The iron road was dead.
Once, it had carried carts and beasts laden with ore, its surface ringing with the metallic music of hammers and wheels. Now, it stretched before Lakshya as nothing more than a skeletal memory — a rusted spine buried in sand and ash. The once-proud rail lines were warped and twisted like bones scorched in an ancient fire.
Nandiji stopped beside him, lowering his massive head to sniff the wind.
"Smell that?" he rumbled. "Ash mixed with oil. Someone's been here… recently."
Lakshya narrowed his eyes. "How recently?"
"Hours. Maybe less," Nandiji replied, tail swishing. "And whoever they are, they're walking the Iron Path without fear."
Chiklu Maharaj hopped ahead on the broken rail, his claws clicking against the rust. "Or without brains," he muttered. "No sane traveler comes here. The Ash-Born roam at night."
Lakshya remembered the stories from the villages — of pale figures wrapped in cinders, their voices like smoldering coal, hunting trespassers until only dust remained. It sounded like superstition, but he had seen enough on Mahakaal Lok to know that myths often had fangs.
They pressed forward.
The air thickened the deeper they went. Fine grey ash rose with every step, clinging to skin and fur, coating tongues with a bitter metallic taste. Abandoned iron carts lay overturned beside the road, their wheels fused by some ancient heat. Bent tools, shattered helmets, and skeletal remains lay scattered like offerings to a forgotten god.
"What happened here?" Lakshya asked quietly.
Pandit Neon Baba, who had been unusually silent, finally spoke. "This was once the beating heart of Mahakaal Lok's industry — the Iron Path connected the Ashen Foundry to the outer realms. But greed… and something darker… burned it to the ground. The land remembers, and it resents intruders."
They reached a point where the rails simply ended — swallowed by a blackened chasm. Steam hissed from cracks in the earth, carrying the acrid scent of molten metal. Beyond the gap, the landscape dipped into a hollow basin, its center dominated by a mound of twisted steel. It looked almost like a throne, jagged and sharp, surrounded by a ring of scorched stones.
Chiklu froze. "We… are not alone."
From the ash itself, shapes began to rise. Humanoid, but wrong — their skin cracked like overbaked clay, faint orange light leaking through fissures. Their eyes were pits of dim embers. They moved soundlessly, except for the faint hiss of ash sliding off their bodies.
"The Ash-Born," Nandiji said grimly. "I told you."
Lakshya stepped forward, his right hand tightening around his weapon. "Stay behind me."
The Ash-Born did not attack immediately. They stood still, swaying slightly, as if caught in some unseen wind. Then, one stepped forward and spoke in a voice like grinding iron.
"Turn back… or be forged anew."
Lakshya met its gaze without flinching. "We're not here to take. We're here to learn."
A long pause. Then, the Ash-Born's head tilted. "Learning… is a forging. Fire will decide if you are worthy."
Without warning, the air shimmered. Heat surged upward, making the distant horizon waver. The ground beneath Lakshya's feet vibrated, and the jagged steel mound in the basin began to glow from within, like a forge waking from slumber.
The Ash-Born moved as one. They didn't run — they glided, their motions eerily smooth, hands leaving trails of glowing embers in the air. Lakshya's blade met the first strike, sparks flaring. Each blow felt heavier than stone, as if the Ash-Born's strength came from the earth itself.
Chiklu darted between them, his staff striking pressure points, causing cracks to spread across their bodies. Nandiji charged like a storm, scattering two of the creatures into bursts of ash.
Pandit Neon Baba's voice rang out like a chant. His mantras carried strange weight here — each syllable sent ripples through the ash clouds, momentarily disorienting their enemies.
Lakshya fought at the center, his breath steady, his movements deliberate. This was not like fighting flesh — it was like striking statues that bled fire. His strikes had to be precise, each one aiming for the glowing fractures beneath their surface.
One Ash-Born lunged at him with both arms, and for a moment, Lakshya saw his reflection in its ember-lit eyes — not as he was, but as something else… a figure wrapped in fire, crowned with molten iron. It was gone in a blink, but it left a strange heaviness in his chest.
The fight ended as suddenly as it began. The remaining Ash-Born stepped back, their bodies cracking further, releasing streams of light that drifted upward and dissolved into the ashen sky.
The leader — or perhaps simply the last one standing — placed a hand on the steel mound. "The Iron Path is broken… but its ashes remember. Walk it… and you will find what was lost."
With that, it crumbled into dust, carried away by a wind that hadn't existed moments before.
Lakshya approached the mound. At its base, half-buried in ash, was a fragment of an old forging hammer — its head engraved with symbols he did not recognize. When he touched it, the ground beneath him thrummed faintly, as if the Iron Path itself acknowledged him.
"Another piece of the puzzle," Nandiji murmured.
Lakshya closed his fingers around the hammer fragment. "No," he said softly. "Another test. The ashes aren't just history — they're warning us. Whatever burned this path… might burn again."
They turned away from the basin, the wind at their backs carrying the faint sound of metal ringing — like a distant forge calling a smith home.
And somewhere far ahead, in the heart of Mahakaal Lok, the next path awaited.
To be continued....