The Celestial Breach
The atmosphere of Xylos Prime screamed as physics collapsed.
It began with a tear in the smog-choked sky. A single streak of blinding saffron light pierced the cloud layer, moving faster than the planet's tracking sensors could register.
BOOM.
Agni Dev did not land; he impacted.
He struck the center of the Northern Industrial Zone. The kinetic force flattened miles of black steel factories. The ground rippled like water, turning into a lake of boiling magma instantly.
Agni rose from the crater. Seven feet of golden perfection. He hovered a foot off the molten ground, the heat radiating from his skin turning the toxic air into plasma.
The Xylos Legion responded. Sirens wailed.
The "Iron Swarm" emerged from the smog. It was a dense, mechanized ocean of violence. Tens of thousands of cyber-soldiers, heavy tanks, and low-flying gunships charged toward the lone golden figure. They fired, the sky lighting up with green radiation.
Agni stood his ground. He tilted his head back and opened his mouth.
He inhaled.
It wasn't a breath; it was a vacuum event. The air for miles around was sucked toward him. The flames on the ground were pulled into his throat. The very oxygen of the battlefield rushed into his lungs, feeding the cosmic furnace inside his chest.
Agni's eyes snapped open, pure white.
"BHASM."
He exhaled.
A cataclysm of white fire erupted from his mouth. It wasn't a stream; it was a tidal wave of absolute incineration. The cone of destruction expanded instantly, covering the entire charging vanguard.
There was no sound of burning, only the hiss of vaporization.
Tens of thousands of soldiers didn't melt—they vanished. The molecules were stripped apart. The tanks turned into streaks of carbon and disintegrated. The fire roared across the plains, erasing the army instantly.
When Agni closed his mouth, the battlefield was silent. Only drifting grey ash remained where the legion had stood.
Then, the gravity shifted.
Yamdev arrived.
He descended from the upper atmosphere, floating vertically, his cape billowing in the vacuum of his own speed. He wore midnight-blue armor, and his eyes were voids of absolute cold.
A battery of hypersonic missiles, fired from a hidden ridge, screamed toward him at Mach 10.
Yamdev didn't stop. He flew forward, weaving through the barrage with impossible agility. He banked left, dodging two warheads, then accelerated.
He reached out with a bare hand.
CLANG.
He caught the lead missile in mid-air. The thruster burned against his palm, but he held the screaming projectile frozen in place. He spun in the air, using the momentum, and hurled the missile back at the ridge.
BOOM.
The ridge evaporated.
Yamdev landed on a spire of twisted metal. A "Bio-Titan"—a monstrous, moving fortress of flesh and steel, standing sixty feet tall—roared, charging at him.
Yamdev pointed one finger at the giant.
"Collapse."
Gravity inverted inside the machine. The sixty-foot giant shrieked as it folded in on itself. Legs snapped backward. The cockpit was crushed into the torso. In three seconds, the massive war machine was compressed into a perfect, bleeding sphere of scrap metal no larger than a football.
Yamdev flicked his finger, and the heavy sphere dropped to the ground, cracking the concrete.
"Agni Dev," Yamdev called out. "The Palace."
They launched together. Agni melted the air; Yamdev parted it. They moved as streaks of gold and blue light, tearing through the sonic barrier.
They reached the Citadel of Bone. The gates exploded.
General Gorath stepped out.
He was a thirty-foot giant, a warlord of super-dense titanium and rage. He wielded a hammer the size of a building, sparking with electricity.
"INSECTS!" Gorath roared. "I WILL CRUSH YOU!"
Gorath leaped. He covered the distance in a heartbeat, swinging the hammer to crush them both.
Agni moved first. A blur of gold. He flew straight at Gorath's face, dodging the hammer swing by a millimeter.
Agni pulled his fist back. The air around his knuckles ignited, forming a corona of fusion energy. He drove the punch straight into Gorath's helmet.
KABOOM.
The impact was catastrophic. A golden shockwave erupted from the point of contact, shattering the windows of the palace towers miles away.
The thirty-foot giant didn't just stumble; he was launched. Gorath flew backward through the air, crashing through the outer wall, then the inner wall, finally slamming into the main keep. The stone structure collapsed on top of him, burying him in a mountain of rubble.
Gorath roared in pain, throwing the debris off his broken armor. He tried to stand, but Yamdev was already there.
"My turn," Yamdev said.
He hovered directly above the dazed giant. He grabbed the heavy hammer Gorath had dropped. Yamdev spun the massive weapon once, gathering momentum, and swung it down with the force of a falling meteor.
He smashed it into Gorath's spine.
CRACK-BOOM.
The sound was sickening. The impact created a crater beneath the giant, pulverizing the bedrock for fifty meters in every direction. Gorath's spine shattered instantly. The shockwave of the blow flattened the surrounding ruins.
Gorath screamed, paralyzed, coughing violet blood. Yamdev landed on his back, pinning him.
"The son," Yamdev demanded. "Where?"
"He… is… gone," Gorath wheezed.
"Where?" Yamdev pressed his boot down.
"I… don't… know," Gorath laughed, a wet, dying sound. "He left… weeks ago. Even I… don't know… where the shadow went."
"You lie."
Yamdev raised his hand. "Extraction."
He plunged his hand into Gorath's back, phasing through armor and flesh. He ripped out the blue, jagged soul. Yamdev crushed it, forcing his mind into the spirit's memories.
He saw the memory: The son standing in the dark. "Do not look for me, Father." The son vanishes.
The memory ended. Blank.
Yamdev released the soul, letting it dissolve. "Nothing. The father did not know. The trail is cold."
Agni looked around at the ruined city, the ash of the soldiers, and the remaining millions of civilians and hidden troops cowering in the bunkers across the planet. His eyes narrowed as he sensed the malice still vibrating through the planet's crust.
"We cannot leave yet, Yam," Agni said, his voice hard. "The army was merely the surface. This entire world is festering with unpeaceful demons. They hide in the deep bunkers, waiting for us to leave so they can rebuild."
Agni looked at the Kaal Danda in Yamdev's hand.
"Purge them," Agni commanded. "Cast the Verdict."
Yamdev nodded silently. He knew Agni Dev was right. The rot was too deep for fire; it required judgment.
Yamdev flew up, hovering high above the crater. He raised the Staff of Death horizontally. Dark energy began to bleed from the weapon, turning the sky pitch black.
"The Silent Verdict."
Yamdev swung the staff in a wide.
A wave emerged.
It wasn't fire. It wasn't gravity. It was a Black Sickle—a ripple of pure, translucent darkness that stretched from the ground to the stratosphere.
The wave began to move forward.
It passed through the palace ruins without damaging the stone. It passed through Agni without harming him.
But then it hit the bunkers where the surviving generals hid.
The wave passed through the walls. Inside, the generals—men filled with hate, corruption, and a lust for war—froze.
Their bodies didn't break. There was no blood.
They simply slumped over. As the Black Sickle passed through them, it judged their cores, saw the rot inside, and extracted their souls instantly, sending them screaming into the void.
But in the dungeons below, where innocent prisoners were kept, the wave passed through them… and did nothing. They felt only a cool breeze, a strange sense of peace washing over their tired bodies.
Agni watched the massive black wave expand, satisfied. He knew the nature of this weapon. It would travel for seven days and seven nights, circling the entire globe. It needed no guidance. It hunted intent.
Those who harbored peace would sleep soundly.
Those who harbored war would simply cease to exist.
"It is done," Yamdev said, lowering his staff.
"We return," Agni said.
The two Devas shot into the sky, leaving the planet to its silent judgment.