NOVEL WEB Chapter 17: A Beautiful God Sits by the Lotus Pond
Capturing rogue pretas took its toll on Svetavastra, he was drained - he hardly had any energy left in his body and he depleted his spiritual powers trying to fight the dark energy while powering the pretabandana. Svetavastra struggled to stand, he found some wood lying nearby and waved at it. It transformed into a staff and he held onto it for support.
“By all means,” said the preta in the bracer. “Let’s exhaust your powers so thoroughly it takes forever to recover! The last time you did this, you fell unconscious in the middle of nowhere. And it’s happening again!”
Svetavastra ignored the nagging preta. He waved his hand into the air and the Luminous Diksuchi appeared floating in the air in front of him. It had a faint red glow in one of the directions. He waved at it and the map projected into the air above the compass. Svetavastra studied the ley lines and looked for a nearby spot where he could rest and recharge his spiritual powers. He found a ley line in a couple of kilometres and a stronger one after about 3 yojanas (around 36km).
After walking for about half an hour he found the ley line, found a hidden spot behind a giant rock where he would not be detected easily and sat down to meditate.
The Swarga-Loka had beautiful gardens and ponds spread across vast lands - lush green meadows, fields of flowers, waterfalls, and golden birds - it was a sight to behold. Lord Vaiswa sat by himself at a gazebo by the lotus pond in a lesser-known garden. He gently grazed the surface of the cold pond water, his eyes pensive. From afar, apsaras watched him, some behind trees, some behind bushes, and some behind other gazebos, secretly admiring this sight - a beautiful god sitting by himself in a beautiful place. They kept collectively sighing from time to time soaking in his beauty. This was all they would get, none of them dared to approach the god any further.
Lady Sachi walked towards the gazebo where Lord Vaiswa was, he was unbothered and oblivious to the commotion he was creating.
This person only recently came out of his meditative state and he has turned the female population of the Swarga-loka upside down. If this keeps continuing, the apsaras will forget their duties and keep daydreaming in broad day light.
“Lord Vaiswa,” said Lady Sachi as she reached the gazebo. “Do you enjoy setting these thirst traps for those poor apsaras?”
Lord Vaiswa looked up from the pond and at Lady Sachi and smiled lazily.
“I am merely existing,” he replied.
Lady Sachi shook her head.
“I’m not sure how I can keep them away from you,” she said. “They even found out about this place!”
Lord Vaiswa disinterested in the matter went back to looking at the pond.
“Anyways, forget about them. Look at you!” said Lady Sachi. “You look like a love-lorn teenage girl.”
Lord Vaiswa in a better mood would have remarked something flippantly but today he was silent.
Lady Sachi looked at him with concern.
“Do you regret taking Lord Purandhara’s side?” she asked after a while.
“I would do it again if I had to,” he replied.
“Life is not always binary choices, sweet boy,” said Lady Sachi. “You don’t have to abandon someone to stand behind someone else.”
Lord Vaiswa stayed silent.
“The greater good involves the good of all,” continued Lady Sachi. “You have to save the world for everyone, but you also have to save the world for somebody. That is what makes it worthwhile.”
“That’s something for mortals, Lady Sachi,” said Lord Vaiswa. “Not us. We do not have such luxuries as gods.”
“Why don’t you be a mortal for a while then?” Lady Sachi said with a mischievous smile.
Lord Vaiswa looked at her with widened eyes and considered a possibility he dared not consider till then.
The Luminous Diksuchi flashed red. Svetavastra looked at the ley line running past the foothill of Northern Mines. He made a mudra with his right hand and channelled some energy into the ley line, now it became visible, a faint line running endlessly from North to South by the foothill, its energy glimmered in the diffused light of the evening. It had taken him the entire day to reach here.
He walked slowly by the length of the ley line searching for something.
“What are you doing?” asked the preta.
“I think the rogue pretas that escaped yesterday are trapped in this ley line,” said Svetavastra. “It has more energy compared to the other ley lines, I’m looking for the spot where I can channel some energy to open it.”
“Ohh, I see,” said the preta. “Wait - why are you opening them?! You don’t have enough power to face those rogue pretas!”
“Have faith,” said Svetavastra and stopped. He found the spot he was looking for. He made the mudra again with his right hand and channelled spiritual energy into the spot to open it. Soon, it leaked demonic energy and the rogue pretas quickly came out and swarmed into the sky in circles.
Himmat who was nearby at the time neighed into the air in alarm, with wide, darting eyes, he spun on his heels, kicking up dust into the air as he bolted and ran behind a tree to hide.
At this time, Aryaman was inside the Northern Mines searching for his lost sword and deep in thoughts regarding how the Kapala chief outwitted and escaped him.
The fire balls, Aryaman thought as he walked past the bodies of the fallen soldiers some of them half burnt by the fire that raged in the mines a few days earlier. They may have ben created through magic. I don’t see any materials to fuel the fire. He recalled the last moments in the mines before he lost consciousness that day - the images kept flashing before him, these images had been replaying in his mind while he was resting in the palace - the fire, the Kapala chief thrusting his whip-sword at him, and the fire ball in his hand…did he generate that fireball by himself?
Aryaman vaguely remembered the last thing he saw before he collapsed, the Kapala chief clutching his chest and some dark energy swirling around him as he escaped from the mines.
Who is this Kapala Chief? Aryaman thought. He is very dangerous. Was he hurt? Is that why he ran away even though he created so much havoc?
Aryaman walked towards the upper reaches in the mines with these thoughts.
The rogue pretas swarmed over the Northern Mines in circles, demonic energy overflowing from them and then they burst into the air like fireworks and each of the spark found a corpse to possess. As the darkness of the night filled the day, the undead slowly began to rise, a movement of a hand here, the toes moving slightly of a corpse somewhere. The corpses rose from the ground, eyes filled with darkness. They congregated and marched towards the Svetavastra.
Svetavastra stood his ground, he could not use the pretabandana if the pretas had possessed human bodies. He needed to get them out of the corpses first. He gauged the spiritual power needed to capture the pretas once he separated them from the dead bodies and mentally groaned. He barely had enough spiritual energy to power the pretabandana. How would he deal with the undead till then?
The Luminous Diksuchi glowed golden.
Cosmic energy? Svetavastra thought. He closed his eyes and searched with his mind’s eye for the source of the golden energy.
A celestial sword? Svetavastra saw a sword fallen on the ground stuck between rubles and a boulder. Aryaman spotted the sword as he entered the crevice.
“There it is!” He smiled and moved towards it.
The sword tried to dislodge itself from the crevice and as Aryaman swooped down to grab it, it rose into the air and flew past him outside, through all the hollow tunnels of the Northern Mines and out of the hill from a lookout and into the hand of Svetavastra.
Svetavastra looked at the sword in his hand, it looked like an ordinary sword. He held it in front of him, closed his eyes and chanted in the celestial tongue. A vortex of cosmic energy swirled through the sword, gaining strength by strength and the sword transformed to its original state, the crest of a tiger on the now golden hilt, and radiant light surrounding its sharp blade. Svetavastra opened and narrowed his eyes with a determined look.