The old churchyard was a landscape of jagged shadows and the copper tang of blood. Beneath the canopy of ancient, gnarled trees, the air hummed with the necrotic energy of Nathan the Gravesage. He and his clones moved with synchronized, eerie grace, their bone staffs clicking against the stone tiles like the ticking of a death clock.

  Rohan—was sweating, his small frame trembling under the weight of his own ability. He lunged forward, eyes wide with focus, and unleashed his stasis field.

  “Now!” he screamed, his voice cracking with strain.

  Six of the clones froze mid-stride, suspended like statues in a museum of horrors.

  Subha felt a jolt of realization. Until today, Rohan had struggled to pause even a single living creature for more than a heartbeat. But as she stared at the six frozen figures, the truth snapped into place.

  “They aren’t alive,” she said sharply. “These clones are shells—puppets made of graveyard soil and dark magic. No biological soul.”

  Because of that, Rohan’s power gripped them with terrifying ease.

  Pari—didn’t hesitate.

  He became a blur of silver and black, his arm-blades singing as they sheared through frozen necks. Heads rolled. Limbs fell.

  Then the pause ended.

  And the horror began.

  The severed parts didn’t dissolve. They liquefied—melting into a dark, oily substance that crawled across the dirt, rejoining torsos with a sickening squelch.

  “It’s no use!” Subha cried, her Third Eye throbbing with violet light beneath her headband. “He’s a Gravesage. He’s weaving his life-force through the shells. You have to kill the original!”

  “Trace him, Subha!” Pari shouted, parrying a strike from a seventh clone that nearly took his ear.

  Subha pushed her psychic senses to the limit. Her vision tunneled as she sifted through layers of necro-aura.

  “He’s in the back,” she gasped. “The one with the eye mark!”

  She cast a shimmering psychic cage around the true Nathan—but the remaining clones went berserk. They swarmed the barrier, their combined force cracking Subha’s concentration.

  From behind a tombstone, an eighth clone emerged.

  It lunged straight for Rohan.

  The boy, drained from the stasis leap, couldn’t react in time. The heavy end of a bone staff smashed into his temple. Rohan dropped like a stone, his mask skidding across the gravel.

  “Rohan!” Vaishu screamed.

  Before the clone could bring the staff down again, she blinked.

  A flash of blue light.

  She appeared over the fallen boy, grabbed his tactical vest, and warped them both ten feet away.

  Pari roared and charged the original Nathan—but his broken rhythm was his undoing.

  As he clashed with the bone staff, the already-stressed structure of his left arm-blade gave way. The metal shattered. Shrapnel tore into his side, and the impact hurled him backward toward Subha.

  Subha slammed her hands together.

  A translucent dome of psychic energy erupted around them just as the clones descended. They crashed against the barrier, clawing and hammering, their silent faces pressed flat against the shimmering surface.

  “Vaishu, listen to me,” Pari said, clutching his bleeding side. “Rohan is fading. You have to take him to the medicine lady. Two miles north—through the valley. Go.”

  “I can take all of us!” Vaishu cried, her hands already tracing the air.

  “How?” Subha demanded.

  “I’ll try Magnum Teleportation,” Vaishu said. “Just hold them until I complete the Kolam.”

  Subha turned to Pari, searching his face for approval.

  “Let her try,” Pari said.

  Vaishu began to manifest the complex geometric patterns of Magnum Teleportation. Lines of radiant light etched themselves into the earth—the sacred Kolam forming beneath her feet.

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  Then her fear surged.

  The patterns flickered.

  And died.

  She staggered, trying to begin again—but Pari caught her wrists, shaking his head.

  “No.”

  “I… I can’t!” Vaishu cried. “The Kolam won’t hold!”

  “Then take Rohan alone,” Subha urged, her voice straining as the shield groaned. “Can you do that?”

  Vaishu swallowed hard. “Yes.”

  Pari tightened his jaw. “Remember the rules of distant teleportation. Long-distance isn’t harder—you’ve already mastered it.”

  “Give me a landmark,” Vaishu said, forcing herself to focus.

  “Street number 23A,” Pari replied. “A large playground. Beside it—the medicine lady’s hut.”

  Vaishu closed her eyes. She visualised.

  “Valley… 23A… playground… hut.”

  Suddeny, her eyes snapped open.

  “What about you?” she asked. “How will you manage?”

  “We’ll hold them here,” Subha said sharply. “Move!”

  Tears stung Vaishu’s eyes as she looked at them—then she grabbed the unconscious Rohan.

  A flicker of blue light.

  They vanished.

  Inside the shrinking dome, the pressure mounted. The Gravesage clones stopped striking blindly. They began to chant—a low, vibrating hum that drilled straight into the skull.

  Subha gasped as blood trickled from her ears.

  Each impact against the psychic glass felt like a hammer crashing into her mind.

  And the shield was cracking.

  Pari, get ready to run,” Subha whispered. Her hand rose to the seal on her forehead.

  “Subha, don’t you dare,” Pari warned, his voice cracking. “You’re too young. Opening the Third Eye at your stage… it will paralyze you. It might burn your soul out.”

  Subha didn’t respond.

  Her mind drifted back.

  She saw her mother—a woman of serene grace—bearing the same Tripundra mark on her forehead. In the memory, her mother’s hands were warm as they cupped Subha’s face.

  “Subha,” her mother had whispered, “have you ever wondered why you have the closed-eye mark on your forehead?”

  Little Subha was crouched near a flower, watching a tiny bug crawl across its petals.

  “No, Mom,” she said softly.

  Her mother looked up at the sky.

  “It is a gift granted by our ancestors. Their love and devotion toward God. You cannot use it frequently—it draws from the very well of your spirit. Use it only when it is necessary… for the protection of your loved ones.”

  Little Subha looked up at her.

  “Loved ones like you?” she asked.

  Her mother smiled, pressing a hand against her chest. Tears welled in her eyes, though her smile never faded.

  “Not me, Subha,” she said gently. “I won’t be with you that long. My gifted period of life will end in a few days.”

  A hospital ward called out, “Who is Praneethi?”

  Her mother raised her hand. “It’s me.”

  “Please return to bed,” the ward said. “Otherwise your condition will worsen.”

  “All right, in a minute,” her mother replied.

  Subha watched everything in silence.

  “Mom… are you alright?” little Subha asked.

  “Yes, dear. I’m good,” her mother said, standing up.

  As she turned toward the hospital entrance, Subha grabbed her hand.

  “Don’t go, Mom… please.”

  Her mother knelt and brushed Subha’s hair gently.

  “It’s time, Subha. I need to go.” She wiped away Subha’s tears. “You have a long journey ahead. You will meet new people—people who love you and care for you. They will protect you in my absence, and you must return that protection to them.”

  She touched the Tripundra symbol on Subha’s forehead.

  “No matter what… I’ll always be with you, Subha.”

  They hugged.

  It was the final moment Subha ever saw her mother.

  A hand was placed on little Subha’s shoulder.

  “Subha… let’s go,” said a man in traditional attire. Beside him stood a young boy, holding his hand.

  Little Subha looked into the boy’s eyes.

  The memory shattered.

  The boy’s face shifted—changed—into Pari.

  “Subha!” Pari shouted in the present.

  But she couldn’t hear him.

  Mother, Subha thought, her fingers trembling over the seal, I am going to use it now.

  The Third Eye was a weapon of total erasure. To open it was to invite a power the physical body was never meant to contain.

  Her eyes turned a solid, glowing white.

  The air began to vibrate with a terrifying frequency.

  The Gravesage clones sensed the shift.

  Just as Subha’s fingers reached the seal, a gruff, booming voice echoed from the entrance of the churchyard.

  "Shut it, Subha. You’re already being as dramatic as Moonmask."

  The clones froze. Standing by the rusted iron gate was Guru Pedro. He looked exactly as he had that morning—cowboy hat low, cape billowing—but the air around him had changed. It was heavy, pressurized, the aura of a master. He had returned early from the Saba, sensing the disturbance in the mountain's veil.

  Nathan’s stitched patch began to split.

  Laughter poured from every one of Nathan’s mouths—his own and his clones’—a hollow, echoing chorus that scraped against the graveyard stones.

  “A Norman?” the clones mocked in unison. “You sent a human to die for you? How will you find the one with the life-spark? Tell us, poor human—which one of us is real?”

  Pedro’s hand drifted calmly toward the hilt of his spadroon.

  “” he said evenly, “”

  The clones sneered.

  “Confident,” they hissed. “Show us, human.”

  Pedro didn’t run.

  He didn’t roar.

  He adjusted his cape—just once—drawing it across his chest for a single heartbeat.

  Then he drew.

  The spadroon caught the moonlight and magnified it, erupting into a blinding flash. The clones recoiled, instinctively squeezing their eyes shut.

  In that instant, Pedro moved.

  To Subha and Pari, it looked like reality stuttering—a skipped frame in existence itself. A single, horizontal line of silver light carved through the darkness.

  Pedro was suddenly standing ten feet behind the Gravesage, already sheathing his blade. The soft click of steel meeting scabbard echoed through the silent yard.

  A heartbeat later, all eight heads—the original and the clones—slid from their shoulders in perfect unison.

  Nathan’s life-spark didn’t even have time to flee. The strike was too absolute. Too final.

  This time, the bodies did not liquefy.

  They crumbled—dry, empty—into lifeless dust.

  “All okay?” Pedro asked calmly, turning back as the spurs on his boots jingled with each step. “Where are the others?”

  Far away, at the headquarters of Section D, the duel between Surya and Heera raged on—a violent blur of blazing orange fire force colliding with cold, vampiric shadow.

  Heera—the Pure-blood vampire—stood amid the wreckage, eyes glowing with feral hunger. Surya’s solar heat had charred his flesh, slowing his regeneration, but his speed remained terrifying.

  Outside, Surya and Chandru fought for their lives.

  Inside the hall, Sona raged. She slammed the oak door until her knuckles bled, emerald eyes burning with a wild, forest-light. Each crash of Chandru against stone, each peel of Heera’s laughter, splintered what little composure she had left.