Moscow, Russia - 1869:
Snow fell in heavy, suffocating sheets over Moscow. A little boy, eyes wide with a fear he couldn't name, jammed a single boot into a battered suitcase and stumbled outside.
In the middle of the chaos sat a beggar girl, staring at the frozen cobblestones, oblivious to the exodus. The boy grabbed her hand, his small fingers tight around her wrist, and pulled. They ran, two small shadows against a backdrop of a city being abandoned by its soul.
At the edge of the city, the Russian military stood behind a desperate stone wall. Rifled cannons were angled toward the white void of the mist. The soldiers’ hands shivered—not from the cold, but from the vibrations shaking the earth.
"Attack!"
The cannons roared. Iron shells tore through the mist, striking the massive shapes emerging from the snow. But as the smoke cleared, the soldiers’ hearts stopped. The Trolls, ranging from 60 to 100 feet tall, didn't even flinch. The shells were like pebbles against mountains. With a single, sweeping motion, the wall was decimated. The military camp was ground into the red-stained snow, and the soldiers were devoured where they stood.
Days later.
The ruins of Moscow were silent, buried under a fresh layer of thick, grey ash and snow. The Trolls stood like jagged monuments across the graveyard of the city.
One of the largest Trolls approached a mysterious figure standing atop a heap of rubble. The beast bowed, opening its massive palm to reveal the mangled, juiced remains of the Military Commander.
The figure waved a hand—a casual, bored signal—and the Troll tossed the corpse aside like trash.
A young Naraga stepped through the snow-ash, his armor unblemished but his expression grim. "Bhavirana... I have searched across the entire area. So far, there are no survivors."
The air around the figure seemed to vibrate. Bhavirana’s voice didn't come from his throat, but from the air itself. "Ask the elders to arrange a meeting. I need to talk to them."
"For what purpose?" Naraga asked, his curiosity momentarily overriding his fear.
Bhavirana turned. He uncovered his face, and for a second, the world seemed to go still. His eyes were pure, predatory rage, and as his mouth opened, Naraga saw a nightmare of more than 100 razor-sharp teeth rows deep. He didn't say a word, but the sheer malevolence in his gaze was an answer in itself.
"I understood," Naraga whispered, bowing his head and withdrawing into the shadows.
"What...are you talking about?" the Vampire Elder exclaimed, his fangs bared in a mix of terror and outrage. "Have you lost your mind, Bhavirana!"
"What did I say wrong?" Bhavirana countered, his voice a low, vibrating hum that made the blue torches flicker.
The Demon Elder slammed a heavy, clawed fist onto the obsidian table. "Summoning the Vahanas is a stupid decision! They are the sacred vehicles of the Divine Lords. They are not to be touched by the likes of us."
"Lords for whom?" Bhavirana’s eyes flashed with a predatory light. "Are they Lords for us? Or for them—the weak creatures who bask in the sun while we rot?"
"Bhavirana... you must withdraw from the march," Goblin Elder rasped, his eyes darting toward the shadows. "The Mythic March has already destroyed half of the surface. It is enough. We can stop now."
"The Mythic March will stop only on my command," Bhavirana stated flatly.
"Are you disobeying the rules of the Council?" the Vampire Elder shouted. "You are leading the younger Mythics to their doom! This march is nothing but a search for a soul that grants you immortality. It is your own selfish wish, and you bait others with lies!"
Bhavirana paused at the doorway.
"Correction," he said, his voice echoing with the authority of a King. "It is not my wish. It is the hunger of the entire Mythic world. You forget one thing—that soul does more than grant immortality. It's the soul of divine energy. It grants the power to reach and remain on the surface even after the Age of Darkness (Blink Era) ends. My people will no longer stick in the Underworld; they shall be the prime species. And I will be their Guardian."
He turned his back on the Council, ignoring the Demon Elder’s desperate roar: "Disobeying the Council will put you in deep trouble! Bhavirana, stop!"
Young Naraga was waiting outside "What happened? Did they neglect the plan?"
"As usual," Bhavirana replied, looking at the distant, frozen horizon.
"Why do we need the Vahanas?" Naraga asked, gesturing to the massive Trolls standing like mountains in the distance. "We have the trolls. We have other Gaint Mythics. They crush everything in their path."
"They are sluggish," Bhavirana said, his eyes narrowing. "They need food. To keep that army moving, we must feed them tons of flesh every single day. At this rate, we cannot find the soul or capture the surface before the BLINK ends. We are running out of time and resources. We need to replace them."
He looked at the orbs in his hand. "We need the Vahanas. They don't eat flesh. And they never tire."
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Pretoria, South Africa, 1882:
Bhavirana stood motionless, his gaze fixed on a massive, yawning burrow that looked like a wound in the earth. Scattered behind him were the mangled corpses of dozens of wild boars—sacrifices for the ritual.
"Do you really think a Vahana exists here?" Naraga asked, wiping black ichor from his blade.
Bhavirana didn't look back. "Step back."
The ground didn't just shake; it groaned. From the depths of the burrow, a figure emerged that made the common boars look like insects. It was a mountain of bristling fur and tusks as long as spears, its eyes glowing with a malevolent, ancient light.
Bhavirana unslung the massive scythe from his shoulders. The cold steel caught the dying sunlight as he swung. The scene blurred into a flash of silver and a deafening roar.
When the dust settled, the giant lay still. Bhavirana walked toward the corpse, his hand outstretched. He didn't take the flesh; he reached for the essence. A swirling mist of energy was pulled into a glass-like sphere in his palm. The orb pulsed, turning a cold, Metallic Grey.
He tossed the orb to Naraga.
Naraga looked at the orb, his mind cataloging the growing arsenal:
Seven.
“We have seven… now,” Naraga said.
Bhavirana’s voice dropped to a whisper.
“We still have yet to summon Airavat.”
Guandong region, China, 1896:
The world had changed with the passage of time. The Mythic March had moved east. In a demolished town, the Trolls marched alongside the newly summoned Vahanas, leaving nothing but rubble in their wake.
In the heart of a forest so dense it swallowed the sun, Bhavirana paused.
“Who is leading the army?” Bhavirana asked.
“Kanishk,” Naraga replied from the shadows.
He added, “The forest is dense and dark… it feels much like our world.”
Bhavirana looked ahead and said, “This is our world.”
They passed through a hidden cave, the stone walls damp with ancient moisture. As they emerged on the other side, the darkness gave way to a majestic, hidden valley. A waterfall cascaded into a stagnant, emerald pool.
And there, standing in the water like a living monument of ivory, was the White Elephant. Its presence was so heavy it seemed to still the very air.
Airavat.
Bhavirana’s grip tightened on his scythe. He felt the sheer power radiating from the beast—the Anchor.
"Don’t come," Bhavirana commanded, his voice sharp.
Without another word, he charged, his silhouette a dark streak against the majestic white of the elephant.
The collision rang through the valley like a mountain splitting in two. Bhavirana’s legendary scythe slammed into the ivory tusk of the White Elephant, sparking a flash of divine friction.
Bhavirana roared, pouring every ounce of his strength into the shaft, pushing his limits until his muscles screamed.
CRACK!
The scythe—the weapon that had harvested a thousand souls—shattered into jagged shards.
"Bhavirana, let us move!" Naraga shouted from the bank, his voice tight with alarm. "This beast is made of something beyond our world. Its tusks are tough as hell!"
Bhavirana didn't even look back. The rejection of the Council, the hunger of his people, and his own pride burned in his eyes. He unsheathed his heavy sword and launched himself at the beast. One strike. Two. On the third, the blade snapped against the elephant’s hide like glass.
"Bhavirana!" Naraga pleaded.
"I am not leaving!" Bhavirana’s shout was a guttural snarl. He reached for his belt, his shoulders, his back—unleashing every weapon in his arsenal in a desperate, frenzied assault.
The battle became a gruesome marathon of endurance. It raged for three days and three nights. Bhavirana was a map of agony; deep gashes lined his torso, and dark, thick blood flowed freely from his wounds, staining the emerald grass of the valley. Yet, the White Elephant remained like a living mountain of stone—unmoved and unbroken.
Naraga intervened again, stepping into the edge of the clearing. "You used your most powerful artifacts to summon Sesha and Nandhi. Your weapons are exhausted. You have nothing left to fight with. Let us retreat!"
Bhavirana stood trembling, his hands empty and slick with his own blood. He looked at the jagged remains of his gear scattered in the mud, then back at the ivory giant.
"My weapons are exhausted?" Bhavirana whispered, a dark, manic grin spreading across his face. "So what? I still have my hands."
With a roar that shook the very trees, he lunged forward, locking his bare fingers around the tusks that had broken the finest steel in the Underworld. The White Elephant trumpeted—a sound that vibrated the very air—and surged backward, dragging Bhavirana into the emerald pond.
As the water swirled around his waist, Bhavirana didn't panic. He watched the elephant’s heavy gait, noticing how the silt at the bottom of the pond shifted. The beast was powerful, but it was reaching a treacherous depth.
When the elephant’s front legs reached a seven-foot drop, Bhavirana’s voice ripped through the jungle silence.
"SESHA!"
Naraga, standing on the bank, launched the Cobra Orb. Bhavirana caught it in one bloody hand, his command absolute: "Drown it."
The Great Cobra erupted from the orb and vanished instantly into the murky depths. Under the surface, it coiled its cold, muscular body around the elephant's forelegs. The beast struggled, its balance compromised.
"I know you are tired," Bhavirana whispered, his face inches from the elephant’s trunk.
He signaled Naraga with a sharp nod. Two more orbs streaked through the air. In an instant, the Crocodile (Makara) appeared beneath the waves, clamping its jaws onto the elephant’s rear leg. Together, the Cobra and the Crocodile acted as a submerged vice, dragging the majestic giant into the lightless deep.
The water churned into a violent foam until, finally, the bubbles stopped. The White Elephant had drowned.
Bhavirana emerged from the depths, dripping with dark water and blood, seated atop the Water Buffalo (Paundraka) as it waded toward the shore. The massive body of the elephant floated to the surface, its white hide ghostly in the dim forest light.
Bhavirana reached the carcass and, with a brutal display of strength, snapped one of the tusks. He held the ivory aloft, its weight staggering.
"Its tusks are tougher" he muttered to Naraga. "I will use this to craft a weapon that never breaks."
He stood over the body and spoke the name: "AIRAVAT."
The soul of the elephant arose, but as it bound to the orb, it underwent a horrific metamorphosis. Coarse, matted hair sprouted across its form, and its tusk curved into jagged, primeval arc. The beautiful white elephant was gone; in its place stood a terrifying, prehistoric Mammoth.
"Why were you so desperate for this one?" Naraga asked, looking at the seven other orbs they already possessed. "The Mythic March has occupied the majority of the Earth. We are winning."
“No,” Bhavirana said, his gaze fixed on the southern horizon. “The March is reaching the lands beyond the Himalayan range. Our strength will be tested there. Even the other Vahanas will not be enough to win the battle."
“What lies there?” Naraga pressed. “What makes it so special?”
Bhavirana looked into the reflection of the pond. For a fleeting second, the image of an Underworld Philosopher appeared in the water, his finger pointing directly at the map of India. His lips moved in a silent warning, but the ripples shattered the reflection before the voice could be heard.
Bhavirana tossed the Glowing red (Airavat) orb to Naraga. It was heavy, pulsing with a cold, rhythmic heart.
"Keep it safe," Bhavirana commanded, his voice echoing with the weight of a prophecy. "No matter what happens... even if the March fails... you hold Airavat for me. At any cost."
Without another word, he turned and disappeared back into the darkness of the cave.
