The two generals advanced no further. Their boots scraped against the dust as they stopped atop the outer wall, gazes fixed on the spectacle unfolding before them. Below, the ground was already crawling with swordsmen, hand bow men and spear men with a formation. And with their grim silhouettes standing by shoulder to shoulder, made it more into a breathless anticipation.

Then they saw them.

The Māṁsajīvin, two of them. Towering, grotesque figures, their skin stitched together from mismatched patches of pallid and bruised flesh. In their gnarled hands they held enormous spiked clubs, and now… those weapons were being locked together, one by one, in a hideous ritual.

Behind both of them, a strange ring, seven drums fused together by some blackish-pink sinew—hung in the air. The drums began to thrum. Not in any rhythm a mortal could understand, but in the cadence of emotions themselves.

First came the boom of fury, deep and cracking like a storm's first roar. Then calm, a low hum like the stillness before a flood. Then mad laughter, rising and twisting into something manic, until the air was trembling with their madness. The sound became a storm of feelings—hate, glee, grief, hunger, until no mind could tell them apart.

They raised horns; great, jagged things that seemed carved from bone and let loose a sound so loud it seemed to tear at the edges of reality.

And then the bodies began to move.

The demons nearby did not run away from them—no, it was far worse. Their bodies, or rather what remained of their cut pieces of bodies, began to drag themselves forward. Fingers clawed through the dirt, torsos flopped and spasmed toward the source. The spiked clubs… no… the vortex forming between them and that was pulling them in.

It was not a mere wind that dragged them; it was a hunger so deep it could make even a starving person forget their own hunger.

The air shimmered black, swirling like a living whirlpool. As the severed parts entered, their bones crunched - munnch - their flesh tearing with wet snaps and squelches, as though every noise of a slaughterhouse was being played at once. The remains twisted together into unholy shapes before dissolving into the vortex's spinning dark.

Above, the sky shivered.

The eyes began to open wider. Those vast, bleeding eyes that hung above the battlefield like the gaze of something ancient and cruel. The Hell Gates themselves were stretching, cracks spidering outward, and more portals began to split open in the air. From them poured rivers of blood, raining down in thick, steaming drops.

And through one such gate, they came.

Raktabīz. Blood-born horrors from the Fifth Hell, their skin writhing with veins that pulsed like molten iron. Each one carried its own echoing heartbeat, loud enough to shake the wallstones. They did not roar, they simply merged into the vortex, feeding it willingly.

The noise which was so deafening moments ago, now it was vanished inside the black core. Whatever went in did not return, not even as sound.

From above, fragments fell, pieces too large or too stubborn to be consumed. A stitched head, grinning with a mouth full of glass teeth. Fingers tipped with bone hooks. An eye, suspended in a knot of hair, spinning slowly as it hit the ground.

Blood poured freely now, pooling, soaking into the earth.

From that fragments tentacles grew. Thin at first, then thick, whipping and coiling, dragging themselves toward the living. Those that were pulled in vanished instantly.

And still—the Māṁsajīvin laughed louder with roar. 

The generals could feel the pull on their own flesh now, the tug at their bones, the whisper in their blood telling them to step forward. Neither to fight not to flee, but to join in this grand feast.

.............

From the black horizon, something began to emerge.

At first, only a head, smooth and pale, like the reflection of a full moon in still water, pushed itself out of the vortex. But the sight was wrong. The surface was not cold light, it was flesh. The head was not round but elongated, its jaw tapering into an alien curve.

Then came the body.

The form grew as it climbed free from the darkness, swelling until it dwarfed the dome itself. Its skin rippled like a sea of corpses pressed beneath translucent ice. And its eyes… its eyes were the same as the great bleeding eye that hung above the battlefield—the Eye of the Moon.

If anyone dared to stare too long, they would see horrors hidden in its vast surface: hundreds—no, thousands—of human arms and torsos crawling across it, clawing for purchase as if trying to escape. Some slipped, falling endlessly into the void below.

Those who fell were worse than the ones still climbing. Their bodies bore the marks of fire, blackened and cracked where flesh had burned away. Only charred scars and smoking pits remained, yet they still moved and dragging themselves along, their eyeless faces somehow brimming with hunger.

The air grew thick with rot.

Then the two Māṁsajīvin moved. Their rings, those seven-drummed monstrosities, began to shift, to merge. A grinding sound like ancient stone splitting filled the air. The drumbeats became unbearable now, so loud they made the air ripple. The very Gates of Hell shuddered in answer, their cracks widening as if in pain.

From those widening wounds in the world, more Māṁsajīvin poured forth, their bulk swaying as they stepped into reality. The Raktabīz followed, each one dragging a trail of blood like a comet's tail.

And then the unthinkable happened.

The Māṁsajīvins began to merge with the black vortex itself. Their flesh twisted like melting wax, their roars shaking the sky. The air screamed.

From the walls, a roar broke through the madness:
"We will fight with Anaśravaṇa-yuddha! All soldiers—seal your second sense!"

The army answered with their own cry—
"rrrRRRAAAAHHH!"

Beyond the gates, the fight raged on. The monsters—those still able to move—threw themselves against the defenders. Warriors fought with every weapon and seal at their disposal: blades, iron staves, sigil-etched chains, bare hands glowing with runes. Some wielded talismans, some spat fire, others broke bones with fists like hammers.

But after the command, they began performing the mudra, shutting down their second sense. They had no choice. That day, no blood could be shed. For every drop spilled, a terrible law would awaken: the dead would burst apart, their scattered pieces writhing into new demons, feeding an endless tide of enemies.

So they fought differently, without killing, directly making them burn. Spears struck with their shafts, not their points. Warriors uprooted grass and soil, shaping them into makeshift weapons, igniting them with the White Tiger Holy Seal to burn the creatures into ash without spilling blood.

But the vortex began to grow, faster, wider - until it stretched larger than the dome itself.

Something vast emerged. The full loon rose, its pale, fleshy form pushing upward into the heavens. But before it could escape, something unseen - something that had been waiting above - seized it.

The sky itself split. 

What held it was a hand—no, not a hand, but five nailed claws, each finger doubled into ten jagged talons. The skin was bloated and corpse-pale, glistening with black rot that dripped in heavy drops, sizzling when it touched the ground.

The swamp of Endless Decay had touched the battlefield.

The moon's great eye, once unblinking, now began to weep. Thick streams of blood poured downward, so heavy and constant that it seemed the earth itself would soon drown in a red ocean.

And then, worse still, the owner of the hand began to pull. It rumbled in pain...

The entire body of the loon was dragged upward, but it did not come alone. It was pulling pieces of the world with it; stone, soil, shattered buildings like a demon tearing a toy apart.

The black vortex screamed. The earth screamed. And above them all, the Gates of Hell opened wider still.

............

But the creature did not set foot upon the earth.

He floated above it, his presence alone bending the air like a furnace warps steel. He gazed down at the loon, its pale body writhing in the vortex's grasp… and then, without so much as a sound, he swallowed it whole in a single gulp.

Silence clung for an instant, only for reality to twist again.

From behind him, another ring emerged, vast, coiling, and terrible, with same drums on them but now it was five. A loon wrapped itself around his body, but this one was not pale. It was black blacker than the concept of night itself. That time darkness seemed to drink the light from the air.

He turned his head slightly, the black loon's crown nesting against the monstrous head that belonged to him alone. And then he stared, not as a warrior, not as a god but as a demon appraising vermin.

His hands gripped a staff of bone, twisted and etched with runes that seemed to shift when looked at too long. 

Malinākṣa.The Fifth Hell King had come in his full form.

From his back, the blackness spread. It swelled like a tide, and from within it, the real demons came crawling forth:

Raktapakṣa, wings dripping blood like rain.

Chāyāgrīva, its neck crowned with shadows instead of flesh.

Śṛṅkhalapakṣi, a bird whose wings were chains, each ending in a screaming skull.

Bhasmavihaga, born from the ash of a thousand pyres.

Niḥśabdasarpa, the serpent with no sound, sliding through the air as though the world itself moved aside for it.

Pratibimbarāvaṇa, the thousand-faced mirror demon.

Pūtanāraja, the king of corpse-breaths.

Bhasmabhūka, eater of the cremation ground.

Pratibimbakṛmi, the worm that eats its own reflection.

Niḥśabdaghōra, the silent horror whose silence kills.

They poured forth in a crawling tide, each dragging the stench of hell with them.

The two generals reached the last gate, their armor darkened by the blood-mist in the air. Seeing the calamity before them, they exchanged a single nod—wordless, absolute.

Then they ran forward.

"If we fall," one shouted, "remember! Not a single drop of blood must touch the ground! Never yield your post! Guard the dome even if it costs your life! Tell our families—we were born to protect it, we lived to protect it, and we will do so until our last breath!"

And they charged into the darkness.

Beyond them, a lone man holding a great bronze bell was laughing. His eyes were locked on Malinākṣa, and his voice rang with madness:

"Burn! Burn! Burn! Hell shall burn today! Heaven will perish today! Mortals and immortals alike shall fade into śūnya! Let destruction birth new evolution! Hail the great king! Hahahaha…"

The laugh froze as five flags, each of the same element, appeared around him. They spun, weaving a seal that dropped over him like a cage of flame. His body ignited, not with mortal fire, but with true hellfire, the kind that erased even memory.

Even as his flesh burned away, he roared:"No one will—"

The words died unfinished. His form did not fall to ash; instead, it dissolved into molten black and streamed straight into Malinākṣa's body.

The change was instant.

All the ghosts in the realm began to howl, a sound that rattled bone and soul alike. Animals - every creature, from vermin to predator - howled or cried as if the air itself hurt them.

On Malinākṣa's blank, monstrous face, five eyes burst open, each outlined by a curved mark, the five shapes linked by curling lines to form a star. From the star's center, a mouth split open - ringed with writhing tentacles.

His form merged with the black loon completely.

The loon's vast mouth yawned, shaping a giant red sphere of seething light. At the same time, Malinākṣa's new mouth formed a blue sphere, spinning with the same terrible rhythm.

Both orbs grew - larger, heavier, each pulsing with impossible power - until they touched, merging into a single sphere of swirling violet and crimson.

And then, with the force of worlds colliding, they hurled it straight at the dome.

To be Continued...