Raghav was not interested in the mystery or excited about what was happening. In fact, he was dead scared, with each letter he read, his voice kept staggering. He felt like heavens were directly talking to him and stopped the time for privacy.
[Am I getting some sort of divine punishment or something. But what did I do wrong, does not being able to save my parents counted as a sin. What does anchor even indicate.] his body shook while he tried to think about the events.
After a few moments, the trembling in the sky completely stopped with the word Anchor still hanging there.
The clouds forming the word slowly started dissipating, it was like a child just made a word with cotton candy and then teared it again to try something new.
This made Raghav to think that there is gonna be a new word now. Maybe the heavens are really trying to talk with him and this is how they form their sentences.
The sky that was covered in clouds was completely clear now, there was a circle of even more brighter sky right above Raghav. Keeping him as it's center, the circle had radius of around 5 meters.
The light was getting even brighter, so much so that as if the heavens were descending on Earth. The circle illuminated and suddenly a cylindrical beam of light as wide as the circle descended on the ground, right on the Raghav's head.
For a split second, Raghav's eyes widened as his pupils reflected the enlarging bright circle.
In just a small fraction of second, light reached the ground, submerging him to the point where he won't even be visible from the outside of the circle.
"Aaaaaargh"
Raghav let out a horrifying and terrible shriek, the shriek was so violent that it ended up bruising his throat.
Inside the giant light pillar, Raghav was on his knees and holding his head so tightly that his nails scratched the sides resulting in blood trails oozing out from them. There were countless invisible sharp elongated needles that were piercing him from head to toe. These needles not only pierced deep into his skin but they even injected through his soul inflicting an unimaginable pain.
The pain was not only physical but also mental as it directly affected his soul. He didn't felt like all of his cells were mutating at a nuclear level, his body didn't bother to realize that all of his body parts were being replaced in a mystical way, the only thing he could feel was pure suffering. An amount of pain that couldn't be described or created by humanity, no amount of torture could even compare to it.
The pillar didn't last for more than seven seconds but those seven seconds felt like seven eternities.
Soon, the pillar of light slowly lost his radiance as all of it was injected into Raghav's body. The sky regained it's original shape and the clouds were moving with their usual speed and direction.
Raghav's body was stunned on the ground, after a few moments, he finally let go of his head. The now visible uncovered part had wide deep gashes where his ears should have been and his palms had blood on them.
He bent and placed them on the ground while still kneeling, his body trembled and he fell on the ground.
*cries* *wails*
"What, what, what is even happening. Why? What did I even do."
He brushed his hands violently as he complained, tears flowing out of his eyes as shut them tightly.
"Just kill me, it's better to die. I don't even have anything anymore. Stop punishing me like this for the sin I don't even know. If you are angry, then just have my life, just kill me God."
He interpreted this whole thing as some sort of heavenly punishment. There were no records of something like this ever happening before, at least on media or any other sources that he might know of, so he judged himself to be the greatest sinner in history to be punished by the Gods themselves.
Even this incident won't be recorded as one because of how others are still frozen at their places.
After a few minutes, Raghav finally opened his eyes, there was a noticeable difference in his eyes from before. Even after so much crying and mental torture, his eyes weren't red anymore. In fact, they had much more clarity and much more focus. They were emitting a kind of radiance that appeared to be non-human.
Since Raghav wasn't feeling pain for a long time now, he slowly regained his sanity. He wasn't crying or yelling anymore. With a deep frown and an exhausted expression, he slowly moved to stand up from the ground.
His eyes did had a new radiance but they were also lifeless, his face was like that of a person who was incredibly depressed after rigorous mental torture and brainwashing. He couldn't even keep his neck straight, it was slightly tilted to his right.
Not just his eyes, but his whole body was emitting a newfound shine. The skin appeared to be smoother and pearly. His hairs were also light, smooth, wavy and much more denser.
All in all, his overall appearance had a new kind of beauty in it but he was almost dead inside.
Raghav was staring into emptiness with his unfocused eyes but his mind was going through a chaos. It was being fused with so much information in a very small amount of time.
After a very few moments of time, his eyes finally regained the life. He opened them wide and let out some heavy pants. He gritted his teeth
"What was all that? Anchor, it was not some punishment. In fact, it was a title, a title which gives me authority whose power is much more deadly and life threatening than the blessings we already have from birth. Was that pillar of light supposed to be the bestowment process? And why did gods blessed me with a new powe-a new title at this point? Is it usual for people to secretly receive something like this? And was it really the act of gods or someone else?"
Lots of questions were flooding his mind, new knowledge also brought new mysteries with it. But Raghav didn't pay much attention to them, he already had his hands full with everything that was in front of him. He looks around at the people and objects which were still frozen in their place.
With a slightly relaxed and confused expression, he moved his head and looked at the sky, it was completely normal. Then, he stretched his hands and looked down to take a glance at his own body.
"Woah"
He immediately noticed the strange radiance and clarity, but there was a catch, the radiance was very slowly but surely becoming dim.
"Why is it dimming though? Wait, is it?"
He soon realized that the essence around him was being observed by his body, hence the strange radiance.
"When the essence burn out, the process would be done and hence this bizarre time freeze situation would end. It's like a timer for when they start moving again. I should do something."
He hurriedly ran to the other side of the scene where his uncles were frozen, most of them in air while some still on ground preparing to take the flight.
After a minute, Raghav was now standing beneath the group, his radiance was already halved visibly, that meant he had around a minute or less remaining.
He used all of his remaining gunpowder remaining in his innate inventory and created a large pile of explosives right in the center. This took him around 15 seconds, he immediately bent his body and dashed back to his original position. This time, he quickly created roller skated under his feet and made it in less than 40 seconds.
Without a second thought, he dragged Amayra to the back of Param and hugged her tightly. They were now covered under Param's protection.
In the next moment, a thought occurred to him
[I was trembling to shoot Suraj before but now I laid a deadly trap beneath group of people who are related to me by blood and yet I don't feel like I am doing something very immoral. Is it because of the betrayal that changed my heart or was it that weird title bestowment process.]
Suddenly, a deafening sound of explosion could be heard from the place he was no longer looking at.
On that day, an innocent teenager who used to have a prince mindset and never been in a fight before killed 120 of his blood related clan members in a split second.