Standing on the beach the two of them were facing each other, the sea waves hit the shore, the tides today were low and the wind was blowing from the sea to the land “Whoo…”. An archer was always at a disadvantage in a one on one fight without cover, but everyone present here knew that cover or not, the one who was at a disadvantage here was not the archer. Rhodos sat at the rock, not wearing a cloak to cover her. Her legs were crossed, she used right hand to support her chin with elbow resting on her naked thigh. She wore a green colored thin piece of cloth which covered her perfect breasts covering only her nipples, they were lose to keep her comfortable sitting there and moved in wind. If one concentrated they could see the green cloth fluttering in the heavy wind uncovering the most beautiful of her brown nipples, which she did not mind. All her waist below her bust was there in a glaring contrast to the loamy sand making people dream if they could eat off of it. Going down was the single piece of green short skirt length cloth tied at the side of her waist in a single tiny knot which rested above the curve of her hips. Tempting as it may seem men and women both wanted to use their mouth of open the knot to let loose to the world the tiny piece of clothing which covered what was coveted by all be they men or women. The uncomfortable rock made her change posture multiple times from she crossed her legs with right leg above the left and then opened then when the protrusion on the rock rubbed against her soft but tough skin, leaving no lasting mark or injury. When she opened her legs visible to all was the beautiful pink heaven that all wanted to taste atleast once in their life. This extended into two sublimely soft legs which all wanted wrapped around them while they enjoyed their time in heaven.

She was there to intervene in case the archer crossed the line, though it was against what Kush had promised, but she did not care, her responsibility was to protect Kush and besides the promise was against retaliation and that too by her master. Kush who had seen her since young was not really affected by her, but was not true for Parth, he had not paid attention before, looking at her sitting there now almost gave him a hard on. He shook his head and put the image out of her mind. On the long stretch of the beach there was no one for a long 10 to 12 kilometers in all direction. After the beach was a kilometer wide after which started a mangrove forest belt, this was important to protect the cities when waves as high as 100-200 m hit the coast, protection of common people was important considering Sarayu was the most tumultuous of oceans of all.

There at the beach, wind running through their hair, stood a young man and a child, the child had a height of 5 ft standing there his un-tied long hair fluttering in the wind away from the sea, he had the face of a baby with sign of hair growing below his nose all the way down to his toes. All he wore was a white dhoti around his waist all the down to knees, his torso was rock hard, with a single muscular but not too huge left arm, which possessed a fearsome looking monolithic black axe which against his bronze skin looked as if a fearsome god had descended to end life as we live and breathe. It had been a long time since he had been in such a perfect state, no injury on his body and training braces to weigh him down. The distance from his foe is was about 30 m. He let down his axe and saw his opponent arm himself with his bow. It was black in color similar to what he had seen in the pictures of military bows. The bow seemed to be a couple of inches shorter than the wielder standing at a whopping 5 ft 10 in in length, made out of a black material, its rope fully taut in his quiver were many arrows. A straight forward method of defeating an archer would be to take the fight to a shorter range or to dodge till he ran out of arrows. Kush opted for the first and jetted across the sand with the axe in tow dragging it on the sand along the way, he wanted to finish the fight as soon as he could and just as started the run, his opponent nocked an arrow and shot right where he was about to step this stumbled Kush and dropped to the ground face first and his axe are dragged out throwing sea shells and sand and silt in the air. He rolled to the side quickly just as an arrow was about to him where he had fallen, the arrows were the same as the ones he had seen before, 150 cm long massive wooden arrows which managed to dig themselves deep in the sand where they hit the ground. Kush then swung his axe and placed it in the way between him and the archer, bang the arrow hit the axe and push it back. The axe had dug into the sand about 20 cm, when the arrow pushed it back, it swept the sand for about 200 cm along with Kush, he had to put his right shoulders against the axe to support it. This scared Kush, the arrow had too much power. He peeked over the axe head trying to look at his opponent saw the archer was still at the same location, he was nocking his arrow in his bow. Kush grabbed the axe and jumped back when he saw the arrow straight for his him, more accurately his head.

A few seconds ago, standing there in his entirely black garb stood Parth, to him this was just trying to satiate his curiosity after seeing the kid who looked so young training with such weights when kids his age were yet to start their training. When the kid started running ‘typical’ he thought ‘who wouldn’t want to close the distance with archer’ so he easily shoots an arrow making him roll over to the location where he fell. When the kid drops his axe in front of himself Parth just hits the axe just to scare him, which succeeds in his mission and the kid makes first mistake and Parth aims for his head ‘Sigh’ it was my mistake to expect so much from kid. Rhodos seeing this smirks, you underestimate him too much.

Kush bangs his axe into the ground and let’s go of it pushing himself to the left a little. The trajectory of jumps rises a little and the arrow passes through where his right hand would have been. He lands on his back and tumbles further back falling on his front rolling over 3 time. In this interval, he is hit by arrow at each location, he jumps forward and grabs his axe at the end of its hilt and semi cart wheels and uses the momentum to hit the sand about 15 m from his opponent. The axe head is approximately 12 ft high at its peak, as it descends like the hammer of Hero of thunder Thor, if such a punishment would have been meted on somebody the result would have been a simple pulp of powdered bone and minced meat. ‘BANG’ though muffled by the sand came a sound shaking the entire beach in 20 m radius, sending a crack right to the corals in the beach, sand spread in the air. The opponent looked visibly surprised by this display, the noise and sand in air did break his concentration a little, but Kush too had to expend a lot of force so he could not move in on time to capitulate on the opportunity and he ran back to widen the distance. He realized that after 60 m he could sort of follow the arrows with his eyes and could attempt to dodge. On his run back he zidzaged and tumbled a couple of times. On achieving the distance, he turned around and faced his opponent while jumping back he looked right at him for the second time during the fight.

This was not his first time he had faced a long range weapon opponent, the long armed ape too used projectiles and that too from a long distance like 200 m and with ridiculous accuracy but the accuracy, speed and power were not all this high every time meaning either they were accurate or their destructive power was high or they were fast. But this was impossible to deal with, it seemed like the opponent’s arrows had super magnets which made the arrows follow him and the destructive force too was self-evident.

While in air he tried use his axe to strike, but missed causing him to dodge the air. For the first time since the fight started he was facing the opponent. As soon he stabilized himself an arrow came at him, taking a step back he used the broad face of the axe to block the incoming arrow. The first time he had done so, since he used broad face and took the entire force he was pushed back approximately a foot, but he was ready this time. The next volley of arrows came and he either dodged them or changed their trajectory using his arrows. His wrists were the weakest joints in his hands but had the highest dexterity. He wanted to use them but the axe was too heavy for it, this was the chance to increase his adaptability with his axe and lose the one weakness he had. Slowly one arrow after another he started hitting them and got the hang of it.

“Little shit thinks he can make himself stronger while fighting me” said Parth when he saw what was happening. He smirked and increased the amount by which he pulled the bow string. Suddenly the arrow whooshed towards the kid, but something surprising happened, the kid dived head first towards the arrow with the axe in front of him and tried to hit the arrow with blade of the arrow midair but just missed. This pissed Parth off a lot “Hmph… you want to see strength huh” from one the pockets in his quiver he pulled out an arrowhead, which seemed like a sphere slightly bigger than general arrow. Meanwhile the kid was making his way towards him when he just about 10 m away about to attack Parth had leisurely nocked the arrow on his bow.

Kush made his way towards the opponent when he saw instead of shooting, the opponent was preparing something “Didn’t you know, that a duel is not the time to be preparing your weapon” he said as he raised his axe to attack only to see his opponent nocked his arrow and shot at him. He was suspicious cause the arrow head was larger and he knew this not something to be taken lightly, he had done nothing but dodge all this time and this one was impossible to dodge so he did what he had wanted to for a long time and went head on the arrow with his axe’s blade

“BOOM”

Came the sound when the two met and wave after wave of kinetic energy was being dispersed in the surrounding, causing sand from both directions to fly over and cause a dust storm, the wave did not pause and went on to destroy the waves of water coming on to the beach and then creates catastrophe of sorts in the radius of 60 m from them. The water from Sarayu ocean tries to fill up the place which has been impacted by the wave. There was no bomb, there was no chemical, this was pure kinetic energy of the arrow colliding with the potential energy of the axe and trying to release energy to the surrounding. When you drop a rock in the water it initiates a ripple effect as circular wave after circular wave of water with their center as the location of impact of rock and water surface, this was similar only happening in 3 dimensions as spherical wave after spherical wave of energy was getting expelled from the point of impact, the ground below the point of impact was getting continuously eroded as sand was flowing outwards, the Kush as if hanging in there, to him this felt like a long time, suspend in midst of region of pure energy. Energy which was going back to the world, to the environment, it is not that environment of pure ether are impossible but they were rare and only major factions had access to them, this may seem like a disastrous place to be in for most but to Kush this seemed like he suspended in pure ether, almost no matter, only ethereal energy surrounding him. His skin while being soaked in this environment by itself without any internal command absorbed a bit of ether from everywhere and converted it to mana and mana then travelled along the veins to the sack like body present at the base of his spine but all but one drop of it dispersed out from the vein. That one drop went into his Mula Chakra and ‘pudup…’ it dropped there an impossible feat had been achieved today one that no one had achieved or could achieve in the future as well. No one will know it too, cause even the person to whom this happened did not notice this as well.

While hanging on in their Kush felt tremendous pain in his wrist, he felt that if he did not let go of his axe his hand would be torn apart, his bones in his forearms taking the brunt of the impact were starting to bend a few millimeters as well. It was painful very painful to say the least, the joint in his elbow was hurting and the ligament there was starting to crack at the surface. Anyone going through this would have felt screamed rolling on the ground grabbing his forearm to show the various location it was hurting, but Kush soldiered gritting his grinding them against each other and then came another

“BOOM”

This time a bit smaller than the previous one and was caused by axe hitting the bottom of the pit 3 m in depth. ‘plunk and push’ came the noise from the two halves of the arrow, which was cut smack in the middle as if using a chisel, when dropped in the water and sand after being carried by the wind in two opposite directions. Kush slowly walked out of the 3 m deep pit which looked a bit smaller than a hemisphere. His body was in tatters; the excessive energy had caused injuries all over his body along with bloody cut above his eyebrows. He was unable to open eyes due to the continuous stream of blood covering his eye and his left hand, his only hand, had throbbing vessels of blood all across its length visible as if he had just finished an intense arm wrestling match. His shoulder was red entirely and the laterals on his back too were red, as if he had just pushed a mountain for about a kilometer. He still had the handle in his grip but most of Tanka was inclined on a mound of sand supporting its weight, he was bent at his waist with his head facing forward looking towards his opponent.

Parth had a somber expression on his face, this was the second time in his life some had stopped his destructive arrow, He was not foolish enough to think he was the strongest in the world, he did not even believe himself to be the strongest in Kashi, but this did not mean he was weak and very few could counter his arrows. Why was it so? It was because of his karmic power, in addition to supreme vision which could not be obstructed by anything in the world he was able to imbibe his arrow heads with a bit of his mana. Problem was it was only possible on the tip of the arrow. So he carved the helix along the length of the shaft and stored his mana in there, as the mana on the tip was consumed more came to take its place, making the material of the of the arrow moot. Moreover, bigger the arrow-head the more mana he could store on it. Hence the destructive arrow was practically a modern day missile and he could fire it endlessly. On the other hand, he was really curious about the material of weapon the kid was using, what could it be made up of for it to not even have chipped the edge of its blade while his arrow was cut in half. Parth said “Kid you did good today, when we met the first time I knew you saw my eyes and from your reaction I know you have an inkling of my Karmic power. Let me show it you, though it is still far from completion and I can’t really control it properly, so you better brace yourself kid”.

Rhodos on realizing that it was getting dangerous “No I will not allow this”

None of them listened to her and she knew it would be impossible to explain to the two so she rushed back to the inn to call for help. Kush on the other hand straightened up and started walking away from him, when he was about 100 m away from the opponent, he bent his knees and waist a little and raised his axe up vertically with its blade facing his opponent.

Parth nodded his head acknowledging the fact that he had understood his opponent was ready. He threw his bow and quiver some distance away to safety, “Now Kush be ready to see my karmic power, my true power, the power of GAANDIVA”

Parth raised his left hand up with his palm outstretched forward and fingers coiled like he was grabbing an imaginary stick vertically. As he did so the already strong wind started to increase in velocity. “whoosh” It started. First from the side of sea to the shore, behind him and then another one started from the shore to sea in front of him. Slowly a golden bow was starting to form conjure in thin air, at first it was like static seen in TV, after a few seconds it was like a distorted bow made up of something not physical something fluid which was difficult to contain.

Kush understood that this was the true karmic power, something he lacked, something he always desired since knowing its existence but knew he could never have. He compared it to the dagger he had seen on the noble, the dagger was fully solid and looked very real while the bow looked like static deformed bow. The bow was longer than the previous bow standing at 2 m in length and a string which connected the two ends of the bow. The wind speed had increased and slowly the water of the ocean was pushed back further and further 100 m… 110 m… 120 m… then 200 m… the ocean water was pushed back in area of this radius with Kush’s opponent as the center. By now his opponent’s brow was matted with sweat with his hair sticking to his scalp. Slowly the wind speed picked up, 50 kmph… 60 kmph… 70 kmph… 80 kmph… 150 kmph… 200 kmph…. Weather in entire Kashi was visibly changing, with dark clouds emerging suddenly and producing lightning “BOOM… BASH… BOOM… BASH…” people were perplexed at the sudden change in weather and some people started going to their houses. Sagar by now had received the news and jetted from his inn to the beach, it took him little effort to find, cause all he had to do was find the source of disturbance. He reached the beach with the intention to stop the fight but saw that his son’s eyes and decided to wait it out. Stopping something of this tiny scale was nothing to him, but still this surprised him, “Is this how strong a Hero is when he is a mere child? No this guy is on a different scale”. The opponent then placed his hand on the string of the bow and pulled. Like the bow an arrow made of ethereally fluid material was conjured on the and as it happened the cyclone increased in radius to 1 km and maximum speed increased to 300 kmph. The mangrove tree did their work and started breaking the wind speed preventing the disaster from spreading to the great city. Waves of the order of 50 to 60 m height started hitting the entire shore till the eyes could see, these were again stopped by the mangrove trees to reaching the city. Lightning started occurring in the skies which were dark due to clouds, they were followed by 3 consecutive thunders “Dhadoom… dhadoom… dhadoom…”. “I hope you can bear it kid, cause once I let go… you know the saying don’t you” he said with a smile and blood coming down from the edge of his lips.

Kush felt a cold sweat flow down his back, even standing there was taking a lot of energy for him, winds would probably have blown him away had he not anchored himself using the axe, when he saw the opponent was ready, he went back another quick 50 m and took a 20 m run towards his opponent and then jumped high. He then used the weight of the axe to come down heavily.

Parth understood the intentions of his opponent and let loose the arrow at the blade of the opponent’s black monolithic axe. As soon as he let loose the arrow the cyclone and storm subsided almost immediately but a 30 m ditch was formed in the beach and ocean bed along the trajectory of the arrow. Carrying along with it water from the ocean, sand from the beach and uprooted trees from the forest, like a horizontal cyclone it hit the blade of the axe. Parth had already seen Sagar in his view, which was why he let loose the arrow else he had a change of heart midway. He expected Sagar to intervene if situation got out of hand and it seemed like it had, as he thought he could not control the power of his arrow. After releasing he fell on his right knee wheezing, as if he had just been resuscitated. As he expected Sagar did move to stop the arrow but contrary to his expectation he let the weapons collide.

Kush did not see anything else, he put his entire concentration on the arrow and made sure they connected, he could not see the water or the sand or the trees or the horizontal cyclone which were coming along with it. By now Alicia and Rhodos were at the beach as well and had they mouths open, Alicia launched herself at the arrow which was about to collide effortlessly, Sagar used strength to stop her, he wanted to see the result. Kush did not see any of this, he just wanted to test himself out against ultimate strength. He had made up his mind, “beat this arrow my body I don’t care about anything else, if you want me to move forward in life then beat this arrow my body. Let me show to this world, no this universe, no to all 14 lokas I am Kush the strongest to ever have born an I have descended”. Just then the axe and arrow collided.

“KABOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM”`

A spherical wave of pure energy originated from the point of collision of the axe and arrow there was, no air in expanding sphere of pure energy 50 m… 100 m… 200 m… 500 m… 700 m… it obliterated the first few rows of trees of the mangrove forest and evaporated and/or disintegrated water, melted and EVAPORATED the sand in the soil creating a crater in it. The effects of this wave was felt in the city as well, as winds of order of 100 kmph hit the house, blowing some of the weak ones off. A lot of the boats of the fisher men were seen away from the shore by the waves of water, fortunately a weather warning had prevented anyone from going deep in the seas for a few days. Those boats that were moored using mooring lines properly just danced up and down in the massive waves. At the point of impact, Kush’s left arm bones, muscles and skin which forged and re-forged by mana again and again by after every injury were only able to endure for but a micro second after the impact. “His mind had been made up, either I die or I win” first fraction of microsecond obliterated his skin, in the next fraction of microsecond his bones were fragmented and were about to be blown, but then suddenly as if in response to his request or his body’s autonomous will for survival a miracle happened. Once again he attained the state of all mana absorption from all over his body but this time he was in motion. A never before seen incident occurred a seven-year-old boy could absorb mana from all over his body and that while moving, pure ether was constantly being consumed by his body. When Alicia saw this, she stopped moving and almost stumbled to a fall, she could not believe what she was seeing, his skin was repairing itself at a rate visible to naked eye, he healing faster and anybody in the world could, it was probably because he was right now probably residing in one of the most energy abundant spot of the world, his fragmented bones were healing again, in that short instant of collision they broke and repaired themselves innumerable amount of times.

While all of this was happening Kush was entirely concentrated on the point of collision and saw that he was losing and all he had in his mind was, “this is not acceptable, this is not acceptable. Losing means death, I would rather not move forward”. Suddenly, as if in response to his desire, the excess energy from his veins re-directed themselves towards the another sack in his body the Svadhi Chakra, the one responsible for strength attribute of the body.

As this was happening the mana absorption increased, increased beyond imagination, his eyes shone golden, his mouth, nose and ears as if emitting golden light, he looked like a miniature sun in the floating above the beach. His strength started increasing, but even at the current limits of his Svadhi chakra point’s output limit he was still unable to overpower the arrow’s initial strength. But something peculiar happened, the arrow started to become blurry and the second wave of energy was considerably weaker than the first wave and subsequent waves became even weaker. THEY ENERGY OF THE ARROW AND COLLISION WAS NOW BECOMING LESS THAN THE MANA BEING CONSUMED.

Slowly 1.5 seconds after the collision began, the arrow disappeared. Kush was conscious in the whole process but was knocked out afterwards, without the conscious determination, the absorption process stopped and he was thrown by the residual energy with his axe about a kilometer from the collision to the waters of the ocean.

The four witnesses of the incident fell on their knees with their mouths agape