. Maybe it was witchcraft, maybe it wasn't. But in all honesty, it didn't matter to him. He wanted this to be real - he sorely wished for it to be the true reality because deep down, Kratos wished to undo everything. Every decision he made, every word spoken, everything! He wanted to take it all back!

"Because...?" The man parrotted.

"You should have left me to die," Kratos spat out.

To that, the man did not respond. He merely looked at Kratos with an evaluating gaze that unnerved him. For a minute, Kratos felt like his entire history was being unravelled before the man's eyes - he felt naked.

"Killing yourself isn't the way out," the man said with a hint of empathy in his voice. "If you wish to atone, then live. By dying, you simply transfer the sins of your current lifetime to your next. Worse yet, you may not remember the sins of your past lifetime after your rebirth, and thus you will have doomed a truly innocent being to a life worse than death."

"What are you blabbering about?" Kratos snapped back with furrowed brows.

"No man inherits the good or evil of another. The fruits reaped will be of the seed that is sowed, be it in this lifetime or next. And the quality of the fruit is determined by the quality of the seed," the man preached.

"You speak baselessly," Kratos accused. "You know nothing of me!"

"No? But I could recognise those eyes anywhere," the man retaliated with a bitter smile. He then quickly shook his head, cleared his face of morose reminiscence and said, "Look at what you've done now! Your wound is bleeding again."

Kratos snarled while hobbling away.

"Where are you going?" The man called out.

Kratos did not answer.

"You will die," the man reminded.

"Then that will be my fate," Kratos said plainly.

"I cannot let that happen," the man said as he started to follow Kratos.

"Leave me be!" Kratos yelled over his shoulder while suppressing a pained groan. But he could see that the man was not letting up. Kratos did not have the energy to argue with the man, so he kept walking onward through the trees.

He kept walking, stumbling intermittently, yet trudging through the forest with great difficulty. His gaze wandered everywhere, absorbing the scenery with great scrutiny. Inwardly, he hoped that it was true - that the world really hadn't ended. This went on for what seemed like hours, until eventually, Kratos could see a clearing through the treeline.

As he finally broke through the shrubbery, Kratos was surprised to see a bustling farming village before him. Men wearing ragged cloth wrapped around their legs worked tirelessly on the fields, while women garbed in colourful cotton clothing spun around them and carried baskets of harvested grain to and fro. Kids assisted and played around, their joyous voices elicited an overall aura of prosperity and happiness. It was as if the world-ending calamities were just a fever dream.

Who knows, maybe they were! Maybe Kratos had suffered a grievous wound against the Alrik, those barbarians, that day and died. Whatever followed was just an illusory dream. But a quick look at his wrists, with the garish burns from when the cursed chains wrapped around them, snapped Kratos back to reality... this particular reality because he was certain that he was no longer in Greece.

One of the farmers looked up and cleaned his brow of sweat using the rag hanging behind him when his eyes met Kratos'. The man quickly rushed towards the pale figure, worry etched on his face.

"&@$@%!" The man said. Kratos squinted and leaned closer.

"&@$@%@#@?" This was a question, Kratos was sure of it. But he did not understand a word. At that moment, the man's eyes looked past Kratos and landed on the long-haired man following him. The farmer quickly bowed and rattled off a few words, to which the long-haired man raised a palm and responded with a single phrase as a blessing of sorts.

"You aren't from here," the man said to Kratos in words he could understand. "You don't speak their language, hence you cannot communicate with them."

"But you know Greek?" Kratos exclaimed.

"I don't know Greek. I can speak to you, I can understand you, but I don't speak the same language you do," the man said cryptically but with a serious expression. He then tapped his chest and his forehead before tapping Kratos' chest and forehead, "I can understand what goes on in here, and in here. And I can communicate directly with you through that. In the same way, I can talk to animals, the trees, the wind and the sea."

"Witchcraft!" Kratos snapped derisively.

"Not Witchcraft!" the man said with an equally angry snarl. "I have simply learned to speak the language of the world. Everything in the world communicates, I have learned how to decipher that and respond in turn."

The man then greeted the rest of the peasant folk gathering around with reverent gazes on their faces before turning back towards the forest. "Let us return. If you wish to survive here, the least you need to know is to express your needs and wants. I will teach you to read, speak and write."

With that said, the man disappeared into the shrubbery, leaving Kratos alone. He looked at the dispersing crowd and tried to absorb the illegible mumbling resonating amidst them. After a long moment of painful contemplation, Kratos too turned and walked down the same path as the long-haired man.

 

[juniorsundar]

What is living a "normal" life like?

Kratos pondered on that thought quite a bit, nowadays, given how he was afforded an endless amount of time to just linger on his thoughts. Gone were the days when he had to wake up before the crack of dawn and cycle through the daily drills. He was also no longer required to brood over the next tasks handed to him by the gods. Finally, he also didn't need to plot his vengeance. That was a massive chip off his shoulder. He could now live out the so-called "normal" life that everyone kept talking about.

But did he even deserve to live a "normal" life, after all he'd done?

That was always the question that followed the first. From a purely Spartan perspective, it should be his rightful prize. After all, all that matters in any war is the winner, and Kratos (for all intents and purposes) won. The gods that wronged him were dead. The world that glorified said deities was reduced to ruins. Kratos won.

But what did he win?

The result of any war should be peace, right? But Kratos wasn't in peace. In fact, his psyche constantly danced on the precarious edge of a blade. A blade that, metaphorically, loomed over his neck and threatened to cleave it in two at a moment's notice.

Kratos wondered if this was why Spartan warriors were forced to go through gruelling and torturous training every day, even if there was no war on the horizon. Because when left to their thoughts, they were forced to live the horrors they had to commit in the name of their land. Because most humans are born with a conscience, and one's conscience tends to be their harshest critique. Because the conscience tends to veer towards self-harm when there is no way out of the guilt that consumed you, after realising that there was just not enough soap in the world to wash away the blood that caked your ruinous hands.

It amused him to realise that he was ultimately turning into an Athenian pansy. All they did was waste away their days pondering over useless drivel, like what is right and what is wrong, or why the human mind worked the way it did. A Spartan's purpose is to do, not question.

But there WAS nothing left for Kratos to do. So what was his purpose?

According to the long-haired man, who had brought him back from the warm embrace of Hades (if that even existed anymore), Kratos' current purpose was to learn the language spoken by the people of the land he now walked.

On that note, Kratos learned quite a bit about his current position. For one, the world he was in was called "Bharat". Upon questioning the existence of his homeworld, Greece, Kratos was told that it probably existed somewhere westwards, beyond the fields and oceans of chaos that separated the planes. There were words of Greek artefacts owned by rulers or powerful clans in these lands, and they were rumoured to have been brought over by adventurous traders who sought luck and fortune by crossing through the chaos.

The source of all this information, of course, was the long-haired man who was also his language teacher. The man's name was Rama Bhargava, not a name or root that Kratos was familiar with (which further drove in the point that he was no longer in familiar lands).

"To make this sound, you need to aspirate while making the same 'g' sound," Rama explained while pointing at a letter that looked like घ.

Kratos growled irritatedly and barked, "That's how I pronounced it!"

"You aren't releasing air hard enough. If you don't do that, it will sound like ग," Rama responded while shaking his head. "It's been over two weeks, Kratos. I expected faster progress. We've barely scratched the surface, you still have two other sets of alphabets to go through."

"Why are there so many languages?" Kratos exclaimed in frustration. "Where I come from, everyone spoke just one."

"What does language mean to you?" Rama inquired while placing the square cutting of slate with the chalk letter written on it aside.

"It is a means of communication," Kratos responded. "Which means that one is enough."

"Communication has different orders," Rama corrected. "The way you communicate with your family may differ from the way you communicate with your friends. The way you communicate with your child may differ from the way you communicate with your superiors. Language changes when the person you are speaking to changes, because what you want to convey changes and so does the way you want to convey it. Language changes when culture changes, because what you share most often differs if the life you live differs. The words and phrases a king may use amongst his ministers are vastly different from the language used by the lowly peasant as he communicates with his neighbour."

"You talk a lot," Kratos interjected as Rama took a break to let his words settle.

"It's because you are a great listener," Rama said with a chuckle. "In fact, I used two different languages in my previous 'rant'."

"Why?" Kratos probed.

"You know this is the first time you've ever asked that question," Rama pointed out. "Why? What a great word it is. Many men more learned than I have said that it is one of the most dangerous phrases out there because it cuts right to the core of everything. The cause!"

"Answer my question!" Kratos growled.

"Fine, fine," Rama said. "No patience at all."

"People are born with a purpose. A warrior's purpose is to fight for a cause he follows and die on the battlefield. A merchant's purpose is to trade and generate wealth. A peasant's purpose is to till the earth and grow crops. A priest's purpose is to perform religious rites, preserve knowledge, and guide the development of civilisation as a whole. To that end, there are topics of discussion that are common amongst one caste that aren't encroached upon by the other. So there isn't a need for someone in, let's say, the Kshatriya (the warrior or ruler) caste to discuss with the Vaishya (merchant or trader) caste. Hence there isn't a need for the Vaishyas to have a language that spans contexts ranging over discussions of statecraft, warfare and politics," Rama explained. "The purpose, cause or duty, is the person's dharma."

"So why are you teaching me all three languages?" Kratos probed. "I don't intend to communicate with rulers or ply myself in politics."

"How do you know your purpose?" Rama responded. "You weren't born here, thus you don't have a caste, and so your purpose in life is fairly open."

"Who decides my purpose," Kratos murmured.

"If you were part of our cycle of reincarnation," Rama said while raising his arms towards the sky "Then the world itself decides for you. But since that isn't the case here, well, I guess you are free to decide what your purpose in life is supposed to be."

"The language I'm teaching you right now is called Sanskrit," Rama continued as he pulled back the slate board. "It is said to be the language spoken by the world itself. It is said that if you can formulate a prose so profound in Sanskrit, the world will respond in kind. The script I am teaching you is just the surface. The beauty of the language runs deep. I'm afraid even I cannot teach you all about it."

"So why don't we start simpler?"

"Because all other languages begin from this. This and Tamil, which is the other language I will teach you," Rama emphasised while raising two fingers.

Kratos growled with a low rumble as he thought of the arduous exercise before him. "All this knowledge is wasted on me."

"Poppycock!" The man snapped back. "Knowledge is never wasted. The more it is distributed, the more it grows."

He then pointed at the rustling leaves of a tree nearby and gently gestured for it to come closer. Then, from within the branches, an apple floated towards him.

"Knowledge is like this fruit here. It is juicy and sweet, filled with good stuff. But amidst all the fleshy goodness lies a seed-" With a quick pull, the apple was broken in two revealing the seeds within. "Now, the apple that remains on the tree, withers and dies. But the apple that is eaten by the common pigeon manages to have its seed carried with the bird as the creature flies away. As the creature defecates, the seed is planted. In the faeces, it finds sustenance. And once the heavens grace the seed with nurturing rain, a new tree grows in its place."

He pointed at Kratos and revealed a mischievous smile, "In our case, I am the tree. The apple is my knowledge. You are the bird. So fly! Oh, great bird! Defecate where your heart calls you and spread the beauty far and wide."

"You are a weird man," Kratos commented. "We will talk no more. Continue your lesson now."

---

"Two. Apples." Kratos said to the panicking vendor standing behind his mobile stall.

"#%!%$& apples are, one cowrie shell each," the man answered while raising two shivering fingers. Kratos let out a growl before producing the shells to complete the transaction. He then accepted the offered fruits and bit into one. A faint, satisfied smile caused the corner of his lips to quirk upwards slightly as a thin trace of juice dripped down the side of his lips.

The sweetness of the apple lingered on Kratos' tongue. He took another look at the red fruit in his hands. It appeared the same as the apples in Greece. It was the same size, the same vibrant shade of red. And the sound it made as he bit into it echoed with the same lively crack as the ones in Greece. But why was it that this one tasted infinitely better than the ones from his home?

He took another bite, and let himself drown in the sweetness. Maybe it was the lack of purpose, the lack of something that needed to be done, that let him just dwell on the small things. Looking up, Kratos was once again enamoured by the vibrant greenery. He was sure that the Greek forests were just as lively and warm, but back home, Kratos wasn't allowed the time or freedom to just look at them.

Kratos' feet moved forward on their own. He observed the birds prancing around between branches, building nests, courting each other. He followed the chatter of the squirrels as they carried their favourite nuts to their horde. He caught the infrequent deer peeking between the trees, running away as he approached them. A strange sense of calmness washed over Kratos, a feeling he had only ever felt once before and that too when was toeing the line between life and death.

After another bite, the apple was finished. Kratos tossed the core aside and chomped down on the second one. But as he took the bite, he noticed that the forest had terminated. Technically, it wasn't finished, it was simply a break in continuity. A break that was caused by a massive ravine that cleft the forest in two.

Kratos approached the ravine uninhibitedly. He neared the edge and looked over into the near-endless darkness that welcomed him from below.

His foot crept closer to the edge, causing a few small rocks to dislodge from beneath him.

Kratos raised the half-eaten apple in front of his palm. As his eyes focused on the red, it started to ooze and drip out as a viscous fluid, coating his hand crimson.

He blinked.

And he was no longer holding an apple in his hand. In its place, Kratos saw the decapitated, hollow-eyed head of Helios hanging.

Kratos' grip loosened, and the head tumbled down the cliff with a sickening squelch as it collided against the rock face repeatedly.

Looking around, Kratos saw the green forest turn red as fires started to swallow all life, and the sky turned grey as storm clouds started to swallow the sun ravenously.

He stood amidst the collapsing world and slowly closed his eyes.

His right leg extended forward, levitating precariously in midair. Slowly, he started to shift his weight.

"There's nothing down there."

The voice brought Kratos back from his trance. The world wasn't burning, and the heavens weren't collapsing around him.

He turned his head and saw Rama walking out of the forest. The man approached the ravine, beside Kratos and looked down.

"There's nothing down there," he repeated. "I've checked."

He then patted Kratos' back and added, "You see the struggle isn't in going down, but coming back up. The rock walls are rather smooth and finding proper hold is difficult."

"You talk as though you have done this before," Kratos commented, to which the man returned a dull gaze and an empathetic sigh.

"Lunch is ready," Rama diverted. "Come quickly or else it will grow cold. And don't do anything stupid."

And with that, the man strolled back into the forest and disappeared between the tree line.

Kratos took one last look into the ravine and narrowed his eyes. Surprisingly, he could now see the bottom and he could see the half-eaten apple shimmering in the darkness, intact.

---

Kratos snarled, the sound rumbling deep within his chest as he swallowed a hand-rolled ball of rice drenched in lentils and vegetables.

"Don't make such unsavoury noises while you eat," Rama's voice carried a stern warning, a sharp edge beneath the calm exterior. "Every grain of rice is a gift from Annapurneshwari. So, even if you find my cooking less than palatable, at least have the decency not to show it."

Rama's chuckle, light and mocking, filled the tense air as he gracefully consumed another morsel of rice.

"The food is adequate," Kratos grumbled through gritted teeth, barely containing his frustration. "But why is there never any meat? It's always
missing!"

"Meat?" Rama replied, his tone laced with incredulity. "Of course, there's no meat. I'm a vegetarian, remember?"

Kratos' glare intensified, his eye blazing with a fury that seemed to challenge the very notion. "Do not look at me with such disdain. Haven't you realized this by now?"

"I assumed you were merely impoverished, unable to afford it," Kratos shot back, his voice dripping with derision.

Rama's response was a dramatic clutch at his chest as if wounded. "Ah, that cuts deeper than any blade."

"You resort to begging," Kratos pointed out bluntly, his accusation hanging heavy between them.

"I do not beg," Rama retorted, his voice rising in anger before he caught himself, taking a deep breath to calm the storm brewing within. "Bhiksha is a request for alms, yes. Technically, it could be seen as begging. But it's not out of poverty." His words stumbled over each other, a rare moment of vulnerability.

"Speak clearly," Kratos commanded, the impatience evident in his tone.

Rama's face tightened, the lines of a forced smile barely masking the hurt. "It seems you've managed to find the last shred of ego I possessed and trampled it beneath your feet. Asking for Bhiksha, for alms, is part of living as an ascetic, a Sannyaasi. It's about renouncing worldly attachments, embracing humility through dependency on the divine and the generosity of others."

"Excuses," Kratos interjected coldly. "You're simply leeching off the community."

"I take only what is surplus to them," Rama explained, trying to maintain his composure. "In exchange, I offer my services."

"You serve their gods, not the people themselves," Kratos accused, his voice rising in anger.

"By serving the gods, I serve the community," Rama insisted, his patience wearing thin. "I pray to Indra for rain, for—"

"The gods serve themselves!" Kratos interrupted his voice a low rumble of contempt.

Rama met Kratos' furious gaze with a defiant stare of his own, anger etching deep lines across his face. "Blasphemy, Kratos. Hold your tongue!"

"I speak only truths," Kratos countered fiercely. "To them, we are insignificant. Just as humans disregard the concerns of ants, the gods overlook humans."

The room charged with an electric tension, the air thick with unspoken challenges. After a tense silence, Rama exhaled sharply, his demeanour softening as he rapidly finished his meal. Once his leaf was clean, he poured a drop of water into his right palm and murmured, "Amrutapithanamasi" before sipping it.

"Do not waste food," Rama declared as he picked up his folded leaf and carried it out the door. As he left he revealed a sly grin and said, "Or Annapurneshwari will be very disappointed."

Kratos growled back before descending on his food begrudgingly.

---

"You dislike gods," Rama said,

"Is that a question?" Kratos inquired in return. The duo were currently seated in the shade of the Banyan tree at the centre of the nearby village.

"The inflexion was clearly that of a statement," Rama retorted. "Care to share?"

"No," Kratos said curtly.

"Okay," Rama answered with a shrug.

---

It was a particularly new moon night, with the night sky coloured a rich shade of black dotted prosperously with stars that gleamed like tiny diamonds. Kratos was sat propped against a tree with his eyes closed, deep in meditation. Beside him, lay Rama, on his back.

"I think today marks exactly five months since our first meeting," Rama commented.

Kratos did not respond.

"I think we've known each other long and well enough to discuss deeper, more personal topics, no?" Rama probed.

"No," Kratos denied.

"Come on, now," Rama urged. "Fine, I'll go first, maybe it will motivate you to share in turn."

"It will not," Kratos reaffirmed with a voice tinged with frustration.

"It is true," Rama started, ignoring Kratos' denial altogether. "The gods do not care for the concerns of mortals. What they care for, above all else, is balance. If there is evil, there must be good. If there is life, there must be death. If there is an excess of one, an influx of the other is warranted."

"My purpose... was to bring balance," Rama said, his voice carrying immense pain and trauma in equal quantity. "I was assigned a task - a mission. I did not have a choice. My life was predetermined - my sufferings, destined."

"And yet, you pray to them," Kratos pointed out.

"Ironic, I know," Rama responded with a wry smile. "But ultimately, we must prostrate ourselves to a higher power. When our life is out of our control, we pray to a power that can maybe give us an iota of it."

"Does it help?" Kratos asked, semi-rhetorically.

"Well, no-"

"And yet, you pray," Kratos reiterated.

"I guess it's just hope," Rama pondered. "Hope that maybe someone is listening and will take pity on me."

"But I know that is something I do not deserve," Rama added wistfully.

A heavy pause lingered before Rama broke it by saying, "I know a self-inflicted injury when I see one. You stabbed yourself with a sword, why?"

Kratos stayed silent, before saying, "I was assigned a task - a mission. I had a choice, and I chose poorly. From that point onwards, my life was predetermined - my sufferings were destined. But I did not pray for a higher power to bring me peace, I sought it out on my own - I sought vengeance."

"And did you achieve it?" Rama followed up.

"Yes."

"Did it help?"

"No." Kratos paused.

"Vengeance turned you blind, as my devotion did to me," Rama summarised. "If I had rebelled against my purpose, I would have ended up in your place. If you had succumbed to yours, you would be in mine. In both cases, what remains is a hollow man. A sinful man."

"Hmm," Kratos hummed. He pondered over an alternate future. One where he had truly become a servant of the gods. A tool through and through. Would it have been better?

'Useless thoughts,' he admonished. Why bother thinking of what could have been when the past has already played itself out?

As he returned to the present mentally, Kratos was surprised to hear the gentle breathing of Rama, as he delved into a deep sleep. Even since they'd met, Rama had never once truly put himself to rest properly, instead relying solely on meditation and micro-naps throughout the day.

Kratos never asked why the man lived this way, as he did not care for the peculiarities of others unless it affected him directly. Nonetheless, it was an observation.

Kratos let himself immerse himself in the pleasant nightly breeze, which complemented the gentle breathing of the sleeping man. And slowly, sleep came for him too.

---

Kratos awoke to the sound of metal cutting through the wind. It was a sound he was extremely intimated with and one that was often followed by bloodshed. Almost by instinct, his eyes darted open and his body entered a low stance ready to leap into action.

Weirdly, no weapon appeared. Kratos' gaze scanned the environment, with his radar tuned for any source of danger. None were there. However, there was something different. Something that would have been missed had it not been for his acute awareness. In Rama's hand, lay his axe. The tool wasn't there before.

At that moment, Rama let out a moan in pain.

"I'm sorry... brother..." he mumbled. His eyes started to bubble with tears.

"I'm sorry... mother..." he mumbled. He let out a scream and broke down into a wail.

"Are you satisfied now... father?"

Kratos approached the hysterical man and tried to shake him awake.

"Rama!" He called out. But the man grew more distressed. "RAMA!"

At that moment, Rama's eyes snapped open, but they lacked clarity - they were glazed all over. His left hand yanked upwards and grabbed Kratos by the throat.

"Ra... ma...," Kratos rasped.

He tried to loosen the man's grip, but his strength was unexpectedly great. How could a man who abhorred meat have such vigour?

After understanding that there was no need to control his strength anymore, Kratos applied more pressure and released himself from Rama's clutches.

"Come to your senses!" Kratos yelled while massaging his neck. But his final word was caught in his throat as an axe hurtled towards where his head was supposed to be. With a dangerous twang, the tool-turned-weapon embedded itself in the trunk of the tree where Kratos lay before.

Kratos let out a growl while looking into the eyes of his attacker. But his attacker's gaze was dead - empty. But Kratos could feel the bloodlust emanating from the man. The man who preached non-violence had definitely spilt blood - human blood. And it wasn't just a drop, or a dollop, but a veritable ocean of it.

There were signs everywhere. The wariness, the measuring gaze, and the predatory aura... Kratos had only seen it in the eyes of those warriors who spent a large part of their lives on the battlefield. He saw it every day when he looked at his reflection.

But Kratos chalked it aside against his better judgement. He wanted to believe that things were as they appeared.

"Wake up, man!" Kratos yelled. Rama tilted his head with a swift jerk, and like a spring uncoiling, he leapt from his position, hurtling dangerously towards Kratos.

Kratos dodged by instinct, avoiding a punch that could have shattered a rib. Rama did not relent, though, as successive attacks followed. His movements were exaggerated and easy to predict, but they carried with it a deadly force and momentum.

Each attack was just as dangerous as the last, for any layman. Kratos was certain he could body some of these hits, and he affirmed his hypothesis by blocking some of the attacks rather than dodging them. However, this led to his first error.

Rama's sweeping kick hit Kratos' right shin. The next one arrived like a pendulum returning, which Kratos tried to redirect to his other side, but Rama twisted in the last minute and the attack struck his right shin once again. Kratos moved to create distance, but an exaggerated leap from Rama covered the distance seamlessly, and two more strikes hit Kratos's right shin.

The fifth barely grazed him, but Kratos could feel the result of the repeated hits as he felt something crack. He could not place his full weight on his right leg anymore without experiencing a shooting pain electrocuting him.

An angry growl escaped Kratos as he adjusted his posture, preparing himself for the sixth strike to his shin. Rama feinted and went for Kratos' left, but Kratos anticipated this. He did not underestimate his opponent just because the man was asleep.

Kratos caught Rama in a grapple, locking the man's lower body with a hip grab.

"AAAARGH!" Kratos bellowed while charging forward. Elbow strikes rained down on his back, but he did not stop. Like a bull, Kratos burst through a tree in his path using Rama as a shield, shattering the towering plant into smithereens. But Rama did not hesitate in his attacks.

Kratos bit through the pain and pushed through another tree, and another, and another. But Rama was jabbing with unwavering intensity.

"AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGH!" Kratos yelled. His gaze turned a tint of red as an outcropping of stone appeared before him. Pushing all of his power into his legs, Kratos barrelled onwards and collided with the structure without hesitation.

The earth rumbled in shock, as the man cut through rock like a hot knife through butter. Through sheer strength, Kratos passed through the structure, causing it to destabilise and crumble. As he exited from the other side, he tossed Rama, grabbed him by his legs, spun him around, and tossed him away into the dense forest. Rama hurtled like a ragdoll, destroying everything in his path, and disappearing into the greenery.

Kratos grunted, letting the bubbling anger settle. The crimson tint in his eyes started to diminish.

But a boom distracted him. A split second later, a sharp pain radiated through his face as his sight was momentarily blocked by a hairy foot.

Kratos felt his jaws dislodging slightly. He dodged once again through pure instinct, weaved, and then sent a punch where he estimated Rama's head to be.

Fist hit flesh, and the attack connected.

The red grew darker, deeper.

Anger.

Kratos's sight turned narrow, like a horse wearing an immensely restrictive blinder. All he saw was blood-red.

All he felt was the sensation of his bone pummelling against the bone of his opponent.

He heard a crack, something broke - nothing on his body.

A moment of clarity made itself known - a split second. And what Kratos saw was his hands wrapped around Rama's neck, his opponent's eyes nearly bursting out of their sockets as his face grew pallid through suffocation.

Kratos could feel his opponent struggling. A sense of euphoria started to course through Kratos as he felt the life slowly leaving the man. Kratos took a deep breath as a morbid smile started to crack on his ashen face.

"I... I'm awak-" Rama managed to say, but Kratos was having none of it. With a hard motion, Kratos snapped the man's neck and dismounted the prone body.

---

Complete clarity arrived a whole minute later, as the red settled and true colour returned to the world. Kratos collapsed onto the ground as he gazed at his palms in horror. His eyes alternated between the empty, bloodshot eyes of the dead Rama and his own bruised digits. The weight of his actions was finally dawning on him.

"What have I done?"

"Hideaway all you want, convince yourself that your life will be any different," a ghastly voice echoed from within Kratos' skull. It was a voice he remembered.

"Athena," he growled.

"No matter where you go, you cannot conceal what you are - your true nature," she said derisively. "You have and always will be a hound that bites the hand that feeds it."

"You are, and always will be, a mons-"

A loud inhale of air followed by a hacking cough pulled Kratos back into reality. The man who Kratos thought- no KNEW was dead, seemingly awoke from it, as if it was just another bout of slumber.

Rama massaged his neck as he stood up, "I apologise for hurting you."

"What?!" Kratos snapped.

"I'm sorry for putting you through that ordeal. I hope you aren't injured. Let me inspect you-"

Kratos slapped away the dead man's hand and looked at him in disbelief, "You are dead!"

Rama tilted his head before feeling his pulse by his jugular, "My beating heart says otherwise."

The man revealed a wry smile before sheating his axe by his waist. "Wow, that's quite a bit of damage. I hope no one was maimed or killed."

Kratos watched the man walk away, through the hole he'd made in the rock formation, still unable to process what exactly had taken place.

 

[juniorsundar]

Kratos observed the dead man go about his daily business with caution. His attention however wasn't on the man himself, but the weapon hanging by his waist. Kratos hadn't noticed this in the hubbub early on, but the axe tended to appear in the man's possession at the oddest of times.

When Rama died, he died bare-handed - unarmed. But upon revival, the axe had somehow returned. When Rama fell asleep, he did so without the axe, but when Kratos started fighting him, Rama was armed. Kratos did not believe in coincidences. The fact remained that both instances deviated from the norm when the axe arrived miraculously in Rama's possession.

"You're looking at me as if I just died and came back to life," Rama joked as he draped a cotton towel over his shoulders.

"You were dead," Kratos commented. "And do not lie to me. I have seen enough death in my time at the battlefield to know what it is!"

"Oh my!" Rama exclaimed with fake shock. "Are we finally revealing each other's pasts?"

Kratos growled in return before entering meditation, outwardly. On the inside, he was counting away the seconds until Rama would leave for his early morning bath and exasperatingly lord prayer - Sandhyavandanam, he called it.

As the man disappeared into the forest in the direction of the river, Kratos directed his attention to the tool-turned-weapon that was embedded into a bare tree stump. From afar it did not look like much. It had a simple wooden handle that was approximately the length of a person's forearm. However, it was surprising that the metal of the tool still maintained a healthy sheen and edge. Kratos hadn't seen Rama polish or sharpen it - the man almost despised this thing and would often leave it lying around.

Kratos crouched next to the stump and observed the tool more closely. Iron that has tasted blood adorns a malicious tinge that Kratos was all too familiar with. This tool did not have it. It was safe to say that it had no marks AT ALL. The metal was so clean and unmarred that one could mistake it for being a new piece.

Kratos continued to observe the tool for a while but with sufficient distance between him and it. He still maintained caution, because his instincts were still not satisfied with what the evidence before him had to offer. Kratos was a strict disbeliever of "seeing is believing". The world only shows you what you want to see. It is what it decides not to show you that bites you back. His instincts - which were built through repeated failure, death and resurrection - had been attuned over the years to become receptive to these details.

He leaned so close that his nose was merely a finger's width away from the tool. He took a series of quick sniffs, letting the scent emanating from the tool dance across his olfactory sensors. And unsurprisingly, he got nothing.

At this moment, Kratos should have pulled the reigns on his rampant curiosity. But the mystery was far too tempting to put down. A man had died but also hadn't.

After letting his instincts argue with his rationality, Kratos discerned that he had sufficiently evaluated the danger to be able to hold the tool. And so, with measured movements, Kratos wrapped his palm around the wooden handle and dislodged the tool from the stump. He turned the tool in his grasp, moved it around, swung it a few times, and chopped it down on the wooden stump. He dislodged the tool and inspected the iron. He noticed that the hit had caused minuscule chips to form on its surface. But within seconds, the damage started to heal itself. Metal mended as though it were flesh. This was enough to confirm Kratos' suspicion.

Deductive reasoning set in and a conclusion formed in his mind. The nature of the weapon's recovery could extend to the person wielding it. If it was basically reverting itself to an initial state, maybe the power could extend to the wielder as well. Alternatively, the weapon itself could be living (harbouring some entity) and this could be why it was undergoing recovery. Nonetheless, what worried Kratos was the question that came next. Every power comes with a cost. The greater the power, the greater the cost.

If this tool could resurrect its wielder, then it is within reason that the cost of such a power would be equally exacting. Was it blood? Souls?

Kratos decided to test the theory and cut his palm while holding the tool. Though, to his surprise, he did not notice any difference in the way his flesh responded to the gash. Blood trickled out with the same vigour and intensity as it usually did. And the tool remained dormant.

'Maybe it is so because I am not the original wielder.'

At that moment, Kratos' attention was piqued by the sound of approaching footsteps. He looked up and noticed the water-drenched Rama walking through the shrubbery. The man revealed a smile as their gaze met, but then the blooming expression of happiness froze and his eyes widened in shock as they traced the axe held in Kratos' hand.

The man extended his own and snapped his fingers, which was when the second bout of shock made itself visible on Rama's face. All of this was observed with Kratos and he took a mental note of it to grill Rama at a later time.

Now, was a later time.

"This axe repairs itself," Kratos commented. Rama extended his palm, calling for Kratos to pass the tool to him, which Kratos did by tossing it in the air. Kratos had a commendable aim, he had ejected the tool anticipating that it would land in Rama's hand safely. However, the man moved his hand back slightly, ensuring that the tool would miss. Yet his palms remained open, waiting to receive the tool. Yet the tool, as expected, landed on the ground in front of Rama.

The man looked at the tool for an extended period, no emotion showing itself on his face, until tears started to bubble. But Rama was quick to dab them away. He looked up to Kratos and revealed a smile that felt as if he was unburdening centuries worth of pain. He walked around the fallen tool with a wide radius, as if it was the source of some inhuman plague.

"I have a bow as well as some arrows stowed away in the shed at the back. Let us go hunting for deer today," Rama declared.

"You do not hunt. You do not eat meat," Kratos pointed out, voicing his suspicion.

"But I know that you do," Rama retorted. "I won't be eating, of course. So I will have to trouble you to kill, clean and cook it."

"What is your angle," Kratos responded. "This is different from your usual self."

"Change isn't bad."

"I have yet to see a tree that grows underground," Kratos said with a growl.

"Then you have not seen a real tree," Rama scoffed. "A tree's root reach further underground than its branches reach towards the sky."

"Do not play with words," Kratos demanded.

"And yet it was you who brought up the analogy of the tree," Rama pointed out with a scandalous smile. "My, oh my, Kratos, it seems that there is still some hope left for you. We can yet turn you into a civilised man!"

Kratos growled again and pressed on, "You are deflecting. What is that axe's significance?"

Rama paused, "It is as you said. It is a tool that can repair itself. It was... gifted to me."

"It resurrected you," Kratos added, more like stating a fact than asking a question.

"Can such a wondrous weapon exist?" Rama asked in return.

Kratos did not respond.

"Well... we are wasting daylight," Rama redirected. "Let us hunt!"

Kratos observed as Rama practically fled from the scene. Once the man's figure retreated around the corner of his house, Kratos' eyes landed on the axe. It just lay there, in its unassuming state. He walked over to it and picked it up. He then returned it to the chopped stump and embedded the tool back in its place.

---

Kratos just couldn't shake away the feeling of discomfort gnawing away at him. The source of this discomfort was the demeanour of the man who'd been housing, feeding, healing, and teaching him. Rama's general demeanour had turned different. The shift was subtle to a casual observer, but Kratos could see it as clear as day.

The man's attitude had grown uplifted. His steps were light and had a gentle skip to it. It was the kind of movement one would exhibit when they were having a really good day. To top it off, Kratos also noticed something interesting in the man's temper.

Anger is hard to mask. It can be suppressed, but not hidden. Although he wore a calm outer facade, Kratos could feel the rage bubbling within him every time something unexpected transpired. Even though he appeared as a man of infinite patience whenever he taught Kratos how to speak, read and write in Sanskrit and other languages, Kratos could see the minute tinge of red flashing past his gaze with every silly mistake Kratos made.

But now. It was like there was no anger at all. Kratos tested it too, by intentionally spilling the bucket of milk he drew from the cow.

He glanced at Rama, but the man shrugged and subtly skipped away.

Something was odd. People don't just change suddenly.

Rama left around midday, leaving Kratos to his own devices - time which he utilised to observe the axe once again. The tool was where he'd left it in the morning. Embedded superficially in the chopped trunk. It looked mundane in every single way. But it was the root cause of the change.

Unknowingly, the seconds sprinted away as Kratos scrutinised the weapon, stripping away at it layer by layer with just his calculating gaze. Yet no amount of scrutiny yielded any result, forcing Kratos to step away, admitting that maybe he'd just succumbed to his inbuilt paranoia.

Around the time the sun started to set, Rama finally returned. He walked in balancing a thick branch on his shoulder, with two earthen pots suspended on each end with a rope. He greeted Kratos with a smile as he placed the burden on the ground.

"I've brought you something special!" He declared while slowly opening the pot's lid. And as he did so, a torrent of flavours assaulted Kratos, causing his mouth to water unwittingly. Rama, however, showed an expression often presented by pregnant women who smelled something that didn't agree with their mood, and he recoiled immediately.

Kratos leaned forward and was shocked to see a large piece of bone sticking out of a pond of sumptuous, rich-brown curry. It was meat! His eyes darted towards Rama, who was supporting himself against a tree and dry-heaving.

"What is this?" Kratos asked with a growl.

"It's venison curry," Rama said with a hoarse voice. "I had the village's hunter make some."

"Why?!" Kratos exclaimed.

"No reason-"

Before Rama could finish his response, he found himself getting grabbed and shaken violently. As his vision stabilised, he found himself an inch away from Kratos, whose ashen face was nearly bleeding red in anger.

"What is your objective with this!"

"Hey... Relax... You've been asking for meat for a while now. And I just felt that it was unfair to force you to follow my lifestyle," Rama explained calmly while gently disengaging Kratos' grip.

"Now I suggest that we start eating before it gets cold..." Then, with a lower voice, he said, "I don't want to reheat this. The smell is unbearable!"

To that, Kratos would have to disagree. A single whiff of the enamouring steam that billowed out of the pot caused a shiver of ecstasy to pulse through his body. Maybe it was the complete lack of meat in his diet that had turned him so sensitive. Frankly, it was embarrassing.

His mouth watered involuntarily as Rama stirred the curry with the wooden spoon before dumping a hefty serving of it on his banana leaf.

The golden-brown gravy poured down the sides of the deer leg piece like a river of rich flavour snaking down a mountain.

"Rice?" Rama offered.

"No," Kratos boomed before descending into the meat like a ravenous beast. With a single bite, he pulled out a large mouthful of the gamey meat and started to chew on it while simultaneously immersing himself in the volcano of flavours erupting across his tastebuds.

"I've never seen such an emotion in your face before," Rama muttered. Right as Kratos opened his eyes, he noticed that the man's face was barely an arm's length away from his own.

"I didn't know that this perpetually scowling face could actually sport a smile, huh! So all it took was some meat. You should have told me earlier," Rama joked.

"Humans aren't meant to survive off of grass," Kratos said between bites.

"Asceticism is the process of letting go of such pleasures," Rama reminded. "It is to extend beyond the baser human instincts. Eating meat is natural - that is what humans are meant to do. But to voluntarily put that aside-"

"If you keep talking, I will put this in your mouth," Kratos threatened while holding up another leg bone with vibrant red meat on it.

Rama play-acted by holding his palm against his lips before letting out a chuckle and gazing into the dimming sky. A fresh paint of red as the sun set over the horizon illuminated the heavens, evoking a myriad of emotions that escaped his lips with a long sigh.

A thought sparked in the man's eyes as he extricated himself from Kratos' company. Kratos continued to eat while his attention remained on the man through his peripheral vision. Rama disappeared into the cow shed by the cottage. What followed was the sound of heavy objects being moved about and utensils crashing. A few minutes later, the man exited carrying a rather extravagantly decorated pot about half his size.

It wasn't earthen - made entirely out of gold with innumerable gems laden all around it with great care. It wasn't something that could be found in some random villager's shed out in the woods. Which really made Kratos wonder what the origin of this container was.

"It was a gift," Rama answered the question plaguing Kratos' thoughts. "I did someone a favour, in return he gave me this- Well, what he gave me was what is contained within. The container was just a bonus."

Rama approached Kratos and dropped the container by his side.

"Unfortunately-" he continued as he twisted the pot's lid. With an enticing pop, the lid came off with it, and a heavenly aroma pervaded the ambience. "- I cannot drink a single drop."

Kratos' body moved involuntarily as the piece of venison in his grasp dropped onto the banana leaf. He stood up leaned over the pot and gazed in. In the seemingly endless darkness, Kratos saw a liquid sloshing with the vibrance of honey, but with the viscosity of water. It smelled more divine than ambrosia itself.

"What... is this?"

"Soma," Rama explained. He dipped a cup into the pot and filled it to the brim. "Here, drink."

Kratos looked at the extended cup with suspicion and great apprehension. He had to fight against every instinct of his body that urged him to down the entire container. He held on to the last trace of rationality that remained, the rest having succumbed to whatever siren song the liquid sang through its odour.

"What is it?" He repeated.

"As I said, it is Soma," Rama repeated. After facing Kratos' growing suspicion once again, he let out a defeated sigh and said, "It isn't poisoned-"

"You drink it first," Kratos demanded.

"I can't-"

"Why?"

"It's alcoholic! Damn it!" Rama yelled in exasperation.

"Why do you have alcohol?" Kratos asked after a long minute of silence.

"Do you want it or not?" Rama retorted angrily.

Kratos growled before yanking the cup out of Rama's grasp. He brought it up to his nose and took a healthy whiff. Then, with a slow gulp, he took a sip.

The moment the liquid made it past his lips and danced on his tongue, Kratos blanked out.

---

"Kratos, wake up!"

"Kratos- Husband, wake up!"

This voice. He knew this voice. But- But how?

He could feel himself being shaken awake. His face was held in a gentle caress.

A soft touch descended on his lips, with a moist object invading it, like a mischievous snake, entering and exiting like a hesitant thief.

His sight turned clearer, and he was forced to confront his greatest regret- but she was alive, which meant that he hadn't committed his gravest sin just yet.

"Lysandra!" The name left his lips with an emotion that had been lost to him many years ago. The face, which he thought he'd forgotten was once again before him.

"I thought you'd never wake up!" His wife expressed with a playful smirk as she collapsed onto his chest, her head resting gently over his heart.

"C-Calliope?"

"She's out playing..." She said into his ear with an inviting whisper. "We finally have time for ourselves. What if-"

"WHO ARE YOU!"

"K-Kratos... You're... Hurting..."

The vice-like grip started to constrict around the neck of his dead wife. Her face grew paler, her eyes redder as blood started to slowly pool in them.

The asphyxiating woman looked at Kratos with fear, before her gaze mellowed and an alluring smile split her reddening face.

"Do you so eagerly wish for me to die, Kratos?" She asked with grace, almost as if her vocal cords hadn't been crushed by Kratos' constricting grip.

"You. Are Not. Real." He grunted before bellowing loudly in rage.

---

The vision dispersed like pollen in spring, and his true sight returned though with a blurriness akin to a man drowning. Kratos struggled to move as his body felt loose, almost lightweight.

"R-RAMA!" He yelled groggily. He could see the crimson outline of the man who'd poisoned him.

"It isn't poison," Rama said while clicking his tongue in disdain. "Stop fighting the Soma's effect. Immerse in it."

Kratos could feel himself being dragged across the ground and leaned against a tree. "The more you fight it, the worse it gets."

Kratos felt himself slowly slipping against the tree, falling over in slow motion, endlessly, for a very, very, very long time.

"What is this feee... eee... hmm," he grunted. "It feels like time is stretching endless... endless... endlessly."

"It is harmless," Rama repeated. "Try to enjoy it while it lasts. You will see what you wish to see. You will experience what your heart truly desires. So do not fight it, ease into it. Roll with the waves."

As he said this, Rama pressed his thumb against Kratos' forehead and gently massaged him.

"What are you..."

"Shhhhhhhh...... Indulge in the pleasant dreams that it bestows on you while you still can."

---

Kratos found himself in a field of tall grass swaying gently in the wind. The grass was a lush, vibrant green, each blade kissed by the golden rays of the setting sun. The sky above was a brilliant canvas of orange and pink hues, the clouds painted in soft pastels as if by the hand of an artist. The air was filled with the sweet scent of wildflowers, their delicate petals opening up to the sky, releasing a symphony of fragrances that mingled with the crisp freshness of the breeze.

The serene scene was filled with joyous laughter. Giggles echoed across the meadow like the tinkling of tiny bells, blending harmoniously with the gentle rustling of the grass. Among them was his beloved daughter, Calliope, running and playing, her movements fluid and carefree. Her giggles were a melody that tugged at his heartstrings, a sound he had longed to hear again. Nearby, Lysandra, his wife, joined in the chase, her laughter a soothing balm to his soul. She moved with grace, her long hair flowing behind her like a cascade of silk, her eyes sparkling with happiness and love.

It wasn't real. He knew that. They were dead. He did that.

It was painful to see them again. But it also evoked a tinge of joy from deep within. It was an emotion he felt very rarely, and he had almost written himself off as unworthy of feeling it altogether.

Kratos began to walk towards them, his steps tentative. The soft earth beneath his feet felt cool and reassuring, grounding him in the moment. The distance between them seemed to stretch endlessly, an eternity captured in mere moments. The tranquil environment seemed to hold its breath, as if time itself had paused to allow him this fleeting glimpse of joy.

As he finally reached them, he extended his hand, yearning to touch the shoulder of his wife, to feel her warmth once more. His fingers brushed against her, and for a moment, everything felt perfect. The world around him was a paradise of peace and happiness, the very air humming with a gentle, harmonious energy. It was a place where pain and sorrow did not exist, where only love and joy reigned supreme.

But then it all started to go downhill. The fingers through which his wife's hair cascaded constricted and yanked roughly, causing the woman to stumble and fall onto the ground with a loud wail.

He then turned and started to walk away, pulling the woman by her hair.

The field, once vibrant and green, began to wither and burn around him. Flames licked at the grass, transforming the tranquil scene into a hellish inferno. The sweet scent of wildflowers was replaced by the acrid smell of smoke, and the peaceful sounds were drowned out by the roar of the fire.

He was no longer outside now. Instead, he was walking down a long and grand hallway of a palace. Though it looked like the building had just weathered a rather dastardly disaster. Its pillars were shattered or near collapse and the floor was marred with craters and loose stone.

He ignored the woman's pain-filled cries and dragged her across the worn and torn path. As he ascended the steps leading up to the throne room, he could hear the woman yelp in agony as her entire weight was pulled by her scalp. But he did not care.

The throne room was in a far worse condition than the rest of the palace. There was endless wreckage everywhere and bodies were strewn willy-nilly, most missing one or multiple body parts. There were none alive here, except one - the King.

The man who would sit on the throne laden in gold and gems was instead crucified against it. But this was no ordinary King. This was Kartavirya Arjuna - The Thousand Armed King. Yet each of his arms was hammered into the golden throne, made immobile. His lower body remained limp, as his spine had been severed rendering it useless.

Kratos approached the broken king and slapped his face. The man shook awake, his eyes red with anger and pain.

"Y-You! All this just for a cow?" The man spat out. "Just take her! Why go this far-"

"The punishment isn't for the theft of a cow," Kratos spoke up, though his voice was altogether different. "It is for the fact that you chose to repay my father's benevolence in treating you, his guests, to a filling meal by stealing the very resource that fed his family. And when he denied it, you chose to take it anyway by force."

"W-Wha-"

Kratos grasped Arjuna by his jaw and brought his face up to him. "If your sins had stopped there, we wouldn't be in this position right now. No. Your greatest sin is being a poor father. Children repeat what they see, and what they saw their entire life was an entitled man who would snatch anything that caught his fancy come hell or high water. Your sons decided that Kamadhenu wasn't enough, they wanted her calf too. And when my father and brothers tried to stop them, guess what your sons did?"

Kratos tossed the woman to the side and approached a large sack thrown by the throne. He picked it up and emptied it in front of the crucified Arjuna. From the jute bag, out rolled four heads.

"M-My sons!" Arjuna bellowed. "Y-You monster!"

Kratos approached the woman and raised her by her hair. He looked into her tear-filled and surrendered eyes and said, "I take no pleasure in this-"

"Please don't kill me!" The woman begged with a hoarse voice. "I am with child!"

"Please, oh, great Sage! Please spare me and the life that I carry~"

A tense silence filled the room as neither party moved.

"L-Let her go. This is between you and me. Innocents don't have to get hurt-"

"My father and brother were innocent," Kratos snapped angrily. "But that didn't matter to you, nor your children."

"So be it," Kratos muttered, and a flash of hope glanced past the woman's eyes, but they were summarily extinguished as Kratos' palm surrounded her throat and started to crush it like a vice.

"NO!" Arjuna yelled as he tried to extricate himself from his imprisonment, but to no avail. "LET HER GO!"

The woman's eyes started to bulge out as she struggled for air. Her nails dug into Kratos' hand as he collapsed his fist around her neck to an unnaturally small circumference. A muffled snap echoed, and the woman went completely limp.

"NOOOO-" A loud thunk followed as Kratos brought his fist down on the man's jaw, dislocating it completely.

As Arjuna mumbled unintelligibly, Kratos extended his hand behind him with his palm open. A series of clangs approached him as metal struck marble. As it grew closer, the sound of wind being cleaved started to grow louder. And through the broken pillars, a spinning axe burst through before perching comfortably in Kratos' palm with a satisfying "thwump".

The axe's metal sang with murderous ecstacy, as he raised it and brought it down on one of Arjuna's arms.

Amidst the King's wails in pain, Kratos raised the axe and brought it down again. And again. And again.

By the thousandth slash, the Unarmed King, though alive, was now a husk of his formal self. His life clung on by its final strand. For all intents and purposes, he was a dead man.

The thousandth and first slash descended, separating the King's head from his body.

Thus ended the Haihaya Dynasty.

Kratos looked down, as the blood pooled out of the dead King's body.

He knew that this was only the beginning. Because bonds of blood still remained - the Dead King had relations both near and distant.

At that moment, the pool stilled and he could see his reflection.

Only, it wasn't his face that he saw.

It was Rama's.

 

[juniorsundar]

WARNING
Sensitive content and gore in this chapter. Proceed with care.

---

Kratos awoke with a start.

It was early in the morning, and the birds were out chirping and celebrating the rise of the sun once again.

But their uplifting songs did little to calm the ambience, as it was as tense as ever.

His breath was heavy and quick, and his body was drenched in cold sweats.

The dream, if it could even be called that, was far too real - too immersive. And it definitely wasn't his.

As he inspected his body to ascertain that he was, in fact, still Kratos, he noticed that the axe from his dream (and also from reality) was perched in his grasp.

When did that get there?

"RAMA!" He bellowed, calling for the man he deemed the culprit for the turn of events.

There was no response.

"RAMA!" Kratos tried again, but the only voice that responded was his own as his calls echoed out of the forest.

There was silence now, as even the birds and insects acknowledged the eeriness in the ambience.

"Rama..." He growled as he stood up. He tossed the axe aside and started to pace around the cottage in frustration.

"RAMA!!"

---

Kratos searched near and far, high and low. But he could find no trace of Rama anywhere.

The villagers hadn't seen him either. For all intents and purposes, the man had just disappeared.

Kratos thought, at first, that maybe he had gone somewhere for a short while.

But hours passed and turned into days, yet the man did not return.

As his anger and frustration simmered in a low heat, Kratos finally grasped his circumstance. His gaze remained affixed on the axe that he had tossed aside a while back.

He knew that it was something different, something special. But his life experience said that special and different weren't synonymous with good. His Blades of Chaos were different and special, forged specifically for him. But apart from being one of the deadliest weapons of Greece, they were also a symbol of his servitude under the Gods of Olympus.

This axe... currently, it was emanating a faint yet indistinguishable aura of bloodlust. Just looking at it made Kratos feel an unending swell of rage. Kratos recognised that it was a symbol of servitude, and Rama was the slave. What he was a servant of? Kratos did not know for certain. But whatever it was had transferred over to him now.

If Kratos were in Rama's slippers and some unsuspecting bloke dropped into Kratos' lap and managed to pry the Blades of Chaos off of his forearms, making it so that the scalding metal chain-links would never snake themselves around his flesh, what would he have done?

The answer was obvious. He would run far, far away. Lest the weapon changes its mind and returns to his possession.

That was exactly what Rama had done. The man had pumped Kratos up with food like a pig fresh for slaughter, drowned him in heavenly intoxicants, and fled the scene. While ironically, Kratos would have done something similar, it did not feel pleasant to be on the receiving end of the treatment.

Kratos lifted the axe from the ground and inspected it once again. And just like before, it did not reveal much to him. It looked plain. Just what could it do?

---

"Please- Please leave my child alone!" The woman wailed as she held on to Kratos' legs for dear life. Kratos looked down at the newborn tucked away in his arms, and his rage-filled eyes moved past the child and onto its mother.

He reached down and lifted the woman by her hair. She held onto her scalp in pain as tears streamed down her face. "Please!" She repeated pressing her palms together and rubbing them pleadingly. She begged.

"Fine, a mother shouldn't have to see her child die before her," Kratos spoke in Rama's voice. Right as a flash of relief sparked on the woman's face, Kratos brought his grip closer to her scalp and rammed her face against the pillar nearby. A gut-wrenching squelch echoed and blood exploded from her face as her nose and skull cracked. He brought her face against the pillar again, and again, and again until neither the pillar nor the woman's head remained.

Then, with a seamless move, she held the baby by its leg, raised it and swung it down rapidly towards the-

---

Kratos awoke, screaming. His pale skin was soaked in sweat, and his eyes were wide and tinged red in anger.

As his senses calmed down and he regained his composure, he suddenly felt something rigid and wooden in his right arm. He already knew what it was as he brought it forward with a growl.

The damned axe!

Leaving his sleeping mat, Kratos walked out of the cottage. As it was still deep into the night, there was no light out barring the rays reflected off the crescent moon. Even the stars were muted in the dark night today.

With a loud yell, Kratos wound his arm back and tossed the axe into the forest. The tool spun rapidly and disappeared into the darkness. It travelled so far that he could not hear it land back onto the ground.

He remained in silence, only interjected intermittently by the jitter of crickets. But then, he recollected a scene from one of his dreams. He raised his right palm and held it forward, open. His mind returned to the axe, envisioning it firmly within his grasp.

And like magnetite brought close to iron, he started to feel a slight pull towards him. It was barely registerable but was recognisable nonetheless. Within seconds he started to hear the sound of metal striking against wood and rock, growing louder and closer.

Then suddenly, through the treeline, the very axe he'd thrown earlier came out spinning dangerously.

He didn't exhibit the normal reaction a person would have when seeing a sharp object hurtling towards them at such a dangerous speed. Because even if it did decapitate him, it would be doing him a favour. Yet the tool slowed down rapidly as it neared his palm before landing snugly in place within his grasp with an annoyingly satisfying thunk.

He let out a low growl before embedding it into the nearby trunk and walking away.

It was ironic. The thing that he wished gone would come to him the moment he thought of it.

---

Kratos stood facing a massive army. There were hundreds of horses, elephants, men on horses, men on elephants, and just men on foot.

He'd never witnessed such an expansive army before - even the combined armies of the entirety of Greece paled in comparison to this.

If he were to confront such an army all on his own, he wasn't confident that he would walk out of it alive. But surprisingly, he didn't feel hesitance or fear. Then again, it wasn't "him", it was Rama.

What gave Rama such confidence, to face such impossible odds? That too all on his lonesome.

The confrontation was at a tense standstill. The opposing army stood opposite exuding an intense aura of intimidation. They extended far into the horizon, or was it just an elaborate encirclement trapping Kratos in its centre?

"You killed my cousins, my sisters-in-law, my nephews and grandnephews, my grandchildren... my only son and daughters..."

The voice came from atop the largest, most extravagant chariot on the battlefield. It was a veritable tank being heralded by ten horses. Atop it was an aged yet bulky man garbed in heavy armour coated with gold. He wore a helmet that was laden with jewels and complex inlays of gold. In one hand, he held a large compound bow, and he jammed the other hand forward with a shaking finger pointing it in Kratos' direction.

"You Rakshasa garbed in the skin of a Brahmin!" The aged general accused with a rasp. "Do you not fear the wrath of the heavens?!"

"I am being punished for it already," Kratos murmured while looking at the axe in his hands. "But this is the path I have chosen to walk, for it is justice - my justice."

"Do not confuse petty vengeance for justice!" The general bellowed with tears streaming down his face.

"So you do recognise the crimes your kin have committed-"

"I recognise the crime my GRANDNEPHEW and his offspring committed," the general responded. "But my son didn't... He was innocent! His baby was INNOCENT!"

"He was guilty of being related by blood to the criminal," Kratos spat back with vitriol in his voice. "To cull weed infecting bounteous farmland, you have to pull it out root and stem. Leave even a trace of it, and it will propagate if left unchecked."

"Do you even hear yourself talk? Those were people you killed. Men, women, CHILDREN!"

"Monsters!" Kratos responded. "Dogs beget dogs, cows beget cows, monsters... beget monsters. Monsters took my family away from me. They killed my father. They killed my brothers. And the grief... it... it took my mother."

Silence pervaded the battlefield before Kratos' voice spoke up again, "To kill monsters, one must be prepared to become one. Do you blame me for culling an entire lineage? Well, here I stand, the last of mine. And you, the last of yours. Monster against monster."

"Only one will walk away from here alive, Brahmin!" The General declared.

"In that you are correct," Kratos said with a grunt. "Me."

"Arrogance!"

"No," Kratos retorted. "For that is certain, and the heavens have ordained it as such!"

Kratos raised the axe towards the sky, and his lips started to move. The words that escaped were loud and clear, but he could not hear a single syllable. Evidently, the general knew exactly what was being said as his eyes widened with a shocking realisation.

"You madman! You intend to call upon the Brahmastra to cleanse the entire battlefield?!" The general yelled. "You will damn everything!" Surprisingly, his voice cut through the ear-shattering words leaving Kratos' lips.

"R-Retrea-"

The call for a retreat could not be finished. As Kratos brought the axe down, crashing into the ground.

The last thing he saw was the heaven and earth cracking into a million pieces as the world itself shattered like crystal.

There was no pain. There was no sound. There was only death. Swift. Merciless.

---

Kratos awoke while screaming... again. This time, though, he was sweating profusely with the hairs all over his body standing erect. He was experiencing an emotion he had long since forgotten. An emotion that the rigorous Spartan training had squeezed out of him.

Fear.

This was unusual.

Just what had Rama summoned back then, this... "Brahmastra..." He said while looking at the axe that had once again settled into his grasp.

Was this the extent of the axe's power? The power didn't originate from the axe, it was being channelled through it as a focus.

The Blades of Chaos channelled Kratos' fury, but the Primordial Fire that burned within them transmuted his rage into something far more destructive.

However, the Brahmastra was originating from Rama himself. It didn't drain him, rather it felt like the power was being summoned. The axe was merely like a finger, pointing the direction in which the attack was to be sent.

And evidently, the attack was extremely destructive. So destructive, in fact, that Kratos couldn't even witness the first few fractions of seconds that passed after the attack was launched. Yet Rama called it down without a second thought, using himself as the epicentre.

He had died. Kratos was certain of it.

But he didn't die. Because if these events had occurred in the past, then how was he alive now?

---

Life continued this way for months - if one could call it a life, that is. There was no moment of respite for Kratos. His hours awake were spent reliving the atrocities he had committed, and his time asleep was spent reliving the atrocities of another.

The axe was relentless. No matter where or how he discarded it, it would eventually find its way back into his hands the moment he closed his eyes and fell asleep. He also realised that it could not be destroyed - not by regular means anyway. The blacksmith in the village tried everything to melt the mundane-looking metal, but the steel didn't even glow red with heat - it was perpetually cool. Even the wooden handle would mysteriously return every night.

There was no escaping it.

Kratos had always wondered why he was let off easy for the sins he'd committed. Turns out, just as Rama would say, things that must happen will happen. This was his punishment. Endless suffering without peace.

It was right. It was just.

But he could take it no more. Kratos convinced himself after every violent awakening, that he deserved this.

He deserved to suffer.

But as the days blended into each other, Kratos found himself in a Sisyphean rut - an endless day.

Anger swelled within him. Irritation reigned supreme. Frustration clouded his senses turning him into a mute who simply responded in animalistic grunts and growls.

The villagers made a conscious decision to avoid him, every time he walked through the village - the aura he exuded was suffocating.

As time passed, the frustration, irritation and anger subsided, turning into sloth and apathy. Kratos would remain seated on his mattress through day and night. He ate no longer, and he didn't drink - he didn't feel thirsty or hungry anymore.

His body started to shrivel as it ate away his muscles for sustenance. His beard grew unruly covering the entire lower half of his face, before the black mat started to grey out.

His eyes which were perpetually red with anger, were now red with fatigue.

This was right. This was just. This... could go on no longer.

Kratos uncrossed his legs with great difficulty as he fought against his atrophied muscles and ligaments. He bit through the pain and stood up, his eyes blank yet trained in a single direction. He trudged out of the cottage and moved eastwards, through the shallow shrubbery. He stumbled multiple times, before finally deciding to use a stray wooden stick for support.

Yet the stick couldn't bear his entire weight and shattered within minutes. Luckily he had reached his destination.

The babbling of water as it gushed and crashed against the rocky banks suppressed the cacophony of fauna.

He dragged himself towards the river and let his hand dip into the torrential flow. Even through the unsettled waters, he could see his reflection, and it looked nothing like the man he once was.

He was emaciated, weak, and standing on the brink of death.

He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and rolled over.

With a gentle splash, he threw himself into the river, descending into its depths and letting it carry him away.

This wasn't right. This wasn't just. He was taking the easy way out. But he could take his punishment no longer.

---

Rama looked at the three unlit funeral pyres before him. The bodies laid atop them were that of his father and his two brothers... or what remained of them. His father was missing his head, all that remained was a trampled mess of of crushed bone and brain. His brothers were lacking their extremities. It took a lot of effort to relax their faces from abject fear and agony to the tentative tranquillity it was in right now.

He offered the fire - yajna - before him another serving of clarified butter - ghee - and recited the final verse, "Swahaa..."

Although their bodies were wrecked beyond recognition, he hoped that their souls would find their way to the realm of Lord Yama safely before entering the cycle of reincarnation. It would be unfair to ask them to ascend in peace, but he sincerely hoped so. The dead shouldn't have to carry grudges, that should solely be left to the living who could actually do something to resolve them.

He wrapped a length of cotton cloth around a thick wooden branch dipped it into the ghee pot, and let it ignite by holding it atop the yajna.

Then, he slowly approached the pyres half hesitantly.

At that moment, he saw his mother walk up to his father's pyre, climb it, and sit down cross-legged.

"W-What are you doing?" Rama stuttered.

"I am following my husband to his next life," his mother expressed with a tired drone. Her face looked sunken, the result of her mourning.

"B-But why?" Rama asked in disbelief. "Are you out of your mind?"

"What reason is there for me to live, Rama?" She asked with sincere confusion.

"ME!" He bellowed. "One of your sons still lives!"

"The son who didn't hesitate to take his mother's life wishes that she remain to accompany him?" She responded with a caustic edge in her tone.

"Why do you bring back the past, Mother?" Rama stumbled back in pain. "I was only following father's orders, mother, you know that-"

"You are old enough to form rational opinions now, Rama," she interjected. "Tell me, what kind of a man was your father?"

"He was a devout man of god. A scholar. Excellent in every field-" He listed out of rote memory. The words were supposed to carry pride, but they were sorely lacking in it.

"You parrot his achievements, yet speak little of his character," his mother reiterated. "What kind of a man was your father?"

"He was..."

"Selfish," his mother answered. "Arrogant. Rageful. Prideful. Rama... He wasn't a good man."

Rama wished to retort, but he couldn't find just a reason to refute her claims.

"Just because I got distracted, and let myself indulge in pleasure by watching a couple so deeply in love engage in acts of intimacy, he wished me dead for infidelity?" She reminded. "Does that sound reasonable to you?"

"N-No-"

"And you didn't question him before smiting me... Not once?" She jabbed. Her expression sunk with betrayal.

Rama's father, Jamadagni, was a revered sage, known for his unwavering devotion to the gods and his strict adherence to dharma - duty. His mother, Renuka, was the epitome of grace and virtue, but her one moment of distraction had sealed her fate.

Jamadagni's rage had been swift and merciless. He saw Renuka's innocent gaze as a betrayal, a stain on his honour that could only be cleansed with her blood. Rama, as the dutiful son, had been caught in the crossfire of his parents' conflict. Torn between his love for his mother and his fear of his father's wrath, he had chosen to obey - to fulfil his duty.

The day he struck her down was the day his childhood ended. The weight of his actions had haunted him ever since, a constant reminder of his father's uncompromising nature and his own perceived weakness.

"It was all an illusion, Mother," Rama begged. "Father was only testing us. He would never truly wish you dead."

It was, in the end, just an illusion his father had crafted. Even the scene of the young couple engaging in intimate acts was an illusion. It was all a convoluted test. A test to see if his wife and sons would adhere to dharma. His wife, to maintain her sanctity in marriage towards her husband, and his sons, to obey him without a shadow of a doubt. Rama's mother had failed, as per their father's definition of dharma. And so had Rama's brothers, and they too were forced to fall under his assault for their disobedience, albeit in the illusion.

"You didn't know that," She shrieked. "Look, Rama. I birthed you, and thus I am burdened with the duty to raise you. And raise you, I did. That is where my duty ends. The moment you killed me, illusion or not, you severed the emotional bond that I had for you."

Rama held back his tears as his mother's words dug right into his heart.

That night, his mother had come to him as he lay asleep, her face shadowed in the moonlight. "Always remember, Rama," she had whispered, "Premah Dharmasya Mrtyuh Asti. If you wish to live life following dharma, you must be ready to sacrifice affection and love, because the two cannot exist in the same plane."

"There is nothing left for me here," she stated. "You can ignite the pyre now."

"Mother-"

"You are your father's son, Rama. Selfish. Arrogant. Rageful. Prideful. My words now will do little to affect your character, I know that. The moment you gain self-realisation, it will already be too late. And when you do, I know you will regret everything. A mother's duty is to be patient, caring, and understanding. And as your mother, I forgive you. However, as a person, you will never have my forgiveness."

His mother's final words stung Rama. As he watched the flames consume the pyres, Rama couldn't help but reflect on his mother's words. The rage he felt now was a familiar companion, one that had been with him since that fateful day. It was easier to feel anger than to face the guilt and shame that threatened to overwhelm him.

He remembered the countless times he had tried to justify his actions, to convince himself that he had done the right thing. But deep down, he knew the truth. He had failed his mother. He had failed to protect her, to question his father's judgment, to stand up for what he knew was right.

But he had done his duty to his father. Like his mother had done hers to him. And in performing one's duties, there was often very little wiggle room for questions.

And as he deposited his family's ashes in Ganga, his eyes followed her upstream.

Like his mother, Rama had little to live for now. His family had been excised from this world in one fell swoop. What was he to do? Move on? And let the assailants who'd stolen his world walk the plane unhindered?

He was certain that the cycle of reincarnation was just. They would get their just desserts if not in this life, then the next. But where was the fairness in that? Why must he yield his rightful justice to the apathetic wheels of karma?

There were consequences to every action. But where is the fairness in meting out the consequences of the actions of one life in the subsequent ones, when no wrong had been committed?

Justice is just only if it is immediate, not delayed. And if the world couldn't expedite the serving of said justice, then Rama had to take matters into his own hands.

To seek justice Rama knew that he would have to turn to a higher power. He was far too weak. Insignificant.

He was ready to sacrifice everything to achieve his justice, and he knew that there was only one being powerful enough to grant him the power to realise it.

With resolute steps, Rama followed the river against its current, towards its source.

---

A loud gasp for air followed by incessant sputtering cut through the forest's tranquillity, as Kratos regained consciousness and expelled the water filling up his lungs.

He was certain that he had died, and yet, here he was, alive. And the axe... the cursed tool was perched comfortably in his hand.

He brought it forward and looked at it half in disbelief and half in realisation. He knew that he'd killed Rama back then. Yet he came back alive, as though nothing had happened.

It was the axe, after all.

"Immortality," Kratos said with a derisive chuckle before breaking down into a sarcastic laugh.

As his hysteria settled, Kratos was forced to confront his new reality.

There was no escaping his punishment, not even death.

"But... WHY?!" He bellowed into the heavens. He was certain that this was the machination of some god, it always was.

But who? That was the golden question. And Kratos knew that to answer that question, he would have to ascertain the providence of the axe.

It was at that moment, that Kratos realised something.

"That vision..." Almost every dream of his that revealed a vision to him from Rama's past ended with Rama grasping the axe. Yet the most recent one was different.

"The axe wasn't there."

The vision ended with Rama leaving for an excursion following a river to its source. The same river that Kratos had tried to drown himself in.

Kratos followed the precarious currents of the river as they zig-zagged and snaked through the forest.

He knew that he was grasping at straws, but Kratos was sorely lacking in leads. Even one that was so vague and improbable as simply following a river was akin to a lifeline. Even if it led to nowhere, it would be better than counting away his days in solitude and depression.

Kratos didn't mind being punished. He knew he deserved it. Yet it annoyed him that he was carrying the punishment of another.

So, with resolute strides, Kratos latched the axe against his waist and strode off into the forest with the river as his guide to his final destination... wherever that lay.

 

[juniorsundar]

Hunger was simply a mental construct, Kratos realized. Although he felt it, he didn't have to act on it. The axe, in all its glory, simply wouldn't let him die of hunger. The same could be said for thirst. Or even breathing.

In fact, Kratos could push himself to the absolute limit, to a point where one would teeter on the precipice between life and death, and he would simply remain there until his body deteriorated completely. And the very next moment, once his consciousness returned to him, he would find himself back to his original state.

He didn't experiment with the powers bestowed upon him by the axe consciously. He had just grown tired of having to maintain himself when he evidently didn't need to.

An entire week had passed since he first set out from his home. He trekked day and night without sleep since he didn't need that either. All the while, he kept the flowing Ganges to his right. He followed its winding and widening path tirelessly, of course, because he couldn't grow tired. Tiredness was a mental construct.

Exhaustion would reach its peak before his consciousness would flicker, and he was back to normal all over again.

It was numbing. He didn't have to worry about anything. Nothing could kill him. And any injury inflicted on him would just disappear.

The world around him blurred and grew darker with each passing day. The pleasant sounds of birds, insects, and other creatures turned muffled and blended into the background. All Kratos could hear was the wet sound of his feet sloshing against the dew-laden grass and shrubs.

This was until the ninth day since his departure.

A new sound cracked through the self-imposed monotony. It was different. It didn't sound human, nor did it sound animalistic. It was... monstrous.

A crack, snap, and squelch followed by incessant chomping resonated through the woods, growing louder as Kratos walked towards its source. A maniacal chuckle followed by more squelching, chomping, and cracking continued as whatever was creating the sound relished what Kratos could immediately discern to be its current meal. And by the sound of bones breaking, flesh rending, and saliva being hungrily slurped, he could guess what was happening just beyond the two trees blocking his current path.

See, experience suggested that creatures that make such noises and exhibit a limited extent of sentience tended to veer towards the consumption of bipeds. That is to say. The monster, which was a hefty and hairy beast twice the size of a regular human with horns twice the length of a bull and dirty claws the length of small knives, was eating humans.

A small mound of bones stood between Kratos and the creature, which had its back to him. But then, a rogue gust of wind picked up from behind Kratos, and he tensed his muscles in anticipation, as his scent wafted over the ravenous monster.

Its eyes were bloodshot and hazy, clearly drenched in bloodlust. His face was littered with viscera from its most recent victim, which it unceremoniously threw away before rushing towards Kratos.

Through pure instinct, he reached for the only weapon in his vicinity, the axe, and poised himself in preparation for an evasion.

The creature was large and its movements were greatly telegraphed. Kratos' body transitioned around its attacks effortlessly.

He continued to dodge for an entire two minutes, observing as the attempts grew more frantic and agitated.

Creatures with high sentience, like humans, tend to have a better gauge of their strengths and weaknesses. Most know when it's time to give up or change tactics. Animals are similar. They are quick to judge a disparity in strength and are quick to resort to fight or flight. Things that are in between, though, like this monster... They have the worst of both. They have an excess of ego from high-sentient creatures and an unlimited supply of aggression from their low-sentient counterparts. This makes them dangerous, but also foolhardy.

Case in point, the creature was incapable of judging just when it was outclassed.

Kratos waited for the right time. Which was the exact moment the creature overcommitted to an attack. It did not guard its blindspot. Which was the exact moment he struck. With a heavy slash, the axe embedded itself in the creature's right armpit.

As it recoiled in pain, Kratos doubled down on his attack. He used its knees to propel himself above the creature, and with the momentum gained from gravity, he brought the axe down into its skull.

He anticipated a hit, but the creature was uncharacteristically fast in dodging the strike. However, it did not escape unscathed. It had to sacrifice one of its horns.

But Kratos did not stop there. He strafed forward, ducking under an attack, before hitting its other armpit, and repeating his attack combination. The creature was prepared this time, but so was Kratos, as he feinted by leaping over the monster and positioning himself behind it.

With a roar, he swung the axe into its spine. And as metal struck its flesh, he could hear a muffled crack as the beast crumbled on all fours. He then spun forward and swept the axe in an upward motion, letting it cleanly cut off the beast's head from its body.

And as the headless creature collapsed into the ground, spurting out deep red bloom from its empty neck, Kratos could suddenly feel a dangerous urge coursing through him.

It radiated throughout his body before emanating out of his pores, leaving him cold. But it did not cease. The sensation repeated again, burgeoning, starting from his arm. The very arm that was grasping the axe.

It was thirsty. It did not convey that explicitly, but Kratos could feel it. The inanimate weapon evoked the same emotion as a parched beast suddenly gifted with a drop of water, even if it was salty or contaminated. And it didn't take much mental arithmetic to discern what it was thirsty for, because the pulsing sensation only grew more vigorous and "loud". So much so that it had turned into a call.

A call for violence.

Kratos' senses captured movement in the tree line. Heavy and inhuman trampling was approaching him rapidly from all directions. Some were short and frantic, others heavy and booming literally causing the ground to vibrate.

His grasp on the axe grew tighter.

A question flashed past his mind, "Why am I fighting?"

It was an interesting probe of his psyche. Leading up to this point Kratos cared little for his state. Since no matter what he did, he would remain unaffected. And yet, here he was, preparing for combat.

What was the point?

Unfortunately, Kratos did not have the opportunity to dwell on that. Because the moment the tree right beside him burst into splinters and a tar-skinned monstrosity with six arms and two legs barrelled through, the axe's call grew as loud as a blaring horn, and his consciousness blacked out.

---

Are Rakshasas born or are they made?

What are Rakshasas? Beings of magic with illusory powers, often indulging in the basest of instincts and devolving into beasts. Creatures that revel in chaos and bloodshed. Beings with an endless desire to kill and consume humans.

That was the most common depiction of Rakshasas.

But where did they come from? Were they born, off of the womb of other Rakshasas, or where were they made - were they once human and were turned through some curse or overindulgence?

Bhairava had asked this question to many learned men, and each had given him a different answer - none agreed with each other. As a man of action and results, he preferred to hear the answer straight from the horse's mouth. But of course, he could not go and ask a Rakshasa now, could he?

"Captain, with all due respect. Do we need to continue wasting time asking these scholars such inane questions?" Ravi, his right-hand man complained as the duo exited the ashram. "You do realise they're probably mocking us behind our backs the moment we leave."

"To know the enemy is half the battle, my friend," Bhairava responded while mounting his horse. It fussed as he found perch on the saddle, but chuffed in acquiescence nonetheless. A grumpy softy, that was its character after all.

"The King has entrusted me with this task. It is the first time I am bearing his confidence. I cannot afford to fail, Ravi," Bhairava reminded.

"I know," Ravi said with an understanding wave. "But all reports state that it's the usual flying kind. We have enough nets and archers to ensnare the thing. Once it's grounded, it will be as easy as stealing laddoo from a child."

"There is no loss in being prudent," Bhairava retorted.

"I'd say the lost time is pretty valuable," Ravi grumbled. "I struggle to understand your line of questioning. First off, what is there to gain from knowing the origins of Rakshasas? They are dangerous. They like to kill and wreak havoc. I mean... is there anything more to know? Besides, we haven't learned anything new. What these so-called 'learned men' claim to be the origin of Rakshasas is nothing but hearsay. There are no written texts investigating this matter."

"Maybe you're right," Bhairava said as he urged his horse to pick up its pace. "Maybe I was just satisfying a latent curiosity of mine."

"There will be time to pursue our interests after the damn monster is slain!" Ravi yelled from behind, as his voice was drowned out by the rhythmic clopping of horse hooves against the hard ground.

In that, Ravi wasn't wrong. Bhairava hated to admit it, but his quest to learn more about his enemy had yielded poor results.

He was no closer to understanding the origins of Rakshasas than before he'd begun.

But that was the thing. Unlike humans, Rakshasas couldn't really be classified into buckets. There was no race, no caste, nor was there a commonality that bound Rakshasas together. Each one was different from the last.

For instance, there had been records of Rakshasas with the powers of flight in the Kingdom's libraries. But each exhibited the power through different mediums. Some had wings, some could walk on air, and some just emulated flight through illusion.

So although Ravi moved on with confidence, Bhairava could not shake away the foreboding sensation that things would not turn out to be so trivial.

---

And as it turned out, Bhairava's intuition proved correct. As he held Ravi's decapitated head in his arms and beheld the abject massacre strewn around him, Bhairava thought back to where things had started to go wrong.

Maybe right from the start? For one, he was definitely asking the wrong questions.

His late father had a saying. "There's no point trying to prepare for a cliff far away if you can't even see the pit right under your nose."

What reason did Bhairava have to try and understand the entirety of Rakshasa-kind? Would he have gained any advantage from learning of their origins? Evidently not, because he'd missed the metaphorical pit.

The flying Rakshasa didn't fly. While it navigated in three dimensions seamlessly like a flying creature, and while its three pairs of arms interwove and moved around fluidly as wings would, it wasn't actually flying.

For a layman, the creature would appear to fly. But for a warrior such as Bhairava, whose senses had been attuned to notice even the most minute of details in the thick of battle, he could clearly see fine strings glinting in the midday sun's rays crisscrossing all across the treeline forming a crude yet dangerous web.

The creature was skittering from one end to the other atop these razor-sharp strands like some monstrous spider, though its rotund, tar-black form and grotesque appearance with canine sprouting out and a pair of horns was as far from an arachnoid as one could be.

The moment his retinue arrived at the supposed haunt, Bhairava realised that they'd been misinformed. Before the archers could get ready, a fine thread shot out of the treeline and went taut, before immediately wrapping around causing everyone and everything in the trajectory of the thread to get cleft in two. The thread was razor sharp, even more so than his sword, and it cut through flesh and bone like a hot knife through ghee.

Had he not leapt off of his horse in time, he would have lost his legs.

Before they could retaliate, a second string shot out and now the two threads swept in opposite directions. Bhairava barely made it by diving between the narrow gap between the sweeping attacks. But this was the end of his retinue. The last attack had beheaded Ravi who had leapt off his steed with Bhairava, but alas his friend wasn't as agile as he was.

And now, as Bhairava stared down into the abyssal eyes of the beast approaching him, as it effortlessly swatted away a large tree like it was made of cotton. He could do nothing but blame himself.

It was his fault for trusting the reports and descriptions of peasants scared out of their wits. He blamed himself for not conducting a more thorough investigation. He blamed himself for not listening to Ravi and spending his preparation time more fruitfully. He blamed himself for not scouting the area and gathering information first before confronting the monster. He blamed himself for not coordinating the attack more actively.

Had he done his proper due diligence, he would known better than to fight the monster in its home ground, a forest. He could have lured it into the plains, leaving it less likely to gain vertical advantage. But hindsight is often filled with regrets.

The ground rumbled as the monster walked up to him, its lips split into a grin and its tongue danced across it hungrily. It brought its first two palms together and pinched the index finger and thumb. As it pulled them apart, a fine glimmering string connected them.

As he prepared for his eventual demise, something strange happened. The Rakshasa visibly shuddered and looked away, into the distance. It then crouched, and with an earth-shaking leap, disappeared into the treeline.

Bhairava's eyes followed the monster, and he estimated its trajectory. He physically stopped himself from letting out a breath of relief, he did not deserve that. There was no return from such a dishonourable confrontation. He would either die today, or the Rakshasa would.

With renewed resolve and eyes blank, ready for death's welcoming embrace, he picked up his sword and followed the monster on foot. He could barely keep up with it, but his senses could follow the rumbling and rustling of the trees, as well as the residual strings that marred the monster's path.

His sprint continued for many minutes before something confusing jumbled up his sense of direction. Multiple movements started to resonate from all around him. Footfalls, hoofbeats and wingbeats of many kinds, weights and sounds started to overlap and drown out the trace of the eight-limbed Rakshasa he had been following. But Bhairava quickly realised that all these entities were moving in the same direction - they were converging.

With his trained senses, Bhairava quickly deduced that these entities weren't of human or animal origin. They were definitely more Rakshasas, and they were all converging into one location where someone or something was attracting them.

Fear did pass over his consciousness, but it was quickly pushed down. This did not change his objective. He would either die today, or that monster would. Regardless, his destination remained unchanged and his feet carried him onwards.

As he approached the epicentre of the congregating entities, Bhairava's senses picked up the sound of conflict. He could hear the familiar, inhuman bleats, roars, screeches and yelps of Rakshasas interwoven with the sound of bones breaking, flesh tearing, trees cracking, ground shaking-

"RAAAAGH!"

A human's rage-filled yell cut through everything, and Bhairava managed to leap out of the way just in time as a large object hurtled in his direction. He peeked out of the bush he dove into and saw the same Rakshasa that he'd chased all the way here, but there was a stark difference in its appearance compared to what it was earlier. It had two fewer arms and its primary right arm was fastened onto a tree with an unassuming axe.

It tried to extricate itself, but its arm looked like it was clued into the bark, the axe wasn't budging. It growled in pain and anger before its eyes flashed with a dangerous resolve. Then with an unbelievable wave of its free arm, it released a razor-sharp wire and cut off its other arm. Its gaze darted back to where it came flying from and rushed back into the fray.

Bhairava waited for a beat before approaching the dismembered arm that was still stuck against the tree by the axe. He then followed the movement of the Rakshasa and rushed after it. He wove through the treeline, most of which had been demolished to kingdom come due to what could be described as a small war. And it wasn't just nature that was in disarray, because he could see bodies of other Rakshasas, big and small, strewn left and right, some intact and others in multiple pieces. Each and every single one of them had met a gruesome demise, either by being cleft into pieces by an axe or being literally torn apart.

What could cause such damage? Bhairava wondered half in awe and with the other half quivering in anxiety and fear.

The sound of fighting grew loudest, and as he peeked past a tree he noticed an even greater scene of carnage. There stood a man drenched head-to-toe in viscera and blood, some his and others of his victims, holding a Rakshasa with both arms dislocated by its jaw. His right hand held the beast's lower jaw, its serrated teeth cutting into his fingers and stripping them of their flesh, and his left pryed apart the upper jaw suffering the same damage in the process.

The Rakshasa groaned in pain, and the man in turn yelled out with the rage of a thousand rampaging bulls as he pulled apart literally tearing the creature in two from head to toe.

Suddenly, the man's head turned and two bloodshot and blood-soaked eyes looked straight through Bhairava. His body froze and his feet went limp. He collapsed as he instinctively took a step back. Right in time too, as a bouquet of razer sharp wires burst past where his head would have been.

The man raised his right arm and the cables wound themselves around his forearm. And as they tightened, they tore away all flesh on his arms, revealing his bones. The man did not flinch in pain, instead, he yanked his tethered arm, pulling the Rakshasa from its perch in the trees. He then pulled the struggling beast towards him before wrapping the same wires around its neck.

The Rakshasa thrashed and flailed. Its free arm reached over its head and grabbed the man's face, digging into his eyes with its nails.

And again, the man did not flinch. Instead, he did the unthinkable. He dragged the thrashing monster with him towards the babbling river and descended into the raging currents with the monster.

Bhairava quickly collected himself and rushed towards the river bank. He looked on as a torrent of bubbles rose from the river bed, and the water grew redder by the second. He couldn't see the struggle taking place underwater, but he could fathom it. And it did not feel pleasant at all.

As the bubbles petered off and disappeared, he got down to his knees and let out a long and heartfelt prayer.

"Oh, great warrior clad in blood. For your noble sacrifice, may you find prosperity and peace in your next life."

Just as he was about to speak the subsequent verses, his senses caught the sound of metal striking against wood and cutting through the air, approaching him. Once again, he dodged out of the way as he noticed an axe hurtling past him and jetting into the river.

He barely had time to rub his eyes to clear his doubts before a body leapt out of the river and landed against its banks.

He could match the form of the body to the man that he thought had sacrificed himself. But he appeared very much alive, and unharmed. What struck him as interesting was the completely pale and ashen skin, only highlighted by two red circles - probably birthmarks - that bisected his torso and bald head.

Bhairava assumed that the man was a devout follower of Shiva, as they often garbed themselves in animal hide and coated themselves thoroughly in ash. Although, this man's coating had survived a bath in the river. Maybe it was something he'd injected under his skin? Those sanyasis tended to be eccentric; maybe it was one of the concoctions of their cannabis-addled minds to grow closer to the very deity they worshipped. Then again, the man's build and appearance apart from his ashen skin did not match Bhairava's knowledge of a sanyasi. His frame was that of a seasoned warrior, with musculature unlike someone living off of the earth and vegetables. Furthermore, the man was completely bald, where he should have had long, matted and unkempt hair.

And if that wasn't enough, no Brahmin in their right mind would raise arms against anyone, or anything. And with a single glance over his shoulder, Bhairava cleansed his theory once over.

This was no ordinary man. The raw power he exhibited was unfathomable!

Bhairava's gaze scanned the sputtering man and landed on the unassuming axe that had pinned down a Rakshasa so unwaveringly that the monster saw it fit to dismember itself.

He wasn't a fool. He was certain that this axe was a divine weapon. And a wielder of a divine weapon could not be a mere mortal. Case in point, the man had literally survived being gouged, eviscerated, and drowned, and came out unscathed.

Once his mind processed all this information at light speed, he immediately collapsed to his knees and prostrated before the man.

"What are you doing?" A gravelly voice inquired with an accentuated grunt.

"Oh, great ashen-skinned warrior!" Bhairava expressed with a heavy stutter. "Please forgive me for not recognising your Excellence's identity."

There was silence, but Bhairava could hear movement, and yet he dared not look up.

"P-Pardon me-" He peeked and was shocked to see the man walking away. "W-Wait!"

He leapt onto his feet and quickly covered the distance, blocking the man's path.

"What I want to say is thank you!" Bhairva said hurriedly. "Thank you for killing that Rakshasa."

"Rakshasa?" The man responded with furrowed brows. His expression implied unfamiliarity with that work.

"Umm, the beings you just killed. Their species- They're called Rakshasas," Bhairava explained.

"What does it mean?" He asked again. "Monsters?"

"You could say that," Bhairava said with a light shake of his head in uncertainty.

"Where do they come from?" He followed up, to which Bhairava burst into cynical laughter. He quickly calmed himself down and said, "I frankly don't know. And trust me, I've asked around a lot."

The man let out a disdainful growl and walked around Bhairava.

"W-Warrior, wait!" Bhairava once again ran past the man and blocked his way.

"What do you want?" The man snapped, causing Bhairava to flinch instinctively.

"I..." Bhairava swallowed a dry mouthful of air as the man approached him with an incisive gaze that cut through his soul.

"Do not block my way again," the man warned before continuing his journey.

"C-Could you at least, please share your name?!" Bhairava yelled at the man's departing figure. But he received no response. The man disappeared along with Ganga as she snaked through the shrubbery.

 

[juniorsundar]

Early chapter because I will be on vacation next week

---

The axe craved violence. It revelled in it. As Kratos followed the river upstream, he tried to pry into his memories to unearth his mental state during his rampage earlier.

All was well until the axe tasted its first drop of blood. After that, it was like it had a life of its own. It radiated bloodlust, so much so that it incited entities predilected to violence in its vicinity into a frenzy. To top it all off, it even clouded his consciousness, sending him into a trance-like state that revelled in the bloodshed, where his body moved through pure instinct. He was only freed from this trance when he drowned and revived.

Kratos looked at the axe with a tinge of fear and great frustration. Just as he'd rid himself of one weapon that messed with his mind, he was foisted with another that was equally taxing. The axe stimulated his innate bloodlust, and if Kratos decided to give into the state completely and provide positive feedback back into the weapon, it would probably reveal a greater portion of its power.

But Kratos had no desire to go down that path. As a warrior by blood, he believed firmly that weapons were merely tools to realize the wielder's will. That had been his training from the start.

That being said, the irony wasn't lost on him that for the greater portion of his life, he'd wielded the horrible Blades of Chaos. While they were a symbol of his bondage to Ares and the Gods of Olympus, they were also his de facto weapons of choice. The blades would kindle Kratos' rage and be equally augmented with the rage he fed back into it in a sort of grotesque symbiosis. Very much like the axe.

During his quest for vengeance, Kratos had cared little for the consequences of using the blades. He just wanted results, and the Blade of Chaos were notoriously effective in materialising those results. Now, with hindsight, he could see the cost more clearly. After learning from his mistakes, Kratos resolved to listen to his overseer's teachings from his childhood and denounce any weapon that overpowered his psyche, depriving him of clarity and sense.

Yet, the axe was now tethered to him.

As he ripped apart the jaws of a tiger that had attacked him and shattered its skull, he glanced at the axe embedded in a tree on the far side of the clearing. It called to him. It sensed the carnage and yearned to partake in it. But it was a slippery slope, one he would descend deeper into if he kept succumbing to its siren call.

After rinsing his bloodstained hands in the river, he caught his reflection in the swirling waters.

It perfectly reflected his state of mind - unsettled. Spartans were trained to have a clear mind from birth. Their only duty was to follow orders; thinking was reserved for those above them. Until they reached the rank where decisions were required, obedience was all that mattered.

Kratos' brows furrowed as he jerked his head up, listening intently. The river's babble and the chirping of crickets and birds surrounded him. But beyond that, there was a voice. Faint, human, coming from somewhere - or everywhere. It was a whisper, barely audible but echoing in every direction, making its source elusive.

...

..

.

It vanished.

He growled low in his throat and approached the tiger's corpse. Drawing a knife from the pouch at his waist, he began to skin the beast. This land was teeming with creatures he had never encountered. The tiger was one of them - a predator with the strength of a lion, the cunning of a wolf, and the ferocity of both combined.

The water buffalo was another - outwardly nonchalant, with skin as dark as the river Styx. Its peaceful demeanour belied the brutal force it wielded when provoked. Kratos had witnessed a herd trample a pack of wolves into pulp. The peasants had, fortunately, found a way to tame them.

It was odd how a seemingly gentle herbivore could be capable of such violence.

His mind recollected Rama - the herbivore - and contrasted him against the same Rama from his axe-induced nightmares. And then it all made sense.

Everyone is capable of violence. It lies dormant within their animal nature, barely restrained by the thin veneer of civilization. For most, all it takes is a gentle nudge for that facade to crumble. For others, more force is needed. But in the end, violence always prevails.

Kratos lit a fire and methodically treated the tiger's hide. His deer hide garments had been reduced to tatters from his recent battles, and the tiger's pelt would make a worthy replacement. Perhaps it would also send a clear message to potential threats.

And as he let the hide dry itself before the fire, Kratos fought against his fleeting consciousness as sleep attempted to embrace him.

Kratos snapped awake at the sound of a voice. The whisper had returned, faint and omnipresent, echoing from all directions. His head swivelled, searching, but once again-

...

..

.

It vanished.

---

Water is the bedrock of any civilisation. Water gives life, water sustains life. Without water, there cannot be life.

This fact held true even here. Wherever the river flowed through, Kratos could see life flourishing. Villages, towns, and even large cities flourished around the river. It cut through forests, plains and hills, leaving vibrant life in its wake. But what astonished Kratos was that the river was the pathway into the afterlife for the people in this world. Upon death, the corpse is burned and the ash is deposited into the river amidst prayers.

It was off - the same entity that bestows life and is celebrated for it is the same entity that shuttles the dead away.

His trip that veered northwards brought him to a large city.

From a distance, it emerged as a shimmering jewel with the river cutting through it. It was surrounded by tall, ancient stone walls, that appeared weathered by time yet radiated a sense of sacred protection.

As he approached the city, its walls seemed to rise out of the earth itself. The surface was adorned with intricate carvings of deities, celestial beings, sacred animals, and many more that Kratos could not recognise. They were so well-detailed, and he was so deeply engrossed in them, that he completely overlooked the long throngs of people waiting in line to enter through its gates.

Above the walls, spires of towering temples pierced the sky. With their golden tips glinting in the sunlight and casting a warm yet solemn glow. The echoing, harmonious bellows of the temple bells augmented the atmosphere bringing with it a sense of serenity that grew in strength the closer he approached.

"Toll-" The guard droned in boredom while adjusting his helmet, pulling Kratos out of his calm stupor.

"I wish to pass through," Kratos responded blankly.

"Okay... Toll?"

"I said-"

"You still need to enter if you wish to pass through," the guard clarified. "Look, you are free to go around if you don't want to pay. But the entry is tolled. Everyone must pay."

As he said this, he gestured beyond Kratos towards the massive line that led into the walled city. Kratos followed the city's boundary with his eyes, and it disappeared into the horizon. He estimated that a detour would waylay him by a day or two at least.

"Fine," he acquiesced with a growl. "How much?"

The guard raised two digits, and Kratos in turn furnished him with two cowrie shells.

"Thank you. Welcome to Kashi," the man responded while moving aside and letting Kratos through. "I pray that you find peace."

And Kratos was certain that he meant it.

The moment Kratos stepped into the city, he was overwhelmed by an aura of solemnity that hung thick in the air. The scent of incense permeated every corner, drifting unseen from hidden recesses of the city. Even the gentle bubbling of the nearby river could be heard over the monotonous hum of the bustling crowd—thousands of people navigating the winding streets. The chorus of merchants hawking their wares—flowers, oil lamps, powdered ash, and more—blended with the sharp chants of priests, their prayers resonating like a constant drone through the air.

This was clearly a place of pilgrimage, Kratos deduced from the reverence in the behaviour and hushed conversations of the people passing by. They were undoubtedly here to pay homage to their gods.

"Begging for forgiveness from beings who care nothing for their suffering," Kratos thought with a sneer. "Weak-"

"It's not weakness to seek forgiveness," a voice interrupted from behind him. Kratos spun around to face a short man, whose height barely reached his chest. The man had long, matted hair, and a gaunt frame, and his entire body was smeared with white ash.

Kratos narrowed his eyes, suspicious, and immediately cleared his mind of all thoughts.

"I'm not reading your mind," the man remarked, his voice laced with knowing. "I can recognize a sceptic just by looking at one. Though I must say, it's rather unusual to see a Shiva-Bhakta harbouring doubt."

"Bhakta?" Kratos echoed, searching his memory for the word. "I am not some sycophant who bends the knee to a god that couldn't care less about the mortals beneath him."

"You say that, yet you cover yourself in ash—" The man reached out, rubbing his fingers along Kratos' triceps, before recoiling in surprise. "Wait, that's your actual skin? Incredible!"

With a growl, Kratos yanked his arm away and stormed off into the heaving mass of people. At that very moment, a loud bell tolled throughout the city, its deep reverberations cutting through the noise.

The crowd froze as still as statues in unison. Then, as if propelled by a single force, they all began to move in one direction, flowing like the current of a mighty river. Unfortunately for Kratos, he was caught too deeply within the throng to escape.

The collective movement was so powerful that it nearly lifted him off his feet, dragging him forward in a relentless surge. He fought to resist, but the press of bodies was overwhelming. His only option was to force his way out, though he wasn't sure he could do so without causing a scene—and perhaps casualties.

Reluctantly, he allowed himself to be swept along in the tide, which flowed inexorably toward the heart of the city.

As they moved closer to the centre, the smell of incense grew stronger, the monotonous drone of the crowd louder. Kratos noticed that people were converging from every corner of the sprawling metropolis, their paths merging into one. And it wasn't long before he realized exactly where they were all headed.

His eyes were drawn to a colossal structure that gradually emerged from the haze of incense and dust. Towering over the surrounding buildings, its imposing silhouette appeared grand. At a distance, the temple's spires glistened, gilded with gold that caught the light of the sun, sending shimmering reflections across the vast expanse of the city. Each spire soared higher than the last, culminating in a central dome that pierced the sky.

The temple was vast, far larger than any structure Kratos had encountered. After all, if it was supposed to house all these people at once, it HAD to be big enough. Its foundation stretched for what seemed like kilometres, sprawling in all directions, carved from a single massive slab of gleaming white marble that glowed in the golden light of the day. The walls were intricately etched with carvings and statues of various figures both human and inhuman, celestial and Hades-spawned, their expressions frozen in time yet exuding an aura of lividity. The base of the temple was adorned with massive stone elephants, standing guard, their trunks raised.

A grand staircase, flanked by tall pillars that reached higher than the tallest trees, led up to the main entrance. Each step was wide enough to allow dozens to walk abreast, yet there was a certain reverence in the way people approached, their footsteps slowing as they neared the sacred structure. The pillars were colossal, each one carved with impossibly detailed stories, their surfaces alive with the rich history of a world which had lasted for innumerable years. Hanging from the arches between these pillars were enormous bells, made from shimmering brass, their deep, resonant tones audible even over the collective drone of the shuffling throng.

As Kratos was pulled closer, he noticed the walls adorned with murals, each so vivid that they appeared to move in the flickering light of the ever-burning lamps. The stone itself seemed to pulse with ancient energy as if the temple was not merely built by mortals but had been raised by the hands of gods themselves. The air around the structure was thick with the scent of sandalwood and flowers, adding to the heady mixture of incense that came from everywhere and nowhere all at once.

This place was special - filled with magic augmented by the collective belief of a population that could dwarf Greece's.

Above, the central spire soared impossibly high, tapering into a gleaming golden finial that shimmered like a distant star. Around it, smaller shrines clustered in perfect symmetry, orbiting the grand temple as though they were planets caught in the gravity of a divine sun. Each shrine, dedicated to a different deity, was adorned with relics, treasures, and carvings of such exquisite detail that they seemed to radiate a life of their own. The scale of the temple was overwhelming, its towering archways leading into chambers that seemed to stretch on forever.

The final archway led into a cavernous hall, where the unrelenting rush of the crowd slowed, their frenetic energy dissolving into a collective calm. A deep sense of reverence fell over the room as the swarm of bodies came to a standstill, each person falling into place like a piece of a grand puzzle.

The chamber was so vast that the ceiling disappeared into shadows above, unreachable, unknowable. Circular balconies spiralled upward, clinging to the walls like the ribs of some great creature, rising in unending loops toward unseen heights. At precise intervals along these balconies stood priests, draped in plain, sandal-hued robes, each cradling a metal vessel. Their faces were serene, eyes closed in solemn prayer as they remained on the edge of the precipice, their presence ethereal, almost ghostly. The faint clinking of metal echoed in the stillness as if the air itself carried their whispered invocations.

The architecture, the priests, the people - they all faded into the background as mere peripherals in the presence of the temple's core. Towering nearly thirty meters into the air, a smooth, void-black stone stood like a monolith, dominating the space. It was an object that defied understanding. The stone seemed to absorb light, drawing all focus toward its inky, unfathomable surface. It was not just massive; it was magnetic, like a spiritual force that transcended the physical world.

No matter where he looked, the monolith called him back by pulling his thoughts toward it. He felt it deep within his bones, in the core of his being - a resonance that echoed through him and, disturbingly, through the axe strapped to his back. The weapon trembled slightly, as if alive with a strange excitement and a sense of recognition.

Kratos frowned, his hand instinctively reaching for the axe, but before he could explore the sensation, a loud gong sounded through the chamber. The deep, sonorous tone reverberated through the stone walls, and the chant of "Om Namah Shivaya" rose from the balconies above, layering in deep, resonant tones. In an instant, everything stopped.

Kratos stiffened, his warrior instincts heightened and his senses were on full alert. He glanced upward just in time to see a droplet of liquid land on his forehead. He saw a torrent of milk cascading down the sides of the black monolith. Priests standing on the balconies above poured vast quantities of the white liquid from metal vessels, drenching the stone structure.

But even with the nigh uncountable horde of priests showering the structure with milk, there just wasn't enough to drown the void-black surface with the off-white blanket of the liquid. What did make its way to the base of the structure was then directed through rock channels, allowing the crowd to dip their palm into the stream and take a sip.

As soon as the liquid touched their mouths their expressions went slack. Their eyes clouded over as they fell into a trance-like state and prostrated themselves before the monolith.

Kratos' eyes narrowed. There was something in the milk, something that affected the crowd. Yet no matter how hard he focused, his keen senses detected nothing unusual about the liquid.

And then he saw it.

The monolith moved.

Three-quarters of the way up the structure there were three thick horizontal lines of ash drawn across the black surface. They were bisected by a sharp crimson slash of powder as vibrant as fresh blood. Kratos stared in disbelief as the monolith shifted. The crimson line quivered, splitting further until it resembled an eye - a single, blood-red eye that seemed to pierce through the very fabric of reality.

The eye locked onto Kratos.

A force slammed into him, unseen but palpable, driving him to his knees. The oppressive weight bore down on him, and his muscles screamed in protest as he fought to remain upright. His gaze never left the crimson eye, and he met its malevolent stare with one of his own. The stone structure seemed to grow angry, seemingly affronted by Kratos' defiance.

The pressure increased, the ground beneath him cracking under the strain. His body trembled with the effort to resist, but he refused to yield. And then, as suddenly as it had come, the weight lifted. The eye flicked away, but in its wake, a new sensation overtook Kratos - an unbearable itch, as if his skin were on fire.

Every inch of his flesh burned with an insatiable itch that no amount of scratching could soothe. It was maddening, a torment unlike anything Kratos had ever experienced. He gritted his teeth, fighting the overwhelming urge to claw at his own skin.

The crowd began to move again and converged once more, leaving Kratos no room to breathe, let alone escape. Desperate to calm the itch, he shoved his way through the throng, pushing bodies aside as he fought his way to the nearest exit.

When at last he broke free of the mass of humanity, he found himself in an unfamiliar part of the city. The temple loomed ominously behind him. He gasped for air, still battling the maddening itch crawling all over him. His breath came in ragged gasps, each one feeling like fire burning through his lungs. He clawed at his skin desperately to rid himself of the unbearable sensation.

"You looked Him in the eye didn't you?" A familiar voice spoke up from behind. Kratos didn't need to look to know that it was that it was the vagabond-like man he'd met after entering the city. "I should've warned you. But you should rejoice, He has taken an interest in you and is prepared to absolve you of your sins."

"W-What-"

Kratos felt his arm being grabbed and pulled. The man led him down the stairs which descended into the river itself.

"Relax, and let Her take you the rest of the way."

The man didn't deign to explain any further before shoving Kratos into the still river.

---

Kratos was no stranger to drowning; it was a feeling he'd unfortunately grown familiar with. Yet, though he found himself submerged in an endless deluge, he wasn't drowning.

His vision was clear, but the waters were not. A thick, viscous fog hung all around, blurring what lay beyond. And something did lay beyond, as he could see a shadow moving.

Humans weren't meant to swim; water wasn't their intended habitat. Besides, the waters are treacherous, hiding secrets—secrets beyond human comprehension. Such uncertainty breeds doubt, and doubt, over time, gives way to fear.

But Kratos was not afraid. Spartans have fear drilled out of them from a young age. Years of abuse and indoctrination numbed away that emotion. Spartans rely on those above them to tell them what to feel, trusting that their superiors have experienced similar things and know the appropriate reaction.

But what if there are no superiors? What if there's no one telling you what to feel or do?

Spartans aren't trained to be independent thinkers.

In the face of unpredicted adversity, they revert to their basest instinct: fight or flight.

That was Kratos's operational philosophy. Yet in this case, he had no idea what he was fighting. The water? Or the shadowy creature circling him suspiciously?

Suspicion deepened as the shadow became clearer with its approach. It bore the eerie form of a woman.

Sirens!

"I'm not like those creatures you're thinking of," a melodious voice invaded his thoughts. The sound echoed everywhere. "I should be insulted, but I'll let it slide."

Suddenly, the shadow jerked, and in an instant, the creature crossed the distance. Kratos found himself face-to-face with a woman—not entirely human. She seemed made of water, her edges undulating against the current, resembling a viscous ghost.

"I'm not a ghost either," she sighed, shaking her head in mock disappointment.

By instinct, Kratos flooded his mind with white noise.

The entity seemed to sigh, placing her right thumb on his forehead. Instantly, Kratos felt his body grow lighter - far lighter than one already submerged. It was as though he was being unburdened.

And at the height of this release, he noticed something shocking: the ash embedded in his skin was dissipating, revealing his natural pink hue.

Kratos froze. It had been years since he'd seen his natural skin colour. Yet he had barely a moment before the feeling ceased abruptly.

"Oh-" the voice muttered as the ash dispersed into the water, then rushed back into his skin.

"You are repenting, but not seeking forgiveness. How strange…" she commented. "Instead, you adamantly carry your sins upon your skin."

What did she mean? Why would he want to keep the cursed ash on his body?!

"It's not about what this wants—" she tapped his forehead, "It's about what this wants—" she pressed her palm to his chest.

"I'm sorry, I cannot help you if you don't want it," she shrugged. Then, with a wave of her hand, Kratos was pulled through a turbulent vortex before he lost consciousness.

Only for a moment, though, as he suddenly felt his lungs flood with water. He coughed violently, expelling water from his mouth and nose.

As his vision cleared, he realized a crowd had gathered. At first, it was a single ash-covered man in ragged garb, but now he was surrounded by a horde.

"He saw her!" one of the men whispered reverently. The man who'd tossed Kratos into the river squatted and grabbed his hands.

"What did she look like?" he asked frantically, his eyes wild. "Tell me everything."

Kratos shot him a confused, irritated look as he tried to pull free, still sputtering water.

"Ganga Ma! You saw her! We know you did! What did she look like?" he bellowed, shoving his face into Kratos's.

Still fighting for breath, Kratos reacted instinctively and headbutted him. A crack echoed, silencing the crowd as the man fell back, blood seeping from his crooked nose.

Without hesitation, Kratos leapt up and hobbled away.

The crowd parted, forming a passage for him to escape the river's edge.

Once far enough, he turned into a narrow alley and collapsed, inspecting his skin for any sign of change. He felt a strange mix of relief and disappointment upon confirming it was still covered in ash.

Was it all a vision? A manifestation of a water-addled mind? And what did she mean by "not seeking forgiveness"?

Kratos knew there were only two ways to find answers: look within or look without.

He wasn't built for introspection. That wasn't how he'd been trained. Spartans don't question - they act. So his only option was to dive back into the waters and confront the spirit.

Sometimes, the solution to a problem is a straight line. Drowning wasn't a concern. Even if he failed, he would try again and again.

And so he did, for a week until city guards evicted him for "desecrating the holy site by attempting suicide." Kratos lacked the patience to explain he couldn't die even if he wanted to. But the spirit never reappeared, no matter how often he tried.

He even revisited the temple, defiantly facing the rock's eye, but the fiery sensation never returned.

After a week, Kratos concluded his efforts were a bust. It was time to abandon this detour and return to his journey.

---

The river, once flowing crystal-clear and jubilant, had abruptly turned a deathly crimson. A faint smell of iron - blood - tainted the air.

Kratos narrowed his gaze, following the bloodied river downstream, his eyes fixed on the plains over two kilometres away. There, amidst a mountain of armoured corpses - humans, horses, and elephants alike - sat a giant creature. Its skin was as red as blood, its nails as long as scimitars, and its horns as thick and twisted as tree branches.

All around it lay a wasteland - a remnant of a long-drawn and epic battle. A battle that had finished a while back. Smaller creatures of similar appearance roamed the battlefield dragging corpses towards the growing mountain. Making it easier for the larger creature to consume.

And the larger creature could care less for what its palms grasped, be it a dead carcass or even its smaller brethren. Each and every single piece of flesh found its way into its gaping maw indiscriminately.

The creature tossed a severed arm into its mouth, chomping down greedily. Then, as if sensing him, its gaze jerked towards Kratos.

Its grin widened, saliva mingling with the blood of its prey as it dripped from its maw.

With a sudden burst, it stood and broke into a sprint.