The sun hung low over the Kalindi Valley, a swollen orb of bruised violet and copper. It cast long, distorted shadows across a landscape that had, only hours before, been a theater of divine slaughter. The day's warmth was receding, replaced by a rising, artificial heat—the collective breath of a hundred funeral pyres.
The open field in front of the village turned into a valley of Ash.
The air was a thick, suffocating braid of scents. The clean, sharp ozone of Deva lightning and the sulfurous rot of Asura remains had vanished, overwritten by the heavy perfume of sandalwood and the acrid, oily smoke of burning wool.
Along the riverbank, the pyres stood in disciplined rows, a grim architecture of wood and grief that stretched into the thickening mist.
At the center of the clearing stood the largest structure, crafted from the pale, dense heartwood of the temple's sacred groves. Upon it lay Verman. His battered armor had been stripped, replaced by simple white linen, his face and eyes completely submerged beneath a mound of fresh rose petals and marigolds. Only the firm set of his jaw remained visible, a final testament to the man's stoicism.
Arjun stood at the pyre's base. He felt the weight of the ceremonial torch—a branch of resin-soaked pine—vibrating against his palm. His skin was tight with dried salt and woodsmoke, his eyes bloodshot but fixed. Behind him, the survivors of the village formed a silent semi-circle. Smita and Gopi stood closest, their frames slumped, drained of the energy required for outward mourning. They were beyond tears now, existing in that hollow space where the mind refuses to acknowledge the scale of its loss.
The Final Rite started.
"Let the fire return what was borrowed from the earth," The priest said calmly, standing in front of the villagers serving as the leading priest for the last rite of funerals.
Arjun listening him lowered the torch. The seasoned wood caught instantly. The fire did not merely burn; it surged, a wall of gold and orange that hissed as it consumed the floral offerings. He did not flinch from the sudden, blistering heat that singed his eyebrows. He watched with a detached, clinical intensity as the flames climbed.
As the wood collapsed inward, the physical form of Verman began to transition. Tiny, incandescent particles of ash caught the updraft, swirling into the darkening sky like a swarm of golden fireflies.
On either side of him, the movement was mirrored. One by one, the villagers touched fire to the pyres of their own kin. Fathers, daughters, and brothers were surrendered to the heat. The valley became a sea of embers, a shimmering grid of light against the encroaching evening. The individual plumes of smoke rose high into the atmosphere, eventually merging into a single, grey shroud. It was the quiet, mechanical end of an era.
From the distance high atop the jagged ridge, the Deva host stood like monuments. Their long shadows stretched across the scorched earth below, reaching toward the burning valley as if trying to touch the grief they were forbidden to join.
The Sentinels on the Ridge was formed there.
At the vanguard stood Ares. His frame was tall and deceptively slender, possessing the rugged, corded muscle of a veteran. His facial features were sharp, carved with a precision that bordered on the lethal. He held his golden helm tucked against his hip, allowing the wind to lash his long, blonde hair across his face.
Beside him, Kaelen, a junior commander, shifted restlessly. His own dark hair waved in the gale, a stark contrast to the silvered plate of his Pauldrons. He watched the silhouette of the boy, Arjun, etched in black against the orange roar of Verman's pyre.
The silence between them was heavy, filled only by the rhythmic snapping of their cloaks. Finally, Kaelen broke it, his voice tight with the pragmatism of a soldier.
"Why do we remain spectators?" Kaelen asked, his eyes never leaving the boy. "Tell him the truth of his origin. Reveal his identity. What are you waiting for, Ares? Every moment he believes he is merely a mortal orphan is a moment wasted."
Ares did not look away from the valley. His expression was calm, yet beneath the surface, his features were clouded by a deep, compassionate ache. He looked like a man watching a mirror of his own past.
"Look at the fires below, Kaelen," Ares said softly, his voice carrying the resonance of a cello. "Count them. Every plume of smoke represents a severed thread. In every house, a chair sits empty. A father a mother, a sister, a friend—everyone down there has just closed the most terrible chapter of their lives. Including the boy."
Ares finally turned to his junior, his eyes shimmering with a hard-won wisdom. "To snatch him away now, to sever him from his mother when they are all that remain of their world... it would leave them both truly alone. Grief is not a hurdle to be jumped, Kaelen; it is a forest that must be walked through. If we force him into a restless, immortal journey while his heart is still back there in the ash, we will not be saving him. We will be breaking him."
Kaelen snapped his gaze toward Ares, his frustration sparking. "But the Asuras? They do not care for the 'forest of grief.' They only care for the harvest. If they return tomorrow, we cannot guarantee the boy's safety under these conditions. In Devlok, he is a safe under our wings. Here, in the mud of the Prithvilok, he is nothing but an easy target."
Ares placed a heavy, gauntleted hand on Kaelen's shoulder. The weight of it seemed to ground his anxiety.
"The shadows have their laws, just as we do," Ares explained, his gaze returning to the horizon. "The rift requires a thinning of the veil. The Asuras can only breach this realm in force when the lunar eclipse falls upon a Friday night. The celestial alignment has passed; the next window will not open for another six years."
He looked down at Arjun, who was now kneeling in the cooling dust.
"We will return in a few weeks—perhaps a month. We will give him the time to bury the man and find the warrior. When the tragedy has settled into resolve and his mind has hardened against the shock, he will be ready. A savior cannot be built on a foundation of raw trauma. He must be mentally strong enough to carry the weight we are about to hand him."
Ares donned his golden helm, the visor obscuring his eyes. "Let him have his peace, Kaelen. It is the last he will ever know."
The transition from the mortal realm to the celestial was not a journey of distance, but of vibration. As the Deva host ascended, the mud and smoke of the Kalindi Valley dissolved into a blinding, rhythmic white light, eventually solidifying into the cold, diamond-hard reality of Devlok.
The Threshold of the Gods
They emerged within the Oculus of the Heavens, a colossal open-air plaza anchored by pillars that seemed to support the sky itself. The architecture was brutal yet elegant—vast, cyclopean stones etched with glowing geometries that throbbed with the heartbeat of the universe. In the center stood the Gateway: a massive stone rift that hummed with a low, tectonic frequency.
Awaiting them was a congregation of the high-born. Celestial warriors in ceremonial plate, scholars draped in starlight, and ancient looking saints stood in a tense, disciplined silence.
At the vanguard of the crowd stood Acharya Zayarsha. He was a man who looked as though he had been carved from a mountain peak—tall, broad-shouldered, and draped in ornate warrior-monk armor that bore the scars of a thousand aeons. His long white hair fell over his shoulders like a frozen waterfall, framing a face that had watched the birth of stars.
As the portal hissed devas started to arrive and as the last of the warriors stepped onto the solid stone floor, a collective breath was held. The crowd leaned forward, eyes searching the space behind Ares for a smaller silhouette, a mortal frame, a sign of the prophecy fulfilled.
But the rift flickered and died. Ares stood alone at the front. No boy followed him.
The Echo of Doubt emerged there with the silence that followed was brittle. Then, like a sudden wind, whispering erupted from the ranks of the gods.
"The boy... where is the Avatar?"
"Has the lineage been severed?"
"Did Mihirkul succeed? Is the Great
Darkness already upon us?"
The murmur grew into a storm of doubt until Zayarsha raised a single, massive hand. The silence returned instantly, heavier than before. He looked at Ares, his gaze piercing through the commander's golden visor.
"Ares," Zayarsha urged, his voice a deep, resonant rumble calming the rising tension. "Speak. Why does the path behind you remain empty? Is the boy lost to us?"
"Everything is as it should be, Acharya," Ares replied, though he did not immediately remove his helm. He tilted his neck toward the elder, his posture weary. "For now, the balance holds."
The Council's Fury
"If the balance holds, then where is our savior?"
The voice belonged to Master Hugen. He was a contrast to Zayarsha's bulk—a thin, wiry man with a half-bald head and a beard that reached his waist. He wore a deep blue kimono that seemed to contain the depths of the ocean. Though his voice was calm, it possessed a 'furious' clarity—the sound of a storm held behind a closed door.
"Is the boy alive, or are we discussing the logistics of a failure?" Hugen demanded, his eyes narrowing with clinical concern.
"The boy lives," Kaelen snapped, stepping forward to defend his commander, though his tone was defensive. "But Ares deemed it... unwise to extract him at this time."
Zayarsha's brow furrowed, the lines on his face deepening like ravines. "Explain your reasoning behind the decision, Ares. We do not leave the key to the universe in a house of mud without a grave reason."
Ares finally removed his helm, revealing a face etched with the grim reality of what he had witnessed. He looked at the gathered immortals, men and women who had forgotten what it felt like to bleed.
The reason behind my decision the boy's current stability", his voice hard
"We arrived late after the defence was collapsed," Ares began, his voice dropping an octave. "The damage was already done. Our old companion—our brother in arms, Nandverman—is dead. He fell holding the line against Mihirkul and his host."
A ripple of genuine shock passed through the assembly. Verman was a name of legend, even in exile.ares continued before whisper Could start again.
"Arjun witnessed verman's end, He didn't just see a warrior fall; he saw his father die in the dirt.
He is currently enduring an emotional fracture—a wound to the spirit that no celestial armor could ever deflect. Right now, he is fragile, broken, and tethered to the only reality he has left: his mother's side."
Ares stepped closer to Zayarsha, his eyes flashing with a fierce, protective light.
"If I had brought him here today, he would be a prisoner in a paradise he doesn't understand. He would look at these pillars and see only the gods who arrived too late to save his world. I chose to leave him so he could grieve. A boy who is forced to save the world before he has even finished mourning his own will only grow to hate the very people he is meant to protect. He needs time to harden. He needs to find his own reason to fight."
Hugen's 'furious' calm seemed to waver, replaced by a grim understanding. Zayarsha looked up at the great stone pillars of Devlok, then back at Ares
Zayarsha's stony features softened, the tension in his massive shoulders finally dissipating. He looked at Ares with a gaze of approval and a glimmer of pride. A small, knowing smile tugged at the corners of his mouth—a silent acknowledgement of the wisdom behind the soldier's restraint.
"Once again, Ares, you have proven that your value to this council extends beyond the reach of your blade," Zayarsha remarked, his voice echoing with a warm, gravelly resonance. "You possess the rare ability to balance the cold logic of the strategist with the pulse of a living heart. A commander who ignores the spirit of his soldiers is merely a butcher; you have chosen to be a mentor."
The Acharya turned his attention toward the gathered assembly, his presence expanding to fill the vast stone plaza. The murmurs of the crowd died away as he prepared to set the new course of their design.
"The boy deserve his silence," Zayarsha declared, his voice carrying the weight of an immutable law. "The trauma of the Kalindi Valley is a poison that must be drained before the nectar of our teachings can take hold. We will not return in days, nor weeks."
He paused, looking at Master Hugen and the other high-ranking saints. "We shall grant him two months. Eight weeks to walk the earth as a son, to mourn the man he lost, and to settle the accounts of his soul. This duration will suffice for his mind to recalibrate, ensuring that when he finally stands before these pillars, he does so with a steady hand and a clear eye."
Ares felt a surge of relief, though his face remained a mask of disciplined calm.
Around the Oculus, the celestial warriors and white-haired scholars bowed their heads in unison. There were no further objections; the fury of the council had been transformed into a collective, patient vigil. The decision was sealed in the crystalline air of Devlok.