No trumpet announced the change.
No decree explained it.
Yet everyone felt it.
When the armies stirred again, something essential was missing.
Authority.
Duryodhana stood among his commanders, armor immaculate, posture rigid—but the space around him felt empty, like a banner torn from its pole.
Orders issued from his mouth no longer carried inevitability.
They waited.
Some obeyed.
Some hesitated.
The system recorded the fracture.
—
[Command Cohesion: Severely Reduced]
—
Bhishma approached him at dawn.
"You are no longer king," Bhishma said quietly. "But you are still my charge."
Duryodhana did not respond.
"You may fight," Bhishma continued. "But you will not command blindly."
Duryodhana's jaw tightened.
"This was your doing," he said.
Bhishma shook his head.
"No," he replied. "This was your choice."
They parted without ceremony.
---
Karna stood apart from both camps.
Word of the judgment had spread fast—faster than fear.
He was no longer questioned.
He was *watched*.
A man without a lie to shelter behind frightened both sides.
Krishna approached him as the sun climbed.
"You may still walk away," Krishna said.
Karna smiled faintly.
"I walked away from poverty once," he replied. "I will not walk away from myself."
Krishna nodded.
"Then choose," he said simply.
Karna looked toward Hastinapura.
Then toward the Pandava camp.
Then straight ahead.
"I fight," Karna said, "not for a throne—"
He paused.
"—but for the man I chose to be."
The system acknowledged.
—
[Karna Path: Self-Defined]
[Alignment: Personal Dharma Locked]
—
In the Pandava camp, Yudhishthira struggled.
"If kings fall," he asked Krishna, "what remains of law?"
Krishna's expression was unusually sober.
"Law remains," he said. "But it must now survive without illusion."
Arjuna felt a chill.
"So we fight men," he said slowly, "not destiny."
Krishna smiled faintly.
"That," he replied, "is far harder."
---
Rudra watched from afar.
Not intervening.
Not directing.
Observing.
The system did not prompt him.
It no longer needed to.
Anaya sat beside him, legs swinging.
"Bhai," she asked softly, "are you done now?"
Rudra considered the battlefield forming in the distance.
"No," he said. "But I am no longer required for every step."
"And if they fall back into lies?"
Rudra's gaze sharpened.
"Then I return."
---
As the armies finally formed, banners rose again—not crowned, not sanctified.
Just claimed.
War began—not with prophecy, not with fate—
But with men who could no longer pretend they were innocent.
The conches sounded.
And somewhere beyond gods and stories, judgment waited—
Patient.
Unblinking.
Ready.
-- chapter 40 ended --