They say an ant can lift fifty times its own weight. They say an ant never surrenders. They say an ant will march into fire if it means protecting the nest.
But they never tell you the rest.
They never tell you that an ant does not think about odds. Does not calculate its chances. Does not wonder if it is big enough or strong enough or fast enough. An ant simply acts. Because hesitation means death. Because waiting means watching everything you love turn to ash.
An ant can kill an elephant.
Not with size. Not with strength. With something else. Something the elephant does not understand.
The refusal to stay down. The refusal to accept that the world is bigger than you. The refusal to let the giants win.
An ant fights for its family. An ant dies for its family. An ant does not know the word impossible. It only knows one thing.
Keep moving. Keep biting. Keep climbing.
Until the elephant falls.
Veda hung in the air.
The black vines wrapped around his arms, his legs, his throat. Thorns dug into his skin. Blood ran down his body in thin red rivers. His clothes were gone. His chest was a map of cuts and bruises. His left arm hung at a wrong angle. His right leg would not hold his weight.
He did not care.
His eyes glowed. White light poured from his pupils, bright as exploding stars. Light leaked from his mouth, his nose, the cracks in his skin. His body was breaking. He could feel it. The bones in his arms were splintering. The muscles in his legs were tearing. His heart was beating so fast he could not count the rhythm.
Young Veda appeared beside him. Floating. His ancient face was tight. Worried. The first time Veda had seen him look anything but calm.
"Stop this, child. Your body cannot handle this power. If you keep going, you will die."
Veda's voice came out raw. Broken. But certain.
"I don't care what happens to me. I only want to kill that bastard who touched my family."
"Veda..."
"I DON'T CARE!"
He screamed.
The sound tore through the red sky. It bounced off the broken buildings and shattered the remaining windows for miles. It climbed into the smoke and shook the clouds.
Below him, his mother and father watched.
They had crawled out of the ruined house. His father's barrier was gone. His mother's face was covered in dust and blood from a cut on her forehead. They stood in the street, surrounded by rubble and monsters, staring up at their son.
His mother's hands covered her mouth. Her eyes were wide. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
"Veda... beta... what is happening to you?"
His father could not speak. He just watched. His glasses were cracked. His lip was bleeding. He watched his son float in the air, wrapped in black vines, glowing like a star about to explode.
"VEDA, NO!" his mother screamed. "PLEASE, BETA, STOP!"
Veda heard her. He heard every word. He heard the fear in her voice. The love. The desperation.
He could not stop.
The light grew brighter. His body began to crack. Not his bones. His skin. Lines of light spread across his arms, his chest, his face. Like a ceramic doll being dropped. Like a star at the end of its life.
"I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU!"
The vines snapped.
Not one by one. All of them. Simultaneously. The black ropes exploded into dust. The thorns turned to ash. Veda dropped to the ground, landed on his feet, and looked up.
The Asura stared at him.
Those fifty eyes. That giant eye. For the first time, they held something other than hunger.
Fear.
"DIE!"
The Asura swung his two left arms. Fists the size of cars. They would have crushed a tank. They would have flattened a building.
Veda did not move.
The fists hit him.
Light exploded.
The Asura screamed. His fists did not connect. They stopped inches from Veda's body. And then they were gone. Blasted apart. Blood sprayed from the stumps of his arms. The creature stumbled backward, staring at his ruined hands, his five mouths open in shock.
"WHAT... WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!"
Veda rose into the air. His body was covered in shadow. Dark smoke wrapped around him like a cloak. His skin was cracked everywhere, leaking white light from every wound. His face showed nothing. No anger. No pain. No mercy. Just the empty stillness of something that had stopped being human.
The Asura tried to look at him. Could not. His eyes slid away. His heads turned. Something in his ancient monster brain was screaming at him to run.
"MY HANDS! HOW DARE YOU DO THIS TO ME! I WILL KILL YOU! I WILL..."
Veda vanished.
Not moved. Not ran. Vanished.
And reappeared in front of the Asura's face.
His fist connected with the center head. The impact was silent. There was no sound loud enough to contain it. The Asura's head flattened. Caved inward. The fifty eyes burst. The giant eye popped like a balloon. Black fluid sprayed across the ruins.
The Asura's body flew backward. Crashed through three buildings. The structures collapsed on top of him, burying him in concrete and steel.
Veda dropped to the ground. Ran to his parents.
The Asura's two remaining arms still held them. The giant hands were limp now, confused, releasing their grip. Veda grabbed his mother. His father. He pulled them free. The hands fell to the ground, twitching.
He carried them to the side. Away from the monster. Away from the destruction. He set them down gently on a patch of clear ground.
His mother grabbed his face. Her hands were shaking. Her tears fell on his cracked skin.
"Veda, beta, what happened to you? Your face... your body... you're breaking..."
His father grabbed his shoulder. "Son, we need to run. Now. While it's down. We need to..."
Veda touched his father's hand. Then his mother's cheek.
His eyes were still glowing. But something softer lived there now. Something sad.
"I'm sorry."
He tapped their necks. Gently. A pressure point. The same move he had used a hundred times in the army to silence enemies without killing them.
His mother's eyes fluttered. She reached for him. Her fingers brushed his chest.
"Don't... go..."
Her hand fell. Her eyes closed. She slumped against his father, who was already unconscious, already dreaming of something better.
Veda looked at them. At their peaceful faces. At the rise and fall of their chests.
"I'm sorry"
He stood. Turned. Walked toward the monster.
Behind him, his mother's lips moved in her sleep. A single word. No sound.
Beta…
The Asura exploded from the rubble.
His two remaining arms flailed. His five heads were screaming. His body was broken, bleeding, but still moving. Still fighting.
"WHERE ARE YOU?! WHERE DID YOU GO?! I WILL KILL EVERYONE! I WILL DESTROY EVERYTHING! I WILL.."
Veda appeared in front of him. Floating. Arms crossed. Face empty.
"Here."
The Asura swung. Veda dodged. Not fast. Not slow. Perfect. Like he had seen the punch before it was thrown.
Because he had.
The future unfolded in his mind like a river. Every move the Asura would make. Every attack. Every desperate swing. He saw it all. And he was already somewhere else.
He kicked the Asura in the back. The creature flew forward, crashed into a building. Veda was there waiting. Punched him in the chest. The Asura flew backward. Veda was there too.
Left. Right. Up. Down.
Every time the Asura moved, Veda was already where he would land. Every time the Asura attacked, Veda was already somewhere else.
The creature could not touch him.
But Veda could touch the creature.
His fists rained down. Dozens. Hundreds. Each punch cracked the Asura's wooden armor. Each kick shattered bone. The creature's body was breaking apart, pieces falling to the ground, turning to dust.
The Asura jumped back. Put distance between them. His body was already healing. Wood grew over the wounds. Arms began to reform. His five heads laughed.
"Foolish human! Your lowly attacks cannot stop my healing! I am immortal! I am a slave of the Heavenly Lord! I cannot be killed by the likes of you!"
Veda watched him.
The creature was not lying. The wounds were closing. The arms were growing back. No matter how many times Veda hurt him, he healed. Endless. Tireless. Immortal.
Nothing is immortal.
The thought came from somewhere deep. Somewhere ancient. Somewhere that had seen stars die and worlds burn.
Veda opened his right hand. The air around his palm began to bend. Twist. Crack.
A metal rod appeared. Flying through the air from across the ruined street. It came to him like a bird returning home. His fingers closed around it. The metal was warm. Alive. Waiting.
The Asura laughed.
"You think that stick can destroy me? HAH!"
Veda rose into the air. Higher and higher. The red moon behind him. The metal rod in his hand. His cracked body glowing like a dying sun.
"Throughout my most of life," he said, his voice low and steady, "I only done and know one thing."
The Asura stopped laughing.
Veda raised the rod above his head. The air around him began to scream.
"HOW TO CUT!"
The ground shook. Buildings trembled. The red moon flickered.
"If one cut does not kill you... I will cut you a thousand times."
The Asura laughed again, but there was fear underneath it. "How dare you think a stick can destroy me! I am the slave of the almighty Heavenly Lord! I am immortal! I AM—"
Veda's eyes closed.
Then opened.
The world went silent. No wind. No sound. No movement. The red moon froze in the sky. The smoke stopped rising. The dust hung in the air like a photograph.
"ONE…CUT..."
Time itself held its breath.
"...SLICE."
Veda swung the rod.
INFINITY!
The metal moved. It was not fast. It was not slow. It was beyond such things. The rod cut through the air like a knife through butter. Smooth. Clean. Final.
The Asura kept laughing.
Then his body split in half.
From the top of his center head to the bottom of his torso. A perfect line. His two halves slid apart. Black blood sprayed in a geyser. His five heads stopped laughing. His fifty eyes blinked in confusion.
"I am... still alive..."
The cuts came.
The rod became a blur. A storm of steel and light. Each cut precise. Each cut final. The Asura's body exploded into particles. Every cell. Every drop of blood. Every piece of bone. Torn apart. Scattered.
The particles turned to dust. The dust turned to nothing.
The Asura was gone.
Veda landed on the ground. His body was cracking faster now. Pieces of him were floating away, glowing white, dissolving into the air like ash from a fire.
The red moon faded. The barrier dissolved. The smoke began to clear.
Veda walked to his parents. They lay where he had left them. Sleeping. Peaceful. Alive.
He sat down beside them. Cross legged. His body was breaking. He could feel himself disappearing, piece by piece.
He touched his mother's face. Her cheek was warm. Soft.
"This life," he said quietly, "I enjoyed every moment of it."
He looked at his father. At the gray hair. The tired face. The hands that had patted his arm and called him beta.
"I never had a father before. I never knew what it felt like to have someone wait for you at home. To worry about you. To love you without asking for anything in return."
His eyes filled with tears.
"Thank you. For everythin…
A pillar of light exploded from the spot where the Asura had died. White. Blinding. It shot into the sky and pierced the clouds.
Veda turned his head to look.
Something moved.
Too fast. A blur. A shadow.
A kick slammed into his face.
The impact was beyond anything he had felt. His body flew backward. Through one building. The wall shattered around him. Through a second. Concrete and steel tore at his skin. Through a third. His body bounced off the ground, crashed through a fourth building, and finally stopped, buried in rubble.
He gasped. Blood filled his mouth. His vision swam. Every bone in his body screamed.
My parents.
He pushed himself up. His arms were breaking. His legs would barely hold him. But he pushed. He stood. He ran.
The world blurred around him. The smoke. The fire. The red sky. He jumped from the rubble, flew through the air, landed on the street in front of where his parents lay.
And stopped.
The figure stood over them.
Same size as Veda. Same shape. Young. Lean. But wrong.
The red Asura. But smaller now. Human sized. His skin was smooth and dark red, like dried blood. His face was sharp, beautiful in the way a blade is beautiful. His eyes were yellow, glowing like embers. Two small horns curved back from his forehead. A tail swayed behind him. He wore no armor now. Just dark pants and a bare chest covered in fresh blood.
He was kneeling beside Veda's parents.
Eating.
His father's body was destroyed. The head was gone. The chest was torn open. Blood pooled beneath the remains.
His mother... his mother was worse. Her neck was broken. Her legs were missing. Her arms were twisted at wrong angles. The Asura was biting into her neck. Chewing. Swallowing. Blood ran down his chin.
He bit down harder. Her head burst. Blood sprayed across the rubble.
Veda fell to his knees.
No sound came out. His mouth was open. His eyes were wide. His hands reached toward nothing. Toward the blood. Toward the pieces of the people who had loved him.
"No..."
The Asura turned.
NO NO NO…
VEDA CRY HARD IN SHOCKED..
Asura look His face was covered in blood. His teeth were red. His tongue licked the blood from his lips. He smiled. Every tooth showing. A demonic smile that stretched too wide and held too much joy.
"Hello, Veda."
He stood. Wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. The blood smeared across his cheek like war paint.
Young Veda appeared beside Veda. Floating. Silent. His ancient face showed no emotion. No sadness. No anger. No surprise.
He spoke quietly. Calmly. Like a man stating the weather.
Veda's eyes opened. His grey pupils turned white. Tears flowed. His mouth opened, but no sound came. Just silence. Just emptiness. Just a man watching the world end again.
"Here it is, child. The ruler of the Tower. The one who watches from Heaven. The one who harvests souls and drinks the blood of worlds."
He looked at the smiling figure.
"He finally came."
The Heavenly Lord tilted his head. His yellow eyes studied Veda like a man studying a broken toy.
"You fought well, little ant. But the elephant always wins."
The Heavenly Lord watched him.
And smiled.