Chapter 8: The Ghost of Devlok
The humid city air felt like a wet wool blanket, a far cry from the ethereal winds of the realm Inspector Nand had left years ago. Inside the police precinct, the atmosphere was thick with the scent of ozone and wet asphalt as a monsoon storm began to scream over the valley.
Nand sat alone under the flicker of a dying fluorescent bulb, clearing a desk cluttered with mundane mortal chaos—thefts, domestic disputes, and paperwork. To his colleagues, he was just a quiet officer with unsettlingly fast reflexes. But Nand was looking at his own muscular hands, etched with scars no street fight in this world could explain. He had traded a celestial blade for a service revolver. Yet every night, he still dreamt of the sky turning red and the sound of Asura wings.
Exactly at 5:59 PM, his desk phone rattled. He picked it up before the second ring.
"I was starting to think you'd forgotten the time," his wife Smita's warm voice came through the receiver.
"I don't think so," Nand said softly. "Because I'll be home soon, Smita. just in few hours."
"In just few hours? You would have been home an hour ago," she countered with a light laugh. "The Chief had already informed me earlier. He said you nearly broke a suspect's arm today and moved so fast that it looked like you almost teleported,"
Nand looked away, his jaw tightening. "What exactly i could have done in that situation, They had a knife to a girl's throat, Smita. I didn't have time for the people to look away."
"But you need to be careful, Nand," she whispered, her tone turning serious. "People are noticing strange things about you. Like you don't seem to age like others, and also about your infamous, never missing shots from your infamous revolver, and that you move like an absolute cheetah with an unexplainable reflexes and agility seen in no other man.
"You know we have talked about this before." Smita continues her lecture "Control your instincts and don't try to be a super hero. otherwise you would unfortunately reveal your identity one day.
Nand closed his eyes, leaning back in his creaking chair. "Yeah, yeah yeah, I know... i know all your worries sweetheart, don't worry i would be little more careful from now."
"I hope so. But Promise me that you'll leave the office immediately?" Smita demanded.
"As you my sweetheart, i would leave my desk within less than an hour after i quickly finishes some of the remaining files on the table." Nand nods his head agreeing with smita, "What's for the dinner tonight?"
"Just your favorite," she replied. "But hurry up, before it gets cold."
"Sure," Nand whispered, hanging up the phone.
At that exact moment, a hidden cave deep within the celestial realm exploded in blinding light.
Harsha lunged into the chamber, his heavy boots skidding across the damp stone floor. Strapped securely to his chest was the sacred lotus basket. He had finally reached the coordinates—the one place that offered an escape from the crumbling realm of Devlok.
An intricate teleportation circle carved into the bedrock began to roar as Harsha chanted his high-level mantras. He struck two celestial stones together, unleashing a brilliant spark that acted as the final ritualistic key. With a heavy groan, the ancient gateway slid open, revealing a swirling vortex of incandescent light.
"Do you truly believe you can outsmart us?"
A voice, cold as broken glass, cut through the roar of the vortex. Out of the shadows stepped Mihirkul. The Asura commander's armor was forged from light-eating dark matter, and his eyes burned with the sickening violet flame of the abyss.
Mihirkul drew his serrated blade. "You run like a coward; leaving your world to burn behind. Even before my arrival" he sneered, his presence curdling the air. "Did you honestly think the scent of divine blood wouldn't lead us straight to your rat hole?" His grin widened, jagged and cruel. "And.. at last, do you wanna know what I did to them back at the citadel?"
He stared maliciously at the harsha's sudden anxious face. "Don't worry—they won't be telling anyone about anything. Ever again."
Behind him, the Asura legions wore twisted, mocking grins.
The words hit Harsha like a devastating physical blow. For an agonizing second, his composure fractured. His eyes grew wet as the horrific realization of his family's slaughter tore at his soul. The suffocating guilt began to feast on his heart.
But than the trembling suddenly stopped.
Harsha let the moisture in his eyes burn off against the violent heat of his resolve. Drawing his celestial sword in one breathtaking motion, the divine steel hummed with a flickering blue flame.
"I am not running from you, Mihirkul, you are not meant to pull of that feat" Harsha hissed, leveling the glowing blade at the demon's throat. "I am simply safeguarding your fate of destruction today."
A single lotus petal of the basket on his chest armour opened, revealing the shining face of the infant Avatar.
Mihirkul roared in blinding anger. "Kill him!" he shrieked, launching a succession of crackling lightning spheres as his legions charged forward.
The clash was instantaneous. Cavern stone rang as God-steel collided against light-eating dark matter. Harsha quickly flipped back the lotus basket behind his back and fought with the savage desperation of a cornered father, deflecting a barrage of lethal blows. He fluidly parried Mihirkul's heavy, skull-crushing strikes, even as the gravity of the roaring vortex behind him began to violently pull at the hem of his cloak.
Suddenly, his giant flight bird burst into the chamber, tearing through the Asura ranks with razor-sharp talons and diverting everyone's attention from harsha.
Seizing the opportunity from the Asura's distraction, Harsha drove a heavy kick into Mihirkul's chest, sending the commander reeling. Without wasting a breath, Harsha leapt backward, plunging straight into the shimmering light of the rift.
As his body began to dissolve into the matrix, Harsha swung his blade one last time, aimed at the ancient stone pillars anchoring the gateway to this reality. severing the anchoring gateway. The bedrock crumbled, causing the portal to collapse into a violent shower of sparks. His loyal flight bird dove into the shrinking rift just as reality slipped away.
"NO!" Mihirkul roared. "If I cannot have the child, let the void claim you both!"
In a final act of spite, the commander hurled a jagged Dark Matter dagger infused with anti-god properties into the rift. The black blade hissed through the air, disappearing into the closing vortex a fraction of a second before the portal exploded into absolute nothingness.
In the mortal realm, a heavy storm darkened the night. Inside the police precinct, Nand sat alone, clearing his desk. Preparing to leave the station for the home. He reached into his drawer and pulled out a small leather pouch containing a round, flat crystalline stone—a shard of the celestial spires of Devlok.
As his fingers brushed the stone, the crystal flared with a violent, blinding blue light.
Nand's heart hammered. The air in the precinct grew thin, charged with static electricity. Overhead, the clicking fan ground to a halt.
CRACK-BOOM.
A thunderbolt heavier than any earthly storm rattled the windows. Nand froze. That wasn't the sound of clouds colliding; it was the fabric of reality tearing open.
He sprinted to the window to see what was going on. Outside. High above the distant mountains, a streak of gold tore through the bruised clouds, spitting out a solitary figure that tumbled like a dying star toward the valley.
"No," Nand whispered. "It can't be."
He grabbed his coat and keys, charging out into the freezing rain.
...