The two generals did not descend to the ground.Instead, they walked upon the air, each step leaving ripples like stone dropped into still water.

From beneath their feet, seals began to bloom - one black, one white - burning with a radiance that pulsed like a heartbeat. The glyphs expanded, each ring widening until they eclipsed the battlefield below. Then, with a sudden surge, both seals shot upward into the sky.

From their light emerged two tigers one black as the abyss, the other white as moonlit snow. They mirrored their masters perfectly, even down to the glint in their eyes.

The generals raised their swords, crossing the blades in a sharp clash, and the tigers followed. Their roars rolled across the battlefield, shaking the very clouds. Then the great beasts charged, weaving through the air in zigzagging, spiralling arcs, tearing through demons like fire through dry leaves.

Halfway through their run, the two tigers began to merge, their bodies spiralling together into a single colossal form—the Heavenly Yin-Yang Tiger. It carried two fates in its twin halves: one that devoured, pulling all matter into itself; the other that destroyed, rending everything in a single roar.

But before it could strike, suddenly the dome responded.

From its heart, a beam erupted - pure, blinding, and absolute - an annihilation strike. The tiger met the beam head-on, roaring as its power surged toward the enemy. Everybody was on the tower were shocked to see it.

And then—impact...

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

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

She tightened the folds of the boy's clothing, her hands gentle yet firm, making sure the small seven-year-old was secure in her grasp. 

With slow precision, she reached to her hair and drew out a single pin, holding it the way a scholar holds a pen before writing the first stroke of a final testament. 

Then, with a flick of her fingers, she opened her hand. One became five—five hairpins gleaming like slivers of frozen moonlight, each fixed between her fingers as naturally as claws on a beast.

She closed her eyes for the briefest moment, opened them again, and spoke in a calm, even tone:

"Fate… it's not written by you, not by me, not even by the gods. It's written by every deed we have done. It holds a power more terrible than you can imagine. And remember this—we are only pieces on the chessboard in the hands of fate."

The demon in the jester's motley tilted his head, a cruel grin on his lips.

"Well, well," he said, voice dripping mockery. "I don't have time for chit-chat…"

He moved. She moved.

Two blurs in the darkness, one trailing laughter, the other carrying silence.

His hands whipped forward—two dark spheres spinning from his grip, their surfaces writhing. As they hit the air, their shapes burst, peeling apart into two howling spirits, their skeletal mouths open wide.

She met them head-on, flicking two pins with a speed that cracked the air. The pins struck—silence, flash, nothing. The ghosts dissolved into smoke, vanishing as though they'd never existed.

But through that smoke, he came.

The jester's figure cut an angle through the haze, his scythe gleaming with a wet sheen as he spun it low, then brought it upward in a killing arc. The curve of the blade glinted once, like the crescent of a black moon and then it was at her.

They would have collided two forces meeting in one fatal moment—But time… It was like slowed down.

The air thickened, sound became a distant echo. Their movements became clear, too clear, each muscle's strain visible, each strand of hair dancing in weightless suspension.

She twisted her body mid-motion, letting the scythe pass within a breath of her skin. In that same slow-motion moment, her hand darted forward.

Three pins, buried deep into his chest before his momentum could carry him past her. Her motion was fluid, deliberate, like the work of a warrior, someone who had fought a thousand battles in another life.

Her right foot touched down lightly, balancing her as she landed on a single leg. Then she shifted back, her heel pressing to the ground.

She raised her hands, fingers folding into a sharp, precise mudra. Her voice rang out, low but unshakable:

"Puṇya-jvālā; Śuddhāgnipāta."

The pins shuddered.

Lines of light burst between them, connecting into a blazing triangle seal. From its heart, yellow fire roared to life, fire of sanctity.

It surged upward through him, devouring his flesh with unnatural hunger. The jester screamed, his voice tearing the air, each cry more desperate than the last. His painted grin melted away into bubbling ruin.

The flames did not relent. They climbed higher, consuming him entirely until only blackened ash and the stench of burning remained.

Then, without ceremony, the fire collapsed inward, sealing itself as if nothing had happened, leaving only the faint afterimage of the seal drifting in the air, like the memory of a nightmare.

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

The river lay silent under the veil of night, its black surface swallowing the moon's reflection with every ripple. She stood on the bank, her breath steady but her gaze fixed on the smouldering remains. Something in her chest stirred, not in satisfaction but an unshakable disquiet.

Her eyes narrowed at the charred figure lying before her, but the stillness felt wrong. Too wrong. A gnawing whisper in her mind told her this wasn't over but another one said to go, like it was over.

She reached down, gripped the limp form of Simal, and without ceremony hurled it into the dark current. The splash broke the silence, and the body drifted, bobbing once before being swallowed by the flowing black.

Her hand found the boat moored nearby. She stepped in, the wood creaking under her weight, and with one push of the oar she slid away from the bank. The paddle cut through the water with rhythmic strokes, but her eyes never stopped scanning the shadows. No one knew where she was headed. 

Behind her, on the bank where the fight had ended, something twitched.

The waterlogged head of Simal floated back into view, its pale skin sagging, its hair slick and clinging like drowned weeds. Then, with a wet, tearing sound, black tentacles sprouted from the base of his skull, writhing like snakes desperate for air.

His jaw began to split, widening beyond human limits, bone cracking softly under the strain. From that yawning maw, a slick, muscular tongue lashed out, curling and twisting. It darted upward — and with grotesque precision, scooped out his own eyes.

The sockets bubbled, reshaping. Flesh squirmed as clustered eyes bloomed along the edges of his face, like pearls of madness glistening in the moonlight.

From the river's depth, the rest of his body rose. Bloated, half-peeled skin dangled in strips, exposing a lattice of twitching veins. With a sudden convulsion, the skin burst apart entirely, revealing the network of veins knitting themselves into new shapes. They lengthened, hardened, their ends sharpening into needle-like tips that dripped with black ichor.

The monstrous head floated forward, its tongue snaking down toward the chest of the headless corpse still staggering from the river. The tongue wrapped around the sternum, muscle fibres flexing, and with one savage wrench it ripped the heart free. The organ pulsed, steaming in the cold air.

Simal or whatever was left of him, leaned forward, lips splitting wide to devour it.

Then, in a blur, the tongue was severed.

A black boot slammed into the twitching muscle, sending the head spinning through the air.

The figure who caught it did so without effort. The pale yellow glow of the heart reflected in his eyes, though his expression was unreadable. He turned his gaze on the writhing monstrosity and spoke, his voice low, certain, almost disappointed.

"As I told you," he murmured, "she is different."

He glanced briefly at the heart, then to the shifting, snarling creature before him.

"That fool," he continued, his words laced with disdain, "made a clown of himself. He gave us nothing."

From the shadows at the treeline, another presence emerged — tall, cloaked, face hidden. The air around them grew colder, heavier, as if the river itself held its breath.

"What is the order?" the second figure asked, their tone sharp and unyielding.

The first figure didn't look away from the beast thrashing before him.

"Pursue." 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

So, what will happen next? Who released the annihilation beam? Will their attack make any impact on it? Who are these people? And why do they want to hurt them?

To find out more, keep reading Nirbindra

To be Continued...