"You're not fit for this world, Jevin. Go live with your uncle in Alik. He's the only one who can understand and sympathize with you."
This was the last thing my birth father had told me before casting me away from the family.
But later, I realized it was the best thing that could have ever happened to me.
My uncle was blind—a cripple just like me, but in a different way.
Specially-abled, with special needs, differently-abled... No matter what name was given to us, how we were treated in general didn't change.
People don't realize that feeling pity for others can be a privilege. That means you're doing well enough in your life to cultivate an emotion like that.
And people don't like to be on its receiving end. It means you're lacking something pretty standard for others to have.
My years with him were peaceful and filled with love and care. It's wild how adept he had become in navigating the world surrounding him.
At some point in our lives, he had started referring to me as his own son, but it made him all the more depressed, often apologizing to me for not being able to provide me with a decent life.
The meager donations that came from the family were not at all enough for both of us.
But for some reason, I was content with it.
While in Satya, having all my material needs taken care of, I realized how fickle the human mind is. Despite having things others desperately want, people will always find happiness in finally receiving what they never had, no matter how small, throughout their entire lives.
Once you achieve that, you'll lose interest and again start looking for something else to satiate yourself with.
What I at that time needed was someone who appreciated my existence. Someone who believed in me despite the failure I was, as designated by my 'so-called-blood family'.
"You gave me what I needed the most. And I'll forever be grateful for it." I had seen tears in his trembling, unfocused eyes from the first time when I was only ten years old. "The people who abandoned us already have all those things you're talking about, and if those things happened to provide an environment where pathetic humans like them thrived, then I have no need for them."
"I think you said it right, but it took some time for me to comprehend that." He had tearfully smiled, pulling me into a hug.
"I will always, day and night, wish to the Gods for a life where you can achieve all you want. So that you can live with pride and honor as a true Kshatriya should. Unlike what your predecessors have become."
That was when I, for the first time, experienced what a heartfelt prayer could achieve, especially when it is done for the sake of others.
To have someone who can pray for me like that made me feel truly blessed.
That night, the bleak future I had was overturned by the advent of a God in my uncle's dreams.
My uncle, cast aside after losing his eyes due to using his Gift of Prophecy for the sake of his family beyond its limits, saw a vision for the first time in years.
"You're destined for greatness. But you won't be able to achieve it alone. You'll see betrayals time and again, but only two will stick with you through it all." His voice was not his anymore, but a raspier version, "Now I know why everything happened as they did!! Even your curse was placed for a reason. But we are treading dangerous waters here. Find them both and never let them go."
I was a bit afraid watching him spew predictions and warnings like a prophet in a trance.
"Who are they? How do they look? Where are they?" I had asked, genuinely interested.
I was not excited to hear about my destiny. I had long given up on it. But the prediction that I'll have two more people who'll stick with me till the end filled me up with excitement and anticipation.
"Ashrama." That was the last thing he muttered that night before going into a coma for the next few months.
Forcing another vision after all these years was too much for his frail vessel, already broken beyond repair.
My curse, my circumstance, my present and future, everything was predetermined? How am I supposed to assimilate this information?
Who planned this? Why me?
Anger seeped through my nerves, clearing my mind. I realized I had been dreaming of the past. The pain in my arms and the helplessness I had felt while being carried away by the yeti returned to my paralyzed body like a tsunami crashing over my whole being.
I somehow held on without crying out loud.
Opening my eyes, I found myself hanging in chains above a red lake filled entirely with Manava blood and crimson lotuses.
Sharp earth spikes—stalagmites, rose from underneath, piercing through its blood-red surface. A thin strip of land made up of gravel encircled the lake before meeting the mountain wall, making up the inner surface of the cavity.
The cave wall was like an ant hill. Hundreds of holes that led into tunnels deeper into the mountain dotted it like a honeycomb. Outgrowths broken away to serve as climbing platforms were strategically placed for better access into those entryways.
Being paralyzed from below my waist, I couldn't feel the pain from my legs that had been chopped off.
On my opposite side, Aditi, currently unconscious, was hanging from chains wrapped around her waist and a stalactite on its two ends, one among a lot of other skeletons and half-rotten bodies wearing oddly familiar robes, her stumps for limbs releasing a trickling line of blood that emptied into the lake below.
I was in a similar situation.
Carefully, not making the slightest noise with my chains, I inspected our surroundings again, focusing on what was above us.
We were currently in a dome-shaped cavity within the mountain, with a constantly dancing blue light and water trickling down from the center of its ceiling.
Some of the water followed the curved surface of the upper walls, ran down the conical outgrowths to form the miraculous earth structures above, and met the spikes below.
Those spikes must have existed long before this lake was formed.
A disturbance on the surface of the lake caught my attention. Giant bubbles formed as if someone had exhaled a lot of air all at once underneath the surface.
The clotted surface broke like a thin film, revealing a massive red humanoid body bathed in blood, gradually standing up from its meditative posture. It seemed even bigger than the blood yeti that had defeated Vivikta in battle.
With a strange gesture with its hands, the blood retreated from its body, gathering over its head, leaving not a single drop behind.
The blood sphere dropped into the pond with a plop, sending ripples that died down after gently lapping against the closest edge of the thin strip of land.
After the blood was removed, what remained was a snow-white Yeti with an enlarged belly, devoid of a single impurity. Its fur was well groomed even after coming out of a bloody bath. It grabbed a crooked staff etched with red crystals from the land before turning around and gazing at us.
"We needed four more years... Everything would have been fine. Why did he have to listen to Narada and accelerate the process?" The voice that came out from the Yeti was a female's.
This must be their Mother.
She kept mumbling words I couldn't understand anymore.
Soon after, the blood-red Yeti arrived with several lollipop-coloured henchmen in tow. They were carrying the broken bodies of both Vivikta and the sickle uncle.
Many of the subordinates also seemed injured.
"Let them watch the children they were supposed to protect die helplessly. This is how you truly break them..." The blood yeti commented like a teacher giving a lecture on hunting basics.
"This was not necessary at all!" The female snow Yeti complained after discovering the hostages. "What are our children going to learn? If we continue doing this, Narada's warning will come true because of Karma!"
"They will learn the mentality to hunt properly—the very skill needed for us to survive. After the ritual is completed, as Narada instructed, no one will be able to touch us. What about the final two sacrifices?" The blood Yeti asked, looking at her.
"I'm not going to sacrifice our own children. We will complete the ritual with only a hundred and six sacrifices. Have you never thought twice about why Narada is helping us? Why he's so intent on us following all the rules and timings?" The snow yeti seemed furious, finding her husband acting without reason.
"He's a son of The Creator. He's supposed to help species that are worthy of propagating. This time, we were given the opportunity to evolve into a stronger life form. Adapt or get eliminated. That has always been the rule of this world. It is foolish not to take this chance. It is my duty to protect our family. No matter what it takes!"
Everything now made sense.
Both Narada and Jamadagni were working together. One was manipulating the Yeti, and the other—us. Both initiated a chain of events that led all of us here, for the sake of reviving the Saraswati river.
But we were too weak for all this. The two sides were severely unbalanced.
Interrupting my thoughts, two Yeti burst into the cavern.
"Our brethren in the village have been wiped out. The ones who did it have already invaded our nest from our main entrance... We can't hold them off any longer... They have a God with them." One of the two panicking Yeti summarised the whole thing.
"Bhairava!" The blood yeti roared, "Even after running away like a coward, you dare to return?? Start the ritual. All of you, protect the entrance and bring two newborns from the nursery. I'll deal with the intruders myself."
Bhairava. A God. So, this was the balancing factor.
I smiled through my pain. If only the Yeti knew about all the stories Manavas had regarding Narada. He has always been a catalyst for the downfall of Asuras and other Beings who grew overconfident in their powers.
It was indeed a fair test. You overcome and evolve, taking a new place within the food chain. Or you get annihilated since you're destroying the natural balance.
As the snow Yeti started chanting without waiting for the newborns to arrive, waves began forming on the surface of the blood pond, the lotuses on it undulating wildly from the ripples.
The waves gradually gained speed and height, swirling around like an underwater whirlpool, slowly revealing the bottom of the lake within its eye.
Enormous power gushed out of the eye of the whirlpool, revealing a golden orb at the bottom.
Shakti rushed into my body, bumping up my points, sending my sacral chakra into overdrive, and pumping filtered water-based Kundalini into my distribution channels.
This... So that's why Bhairava came here. Narada must have directed them to steal a Peeth to bring in Bhairava, a powerful third party, as their opponents.
My nascent Kundalini got absorbed by my Self-Restoration skill, which I had been training right after receiving it from Kalpa.
The blood inside the lake must have been absorbing all of the energy from the Peeth till now. As soon as the Peeth was freed, all the Shakti Rekhas were now converging right underneath me, filling my body with enormous power.
My legs started regenerating, but my sensation of them didn't return.
"It's okay. I've been living like this all my life. There's a reason why I trained my arms and developed the water jet skill with so much effort." I stopped wasting Kundalini to regenerate my legs, leaving them to my shins.
Undulating my upper body, I might be able to control the direction of my legs. I'll know only after I try.
My eyes met with Aditi's.
As the whirlpool underneath us strengthened, I opened my status and saw lots of messages from both Dhruva and Pratyusha. They had been trying to communicate with us desperately.
That's not important right now. I sent a message to Aditi containing my plan, who also opened her status and stared at it intently.
The blue windows infront of us got the attention of all the Yeti inside the cavern.
"We need blood from a vessel that's still alive. Don't kill them." The snow yeti ordered the guards, prompting them to throw weapons and stones at us.
"Aditi! Do it, now!" I signaled, pulling my body up using the chains wrapped around my hands. I swung my body, dodging the weapons and tanking the stones, waiting for Aditi to erect a barrier around her and underneath me.
That was when the blood yeti crashed into the lake, breaking through the entrance while missing an arm. Evident from the rest of his shoulder, it seemed as if someone had twisted and torn his arm off his main body.
"Get them!!" The blood yeti shouted, struggling to stand upright against the raging whirlpool.
It grabbed the attention of the ones trying to pummel us to death by throwing stones.
A series of shouts broke out among the subordinate Yeti as they prepared for war. The commotion summoned more of them from the holes in the cavern walls, who joined into the cacophony of battle cries and chest beats.
A few of them started pulling the blood yeti out of the lake, only to get swept away by the waves.
"Your end is near! Thieves!! Even if you go invisible, I'll find you from every corner of the world and annihilate your malevolent race. Stealing the sacred Peeth was the last straw. It will be the reason for your downfall." An unfamiliar voice boomed inside the tunnel. The threatening voice kept getting louder by the second as if approaching this location rapidly.
The Yeti started spreading out, climbing the walls, taking strategic positions, and going invisible, rippling the air around them. With bated breath, they waited for the invaders to arrive.
The final showdown had started.