The main courtyard of the Indra-Sabha Temple felt like a boiling ocean. Fifty thousand people were screaming, their faces twisted in absolute anger and fear.
"Demon!"
"Sinner!"
"He has the devil inside him!"
Standing on the massive stage, Karma was trembling. His mind was completely shattered. He looked at the giant 'Mirror of Truth' showing his reflection as a blood-thirsty monster, with the glowing illusion of Lord Indra looking down at him in disgust.
For a sixteen-year-old boy who had spent his whole life trying to protect people, being called a demon by thousands of innocent people was a crushing blow.
Thwack. A sharp stone flew from the crowd and struck Karma right on his forehead. A small cut opened up, and a drop of dark red blood rolled down his cheek. Then another stone hit his shoulder. The crowd was rioting. People were throwing whatever they could find—rocks, shoes, wooden prayer beads.
But Karma didn't even raise his arms to protect himself. His teal eyes were completely dull, devoid of any fighting spirit. The High Priest's psychological poison had worked perfectly.
The High Priest stepped forward, looking incredibly sad and compassionate. He gently placed his hand over Karma's head.
"Do not fight it, my child," the High Priest whispered sweetly, so only Karma could hear. "Your blood is cursed. Your father's blue lightning is a disease. Just surrender your Pran core to me. Let the temple seal your powers forever, and I promise you will live a normal, peaceful life."
Karma looked down at the ground. A single tear mixed with the blood on his face. Maybe he is right, Karma thought, his spirit breaking. If my power scares everyone... maybe I shouldn't have it.
Karma slowly reached for the dark blue hilt of the Lightning Sword strapped to his back, ready to hand it over. He was about to give up completely.
SWISH! A brilliant flash of emerald green light suddenly exploded in front of Karma. Thick, glowing green vines erupted from the wooden stage floor, weaving together to form a massive, beautiful shield. Several rocks bounced harmlessly off the vines.
Daizy stood firmly in front of Karma, her arms outstretched, breathing heavily. Her eyes, usually so soft and shy, were blazing with fierce determination.
"Don't you dare touch him!" Daizy yelled at the High Priest, completely ignoring the screaming crowd.
BOOOOM! A second later, a massive figure dropped from the sky and landed right beside Karma, shaking the entire wooden stage.
It was Kanha. He had his heavy iron staff resting casually on his broad shoulders. His bright orange 3rd Chakra flared wildly, blowing away the dust.
Kanha looked at the bleeding cut on Karma's forehead and frowned. Then, he looked at the giant mirror, then at the angry mob of fifty thousand people throwing stones.
Instead of looking scared, Kanha just smirked. He leaned over to Karma and patted his best friend on the back.
"Bro, why are you looking so depressed?" Kanha laughed, his loud, goofy voice completely breaking the heavy tension on the stage. "Seriously, you should be happy! Thank god these people didn't see my reflection. Otherwise, they all would have wet their pants!
Karma blinked. Despite the crushing despair in his chest, a tiny, weak smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Kanha... you idiot."
"I am your vanguard, bro," Kanha grinned, spinning his iron staff. "Nobody throws stones at my Rank 1 Elite without dealing with daddy Kanha first."
Daizy turned around, placing a gentle, glowing green hand on Karma's forehead, instantly healing his cut. "You are not a demon, Karma. Don't let this fake mirror tell you who you are."
From the edge of the stage, Sambhab was observing everything with cold, calculated logic. His blue eyes scanned the giant golden mirror.
"A reflection cannot mutate unless the light bending around it is manipulated," Sambhab muttered to himself, pushing his glasses up. He looked at the High Priest's glowing white aura. "It's an optical mass-hypnosis technique. The mirror is the projector."
Sambhab's hands blurred as he formed ancient signs.
"Tactical interference," Sambhab announced loudly. "Black Hell Fire: Piercing fire !"
A highly compressed, spinning spear of pitch-black fire shot out from Sambhab's hands. It flew right past Daizy and Kanha, completely ignoring the High Priest, and struck the exact center of the giant 'Mirror of Truth'.
CRRRRAAASH! The massive golden mirror violently shattered into a million sparkling glass pieces.
The moment the glass broke, the terrifying demonic reflection of Karma and the glowing projection of Lord Indra instantly vanished into thin air. The optical illusion was completely destroyed.
Kanha cheered. "Boom! Sammy with the headshot! Take that, you fake magic trick!"
Karma took a deep breath. The suffocating pressure on his mind finally lifted. He stood up straight, realizing Sambhab was right. It wasn't his soul that was dirty; it was a cheap trick played by the temple!
The Core Four stood back-to-back on the stage, ready to expose the High Priest to the public.
But... the crowd didn't cheer. They didn't realize they had been tricked.
Instead, a horrifying, deathly silence fell over the fifty thousand people. They looked at the shattered pieces of the holy mirror on the stage, and then they looked at Sambhab's fading Black Hell Fire.
"They... they destroyed the Indra-Darpan," an old man whispered in absolute horror.
The High Priest didn't panic. He didn't drop his sweet, saintly act. In fact, a brilliant, evil plan formed in his mind. He looked at the shattered glass, fell to his knees, and let out a dramatic, heartbreaking sob.
"Oh, Lord Indra, forgive us!" the High Priest cried loudly into the microphone, his voice echoing with perfect, fake sorrow. "Look at what these children have done! Look at the darkness in their hearts! First, the boy with the cursed lightning disrupts our peace. And now, his friend uses demonic black fire to destroy our most sacred artifact!"
The High Priest pointed a trembling finger at Karma, Kanha, Daizy, and Sambhab.
"They are not just confused children!" the High Priest yelled, his voice sounding like a heartbroken father. "They are agents of the Shadow Cult! They have come to destroy our holy temple!"
The manipulation was absolute perfection. The High Priest twisted Sambhab's logical solution into an act of pure terrorism.
The crowd went completely insane.
"KILL THE DEMONS!"
"PROTECT THE BABA!"
"BURN THEM!"
The anger of the mob was terrifying. People were pushing against the barricades. The temple's 'Holy Guards'—hundreds of warriors wearing white armor and carrying heavy golden spears—began to march toward the stage, surrounding the Core Four from all sides.
"Uh, Sammy?" Kanha said, sweating slightly as he looked at the army of angry devotees. "I think your tactical strike just made things a thousand times worse."
Sambhab gritted his teeth, his analytical mind struggling to compute the sheer stupidity of the brainwashed crowd. "They are completely ignoring logic. The High Priest has absolute control over their emotions."
But the worst blow was yet to come.
Karma desperately scanned the VIP section, looking for the only two people who mattered to him. He found them in the second row.
His mother, Aarti, was crying hysterically. But she wasn't crying for him. She was holding Swati tightly in her arms, stepping backward, away from the stage. She was looking at Karma with wide, terrified eyes.
"Mom?" Karma whispered, his voice cracking.
Aarti shook her head slowly. The High Priest's words, the broken holy mirror, the black fire, and the demonic illusion... it was too much for a normal, religious woman to handle. She truly believed her son had been corrupted by some dark, evil force.but there is a feeling in her mind he will come back ..
Swati looked at Karma, confused and scared, as their mother pulled her toward the exit to escape the 'demons'.
Karma's heart didn't just break; it completely shattered into dust. His own mother was afraid of him.
The High Priest stood up slowly, brushing the dust off his spotless white robes. He looked at the four teenagers surrounded by an army of guards and fifty thousand furious people. He gave Karma a small, invisible, deeply wicked smile.
"Surrender, Karma," the High Priest said softly. "The whole world knows what you are now. You have nowhere left to run."
Kanha gripped his staff. Daizy readied her glowing vines. Sambhab ignited his black fire. And Karma... Karma slowly reached for his father's Lightning Sword.
The golden spears of the Holy Guards gleamed in the morning sun. Hundreds of them were marching forward, creating a tight circle around the broken wooden stage. Beyond the guards, fifty thousand brainwashed devotees were screaming for blood.
"Kill the demons! Protect the temple!" the crowd roared, throwing more stones and shoes.
Kanha gripped his heavy iron staff, his bright orange 3rd Chakra bursting into a fiery aura. He stepped in front of Karma, his muscles tense and ready. "Alright, Sammy, Bhabhi. Stay behind me. I will swing my staff at thirty percent power. I'll blow these tin-can guards away like bowling pins!"
Daizy's hands glowed with bright emerald light. Thick, thorny vines wrapped around her arms like armor. "I am ready. I won't let them touch any of us."
But as Kanha raised his massive staff to strike the first line of approaching guards, a hand grabbed his shoulder with a vice-like grip.
It was Karma.
Karma's face was pale, and his teal eyes were filled with absolute heartbreak, but his voice was completely steady. "No, Kanha. Put your weapon down."
Kanha looked back, totally confused. "Bro, are you crazy? They are going to skewer us!"
"Look at them, Kanha!" Karma yelled, pointing past the guards to the screaming crowd. He pointed to the old men, the crying women, the confused children. "They are not monsters. They are innocent people! They are just sick, scared, and completely brainwashed by that bastard Priest. If you swing your staff, the shockwave will crush hundreds of normal civilians. If we fight back... we really will become the demons they think we are."
Kanha froze. He looked at the fragile, angry crowd. He slowly lowered his iron staff, the orange aura fading slightly. Kanha was a brawler, but he wasn't a murderer. "Damn it, Karma. You're right. But what do we do? Just stand here and die?"
Sambhab pushed his glasses up his nose. Even in the middle of a riot, his brain was calculating a million different scenarios. "Karma is tactically correct. Engaging in a fight here will result in massive civilian casualties and permanently ruin our reputation. We cannot win this battle. We must retreat."
"Retreat where?!" Daizy cried out, shielding her face from a flying rock. "We are completely surrounded!"
Sambhab looked down at the wooden stage beneath their feet. "The temple is ancient. My historical architectural studies show that places like this always have deep underground drainage systems to prevent flooding during the monsoons. Kanha, I need you to break the floor. Daizy, prepare a cushion for the fall."
Kanha grinned, cracking his knuckles. "Finally! Breaking stuff is my specialty!"
Sambhab stepped forward, facing the approaching army of Holy Guards. He took a deep breath, and his hands blurred into a series of incredibly fast hand signs. His dark blue eyes glowed fiercely.
The High Priest, standing safely behind his guards, narrowed his eyes. "Stop them! Do not let the heretics cast any spells!"
But Sambhab was too fast. He slammed both his hands onto the burning remains of the wooden stage.
"Black Hell Fire"
Instead of shooting a destructive fireball, Sambhab released a massive, highly compressed wave of thick, pitch-black smoke. The smoke erupted from his hands like a volcano, instantly covering the entire stage and spilling over into the front rows of the crowd.
It wasn't poisonous, but it was incredibly thick and smelled like burning sulfur. It completely blinded the Holy Guards and the cameras.
"I can't see!" a guard yelled, coughing loudly.
"Where did they go?!"
"Hold the line! Don't let them escape!"
Inside the pitch-black smoke, Kanha didn't waste a single second. He raised his heavy iron staff high above his head, channeling all his raw physical power and his orange 3rd Chakra.
"Going down!" Kanha roared. "Matter Manipulation"
Kanha slammed his staff directly into the center of the wooden stage. The sheer, concentrated force of the blow didn't just break the wood; it completely shattered the thick marble and bedrock beneath it.
KRRAAAASH!
A massive, ten-foot-wide sinkhole opened up right beneath their feet.
"Jump!" Karma yelled.
One by one, the Core Four leaped into the dark, gaping hole just as the Holy Guards blindly charged through the smoke, stabbing their spears into the empty air.
They fell for about twenty feet into absolute darkness.
"Emerald Cushion!" Daizy shouted mid-air. A massive bed of thick, soft, glowing green leaves and vines instantly grew from the bottom of the pit, perfectly catching all four of them like a giant trampoline.
They bounced once and rolled off the leaves onto a hard, wet, and incredibly disgusting stone floor.
High above them, they could hear the muffled shouts of the guards and the High Priest giving angry orders. But down here, it was dark, cold, and echoing with the sound of dripping water.
"Ugh... my mouth tastes like dirt," Kanha groaned, slowly sitting up and spitting.
Sambhab snapped his fingers, and a small, floating ball of blue fire appeared, lighting up their surroundings.
They were standing in a massive, ancient brick tunnel. Thick, green moss covered the walls, and a stream of foul-smelling, murky water flowed through the center. Rats squeaked in the shadows, scurrying away from Sambhab's fire.
"Oh, gross," Daizy gagged, covering her nose with her beautiful white dress, which was now completely ruined with mud and slime. "It smells like rotten eggs and old garbage."
"Welcome to the city sewers," Sambhab sighed, dusting off his uniform. "It is unhygienic, but it is the only place the temple's optical illusions and public influence cannot reach us. We are safe for now."
Kanha looked down at his expensive, limited-edition sneakers, which were now covered in questionable brown sludge. A single tear rolled down his cheek. "My beautiful shoes... ruined. First my gold in the Howling Valley, now my shoes. I hate this temple."
Despite Kanha's complaining, the mood in the sewer was incredibly heavy. The adrenaline of the escape was fading, leaving behind the crushing reality of what had just happened.
Karma slowly walked over to the damp brick wall and slid down until he was sitting on the dirty floor. He pulled his knees to his chest and buried his face in his hands. He didn't say a word, but his shoulders were shaking slightly.
He was thinking about his mother's terrified face. He was thinking about how she had pulled Swati away from him, looking at him like he was a monster.
Daizy's heart ached seeing him like this. She didn't care about the mud or the smell. She walked over, sat down right next to Karma in the dirt, and gently wrapped her arms around him, pulling him into a warm hug.
"It's going to be okay, Karma," Daizy whispered softly, resting her chin on his shoulder. "Your mom loves you. She was just scared of the illusion. We know who you really are. You are the kindest person I know."
Kanha walked over and sat on the other side of Karma, completely uncaring about the sludge. He threw a heavy, comforting arm over Karma's shoulder. "Yeah, bro. We are the Core Four. If the world thinks you're a demon, then we are officially a demon gang. Sounds pretty badass to me."
Karma took a deep, shaky breath. He looked up at his friends—Daizy's comforting smile, Kanha's goofy grin, and Sambhab's quiet, loyal nod. He wasn't alone. His real family was right here in the sewers with him.
"Thank you, guys," Karma whispered, wiping his face. His teal eyes slowly regained their spark, replacing the sorrow with a cold, burning determination. "But we are in serious trouble."
"He is right," Sambhab said, adjusting his glowing glasses. He crossed his arms, leaning against the wall. "Let us analyze our tactical situation. We have just publicly 'attacked' the most beloved holy figure in the country. The High Priest has the media, the politicians, and fifty thousand witnesses on his side."
"So, what?" Kanha asked. "We just go back to the academy and tell Principal Vardhan the truth."
"We can't," Karma said firmly, standing up and gripping the hilt of the Lightning Sword. "If we go back to Vedas Heritage Academy, the temple will demand our arrest. The public will riot outside the school gates. We will drag the other students, Professor Agni, and Lord Rudra into a massive political war."
Daizy looked worried. "We can't go home either. The Holy Guards will be watching our houses. That means..."
"That means we are officially fugitives," Sambhab confirmed grimly. "Wanted criminals. We are cut off from our money, our teachers, and our families."
Kanha groaned loudly, throwing his hands in the air. "Great! Just great! From Elite Rank 1 Champions to sewer rats in less than 24 hours! What's the plan, fearless leader?"
Karma looked down the long, dark, echoing tunnel of the sewer. His jaw tightened. The High Priest had taken his reputation, manipulated his mother, and tried to steal his soul.
"We fight from the shadows," Karma said, his voice hard and focused. "The High Priest is using those 'Red Pills' to slowly drain the life out of those innocent kids in the Youth Camp. We can't punch our way through fifty thousand believers. We need proof. Absolute, undeniable proof of what the Shadow Cult is doing inside that temple."
Karma turned to his team, the blue lightning faintly crackling around his hands.
"We are going to find their underground lab. We are going to steal their secrets. And then, we are going to expose that fake god to the whole world."