The river shivered.

A circle formed on its surface, spinning like a mirror of liquid glass. From that circle bled light—sickly gold, too radiant to be comforting. It spread outward, curving into a halo that stained the water like molten fire. Then the halo broke.

Something rose.

A body, radiant one, a peacock. Its feathers shimmered like hammered gold, each plume aflame with a brilliance that seemed woven from the dawn itself. The arcs of its tail fanned out in endless cascades, a thousand suns caught in motion, bending the air nearby.

The air ruptured.

A thunderous boom tore through the silence, and two worlds suddenly unfurled over the river. One was a Lotus Blood Moon Realm, where crimson lotus petals drifted like knives across a nature choked by a swollen red moon. The other, the Heavenly Lotus Realm, gleamed with pale brilliance—its nature fractured by lattices of light, its ground blooming endlessly with flowers of gold.

The realms collided.

The river split into war. One current seethed with a blood-black stream that reeked of iron, hissing as though alive. The other pulsed with molten gold, luminous and sterile, washing everything it touched into dazzling blindness. Where they met, the water boiled into chaos, each trying to devour the other.

In the heart of it, two thing collided — sword and bird, light and dark—clashing, tearing, neither yielding. Their fight tore the banks apart, stones shrieking as they ripped free from earth. Trees withered to dust in seconds. The sky above warped like stretched skin, and then—an explosion. Both forces flung backward, crashing into opposite banks.

But something new lingered.

That mask, fused itself onto the chest of the demonic woman. The ground quaked.

13 figures stepped into existence around the river, forming a circle. The Eclipse, silent and faceless, each presence bending the air as if gravity itself worshipped them. Their forms flickered between shadow and flesh, some crowned with horns, others stitched together like puppets. A congregation of inevitability.

She emerged again, holding the boy. He was still sleeping, his small frame tethered to her by soaked cloth that clung like a second skin. 

The demonic woman's lips parted. Her voice—clear, human, disturbingly tender—slipped out."Give it to me. That thing."

Nidhi's face hardened. "You are mistaken. I carry nothing of the sort."

A laugh, jagged and shrill, slithered through the circle. The Joker, mask split by a painted smile, tilted his head."Do you think I don't know? We came because it's inside you. Do not waste us with lies. Hand it over. Spare yourself. A quick death for you—and for your child."

The river seemed to shudder at his words. Then like before world stop by sudden voice...

Nidhi's eyes burned. "Quick death? For me? For him?" She stepped closer, dripping water onto stone. "Let us see who is still breathing when the sun rises. Do not think of him—I will protect him."

As her words fell, the river stirred once more. From its depths bloomed a lotus, gold as dawn, but etched with azure veins that pulsed like living script. She laid the boy upon it, her hand trembling only once before letting go.

The lotus cradled him gently. Then, without warning, it sank back into the river's mirror. The waters swallowed it whole.

...

The demonic woman's voice rang like a blade striking stone.
"So, you choose fight over that thing," she murmured, lips curling into something between scorn and promise.

Her long sword—still quivering from its clash with the hairpin—snapped back into her hand. At the same time, the hairpin returned to its mistress, each weapon answering its true owner as though bound by fate itself.

Around them, the other twelve members moved as one. Their weapons, silent until now, found their grip again. The first three stepped forward. Instead of charging, they began to sing. The sound was unsettling—three voices weaving into a hymn that was neither prayer nor chant, but something far older. The air trembled beneath their song; ghosts wept in the distance, and monsters crawled forth in answer. A bad omen echoed within the sound, heavy and unshakable.

Then came the man with the wide hat, clutching his strange book. With a single stroke of his brush he marked its third page. Ink bled into shape, and from that painted surface tore beasts not born of nature. Twisted animals—foxes with too many eyes, hounds with ribcages split open into wings, serpents that slithered in flat 2D outlines like shadows given hunger—spilled into the battlefield. They lunged, snarling, at the demonic woman.

The vine-laden lady followed suit. She unfurled her arms, and flowers burst from her sleeves. Vines writhed like serpents, curling through the air, flinging blossoms that shone with deceptive beauty. Each flower carried thorns dripping with venom, and they whistled through the chaos like darts.

From another angle, the hooded man came with speed unnatural. His sword gleamed as he rushed, blade raised to cleave her where she stood. Behind him, the black-bodied figure moved at last, pressing fingers into a gesture—two spread like an eye. Behind his form, a massive black disk pulsed, birthing twelve smaller disks. They spun outward, razor-edged, cutting the air as they flew toward her like a storm of cursed shuriken.

The child with three heads and six arms followed with a mocking shriek, running with a grotesque Bronx cheer, tugging his eyebrows wide with tiny fingers before charging. Each hand snatched at something—rocks, bones, blades of light—and hurled them wildly as his laughter curdled the air.

Not to be outdone, the aqua man raised his hands. From the water coiled around his wrists, six serpentine dragons erupted, scales shimmering like rivers caught in moonlight. They twisted skyward before plunging down, their jaws snapping for her.

And more came—the grotesque creatures that bore fire in their throats, spewing black and green gases, trailing death as they rushed with animal savagery. The loon did not strike but bore its rider forward steadily, carrying her like a dark mount through the storm.

The demonic woman stood tall against it all. She lifted her sword, and at its tip, strange markings bloomed. She carved a symbol into the air itself, then thrust it forward. The mark burned like molten steel and streaked across the battlefield toward them.

Yet even as that surged, the jester slipped away, darting toward the lotus flower sprouting in the distance, his grin widening with secrets of his own.

Then—her hands rose. Her stance shifted, serene, like the statues of sea goddesses carved in temples. On her forehead, light pulsed, a lotus marking itself upon her skin. Her body shimmered, reshaping, as if divinity itself was climbing through her veins.

From beneath her feet, the earth split, and a colossal lotus unfurled, cradling her in its bloom. The hairpin she wielded changed—its sharpness dissolving into beauty—as a peacock blossom grew from its form. From her back, feathers burst, radiant and endless, a peacock's display painted with fire, ice, shadow, and dawn.

Majestic and terrifying, the feathers bent, curled, and then separated. Twelve forms stepped from her, each one another self, each holding a different weapon—sword, staff, spear, bow, claw, chain, shield, whip, fan, scythe, hammer, and dagger.

Her twelve selves stood tall, feathers shimmering behind them like a living aurora.

And then, in perfect silence, they charged.

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

The battlefield was nothing but a ruin of shattered lotuses and black water, the air thick with the smell of blood and smoke. Nidhi stood hunched, her body trembling, one foot barely balanced on the broken petal of a once-radiant lotus. Her breath rattled like glass about to crack. Across from her, the demonic woman spread her wings of red veins, two eyes are blinking in them. Her sword, impossibly long, glistened with veins of black ichor. Her hair whipped in the wind, her chest-face weeping black tears as if in mourning. Both women were covered in wounds—Nidhi in crimson, the demon in tar-dark blood.

Between them, silence swelled, pressing like a stone on their chests.

The demon finally broke it. Her voice was deep, metallic, but tinged with something human.

"After all these battles, all these hollow years… I have finally found someone who could meet me strike for strike. Someone who does not crumble at the weight of my domain. And yet—" her lip curled into something between a grin and a snarl—"what a shame."

Nidhi steadied herself, gripping her fractured weapon.

The demon continued, her tone heavy with disdain. "It is shameful that you never once fought for yourself. Every blow, every cut, every drop of your power—you gave it not for the fight, not for victory, but for that boy. That fragile, insignificant boy. I should have ended him before it began. That would have spared us this mockery of a duel."

Her wings shifted, bleeding shadow into the sky.

"You used your sealed power all at once, squandered it like water spilled on dirt. You broke through my illusions. You shredded my blood-moon domain. Alone, you destroyed what countless others could not even look upon without screaming. And still—you threw it all away to protect him. To teleport him away in the middle of our war. To bleed for him."

Her voice cracked, almost like laughter. "Do you even realize? You robbed me of the fight I wanted. You robbed me of the worthy death I seek. You made me ashamed. Ashamed that I lost an opponent worthy of my blade."

The wind hissed between them. Nidhi did not move, her eyes locked on the demon's. A faint tremor passed her lips, but no words yet came.

The demon tilted her head, her one good eye burning like a coal. "Tell me, is he so important? That fragile child? Important enough for you to throw away everything?"

At last Nidhi spoke, her voice rough, almost broken, but with iron threaded through the pain.

"You will never understand… not while you stand there with your wings of blood. You speak of battle, of glory, of opponents to crush. But you left something behind when you chose them. You left me. You left us. And when you turned your back, I tried—I tried every path, every prayer, every curse—to bring you back."

Her fingers tightened around her weapon, her knuckles white despite the blood. "But you chose the abyss. You chose this path. And so you will never understand what it means for me to stand here bleeding for someone else..."

The demon's face twitched, just slightly. That chest-face, the one that always wept, seemed to sob harder, black tears splashing down her body. She gripped the hairpin she had torn from Nidhi's form, its delicate frame cracked but still glowing faintly.

Nidhi's voice fell to a whisper, but it carried across the battlefield like a bell in a void.

"You will never understand a mother's love."

For a moment, the demon hesitated, her sword faltering. The broken lotuses shifted with the rippling of black water. She screamed, her voice cracking through the blood-soaked air.

"Enough of this! It is a disgrace—I cannot fight you fully. I will wait… for him to grow. To rise with power equal to yours."Her breath trembled as she spat the words, a strange calm slithering in after her fury. "Sister… live well in the afterlife. Do not burden yourself with chains. Go peacefully. None of us will hunt him. I will wait for him… I will wait to fight him."

The words were not a mercy but a curse.With sudden violence, she lunged forward again, blade howling, hatred burning like tar in her veins.

Nidhi, gasping, chest heaving with coughs of blood, tried to summon one last shred of strength. Her fingers clenched around her fractured weapon, muscles shaking like brittle glass. But she was too slow—her broken body betrayed her. Before her final strike could reach, the cold gleam of steel pressed to her throat.

Then… the sword did not sever her.It dropped. With an eerie weight, the blade slid down her neck and sank into the river, swallowed like molten tar into water.

Her voice was cold, final."Sister… you have lost." 

That mask tore from her chest and came on that river again.

One by one, shadows withdrew. Their footsteps echoed like hollow bones snapping, and the night seemed to darken with their departure.

Nidhi stood broken, her body little more than a ragdoll stitched by pain. She staggered toward the water. The hairpin—her last fragment—floated weakly, cracked, dissolving. She caught it, trembling, and as it disintegrated into drifting motes of light, so too did her flesh. Her body began to flake, to burst into particles, a sadden unravelling as though she were being erased from the fabric of existence.

From the pin, a surge of energy shimmered faintly. Her lips moved, and her words clawed their way out, ragged, nearly drowned by blood."Live well… my son. Live a simple life."

And then—she was gone.

Then sky broke. Rain poured violently, as if the world itself collapsed in grief. The rivers swelled like veins bursting. Even the heavens, it seemed, could not bear her suffering. The storm wept for her, blackened with sorrow.

To be Continued...