Dawn broke over the fields of Bhadrak in a shroud of freezing mist. General Afzal Khan, the veteran commander of the Bengal Sultanate's elite vanguard, rode at the head of his massive columns. He was supremely confident; his force—composed of heavily armored spearmen, fierce swordsmen, and skilled archers—deployed smoothly into a massive crescent formation, prepared to execute the front half of the grand ambush. Afzal Khan scanned the horizon, expecting to see the panicked, disorganized remnants of a surrounded child-prince's levy. Instead, as the morning sun began to gleam against the steel helmets of an unyielding enemy, he found a perfectly ordered machine waiting for him.
Sitting calmly upon his horse at the absolute rear of his formation, Prince Vikramaditya surveyed the battlefield. His gaze was cold and analytical, the soul of a future scholar observing a bygone era's flawed warfare. Through his spyglass, he confirmed a critical strategic detail: there was no artillery on the enemy side. The Bengal forces had left their heavy guns behind in favor of speed, expecting an easy slaughter.
Vikramaditya turned to Colonel Virendra. "They rely on birth, faith, and flattery instead of substance," the prince said, his voice carrying an unnatural, magnetic authority. "Let us show them the weight of innovation. Load all one hundred Vajrastras, and deploy twenty percent of the Varshastra batteries immediately."
The vanguard of Vikramaditya's line infantry stood in a flawless, thin double-rank formation. They were equipped with both single-shot and advanced four-shot rotating breach matchlock muskets, their ring bayonets catching the morning light. Protecting the vulnerable flanks against any sudden cavalry onslaught, a company of heavy pikemen had been split into two and placed at each flank, locked tightly in defensive square formations, heavily supported by crossbowmen. Interspersed throughout the line were repeating crossbowmen, their poison-tipped bolts ready to rain an absolute hail of death. In the rear, a reserve company of pikemen, a company of musketeers, and the elite royal cavalry stood poised under the command of Suresh, ready to reinforce any section that buckled under pressure.
As the massive vanguard of Bengal spearmen and swordsmen crossed into bombardment range, Vikramaditya raised his hand and signaled the artillery crews.
On the Bengal Sultanate side, a bizarre, sharp whistling sound suddenly filled the sky. Soldiers stopped, looking up into the clouds in sheer confusion. Then, the sky turned to fire.
First came the assault of hundreds of arrows from the Vajrastras, clouding the sun. But right behind them came the true nightmare: the Varshastra rockets. Driven by high-grade granulated black powder enclosed in soft-hammered iron tubes, the rockets tore through the sky, stabilized by their four-foot bamboo shafts. Attached to the tips of these roaring missiles were razor-sharp swords.
The devastation was instantaneous and catastrophic. Some rockets burst mid-air like fragmentation shells, showering the infantry in jagged metal and flame. Others struck the earth and bounced upward, roaring along in a terrifying, serpentine motion through the dense ranks of the vanguard. The Bengal troops were thrown into absolute chaos as the bounding iron tubes sliced through armor, bone, and shield, leaving a horrific trail of lacerations, severed limbs, and thousands of dead.
Reeling from this unprecedented two-pronged barrage, the shattered remains of the Bengal army involuntarily stumbled forward, directly entering the effective range of the muskets.
Colonel Virendra, watching the enemy's desperate advance, raised his sword. The steady, rhythmic beat of the military drums began to echo across the Khurda lines, communicating the order to the vanguard officers.
"Present! Volley fire!"
A blinding flash and a dense wall of white smoke erupted in unison from the line infantry. That was the exact moment the Bengal troops understood the true meaning of fear. The lead musket balls, propelled by refined powder, punched through their heavy plate and chainmail like a hot knife through butter. Men dropped like flies, their morale utterly shattered before they could even launch a single melee strike.
Desperate to restore order and save his breaking army, General Afzal Khan roared a battle cry, drawing his saber and leading his elite left-flank cavalry in a thunderous charge directly toward Vikramaditya's left flank. It was a fatal miscalculation.
Colonel Virendra's drumbeats shifted pattern instantly. The front rows of the line infantry expertly switched positions; the men in the second rank stepped forward with perfectly loaded muskets, delivering a shattering, point-blank volley directly into the face of the charging horses. Simultaneously, from behind the lines, the repeating crossbowmen unleashed a relentless, rapid-fire hail of poison-tipped bolts.
The elite Bengal cavalry was annihilated in minutes. Multiple musket balls tore through General Afzal Khan, throwing him from his horse, dead before his body hit the earth. Seeing their legendary commander killed and their glorious cavalry wiped out by an invisible wall of fire, the remaining Bengal infantry broke completely. They threw down their weapons and fled in absolute, chaotic terror.
"Pursue them!" Colonel Virendra ordered, signaling the reserves and cavalry to hunt down the routed forces. For a few frantic kilometers, the Khurda forces cut down the fleeing enemy, until a horn signal from the prince's position ordered them to halt.
"Cease pursuit! Reform columns!" Vikramaditya's voice cut through the lingering smoke. The prince looked back toward the south, where the dust trails of Count Amir Durani's approaching, unsuspecting army could be seen on the horizon. The first half of the iron mirror was broken. The sovereign turned his weapon to face the traitors within.