That endless fear did not stop rising inside their hearts. Instead, it grew far worse than before, as those shadow creatures suddenly started changing their forms.
Their bodies twisted unnaturally, stretching and crawling upward like darkness trying to imitate life itself. It felt as though the shadows had abandoned their flat existence and crawled into ghostly forms made from nightmares.
One after another, those shadows from horror began to emerge before the faces of the people, as if each one were bringing the horror of their death for them with a loud cheer; each one had a unique, different look.
Some had half-eaten faces.
Some had broken jaws hanging loosely from their necks.
Some had stomachs torn open with ribs exposed.
Others looked exactly like the corpses that had been devoured moments ago.
Then, a monstrous scream erupted simultaneously. Yet not a single mouth had opened. It was a purely psychic onslaught, sounding as though thousands of humans and beasts were being impaled alive, their dying agonies echoing from deep within those ghostly bodies.
The crowd trembled violently, as those ghost-shadows slowly floated before each person individually. Then, with one black finger, they drew a vertical black line across the lips of the terrified crowd.
Some tried to resist this mark instinctively. But those who failed, those black figures, were grabbed immediately and hurled towards the pyre without mercy. The moment they flew near the moonlit veil, their bodies twisted unnaturally in midair before disappearing into the pale glow.
Then another horrifying thing happened. From the backs of those ghostly shadows, black cloaks slowly emerged like liquid smoke. The cloaks wrapped around their bodies one by one, hiding their horrifying appearances beneath endless darkness. Only their bluish burning eyes remained visible beneath the hoods.
Their eyes were filled with mockery as they were staring directly into the souls of the crowd.
Then with sharp screeching sounds, they all moved towards the moon veil together.
Screeeeeech...
As they walked, strange weapons slowly formed in their hands.
Black bone-like scythes.
Each one carried a different shape and geometry, carved with unnatural precision as though forged by some ancient demonic craftsman beyond mortal understanding. The bone surfaces were covered in twisted patterns and symbols that looked alive beneath the moonlight.
It felt as though those weapons had existed countless times before and they had cut through countless worlds already.
Then the ten cloaked figures raised their scythes together.
And with one motion, they sliced the moonlit veil into ten equal parts.
The veil trembled violently but did not break completely.
Instead, the shadows pulled apart sections of the pale barrier like curtains made of liquid light and stepped through calmly towards the pyre.
Then, they laughed one final time, and their bodies collapsed into black dust. As those dust particles scattered across the wooden pyre, they began to crawl upward towards the floating skull like endless ants climbing towards food.
One grain climbed.
Then another crawled over it.
Then thousands more followed.
Slowly, the black dust gathered behind the glowing skull.
The skull itself began changing.
Until now, red vein-like lines had spread across its surface while blue fire burned in its eyes. But now those black particles settled across the back of the skull like patches of living flesh stitched together by invisible glue.
The shape behind it started growing larger.
More twisted.
More human.
Only the blue flames inside the eye sockets never dimmed.
Then, a horrifying roar erupted. It sounded like a beast and a human screaming together at the same time. The sound shook the entire arena.
The crowd's eyes locked onto the growing form unwillingly, and then another horror emerged. From behind the skull, a sprawling body slowly stretched outward. Long limbs unfolded unnaturally from the darkness.
Its spine cracked loudly while expanding. Its arms spread wide as though awakening after sleeping for centuries. Then it roared again and again towards the heavens.
The skull remained attached to its head like a living mask. A human-shaped creature had been born from the darkness.
The moment it opened its eyes, everyone felt their souls freeze. It was as though their spirits had suddenly become chained to that creature. It felt as if the creature could pull their souls out through their eyes at any moment. Yet the creature did not descend from the pyre.
Instead, it raised its head and howled with full force. The nearby woods trembled violently. Even the moonlit veil shook under the pressure. Then the creature slowly bent down and grabbed one piece of wood from the pyre.
Under the dim moonlight, everyone saw something terrifying. It was drawing symbols upon the wood.
At first, they thought it was blood, but it was darker and thicker than blood, and it was coming from its fingers. The black substance crawled across the wood, forming countless strange lines and patterns with impossible precision.
Then suddenly, the creature merged back into the darkness again and vanished completely.
For one brief moment, silence filled the arena, and even this emptiness it left behind felt even worse.
The strange void in their hearts, the emotion that the shadows had previously swallowed, suddenly began to fill again.
Fear returned, dread returned, and along with it, a terrible premonition rose inside everyone's chest. It felt as though fate itself had begun moving. Then, with a Dum… Dum… A heavy sound echoed slowly through the arena.
Something descended slowly from above the pyre.
One of his hands held the strange piece of wood covered in dark symbols, while the other carried a glowing orb that shone like condensed moonlight itself. Its pale radiance illuminated his skull mask from below, making the burning blue eyes appear even more unnatural.
Then suddenly, a violent wind swept across the entire arena. The robes of the spectators fluttered wildly. Dust rose from the ground.
For a brief moment, the surrounding shadows actively ripped through their minds, clawing and dragging their thoughts into the darkness.
It felt as though invisible chains had wrapped around their bodies. At first, they believed their shadows were restraining them, but that was not entirely true.
It was called 'fear', a fear so pure and deep that bodies no longer listened to them. Yet none of them truly understood it.
Only a strange hum pierced the silence, gathering strength and tightening around their minds as the moments passed.
Hmmmmmmmmmm—
As Mahangira descended completely from the pyre with a laugh, and the moment his one foot touched the ground—
BOOM!
He slammed one leg heavily against the earth.
The entire arena trembled violently.
At the same instant, the seven severed heads buried within the pyre suddenly burst upward from the woods with horrifying laughter.
They floated around him rapidly.
Spinning.
Crying.
Laughing.
Their eyes rolled wildly while their mouths chanted unintelligible noises.
The spectators felt their sanity tremble.
Then Mahangira slowly raised the glowing, moonlike orb and rubbed it across the surface of the black-marked wood.
At the same time, he began chanting; an ancient, broken language was being chanted out from his mouth, and it was not one's voice, but it more felt like countless voices speaking together from underwater.
As the chant continued, the dark lines carved onto the wood suddenly began glowing one after another.
The symbols pulsed like living veins. It felt as though the dead wood itself was being revived. Then, the seven floating heads abruptly transformed. Each melted into a different liquid.
One became black like oil.
One silver and one like mercury.
One glowed blue.
One burned red.
The others twisted into horrifying colours impossible to describe properly.
Each liquid emitted different sounds while flowing.
One cried like a child.
One laughed.
One screamed endlessly.
One whispered prayer.
Together, the seven liquids wrapped themselves around the wood like serpents binding prey. Then Mahangira pointed the wood towards the sky and screamed another series of unintelligible chants with wild laughter.
This time, the crowd finally broke. Someone screamed loudly for the first time after remaining silent for so long.
Then another.
Then another.
The unimaginable horror before them shattered the numbness gripping their minds.
Several people fainted instantly.
But strangely, none of them collapsed to the ground because something invisible was holding their throats upright. The crowd began trembling violently. Even the armoured soldiers nearby had started shaking beneath their armour while witnessing this nightmare unfold.
Then someone shouted desperately,
"Is… is this truly divinity…?"
Another voice cried,
"Is it opening the gates of hell?!"
But before he could finish, the remaining words were swallowed by darkness itself.
Some people finally tried to run.
But the moment they moved, they froze. They saw that their shadows had already stretched unnaturally across the ground all the way towards the pyre. The darkness beneath them was pulling at their feet slowly.
It felt as though the darkness was trying to drag them inward.
Even the soldiers noticed it now. Several turned their heads sharply, glaring at the crowd with a silent, malicious warning not to speak further.
But even the soldiers wore faces of ash, bound by the terrifying realisation that their own shadows were being turned against them. Then suddenly, Mahangira burst into another fit of laughter.
The wood in his hand began disintegrating rapidly into black powder. The powder floated through the air and arranged itself into a gigantic black yantra*** above the pyre. Lines intersected, symbols formed, circles expanded, and then from that black yantra***, violet bats covered in glowing blue lines suddenly began pouring outward.
One after another.
Then hundreds.
Then thousands.
Then millions.
Their wings screeched sharply while circling within the moonlit veil.
Yet something horrifying happened: whenever one of those bats touched the veil, its body instantly disintegrated into dust. That dust then flowed back into the yantra*** lines, and from those same lines, new bats were born again.
This created an endless cycle of death and rebirth, repeating without pause. The giant yantra*** itself slowly began evaporating while producing more and more bats.
Its black lines faded gradually. Until only faint glowing blue residue remained floating in the air. But even that process halted eventually. Because now, the centre of the endless swarm had begun changing.
Then Mahangira suddenly roared towards the slaves; his two sharp canine teeth became visible beneath the skull mask.
"GO!"
The command thundered through the arena like divine judgement. At the same moment, the bats exploded outward from the veil. The violet swarm spread across the entire arena in chaotic circles.
The slaves immediately erupted into panic. Many wanted to scream, but they felt like some covered their heads. Others fell while trying to crawl away.
Even the soldiers began panicking now because none of them understood what would happen next.
The wind began blowing through the arena once again, but this time, it was not a natural wind, as it felt controlled. As though some invisible being was deliberately guiding every current of air across the arena.
The moonlit veils surrounding the pyre suddenly began changing. Earlier, the violet bats had disintegrated whenever they touched those glowing curtains of light.
But now, that was no longer happening because the bats started tearing through the veils themselves, again and again. Their glowing wings ripped through the pale barriers while shrill screeches echoed everywhere.
The sight felt strangely theatrical, like the ending of some grand play where curtains fall before the final revelation. But here, the opposite happened: the countless bats seized the moonlit veils and dragged them upward into the sky. The glowing curtains stretched and folded above the pyre. Then, a gigantic lotus made entirely of moonlight slowly bloomed in midair.
Petal after petal folded endlessly, with some being pale silver and some carrying faint bluish hues. Others looked almost transparent beneath the dark sky. It was beautiful, terrifyingly beautiful.
Yet deep within that enormous lotus, something dangerous lingered silently. Tiny glimmers of light flowed through the petals like glowing veins carrying blood inside a living creature.
The entire atmosphere suddenly became too calm; it felt like the moment before a world-ending storm. Everyone sensed danger. Yet nobody knew where it would come from.
Then suddenly, the wind exploded violently, like a storm had descended directly into the arena.
"Aghhhhh!"
Screams erupted everywhere. The spectators saw the bats circling around the lotus suddenly turn towards the crowd all at once.
And then, the bats charged, as they were moving faster than lightning or even faster than thought itself. The violet bats crashed into the people from every direction.
They entered through mouths, noses, ears, eyes, or any opening they could find.
The crowd immediately descended into madness. Some clawed at their faces desperately. Some screamed for help. Others rolled on the ground choking violently.
But above all those screams, only one sound dominated the arena: Mahangira's loud, mad laughter, which was echoing endlessly.
As the bats entered their bodies, blood immediately began flowing from the people's openings. Thin streams crawled upward unnaturally across their faces. Then those streams gathered upon their foreheads, forming strange marks one after another.
Yet the soldiers on the arena seats reacted differently. Their eyes already turned dull and empty. Instead of panicking, they began cheering loudly from the arena seats.
With every laugh Mahangira released, the soldiers roared even louder in response.
"HAIL THE DIVINITY!"
"HAIL THE MAJESTY!"
Their voices merged together unnaturally in perfect unison.
Mahangira laughed harder.
"The first ritual is complete…"
His voice echoed throughout the arena.
"Begin the second ritual…"
Then he slowly turned his head towards the horizon. The sun was beginning to rise. The very first rays of dawn were about to touch the arena. Suddenly Mahangira stood upon one leg in a pose resembling a sun salutation.
His skull-faced figure remained perfectly balanced while dark wind circled around him. Then he began chanting again. Ancient mantra-like sounds flowed continuously from his mouth.
Slowly, he lowered his raised leg, and the moment his toe touched the ground...
BOOOOOOM!
A gigantic yantra*** awakened around the pyre. The entire arena floor trembled; complex symbols ignited one after another in perfect symmetry beneath the ground.
The yantra*** glowed with a reddish-purple radiance that looked both divine and cursed at the same time. Then, from the centre of the yantra***, a dark stem-like structure slowly rose upward.
It climbed towards the moonlit lotus floating above and connected with it. The moment both joined, the lotus trembled violently. Mahangira stepped forward from the centre of the pyre and grabbed the dark stem with both hands.
The flower immediately began growing larger and larger until its petals expanded slowly across the sky and its perimeter nearly covered the entire arena grounds.
Then Mahangira raised both arms into the air in a cross-like position and chanted another series of mantras. The moment the final chant echoed, the gigantic lotus shot upward into the heavens faster than the eye could follow.
At dawn, where the rising sun should have appeared...
The impossible happened.
The moonlit lotus swallowed the sunlight.
The first rays of dawn were devoured completely by the lotus's petals.
Mahangira formed a circle with his fingers and looked towards the sun through it like a child admiring his own creation.
Then he began laughing to himself. A laugh filled with accomplishment, with pride, and with madness, because what was happening truly was unnatural.
The lotus continued consuming the sunlight; bit by bit, the brightness of dawn dimmed rapidly and the sky darkened again.
At the very moment dawn should have been born, but instead, an eclipse began.
TBC...
............
*** A yantra is a symbolic geometric design composed of shapes such as triangles, circles, lines, and patterns that are arranged in a meaningful way. It serves as a visual focal point for concentration, meditation, or for representing concepts like energy, balance, and deeper ideas. Various yantras can symbolize different concepts, forces, or states of mind, and their symmetrical structure is intended to foster a sense of order, focus, and connection. We will explore this topic in further chapters.