Chapter 15. Pride .
Flashback.
Four pairs of eyes stared at Dhira. Not with awe. Not with admiration. More like someone watching a man claim he wrestled a thunderstorm on a sunny day and won.
Jigya squinted at him. "You're bragging again, aren't you?"
"Dhira blinked.
"What?" Gigya waved his hand.
"Meeting Zeus is already a miracle."She leaned closer.
"But this?"She shook his head.
"I don't believe it. I don't believe it all." And even Rajraj the aloof one interjected.
" Yeah. Your meeting gods was miraculous enough. But what you said sounds like the talk of a lunatic."
"What? No Rajraj, even you?" even his brother looked away .
" Common guys, Have I ever lied to you?" Dhira immediately objected.
Four heads nodded immediately. "Yes." They said in unison.
Raavi went first. "You said there was a discount at the brothel. There wasn't."
Jigya raised a finger. "You said food was half price at the inn. There wasn't."
Rajraj scratched his beard. "You said Daansara had plenty of water. There was" He gestured toward the dry ground.
Vijay looked at him calmly. "You said you would stop lying. You didn't."
Dhira opened his mouth, closed it, then sighed. "Fine. I thought I'd show you later." He waved a hand and raised his right one slowly.
"What are you doing?" Raavi asked. "Do you have an itch?" said Rajraj.
"He's become a delusional lunatic," said Jigya with sympathy. Dhira said nothing, though the look on his face suggested he was exercising considerable restraint to just beat these idiots to death.
He focused. Something shifted in the air. A low sound came from the distance, faint at first then rising fast. Rajraj turned sharply.
"Left!" Something was cutting through the sky wrapped in wind, moving too fast to track clearly. Jigya's eyes went wide.
"WHAT IS THAT—"
It slammed into Dhira's raised hand with a crash and a burst of dust that swallowed all four of them. Raavi cursed. Jigya gagged. "It went in my mouth." Rajraj simply closed his eyes accepting his fate.
When the air cleared Dhira stood holding a golden mace. Long thin handle, massive head, metal gleaming like compressed sunlight. Strange carvings ran across its surface. It looked ancient. It looked Divine. The kind of object that carried a presence, quiet and absolute, that needed no announcement.
"Guess who it's from."
Vijay leaned forward, his eyes narrowing slightly then widening in realisation. "No way."
"Yep." Dhira spun it once like it weighed nothing.
"It used to belong to Hanuman. He gave it to Zeus. Zeus gave it to me. They said only a true warrior could lift it." He grinned.
"Pretty great, right?"
Then he looked at his friends. All four of them were completely covered in dust.
Hair, face, clothes, everything. Rajraj wiped his face slowly and looked at the others. They looked back at him. Then all four turned toward Dhira at the same time.
Dhira's grin stiffened. "Friends?" He said his tone little quiet.
Raavi cracked her knuckles. Jigya picked up her long sword. Rajraj rolled his shoulders. Vijay sighed.
"Get him."
"OH COME ON - "
They rushed him and he turned and ran.
"IT WASN'T MY FAULT."
0
Things were about to change. The story began to spread quietly the way they always do. A few travelers passing through. A few soldiers at their posts. A few merchants moving between towns.
"Dhira went to Olympus." At first people laughed. Then someone added more. He met Zeus. Another said he had walked beside Ares. Someone swore a goddess had spoken to him personally. Someone else added beautiful Angel's gave him gifts.
The story spread across fish markets and royal halls and distant kingdoms, moving like a fire that kept finding new fuel. It grew the way stories grow when no one stops them. Some said Dhira had argued with Ares and made the God of War step back.
Others said he had fought him. Some insisted an angel had fallen in love with him. Another claimed Zeus himself had bowed to his courage. Some of it was impossible, some nonsense, but someone sure believed it .
All of it somehow remained believable.
Dhira never denied any of it. Never confirmed it either. He simply shrugged when asked. "Believe what you want."
Then I walked away. He didn't care. Life had become too enjoyable and the only thing that truly mattered to him now was testing his strength.
So he tested it. War after war. Bandits, raiders, rival kingdoms, creatures crawling out of forgotten places. He walked into every battlefield with the divine mace on his shoulder and the battles that once required strategy and teamwork ended too quickly. Enemies broke like clay pots. Walls shattered. Armies scattered just seeing his figure approaching. He fought giants from northern mountains, mercenaries from distant deserts, and once when a massive sea creature rose near the shores of a faraway kingdom and ships were already sinking, Dhira jumped from the harbor wall and struck it once. The sea calmed.
His fame grew. His victories stacked. And alongside them, so did something else.
His pride.
At first his friends fought beside him. Then slowly he stopped asking them. "Just watch. I'll handle it." He went to battles alone and they stayed behind, watching, they believed it was still their friend out there. That belief didn't last long.
One day during a clash with a stone fortress beast Dhira struck the creature so hard the entire structure collapsed, stone and debris exploding across the battlefield. Vijay had kept his distance. But Rajraj, Raavi and Jigya were too close. They moved fast and blocked most of it but sharp splinters still found them. Bruises. Cuts. Blood through their clothes.
After the battle they confronted him. Dhira wiped his mace clean and shrugged. "It happens in war. People get hurt."
Rajraj's voice was low. "Not when we didn't take part in it. We were just standing there."
Jigya stepped forward, already furious. Raavi put a hand on her shoulder before she could speak. She looked at Dhira calmly instead. "Let the true warrior think for himself." The words were quiet and they landed harder than anything louder would have, but not for Dhira. He just thought they were throwing tantrums. They weren't, Dhira didn't notice that . The three of them turned and walked away without another word.
Dhira watched them go and didn't stop them. Vijay stood nearby the whole time and said nothing either.
Later that night Vijay finally spoke. "You should have apologized." Dhira who was eating while his mace rested beside him hearing this replied.
"A true warrior doesn't apologize." The words came out easily. Almost proudly.
Vijay stared at him. "You're changing."
"I'm improving."
But the distance had already begun. His friends drifted. His brother spoke to him less. Dhira barely noticed. His need to be admired had grown too large to leave room for much else.
The mace went everywhere with him. Markets, towns, royal courts. People gathered wherever he appeared and he let them try to lift it, soldiers and warriors and champions, none managing even a fraction of movement. He laughed every time. "See? Only a true warrior can lift it."
The crowds loved it. Soon people stopped saying Dhira from Daansara and started saying Dhira's Daansara. His name had become larger than the kingdom itself. Some loved it. Some obviously didn't. Inside the palace tension grew quietly.
Dhira didn't notice and didn't have time to. There were always new battles, new victories, new voices saying his name. And every time they did the distance between him and the people who had once stood beside him widened a little more.
And just like they say. If someone goes up, someone is definitely rooting for him to fall.
High above the world, beyond clouds and storms and mortal sight, the name had reached the halls of heaven. Gods spoke it with curiosity, with amusement, with something approaching respect.
A strong mortal. Fought giants alone. Carries the mace of Hanuman. Zeus himself received him. Many whispered he had been chosen, that he would become the champion of Zeus, a mortal raised above others. What none of them knew, what none would have believed if told, was that Dhira had refused. Turned it down without hesitation. Still the stories grew.
But in the chamber of Ares the mood was different.
The chamber bore no resemblance to the shining halls of Olympus. It was dim, the kind of dim that suggested light entered reluctantly and didn't stay long. No decoration. No luxury. Tall black curtains hung from the walls like war banners, each carrying a golden omega symbol.
The only true source of light was a massive fire pit at the center of the room, burning with the steadiness of something that had been going for centuries. Its flames glowed orange and gold but at their tips moved a faint purple fire. Inside those flames images shifted constantly. Battles. Cities. Warfields.
And Dhira.
Again and again.
Ares stood before the fire with his hands clasped behind his back. Still. His face calm. His eyes reflected everything the flames showed him.
On the far side of the chamber Loki leaned against a long table set with meat, fruit, pastries and wine. She ate with the unhurried elegance of someone who had nowhere pressing to be, each movement deliberate, each bite precise. When she finished she set down her fork and knife and wiped her lips with a napkin.
She picked up a grape and rolled it between her fingers, studying Ares across the fire.
"So." Her voice carried its faint Swedish lilt through the quiet room. "You haff been staring at zis mortal for how long now?"
Ares didn't respond. The flames shifted. Dhira smashing through a giant. Loki popped the grape into her mouth and collected her golden glass with two fingers.
"You are ze God of War," she said, walking slowly around the fire, purple cloth trailing.
"Yet you watch one mortal like he is ze most interesting thing in existence. It really doesn't suit you."
Ares finally spoke. Deep. Heavy. "I am observing."
Loki chuckled softly. "Observing?" She leaned closer to the flames. The fire showed Dhira lifting the golden mace, crowds cheering around him. "Zis one certainly enjoys victory."
"He enjoys attention."
"Same difference for mortals." She walked the perimeter slowly. "You know vhat zey say in ze halls? Zey believe he vill become Zeus's champion. Ze next hero of Olympus. Or maybe something more." The last of her sentences seems to carry a hidden weight and a different tone.
The flames flickered. Something moved briefly in Ares's eyes at those last words.
Dhira's image held in the fire, standing with the mace on his shoulder, proud and still. Ares spoke again. "Fools. That mortal refused."
Loki blinked. She whistled once, soft and low. "Now zat is interesting." She stepped closer to the fire, watching Dhira fight in the flames. "But zen vhy are you watching him so closely?"
Silence. Only the fire answered for a long moment.
"He reminds me of something," Ares said quietly.
"And zat is?"
The flames shifted. Dhira laughing now, crowds chanting his name, pride open on his face. Ares's voice dropped colder. "A warrior standing on ze edge of arrogance."
Loki tilted her head. "And?"
"I want to see what happens when he falls."
A smile appeared on Loki's face then. Not the warm one she showed in bright halls. Her real one. She let the golden glass slip from her fingers and it rang against the stone floor. "Vords from my mouth."
And far away, with Dhira, who was laughing with some woman, coughed. And felt a little off, but one of the women handed her a wine glass, which distracted him enough.