The sky over xxxxxxxxxxx tasted like a handful of old copper coins and burnt turmeric. It wasn't just that the Agnihotri Clan had brought the heat of a star to the slums; it was that they had brought the wrong kind of heat. It was a sterile, arrogant plasma that clashed with the honest, greasy humidity of the city.
High above the scorched streets, the floating fortress of Arka-Dham groaned. The mountain wasn't designed to be a graveyard, yet as Harish stepped onto the marble plaza of the throne room, the stone beneath his boots didn't just crack—it sighed, as if relieved to finally be crushed by something more fundamental than gravity.
Lyra, the Iron Shackle Guild's top-tier infiltrator, was currently crouched behind a decorative solar pillar, her high-tech tactical gear covered in the soot of a pulverized mountain. She was whispering frantically into her comms-link, her fingers trembling so hard she nearly dropped her $50,000 "Eye of Argus" scouter.
"Boss? Boss, can you hear me through the spatial distortion? No, I'm not exaggerating. I'm telling you, the scouter didn't just hit a high number. It... it sighed. It made a little 'poof' sound and started leaking blue liquid. I think it died of existential dread."
She paused, watching Harish walk past a line of S-Rank Solar Guards who were currently frozen in place, their spears trembling.
"He's not even using a stance, Boss. He's just walking. You know that walk? The one he does when he's carrying a heavy crate of laundry detergent and doesn't want to drop the eggs? That's the one. He's using 'Grocery-Store-Gait' against the most powerful fire-users in the subcontinent. My HUD is glitching. It's trying to categorize his power level as 'Out of Stock.' Boss, if I die here, tell my sister I didn't actually lose her car in a poker game, I sold it to buy this stupid scouter that is now literally melting into my palm."
Three miles below, in a mobile command center that smelled of stale coffee and desperation, a Global Cabinet Analyst was screaming at a four-star General.
"General, I don't care about the 'Martial Implications' right now! Look at the trajectory! That mountain is 40% gold and 60% S-rank mana-infused basalt. If it falls on Sector 3, is it classified as an act of god or imported construction material? Because if it's the latter, we can slap a 12% luxury tax on every shard that hits a residential rooftop!"
The General slammed his fist on the table. "Analyst, there is a man currently unmaking the laws of thermodynamics with a grocery store name-tag on his chest, and you're worried about the GST?"
"I am worried about the deficit, General! If the Demon King is going to liquidate a Tier-1 Clan, the least he could do is fill out the proper 'Disposal of Ancient Artifacts' form! Do you have any idea how much it costs to clean up 'Solar Residue'? It's considered hazardous waste in five states!"
Vikramaditya Agnihotri didn't wait for a conversation. He was the Patriarch. He was the Sun. He lunged forward, his body flickering into the Meteor Incarnation. The air around him didn't just burn; it turned into a blinding white plasma that made the hair on Harish's arms curl into tiny, singed spirals before the heat even touched him.
"Ashen Sun Footwork!" Vikramaditya roared.
He moved in a blur of geometric fire, leaving footprints of molten marble. He was a god of energy, a creature of pure, violent light. He struck at Harish's throat with a palm that carried the weight of a falling star.
Harish didn't move fast. He moved correctly.
His toes dug into the pulverized marble, shifting into the Simhavadivu—the Lion Pose of Kalaripayattu. It wasn't a static stance from a textbook. It was messy. His left heel skidded through a puddle of spilled solar-wine, and his cheap green vest was stained with a leaking ballpoint pen in his pocket, a blue ink-blot spreading like a bruise over his heart.
As Vikram's plasma-palm neared, Harish performed a Marma-strike—not to the body, but to the flow of the air itself.
It was a flick of the wrist, a movement Harish had perfected while snapping open plastic produce bags. The "Ashen Silence" descended. The roar of the fire was suddenly muted, as if the throne room had been submerged in a deep, dark ocean. Vikram's fire didn't blow out; it simply forgot how to burn.
The Patriarch's hand stopped an inch from Harish's chest. The heat was still there, making the air shimmer like a mirage, but the intent was gone. Harish's eyes, swirling with that terrifying violet-black sludge of the Abyss, stared into Vikram's soul.
"You're making a mess," Harish said, his voice sounding like dry leaves being crushed. "This marble took a billion years to form, and you're turning it into glass just because you're throwing a tantrum. Do you have any idea how hard it is to mop glass?"
"I am the Flame!" Vikram screamed, his face dripping with sweat that evaporated before it could hit his collar. "I am the destiny of India!"
"You're a guy who touched my father," Harish replied. "And that makes you a 'hazardous item' that needs to be removed from the shelf."
Takeo Kusanagi sat in a seiza position near the shattered entrance of the throne room. His skin was a ruin of Vajra-stone and charred flesh, but his eyes were fixed on Harish with a devotion that bordered on the psychotic. He ignored the blood dripping from his chin onto his scorched staff vest.
"Look at him," Takeo whispered, his voice a rhythmic, flowery chant. "The Master moves not as a man, but as the First Breath that stirred the Void. He is the Silence between the stars. He is the 'Closing Time' of the Universe."
He coughed, a spray of dark, mana-infused blood hitting the floor.
"How majestic... even with the ink of a cheap pen staining his garment. It is a symbol! Yes! The blue ink represents the waters of life flowing over the green fields of the world! He wears the stains of the mundane as a crown of glory! But oh... his shoes. Those are the 'Comfy-Walk' specials he bought last month. The marble dust is scuffing the synthetic leather. How cruel is the fate of a Master who must ruin his footwear to teach a lesson to a flea?"
Takeo clutched his broken sword-handle to his chest.
"Master! Do not worry about the scuffs! I shall buff them with the silk of a thousand conquered banners! Just... do not let the 'Sun' touch your hair. You just got it cut, and the Lady Kaelen said it finally looked decent!"
The Patriarch Vikramaditya gathered every ounce of the "Eternal Spark" into his mangled limbs. He was going to turn himself into a literal supernova. The mountain began to vibrate, the golden walls groaning as the molecular bonds of the stone began to fail. Kaelen, suspended in the mana-cage, squeezed her eyes shut as the light became unbearable.
"Static," Harish said.
The word didn't travel through the air. It was a command that rewrote the source code of the room.
Absolute stillness.
A drop of sweat that had been falling from Vikram's nose froze mid-air, a perfect, salty diamond suspended in a world of grey. A spark of fire, caught in the act of jumping from a pillar, hung like a frozen orange needle.
Harish walked through the stillness. His footsteps didn't make a sound because sound was currently "Out of Stock." He reached Vikram, who was frozen in a scream he would never finish.
Harish looked at the Patriarch's hands—the hands that had reached for his sister. He didn't use a knife. He didn't use a strike. He reached out and touched the air where Vikram's elbows met his forearms.
A "Glitch" appeared. For a micro-second, the space around Vikram's arms looked like a corrupted video file—jagged, purple-and-green squares of "non-data" flickered where flesh and bone should be. There was no blood. There was no tearing sound.
When Harish released the "Static," Vikram lunged forward, but his momentum failed him. He looked down and let out a sound that wasn't a scream—it was the sound of a man whose reality had just been deleted. His arms simply ended. The space where his hands had been was a clean, absolute void.
"You... you monster..." Vikram wheezed, falling to his knees.
Harish didn't look at him. He was looking at the throne room. He saw the shattered solar gems, the gold-leaf pillars, and the sheer, staggering amount of wealth that was currently being held up by his own dwindling patience.
He looked at Kaelen, who was now safe on the floor, and then he looked at a "Solar Emerald" the size of a watermelon that had rolled near his foot.
Normal life is expensive, Harish thought, the violet in his eyes fading back to a weary, clerk-like brown. Ravi's medical bills... the shop's window... the Mana-Bike's insurance premium...
He realized then that he couldn't just be the Demon King of the Abyss. He had to be the Financial Demon King. He had to keep the shop open. Because if the shop closed, he'd have to find a real job, and that sounded much harder than deleting a Patriarch's hands.