Hunger was simply a mental construct, Kratos realized. Although he felt it, he didn't have to act on it. The axe, in all its glory, simply wouldn't let him die of hunger. The same could be said for thirst. Or even breathing.
In fact, Kratos could push himself to the absolute limit, to a point where one would teeter on the precipice between life and death, and he would simply remain there until his body deteriorated completely. And the very next moment, once his consciousness returned to him, he would find himself back to his original state.
He didn't experiment with the powers bestowed upon him by the axe consciously. He had just grown tired of having to maintain himself when he evidently didn't need to.
An entire week had passed since he first set out from his home. He trekked day and night without sleep since he didn't need that either. All the while, he kept the flowing Ganges to his right. He followed its winding and widening path tirelessly, of course, because he couldn't grow tired. Tiredness was a mental construct.
Exhaustion would reach its peak before his consciousness would flicker, and he was back to normal all over again.
It was numbing. He didn't have to worry about anything. Nothing could kill him. And any injury inflicted on him would just disappear.
The world around him blurred and grew darker with each passing day. The pleasant sounds of birds, insects, and other creatures turned muffled and blended into the background. All Kratos could hear was the wet sound of his feet sloshing against the dew-laden grass and shrubs.
This was until the ninth day since his departure.
A new sound cracked through the self-imposed monotony. It was different. It didn't sound human, nor did it sound animalistic. It was... monstrous.
A crack, snap, and squelch followed by incessant chomping resonated through the woods, growing louder as Kratos walked towards its source. A maniacal chuckle followed by more squelching, chomping, and cracking continued as whatever was creating the sound relished what Kratos could immediately discern to be its current meal. And by the sound of bones breaking, flesh rending, and saliva being hungrily slurped, he could guess what was happening just beyond the two trees blocking his current path.
See, experience suggested that creatures that make such noises and exhibit a limited extent of sentience tended to veer towards the consumption of bipeds. That is to say. The monster, which was a hefty and hairy beast twice the size of a regular human with horns twice the length of a bull and dirty claws the length of small knives, was eating humans.
A small mound of bones stood between Kratos and the creature, which had its back to him. But then, a rogue gust of wind picked up from behind Kratos, and he tensed his muscles in anticipation, as his scent wafted over the ravenous monster.
Its eyes were bloodshot and hazy, clearly drenched in bloodlust. His face was littered with viscera from its most recent victim, which it unceremoniously threw away before rushing towards Kratos.
Through pure instinct, he reached for the only weapon in his vicinity, the axe, and poised himself in preparation for an evasion.
The creature was large and its movements were greatly telegraphed. Kratos' body transitioned around its attacks effortlessly.
He continued to dodge for an entire two minutes, observing as the attempts grew more frantic and agitated.
Creatures with high sentience, like humans, tend to have a better gauge of their strengths and weaknesses. Most know when it's time to give up or change tactics. Animals are similar. They are quick to judge a disparity in strength and are quick to resort to fight or flight. Things that are in between, though, like this monster... They have the worst of both. They have an excess of ego from high-sentient creatures and an unlimited supply of aggression from their low-sentient counterparts. This makes them dangerous, but also foolhardy.
Case in point, the creature was incapable of judging just when it was outclassed.
Kratos waited for the right time. Which was the exact moment the creature overcommitted to an attack. It did not guard its blindspot. Which was the exact moment he struck. With a heavy slash, the axe embedded itself in the creature's right armpit.
As it recoiled in pain, Kratos doubled down on his attack. He used its knees to propel himself above the creature, and with the momentum gained from gravity, he brought the axe down into its skull.
He anticipated a hit, but the creature was uncharacteristically fast in dodging the strike. However, it did not escape unscathed. It had to sacrifice one of its horns.
But Kratos did not stop there. He strafed forward, ducking under an attack, before hitting its other armpit, and repeating his attack combination. The creature was prepared this time, but so was Kratos, as he feinted by leaping over the monster and positioning himself behind it.
With a roar, he swung the axe into its spine. And as metal struck its flesh, he could hear a muffled crack as the beast crumbled on all fours. He then spun forward and swept the axe in an upward motion, letting it cleanly cut off the beast's head from its body.
And as the headless creature collapsed into the ground, spurting out deep red bloom from its empty neck, Kratos could suddenly feel a dangerous urge coursing through him.
It radiated throughout his body before emanating out of his pores, leaving him cold. But it did not cease. The sensation repeated again, burgeoning, starting from his arm. The very arm that was grasping the axe.
It was thirsty. It did not convey that explicitly, but Kratos could feel it. The inanimate weapon evoked the same emotion as a parched beast suddenly gifted with a drop of water, even if it was salty or contaminated. And it didn't take much mental arithmetic to discern what it was thirsty for, because the pulsing sensation only grew more vigorous and "loud". So much so that it had turned into a call.
A call for violence.
Kratos' senses captured movement in the tree line. Heavy and inhuman trampling was approaching him rapidly from all directions. Some were short and frantic, others heavy and booming literally causing the ground to vibrate.
His grasp on the axe grew tighter.
A question flashed past his mind, "Why am I fighting?"
It was an interesting probe of his psyche. Leading up to this point Kratos cared little for his state. Since no matter what he did, he would remain unaffected. And yet, here he was, preparing for combat.
What was the point?
Unfortunately, Kratos did not have the opportunity to dwell on that. Because the moment the tree right beside him burst into splinters and a tar-skinned monstrosity with six arms and two legs barrelled through, the axe's call grew as loud as a blaring horn, and his consciousness blacked out.
Are Rakshasas born or are they made?
What are Rakshasas? Beings of magic with illusory powers, often indulging in the basest of instincts and devolving into beasts. Creatures that revel in chaos and bloodshed. Beings with an endless desire to kill and consume humans.
That was the most common depiction of Rakshasas.
But where did they come from? Were they born, off of the womb of other Rakshasas, or where were they made - were they once human and were turned through some curse or overindulgence?
Bhairava had asked this question to many learned men, and each had given him a different answer - none agreed with each other. As a man of action and results, he preferred to hear the answer straight from the horse's mouth. But of course, he could not go and ask a Rakshasa now, could he?
"Captain, with all due respect. Do we need to continue wasting time asking these scholars such inane questions?" Ravi, his right-hand man complained as the duo exited the ashram. "You do realise they're probably mocking us behind our backs the moment we leave."
"To know the enemy is half the battle, my friend," Bhairava responded while mounting his horse. It fussed as he found perch on the saddle, but chuffed in acquiescence nonetheless. A grumpy softy, that was its character after all.
"The King has entrusted me with this task. It is the first time I am bearing his confidence. I cannot afford to fail, Ravi," Bhairava reminded.
"I know," Ravi said with an understanding wave. "But all reports state that it's the usual flying kind. We have enough nets and archers to ensnare the thing. Once it's grounded, it will be as easy as stealing laddoo from a child."
"There is no loss in being prudent," Bhairava retorted.
"I'd say the lost time is pretty valuable," Ravi grumbled. "I struggle to understand your line of questioning. First off, what is there to gain from knowing the origins of Rakshasas? They are dangerous. They like to kill and wreak havoc. I mean... is there anything more to know? Besides, we haven't learned anything new. What these so-called 'learned men' claim to be the origin of Rakshasas is nothing but hearsay. There are no written texts investigating this matter."
"Maybe you're right," Bhairava said as he urged his horse to pick up its pace. "Maybe I was just satisfying a latent curiosity of mine."
"There will be time to pursue our interests after the damn monster is slain!" Ravi yelled from behind, as his voice was drowned out by the rhythmic clopping of horse hooves against the hard ground.
In that, Ravi wasn't wrong. Bhairava hated to admit it, but his quest to learn more about his enemy had yielded poor results.
He was no closer to understanding the origins of Rakshasas than before he'd begun.
But that was the thing. Unlike humans, Rakshasas couldn't really be classified into buckets. There was no race, no caste, nor was there a commonality that bound Rakshasas together. Each one was different from the last.
For instance, there had been records of Rakshasas with the powers of flight in the Kingdom's libraries. But each exhibited the power through different mediums. Some had wings, some could walk on air, and some just emulated flight through illusion.
So although Ravi moved on with confidence, Bhairava could not shake away the foreboding sensation that things would not turn out to be so trivial.
___
And as it turned out, Bhairava's intuition proved correct. As he held Ravi's decapitated head in his arms and beheld the abject massacre strewn around him, Bhairava thought back to where things had started to go wrong.
Maybe right from the start? For one, he was definitely asking the wrong questions.
His late father had a saying. "There's no point trying to prepare for a cliff far away if you can't even see the pit right under your nose."
What reason did Bhairava have to try and understand the entirety of Rakshasa-kind? Would he have gained any advantage from learning of their origins? Evidently not, because he'd missed the metaphorical pit.
The flying Rakshasa didn't fly. While it navigated in three dimensions seamlessly like a flying creature, and while its three pairs of arms interwove and moved around fluidly as wings would, it wasn't actually flying.
For a layman, the creature would appear to fly. But for a warrior such as Bhairava, whose senses had been attuned to notice even the most minute of details in the thick of battle, he could clearly see fine strings glinting in the midday sun's rays crisscrossing all across the treeline forming a crude yet dangerous web.
The creature was skittering from one end to the other atop these razor-sharp strands like some monstrous spider, though its rotund, tar-black form and grotesque appearance with canine sprouting out and a pair of horns was as far from an arachnoid as one could be.
The moment his retinue arrived at the supposed haunt, Bhairava realised that they'd been misinformed. Before the archers could get ready, a fine thread shot out of the treeline and went taut, before immediately wrapping around causing everyone and everything in the trajectory of the thread to get cleft in two. The thread was razor sharp, even more so than his sword, and it cut through flesh and bone like a hot knife through ghee.
Had he not leapt off of his horse in time, he would have lost his legs.
Before they could retaliate, a second string shot out and now the two threads swept in opposite directions. Bhairava barely made it by diving between the narrow gap between the sweeping attacks. But this was the end of his retinue. The last attack had beheaded Ravi who had leapt off his steed with Bhairava, but alas his friend wasn't as agile as he was.
And now, as Bhairava stared down into the abyssal eyes of the beast approaching him, as it effortlessly swatted away a large tree like it was made of cotton. He could do nothing but blame himself.
It was his fault for trusting the reports and descriptions of peasants scared out of their wits. He blamed himself for not conducting a more thorough investigation. He blamed himself for not listening to Ravi and spending his preparation time more fruitfully. He blamed himself for not scouting the area and gathering information first before confronting the monster. He blamed himself for not coordinating the attack more actively.
Had he done his proper due diligence, he would known better than to fight the monster in its home ground, a forest. He could have lured it into the plains, leaving it less likely to gain vertical advantage. But hindsight is often filled with regrets.
The ground rumbled as the monster walked up to him, its lips split into a grin and its tongue danced across it hungrily. It brought its first two palms together and pinched the index finger and thumb. As it pulled them apart, a fine glimmering string connected them.
As he prepared for his eventual demise, something strange happened. The Rakshasa visibly shuddered and looked away, into the distance. It then crouched, and with an earth-shaking leap, disappeared into the treeline.
Bhairava's eyes followed the monster, and he estimated its trajectory. He physically stopped himself from letting out a breath of relief, he did not deserve that. There was no return from such a dishonourable confrontation. He would either die today, or the Rakshasa would.
With renewed resolve and eyes blank, ready for death's welcoming embrace, he picked up his sword and followed the monster on foot. He could barely keep up with it, but his senses could follow the rumbling and rustling of the trees, as well as the residual strings that marred the monster's path.
His sprint continued for many minutes before something confusing jumbled up his sense of direction. Multiple movements started to resonate from all around him. Footfalls, hoofbeats and wingbeats of many kinds, weights and sounds started to overlap and drown out the trace of the eight-limbed Rakshasa he had been following. But Bhairava quickly realised that all these entities were moving in the same direction - they were converging.
With his trained senses, Bhairava quickly deduced that these entities weren't of human or animal origin. They were definitely more Rakshasas, and they were all converging into one location where someone or something was attracting them.
Fear did pass over his consciousness, but it was quickly pushed down. This did not change his objective. He would either die today, or that monster would. Regardless, his destination remained unchanged and his feet carried him onwards.
As he approached the epicentre of the congregating entities, Bhairava's senses picked up the sound of conflict. He could hear the familiar, inhuman bleats, roars, screeches and yelps of Rakshasas interwoven with the sound of bones breaking, flesh tearing, trees cracking, ground shaking-
"RAAAAGH!"
A human's rage-filled yell cut through everything, and Bhairava managed to leap out of the way just in time as a large object hurtled in his direction. He peeked out of the bush he dove into and saw the same Rakshasa that he'd chased all the way here, but there was a stark difference in its appearance compared to what it was earlier. It had two fewer arms and its primary right arm was fastened onto a tree with an unassuming axe.
It tried to extricate itself, but its arm looked like it was clued into the bark, the axe wasn't budging. It growled in pain and anger before its eyes flashed with a dangerous resolve. Then with an unbelievable wave of its free arm, it released a razor-sharp wire and cut off its other arm. Its gaze darted back to where it came flying from and rushed back into the fray.
Bhairava waited for a beat before approaching the dismembered arm that was still stuck against the tree by the axe. He then followed the movement of the Rakshasa and rushed after it. He wove through the treeline, most of which had been demolished to kingdom come due to what could be described as a small war. And it wasn't just nature that was in disarray, because he could see bodies of other Rakshasas, big and small, strewn left and right, some intact and others in multiple pieces. Each and every single one of them had met a gruesome demise, either by being cleft into pieces by an axe or being literally torn apart.
What could cause such damage? Bhairava wondered half in awe and with the other half quivering in anxiety and fear.
The sound of fighting grew loudest, and as he peeked past a tree he noticed an even greater scene of carnage. There stood a man drenched head-to-toe in viscera and blood, some his and others of his victims, holding a Rakshasa with both arms dislocated by its jaw. His right hand held the beast's lower jaw, its serrated teeth cutting into his fingers and stripping them of their flesh, and his left pryed apart the upper jaw suffering the same damage in the process.
The Rakshasa groaned in pain, and the man in turn yelled out with the rage of a thousand rampaging bulls as he pulled apart literally tearing the creature in two from head to toe.
Suddenly, the man's head turned and two bloodshot and blood-soaked eyes looked straight through Bhairava. His body froze and his feet went limp. He collapsed as he instinctively took a step back. Right in time too, as a bouquet of razer sharp wires burst past where his head would have been.
The man raised his right arm and the cables wound themselves around his forearm. And as they tightened, they tore away all flesh on his arms, revealing his bones. The man did not flinch in pain, instead, he yanked his tethered arm, pulling the Rakshasa from its perch in the trees. He then pulled the struggling beast towards him before wrapping the same wires around its neck.
The Rakshasa thrashed and flailed. Its free arm reached over its head and grabbed the man's face, digging into his eyes with its nails.
And again, the man did not flinch. Instead, he did the unthinkable. He dragged the thrashing monster with him towards the babbling river and descended into the raging currents with the monster.
Bhairava quickly collected himself and rushed towards the river bank. He looked on as a torrent of bubbles rose from the river bed, and the water grew redder by the second. He couldn't see the struggle taking place underwater, but he could fathom it. And it did not feel pleasant at all.
As the bubbles petered off and disappeared, he got down to his knees and let out a long and heartfelt prayer.
"Oh, great warrior clad in blood. For your noble sacrifice, may you find prosperity and peace in your next life."
Just as he was about to speak the subsequent verses, his senses caught the sound of metal striking against wood and cutting through the air, approaching him. Once again, he dodged out of the way as he noticed an axe hurtling past him and jetting into the river.
He barely had time to rub his eyes to clear his doubts before a body leapt out of the river and landed against its banks.
He could match the form of the body to the man that he thought had sacrificed himself. But he appeared very much alive, and unharmed. What struck him as interesting was the completely pale and ashen skin, only highlighted by two red circles - probably birthmarks - that bisected his torso and bald head.
Bhairava assumed that the man was a devout follower of Shiva, as they often garbed themselves in animal hide and coated themselves thoroughly in ash. Although, this man's coating had survived a bath in the river. Maybe it was something he'd injected under his skin? Those sanyasis tended to be eccentric; maybe it was one of the concoctions of their cannabis-addled minds to grow closer to the very deity they worshipped. Then again, the man's build and appearance apart from his ashen skin did not match Bhairava's knowledge of a sanyasi. His frame was that of a seasoned warrior, with musculature unlike someone living off of the earth and vegetables. Furthermore, the man was completely bald, where he should have had long, matted and unkempt hair.
And if that wasn't enough, no Brahmin in their right mind would raise arms against anyone, or anything. And with a single glance over his shoulder, Bhairava cleansed his theory once over.
This was no ordinary man. The raw power he exhibited was unfathomable!
Bhairava's gaze scanned the sputtering man and landed on the unassuming axe that had pinned down a Rakshasa so unwaveringly that the monster saw it fit to dismember itself.
He wasn't a fool. He was certain that this axe was a divine weapon. And a wielder of a divine weapon could not be a mere mortal. Case in point, the man had literally survived being gouged, eviscerated, and drowned, and came out unscathed.
Once his mind processed all this information at light speed, he immediately collapsed to his knees and prostrated before the man.
"What are you doing?" A gravelly voice inquired with an accentuated grunt.
"Oh, great ashen-skinned warrior!" Bhairava expressed with a heavy stutter. "Please forgive me for not recognising your Excellence's identity."
There was silence, but Bhairava could hear movement, and yet he dared not look up.
"P-Pardon me-" He peeked and was shocked to see the man walking away. "W-Wait!"
He leapt onto his feet and quickly covered the distance, blocking the man's path.
"What I want to say is thank you!" Bhairva said hurriedly. "Thank you for killing that Rakshasa."
"Rakshasa?" The man responded with furrowed brows. His expression implied unfamiliarity with that work.
"Umm, the beings you just killed. Their species- They're called Rakshasas," Bhairava explained.
"What does it mean?" He asked again. "Monsters?"
"You could say that," Bhairava said with a light shake of his head in uncertainty.
"Where do they come from?" He followed up, to which Bhairava burst into cynical laughter. He quickly calmed himself down and said, "I frankly don't know. And trust me, I've asked around a lot."
The man let out a disdainful growl and walked around Bhairava.
"W-Warrior, wait!" Bhairava once again ran past the man and blocked his way.
"What do you want?" The man snapped, causing Bhairava to flinch instinctively.
"I..." Bhairava swallowed a dry mouthful of air as the man approached him with an incisive gaze that cut through his soul.
"Do not block my way again," the man warned before continuing his journey.
"C-Could you at least, please share your name?!" Bhairava yelled at the man's departing figure. But he received no response. The man disappeared along with Ganga as she snaked through the shrubbery.