Bharat's wounds were many.
But the oldest one — the one the British kept pressing — was division.
Not by color, not by coin, not by caste.
By faith.
And for every colonial officer who enforced the divide with ink and law, there were voices — behind pulpits, behind veils — that whispered fire into young minds.
Vikram didn't care if a man prayed facing west or east.
But he cared deeply when that prayer turned into knives.
Old Delhi had grown quieter since Vikram's press took root.
More workshops ran without fear. Fewer spies tailed his shipments. Magicnet weaved stronger by the day.
But still, there were moments.
A chant in a madrasa that wasn't from the Quran.A sermon blaming Bharat for imagined sins.A crowd stirred into rage by a voice that sounded trained.
These weren't ordinary religious men.
These were tools.
British-trained. Foreign-funded. Loyal to Arab coin or colonial script.
And their purpose was disruption.
Vikram had heard one speak from a rooftop in Daryaganj — calling Hindus "impure traders," urging Muslims to reject co-existence and prepare for "real law" after British rule.
No British police stopped him.
No report was filed.
Because this kind of fire served the Empire.
Divide. Distract. Rule.
The next morning, Vikram met Renu and Taufiq in the spice cellar below Chandni Chowk.
Maps were spread. Names were marked.
Seventeen radical maulvis across Delhi and northern provinces.
Of them, eleven had direct contact with British clerks, through land grants, educational subsidies, or court exemptions.
Vikram didn't want a spectacle.
He wanted disappearance.
He divided the targets into categories:
Controllables – susceptible to memory rewriting
Disruptables – easily discredited through exposure
Removables – too dangerous to leave alive
Each would be handled differently.
No trace.
No glory.
Only quiet correction.
The first, Maulvi Harun, preached five days a week in Shahjahanpur and had previously been detained by British officers — but released after "community pressure."
Through Magicnet, Vikram linked to his assistant — a boy named Farooq who cleaned prayer mats.
A soft touch on the shoulder.
Thread formed.
That night, Vikram rewrote Harun's memory:
Removed: British interaction history
Implanted: A dream of betrayal by his own handler
Modified: Emotional response to speaking before crowds — turning confidence into nausea
The next Friday, Harun climbed the minbar.
Halfway through his speech, he froze.
Sweated.
Stumbled off, mumbling about demons.
He was never seen again.
For Maulvi Rasheed in Faizabad, a man known for fiery speeches that spurred protests, Vikram used another tool: discreditation.
Rasul, a Magicnet-linked printer, inserted faked bank ledgers into a charity report — showing that Rasheed siphoned donation funds to a cousin in Karachi.
The papers spread.
People spat outside his door.
He fled to Lahore.
He was never trusted again.
But some were worse.
Maulvi Iqbal, head of a madrasa in Bareilly, openly preached violence. Had arms hidden in a storehouse. Trained boys in night drills.
Vikram couldn't rewrite that.
Couldn't shame it.
So he used the oldest tool: accident by nature.
Taufiq bought a basket of scorpions from a Nagpur trader.
They were placed inside Iqbal's bed frame.
Two bites.
Silent swelling.
Buried by sunrise.
The community called it God's justice.
No inquiry followed.
Each removal sent a message.
Not to the public.
To the network of radicals themselves.
Something had changed.
Something watched.
Vikram didn't stop there.
He began re-routing young minds.
He linked to twenty madrasa students — not to erase faith, but to modify memory touchpoints that attached pain to other communities.
Replaced moments of "beaten by Hindu shopkeeper" with "ignored by British guard"
Shifted pride away from foreign fatwas and toward local heroes — Tipu Sultan, Ashfaqulla Khan
Implanted curiosity toward Sanskrit — through faint dreams, soft fascination
The boys didn't convert.
But they questioned.
And that was the first step to breaking the chain.
Renu created a Dharma-Insaan Register — a list of local imams, priests, teachers, and pundits graded by communal harm risk.
Every Magicnet zone would keep one.
Anyone who stirred conflict without cause would be tracked, evaluated, and handled — not with swords, but with skill packets, memory redirection, and where necessary, lethal silence.
No trials.
No banners.
No headlines.
Just order.
And slowly, the whispers changed.
Madrasa walls grew quieter.
Some sermons grew softer.
And some vanished completely.
Vikram didn't do it out of hatred.
He did it out of necessity.
Bharat could not be Akhand until division was removed not just from land — but from thought.
And thought, now, belonged to him.