The winds screamed like mourning mothers as Astha, Luv, and Naira approached the broken cliffside. The terrain had shifted; this wasn't just scorched earth — it was hollowed. As if something ancient had dug its claws through the world and left memory bleeding.
Below them, encased in obsidian thorns and temple ruins, stood the Temple of the Forgotten Flame — one of the last divine places not yet swallowed by war or erased by the gods.
"This is where it all started," whispered Naira.
"Where what started?" Luv asked, his voice wrapped in static.
Astha's gaze didn't leave the temple.
"The rebellion. The flame. My first death."
---
Inside the Temple
The trio descended, silence trailing behind them like a phantom. As they crossed the threshold, the ancient symbols on the wall ignited—not from torchlight, but from memory. Smritidhaara pulsed at Astha's side, glowing red like a wound refusing to close.
At the temple's heart stood a massive flame—still, cold, yet burning in a way no physical fire ever could. Astha stepped forward.
"This isn't a shrine," he muttered. "It's a grave."
Boom.
The walls trembled. Cracks shot across the ground as a deep, growling voice rumbled from within the earth:
"You carry their pain, White Flame. But will you carry their punishment?"
Emerging from the shattered altar came a monstrous beast—its body made of scorched bone and molten muscle. A divine beast, chained to the temple to guard a secret the gods feared: Shesha-Akriti, the malformed echo of the world serpent.
---
Fight Begins –
Shesha-Akriti lunged.
Astha didn't dodge.
He caught the beast's jaws between his arms and held it open, muscles ripping through his robe.
"You want punishment?" he growled. "Then take it from the last man left standing."
He tore the jaw off the beast with brute force.
Luv unleashed a torrent of thunder, driving it into the broken serpent's side, while Naira's mantras formed protective seals in the air. Shesha-Akriti regenerated—violently—and slammed Astha into the ground, collapsing a section of the temple.
Crack.
Astha's body smashed through divine stone—then rose.
Blood coated his arms. His hoodie was torn. But his eyes... were calm. Focused.
"I'm done asking gods for peace."
Astha summoned his new weapon—Ashvaanta—a blade forged from the screams of forgotten warriors. The blade didn't appear with light or flash. It unfolded from his shadow, crackling with soulfire.
---
Astha leapt, carving a path through air. The swing was clean, but its impact shattered the floor and roof in a single pulse.
Boom.
Shesha-Akriti was split in half.
But it wasn't just death—it was memory execution. The beast howled not from pain, but from remembering all it had done. Smritidhaara wrapped around its broken spine, dragging its soul into silence.
The temple fell still again.
---
Aftermath – Whisper of the Past
Naira found an old mural behind the beast's resting place. It showed Astha, younger, without his flame — kneeling beside a burning body.
Luv looked closer. "Is that... Aryan?"
Astha didn't respond. Instead, he touched the wall, and a new carving appeared — freshly burned by his hand.
A line of words.
"No god decides who we forget."