Veda ran.
Not the run of a man. The run of a weapon. The run of something that had been unleashed and could not be called back.
His feet hit the pavement and the concrete cracked. Each step left a crater. Each stride shattered the ground behind him like a trail of explosions. The wind screamed past his ears, sharp as broken glass, tearing at his clothes. His shirt ripped at the shoulders, the fabric flying away behind him like torn flags. His hair streamed straight back, wild and dark against the red sky.
His eyes glowed. White light poured from his pupils, bright as twin stars, leaving trails in the air as he moved.
Cars ahead of him. He passed them and they flipped. Not from impact. From the sheer force of his wake. Sedans spun into the air, wheels still turning. A truck lifted off the ground and crashed into a streetlight. Motorcycles scattered like toys thrown by an angry child. The street became a graveyard of twisted metal and shattered glass.
Behind him, the road cracked open. Fissures spread like lightning bolts, splitting the asphalt, exposing the dark earth beneath. Telephone poles snapped. Windows shattered in every building for blocks. The sound of his passage was a continuous thunder, a roar that swallowed the city.
He was not running.
He was falling forward and the world was moving beneath him.
The barrier stood ahead.
A dome of red energy, crackling with lightning, covering Area 16 like a glass bowl turned upside down. It shimmered and pulsed, angry and alive. Beyond it, the sky was darker. Smoke rose in thick columns. The sound of screams and roars leaked through the energy field, distorted, like voices from the bottom of a well.
Around the barrier, soldiers and officers swarmed. Trucks lined the streets. Weapons of every kind were aimed at the dome. Rifles. Rocket launchers. Energy cannons mounted on armored vehicles. Muzzle flashes lit the darkness. Explosions rippled across the barrier's surface.
Nothing happened. The energy did not crack. Did not weaken. Did not even shimmer.
A man stood at the center of the chaos. An officer. Old. Thick white mustache. His uniform was torn at the sleeve. Sweat poured down his face. He had a phone pressed to his ear, his other hand gesturing wildly at the barrier.
"WE NEED A STAGE TWO VESSEL MASTER TO CONTROL THIS SITUATION!" His voice was raw, hoarse from shouting. "THE ASURA IS TOO POWERFUL! EVEN OUR STAGE ONE VESSEL CANDIDATE SOLDIERS ARE TRYING, BUT THEY ARE NOT EVEN TAKING DAMAGE! THE CREATURE LAUGHS AT THEM! IT TEARS THEM APART LIKE PAPER!"
The voice on the other end was calm. Too calm. The calm of someone sitting in a safe office far from the blood.
"We cannot send backup right now. Area 44, Area 03, Area 29, and Area 21 also have Asura appearances. All available vessels are already deployed. The Defense Court is coming shortly. Hold your position."
The officer's face turned purple. His grip on the phone tightened until his knuckles went white.
"HOLD MY POSITION?! SIR, INSIDE THAT BARRIER, PEOPLE ARE DYING! CIVILIANS! CHILDREN! I CAN HEAR THEM SCREAMING! IF WE WAIT ANY LONGER, WHO KNOWS WHAT WILL HAPPEN?! I AM WATCHING MY SOLDIERS GET SLAUGHTERED! I AM WATCHING A BUILDING COLLAPSE WITH FAMILIES INSIDE! YOU TELL ME TO HOLD MY POSITION?!"
"That is an order..."
"TO HELL WITH YOUR ORDER!"
The wind shifted.
The officer felt it first. A pressure. A change in the air. Like the moment before a storm breaks.
He turned.
A blur. A streak of white light. A shape moving so fast his eyes could not follow.
The wind hit him like a wall. His body lifted off the ground. He flew sideways, bounced off the hood of a jeep, and slammed into the side of a truck. The phone shattered in his hand. His head rang. His vision blurred.
When he looked up, the blur was gone.
It had passed through the barrier.
Through it. Like the energy meant nothing. Like the dome was made of mist.
The soldiers around him stared. Their weapons lowered. Their mouths hung open.
"Did you see that?" someone whispered.
"What the hell was that?"
No one answered.
The officer's phone crackled on the ground. The voice on the other end was frantic now.
"WHAT HAPPENED? REPORT! IS EVERYONE OKAY? CAN YOU HEAR ME?!"
No one picked up the phone.
They just stared at the barrier. At the fading trail of white light. At the impossible thing that had just happened.
Inside the barrier, the world was wrong.
The sky was red. Not sunset red. Blood red. A red that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, like the color had been painted over reality. A red moon hung low on the horizon, too large, too close, its surface cracked and weeping something dark.
The buildings were covered. Thick vines, black and pulsing, wrapped around every structure like veins. Cars sat crushed under the weight of organic growth. Streetlights bent at impossible angles, their bulbs shattered.
And the monsters.
Everywhere.
Creatures crawled over the rubble. Human shaped but wrong. Their limbs bent backward. Their faces had no features, just smooth skin stretched over bone. They dragged themselves across the ground, leaving trails of black ooze. Things with wings circled the red moon, screeching, their bodies half shadow, half flesh. Giant beasts with too many legs smashed through storefronts, searching, hunting.
But above all of it, on the roof of a building, Veda stood.
His chest heaved. His eyes glowed. His shirt was gone, torn away by the wind. His bare chest was covered in scratches from the barrier, thin red lines that wept blood. But he did not feel them.
He looked out at the destruction.
And then he saw it.
His house.
The small building where his mother cooked and his father read newspapers. Where he had laughed at terrible jokes and eaten luchi and aloo tarkari. Where he had felt something close to peace.
Monsters surrounded it. Dozens of them. Crawling on the walls. Scratching at the metal shutters that had sealed the windows and doors. The shutters were dented. Bending. They would not hold much longer.
And in front of the house, sitting atop a massive black creature that looked like a cross between a lion and a serpent, was the Asura.
He was tall. Not giant. Human sized but wrong. His skin was deep red, like dried blood. Two massive horns grew from his forehead, curving back like a ram's. A long tail whipped behind him, tipped with a blade of bone. He wore only a pair of dark pants and a light black chest plate, the armor polished to a dull shine. His face was sharp, cruel, with yellow eyes that glowed like embers.
He was laughing.
His voice was deep, guttural, a sound that vibrated in the chest. He pointed at the house, at the metal shutters, at the people hiding inside.
"BREAK THAT! BREAK THAT! FASTER! I WANT TO HEAR THEM SCREAM!"
The monsters clawed harder. The metal groaned.
Veda's eyes burned.
He leaped.
Not jumped. Leaped. The roof cracked under his feet. He flew through the red air like an arrow, his fist drawn back, his teeth clenched.
The Asura saw him at the last second. His yellow eyes went wide.
Veda's foot connected with his side.
The impact was thunder. The Asura flew sideways, his body folding around Veda's kick. He smashed into a nearby building, through the wall, through the next wall, through the third. Metal beams bent. Concrete crumbled. The building groaned and sagged.
Veda landed on the ground. His bare feet touched the cracked street. The monsters around him paused. Turned. Stared.
He did not look at them. His eyes were fixed on the hole in the building.
"Get away from my house."
The Asura exploded from the rubble.
Faster than Veda expected. His fist connected with Veda's crossed arms. The force drove Veda backward, his feet carving trenches in the concrete. The Asura grinned, showing rows of sharp teeth.
"Oho! A little mouse came to play!"
He punched again. Veda ducked. The fist sailed past his head and hit a car behind him. The car folded in half.
Veda moved. His body twisted. His fist came up from below, a brutal uppercut that caught the Asura under the chin. The creature's head snapped back. His teeth clacked together. Blood flew from his mouth.
Veda grabbed his horn. Pulled him down. Drove his knee into the Asura's face.
Once. Twice. Three times.
The Asura's nose broke. His lips split. Blood sprayed across Veda's chest.
The creature roared. His tail whipped around, the blade tip aimed at Veda's throat. Veda caught it. Squeezed. The bone cracked. The Asura screamed.
Then the creature's body changed. Shifted. His form blurred and he kicked out, his foot catching Veda in the belly. Veda blocked but the force still lifted him. He flew backward, twisted in the air, landed on his feet. Skidded. Stopped.
They faced each other across the ruined street. Fifty feet apart. Both bleeding. Both breathing hard.
The Asura laughed. Wiped blood from his lip.
"Not bad, little mouse. Not bad at all."
He whistled.
The serpent lion creature charged. Behind it, dozens of monsters. The winged things dove from the sky. The crawling things scrambled across the ground. A wave of teeth and claws and hungry eyes.
Veda did not run.
He ran toward them.
The first monster reached him. A crawling thing with too many legs. Veda's fist went through its chest. His arm came out the other side, dripping black blood. He ripped his hand free and the creature fell, twitching.
The second came from the left. A winged thing with a beak full of teeth. Veda caught it by the throat. Squeezed. Crushed. Dropped the body.
The third. Fourth. Fifth.
They came in waves.
Veda became a storm.
His fists moved faster than thought. Each punch shattered bone. Each kick caved in skulls. He grabbed a creature by its leg and swung it like a club, smashing three others to the ground. He tore a wing off a flying beast and stabbed it through the eye of another. He bit. He clawed. He destroyed.
Black blood covered him. Red blood. His own blood. It dripped from his hair, his chin, his fists.
The serpent lion lunged. Its jaws opened wide, big enough to swallow him whole.
Veda jumped. Not away. Into the mouth.
He caught the upper jaw with one hand. The lower jaw with the other. His muscles bulged. His teeth clenched. His eyes glowed brighter.
He pulled.
The jaws ripped apart. The creature's head split down the middle. Black blood poured over him like a waterfall. He dropped to the ground, covered in gore, and the creature's body collapsed on either side of him.
He stepped out of the blood.
The Asura stared at him.
For the first time, the yellow eyes held something other than amusement.
Fear.
"What... what are you?"
Veda did not answer. He walked forward. Each step slow. Deliberate. Inevitable.
The Asura charged.
They met in the middle of the street.
Fists collided. The shockwave shattered every remaining window for blocks. They traded blows, each impact a thunderclap. Punch. Block. Punch. Block. Faster and faster. Their movements blurred. They were too fast to see, just streaks of red and white, crashing into buildings, bouncing off the ground, flying through the air.
Veda punched the Asura through a wall. The Asura kicked Veda through a car. Veda grabbed the car and threw it. The Asura caught it, ripped it in half, threw the pieces back. Veda dodged both. Closed the distance. His fist buried itself in the Asura's stomach.
The creature doubled over. Veda grabbed his horns. Pulled his head down. Brought his knee up.
The Asura's face broke.
Blood sprayed. Teeth flew. The creature screamed, a sound like tearing metal.
Veda did not stop.
He punched the Asura's face. Again. Again. Again. Each punch faster than the last. A machine of violence. His knuckles split. His hands bled. He did not care.
"DIE!"
The final punch connected. The Asura's head snapped back. His body flew across the street, crashed into a building, and kept going, through the walls, through the back, out the other side. He hit the ground and rolled, leaving a trench of broken earth.
Veda stood over him.
The Asura tried to rise. His arms shook. His legs would not cooperate.
Veda placed a foot on his chest. Pressed down.
"Stop acting," Veda said. His voice was low. Cold. The voice of something that had killed a thousand times. "You are not fooling anyone. Come out, you piece of shit."
The Asura's body went still.
Then it laughed.
Not the laugh of a dying creature. Something deeper. Darker. Wrong.
"Ahhhhh... hahahahaha..."
The sound was disturbing. Scary. It echoed off the buildings, multiplied, surrounded Veda from all sides.
Black energy began to rise from the Asura's body. Thick smoke that moved against the wind. It poured out of his wounds, his mouth, his eyes. It rose into the red sky and spread like an oil spill.
The monsters around them stopped moving. Their bodies dissolved. Turned into the same black smoke. It all flowed toward the Asura, into him, through him.
His body began to change.
It grew. Expanded. The red skin darkened to black. Wood-like armor grew over his flesh, thick and ancient. His head split. Became five heads. Each one different. One with a single horn. One with tusks. One with a mouth full of tentacles. One with no face at all. And the center head, the largest, with fifty eyes covering its surface.
Fifty eyes. All looking at Veda.
And in the middle of the center head, a single giant eye. Red. Pulsing. Hungry.
Six arms grew from his torso. Each one the size of a tree trunk. Each hand big enough to crush a car.
His legs became pillars. His feet crushed the ground beneath them.
He rose.
And rose.
And rose.
When he stopped, he was building sized. His heads reached the height of the surrounding buildings. His shadow covered entire streets. The red moon hung behind him like a crown.
The giant eye in his center head focused on Veda.
Veda, who stood on the ground below. Small. Barefoot. Covered in blood. His eyes still glowing.
The Asura laughed. Five mouths. One sound. It shook the earth. The buildings around them trembled. Cracks spread across the street. The barrier around Area 16 flickered.
Outside the barrier, soldiers collapsed. Blood ran from their ears. The officer clutched his head and screamed.
Inside, Veda did not move.
He looked up at the giant. At the fifty eyes. At the six arms. At the wooden armor and the red moon and the black smoke that swirled around them both.
He bit his teeth together.
His eyes glowed brighter in anger.