"To slay a beast, one need not strike its heart—only poison its blood."
---
The capital of Magadha pulsed with motion and noise. From the palace balconies, one could see the trade roads snaking outward like arteries, each carrying the lifeblood of the empire: caravans of silk, salt, copper, and gold.
To most, it was prosperity.
To Vishnugupta, it was anatomy.
Every merchant who bribed a tax collector, every clerk who adjusted an account, every guard who looked the other way—he saw them all not as men, but as veins. Veins that could be redirected. Veins that could be cut.
---
He began small.
In the shadowed courtyards of the merchant guilds, he spoke softly to the men who truly ruled the city: traders, record keepers, money-lenders. He didn't threaten them; he merely described a different world.
"A kingdom where wealth is not squeezed from the weak," he said one evening to a merchant named Somila. "Where trade is not taxed into suffocation, but thrives under order. You can either bleed with the Nandas or breathe with what comes after."
Somila laughed nervously. "And who promises this after?"
"The one who listens to the people rather than their pockets," Vishnugupta replied. "When the time comes, you'll know where to send your gold."
He left no oaths, no seals—only a whisper. The kind that travels faster than armies.
---
Meanwhile, in the western provinces, Chandragupta rode with his commanders through the mist of dawn. The army had grown—farmers, mercenaries, deserters from Nanda regiments—all bound by discipline and something sharper than faith: belief in a future.
They drilled for hours each day. Spears moved in rhythm, shields struck in cadence. When one man faltered, the next took his place without a word.
Chandragupta rode among them silently, his eyes moving across ranks like a sculptor judging the line of stone.
At midday, one of his captains approached. "The men ask—how long before we march east?"
Chandragupta dismounted. "When the heart weakens," he said. "Not before."
The captain frowned. "You mean Pataliputra?"
Chandragupta nodded. "The serpent is there. When it coils, we strike."
---
In the capital, the serpent was already tightening.
Vishnugupta used the bureaucracy itself as his weapon. A misplaced document here, an adjusted tariff there. Soon, caravans meant for the royal treasury began arriving light—one chest missing, two crates short. No one could trace the losses. The empire began to bleed invisibly.
He recruited clerks and accountants through ideas rather than coin.
"Every dishonest king depends on honest servants," he told them. "Do nothing heroic. Simply obey me instead of him."
One clerk, trembling, whispered, "What if the king discovers this?"
Vishnugupta's eyes were calm. "Then history will remember that you stood where others knelt."
---
Weeks later, word reached Chandragupta's camp:
the price of grain in Pataliputra had doubled, merchants were hoarding goods, and tax collectors were vanishing on country roads.
He understood the pattern instantly. The veins were clogging.
That night, he summoned his lieutenants around the fire.
"Our teacher is inside the palace," he said quietly. "Every day he turns the empire against itself. Our task is to give him time."
"How long?" one asked.
"As long as it takes for the serpent to taste blood."
---
Inside the capital, Vishnugupta met secretly with Rakshasa in the candlelit chambers of the minister's library. Scrolls lined the walls; the smell of ink and old parchment filled the air.
Rakshasa's voice was low. "The king grows restless. He suspects everyone, even me."
"Good," Vishnugupta said. "Paranoia is the first symptom of a dying reign."
Rakshasa poured wine into two cups. "Tell me, Brahmin. What do you gain from this chaos?"
Vishnugupta accepted the cup but didn't drink. "Order," he said. "The kind that can only be built after the rot is gone."
Rakshasa studied him. "You speak as though you intend to rule."
"I intend to teach one who will."
For the first time, the minister's mask cracked. "Then there truly is another power rising."
Vishnugupta's silence was answer enough.
---
At the end of that week, a messenger left Pataliputra under the guise of a spice trader. Hidden in his sandal was a single gold coin, stamped with the Nanda crest and a thin scratch across its edge — the mark Vishnugupta had designed years ago for messages that needed no words.
The messenger traveled for days through forests and fields until he reached the rebel camp. There, he placed the coin in Chandragupta's hand.
The young commander turned it over under the torchlight, reading the meaning behind it. Not payment. Not bribe. Message.
The empire's blood flows to you now.
Chandragupta closed his fist around the coin and whispered,
"Then let the heart prepare."
---
In the palace, Vishnugupta watched from his balcony as torchlights flickered along the river, reflected like veins of fire across the dark waters of the Ganga.
Every torch, every whisper, every coin — part of a design that only he could see clearly.
He murmured to himself, "The veins are open. Now let the heart falter."
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