Karna began firing arrows without pause. Each shot flew straight and true, piercing eyes, throats, hearts. Rakshasas fell before they even understood where the deaths were coming from.
The battlefield became chaos.
Three thousand demons roared and charged, but they were being harvested.
Mrinalini tore through them on one side, silver flashing like lightning.
Karna cut them down on the other, golden arrows striking like the judgment of Surya himself.
The ground quickly turned slick with blood.
Bodies piled in heaps.
The air stank of iron and burning flesh.
Mrinalini's trishula kept moving, never pausing, never trembling. A demon tried to grab her arm and drag her down. She stabbed him through the mouth and twisted until his skull cracked. Another tried to strike her back with a spear. She spun and tore his ribs open with a single swing.
She didn't fight like someone defending herself.
She fought like someone punishing the world.
Karna's arrows continued to fall in a deadly rhythm, but as the rakshasas pressed closer, the battlefield tightened. There were too many bodies. Too many moving targets. Mrinalini fought among them, her silver weapon flashing dangerously close to where his arrows might land.
Karna's eyes narrowed.
He could not risk striking her.
With a quiet exhale, he dismissed Vijayadhanush.
In the next moment, Suryateja appeared in his hand.
The sword blazed with solar fire, its edge burning bright enough to make the rakshasas flinch.
Karna stepped forward, and his blade began to carve through demons with clean, economical strikes. Heads rolled. Arms fell. Bodies split apart under the burning edge.
Where his sword passed, the smell of charred flesh rose thick and ugly.
The rakshasas tried to overwhelm him.
But Karna's movements were precise, measured, and unstoppable.
And slowly, the black tide began to collapse.
Minutes passed.
Then more.
Rakshasas screamed, stumbled, and fell.
Some tried to flee.
However, none managed to escape.
In no time, the plain was filled with corpses.
Three thousand rakshasas lay dead.
The last one fell with its throat split open by Karna's sword, its body collapsing into the mud of blood and dirt. Silence returned like a breath finally released.
Karna dismissed Suryateja, and the sword vanished in a flare of light before he looked around the battlefield to see if there was anyone still surviving.
And then his gaze returned to Mrinalini.
Only then did the scale of what she had done settle into his mind.
More than one-third of the army had fallen by her hands alone.
A thousand rakshasas.
And these were not weak ones either. Many were larger than the others, marked by heavier armor, stronger bodies, and a darker aura. Yet they had died just as easily beneath her trishula.
Karna knew the truth of rakshasas.
Even an average one could match thirty to forty ordinary warriors in strength.
She had slaughtered the equivalent of tens of thousands of men.
Alone.
Karna stared at her for a moment, quiet and unreadable.
Her chest rose and fell steadily, not panicked, not exhausted in a helpless way, but controlled, like a warrior who had already learned how to breathe through pain.
Blood dripped from her arms. It clung to her face. It soaked into her hair. The chainmail beneath her saree glinted faintly under the sunlight, and the divine trishula in her hand still shimmered, its prongs wet with black gore.
Karna, meanwhile, continuously stared at her in awe and astonishment.
He had heard stories since childhood.
Every child in Bharatavarsha had heard them. Goddess Durga riding into war, her lion roaring as demons fell beneath her weapons. Devi Parvati, gentle as the moon, yet capable of becoming wrath itself when dharma was threatened. Mata Kali dancing through corpses, tongue red, eyes wild, garlanded in skulls, leaving destruction in her wake.
Those stories had always sounded distant, like legends meant to inspire fear and devotion, and show that women aren't just meant for kitchens or decorations.
However, in practicality, people only dismiss it as all of those three are Parvati in the end. So, it became more like an exception rather than giving a message.
But now Karna felt his throat tighten, because he had just watched the mortal woman move through demons like death itself had chosen her as its hand.
His lips parted before he even realized he was speaking.
"Never thought…" he murmured, voice low, almost to himself. "Never thought I would see a female warrior like this."
His gaze sharpened again, lingering on the trishula, on her stance, on the calm fury in her eyes.
"She is perhaps…" he whispered, "the only female maharathi in this world."
Mrinalini then turned slightly, her gaze falling on him. For a moment, her eyes held a faint glow of violence, as if the battle still lived inside her bones. Then her expression softened just enough to show she had heard him.
She didn't smile.
She didn't look proud.
She simply stood there, quiet, as if killing a thousand rakshasas was not something worth discussing.
Karna took a step closer.
"Princess, you are covered in blood," he said, his voice calm but faintly concerned. "I can summon rain. It will wash it away."
Mrinalini glanced down at her arms, at the gore drying on her skin, then looked back up at him.
Her voice came out low, rough, and unwavering.
"No."
Karna paused.
Mrinalini tightened her grip on the trishula, the silver prongs glinting darkly. "Let it be this way," she said. "Until we are done."
The words carried a strange weight.
Not just stubbornness.
Not just grief.
It was as if she was wearing the blood like a vow, like a mark of war she refused to remove until justice was complete. The aura coming off her was heavy enough that even Karna felt it press against his chest. It wasn't arrogance. It wasn't madness.
It was something worse.
A resolve that could not be bent.
Karna held her gaze for a long moment, then nodded slowly.
"As you wish, Princess," he said.
*
They climbed back onto the celestial chariot.
The seven horses stamped their hooves impatiently, their manes rippling like golden fire. The moment Karna took the reins, the chariot lifted smoothly into the air, rising above the field of corpses until the slaughter below became nothing more than a dark stain on the earth.
Mrinalini stood beside him again, gripping the railing. The wind whipped through her hair and dried the blood on her face into darker streaks. She didn't wipe it away. She didn't blink much either.
Her eyes remained fixed westward as the chariot surged forward.
Not long after, another city appeared, which looked exactly the same as before.
Mrinalini's body tensed instantly.
Her hand moved slightly, as if she was ready to leap down again.
But this time, Karna did not lower it to the ground.
He didn't even glance at her.
Instead, he lifted Vijayadhanush and began to chant the mantra of Indrastra.
As the arrow formed between his fingertips, he released it, aiming at the sky. As the arrow flew up further and reached the clouds, the arrow gave a blinding flash of light before thousands of arrows, imbued with the power of lightning, rained down on the illusory city.
As the illusion disappeared, more than eight thousand rakshasas were seen on the ground.
However, just as they even raised their weapons, the lightning imbued arrows rained down upon them, not giving them a chance to defend.
The last asura's body hit the ground with a heavy thud.
For a moment, the plain was silent again, as if even the earth needed time to accept what had happened. The air still smelled of burnt flesh and dark blood. The scattered corpses lay like broken pillars, their glowing runes fading one by one until nothing remained but dead skin and empty eyes.
Karna stood still, staring toward the distant outline of Mathura.
His expression was calm, but there was something sharp behind his eyes now, something that had begun to grow after each illusion was shattered, after each army was erased.
He exhaled slowly.
Then he murmured, almost like he was speaking to the wind itself.
"How many more tricks do you have, Kamsa?"
His gaze hardened.
"You can use everything you have," he said quietly. "But nothing will work."
Mrinalini stared him, almost in a trance. When she shifted her eyes back to the plains, thousands of Rakshasas, who were almost thrice the number as last time, were wiped out in a few moments, just like that.
Karna then turned toward the west and took the reins again.
The horses surged.
And the chariot shot forward like a golden arrow.
***
Mathura's city walls appeared within minutes.
Not an illusion this time.
The true Mathura stood ahead, thick stone walls stretching wide, towers bristling like thorns. The gates were massive, carved with royal symbols, guarded by soldiers who looked up in confusion as the sky suddenly darkened under the shadow of the chariot.
Karna's eyes remained forward, focused.
Far behind them, a messenger was probably still running through the palace corridors, screaming news of the first massacre. Perhaps Kamsa had only just heard that three thousand rakshasas had fallen. Perhaps he was still shouting orders, still demanding reports, still refusing to believe his armies could be wiped out so quickly.
But before that news could even fully settle…
The enemy was already at his doorstep.
The celestial chariot crossed the city walls and entered Mathura.