The smoke of burning roots rolled low across the shattered village square. Moonlight pooled like silver on the stones, picking out every splintered beam and fallen branch.
Ashwini knelt beside Raushan's still form, both arms wrapped tight around the small boy as if she could pull life back into him. Her tears darkened the dust. "Please… please wake up," she whispered, rocking him like a doll. "You promised to play again."
Vijay crouched nearby, pale as the moon itself. His breath came in sharp, frightened pulls. "Raushan…" He reached a trembling hand, then let it fall, helpless.
Ansh stood over them, unmoving. His sword hung loosely at his side. For a heartbeat he looked like a statue carved from night. Then the tremor started—first in his fists, then through his shoulders, a silent quake that carried a storm inside.
Ashwini sensed it first. The air grew heavy, tasting of iron and thunder. She lifted her head and gasped.
A black shimmer seeped from Ansh's skin, thin at first, then rising like smoke from a fire no one could see. It coiled around him in restless spirals, twisting the moonlight into strange, dark shapes.
"Ansh!" Ashwini cried, panic breaking through her grief. "Ansh, stop—look at me!"
Vijay staggered upright, eyes wide. "What's happening to you?"
But Ansh's gaze never left the ruined square. His voice—when it came—was deep, resonant, a sound that did not belong in a child's throat.
"How… dare you," he growled, each word vibrating through the stones, "harm… her."
The ground cracked beneath his feet with a thunderous snap. Dust leapt upward as if the earth itself feared him.
"Ansh!" Ashwini called again, stepping forward. The black haze pushed back against her like a wall of wind. Vijay grabbed her arm, pulling her close. "Don't! He's—he's not hearing us."
Daav circled overhead, feathers shedding faint sparks, chirping in frantic warning.
A heartbeat later the boy was gone—vanished in a blink, as though the night itself had swallowed him.
Ashwini's breath hitched. "Where—"
Before she could finish, a thunderous crack split the darkness. Far across the square an immense mountain ent, taller than the village wall, reeled backward. And there, at its feet, stood Ansh.
The ent roared, swinging a limb the size of a ship's mast. Ansh met it head-on. His sword flashed once, black light arcing through the night. The limb fell away like a severed branch, crashing to the earth with a boom.
The creature howled. Ansh stepped forward, eyes gleaming like twin eclipses, and in a single upward slash cleaved the ent's core. It toppled with a shudder that rattled rooftops.
Ashwini clutched Vijay's sleeve, her heart hammering. "He… he killed it—alone."
Vijay swallowed hard. "That's not just strength. That's… something else."
They watched, stunned, as the black aura around their friend deepened, pulsing like a heartbeat. He turned toward the dark forest where hundreds—no, thousands—of other ents surged.
The swarm came.
Trunks thundered. The ground shook as a legion of towering ents stormed the village. Their eyes burned like furnace embers, their war-cries rolling like distant avalanches.
Every one of them turned toward the boy who stood, small and solitary, in the center of the square.
Ansh raised his sword. The black haze flared outward in a silent detonation.
Then he moved.
He was everywhere at once—darting, slashing, a streak of shadow and steel. Each swing of the blade left a trail of dark light that cut through bark as if it were air. Ent after ent fell, cleaved cleanly, collapsing like toppling mountains.
Ashwini's knees weakened. "He's… he's not even getting tired."
Vijay whispered, "He looks… like a king of shadows. Like the forest itself fears him."
Daav shrieked overhead, a comet of fire weaving through the chaos, but it was Ansh's blade that ruled the night. One after another, giants fell, until the earth was littered with splintered trunks. In the span of mere minutes, what seemed an endless army was reduced to ruin.
A sudden hush spread across the battlefield.
A deeper power stirred.
From the far ridge came a groan so vast the stars themselves seemed to tremble. Trees bent outward, their crowns swept aside as a shape emerged—monstrous, ancient.
The Ent Queen.
She dwarfed every fallen giant, a living mountain of dark timber and gleaming amber eyes. Her presence pressed down like the weight of the whole forest. The very air thickened, heavy with sap and old magic.
Ashwini gasped. Vijay stepped instinctively in front of her, though he knew it was useless.
The Queen's aura rolled outward, a tide of crushing will meant to smother everything. But the black haze around Ansh only surged higher, meeting that pressure with its own, darker force.
Ansh tilted his head back and laughed—a low, arrogant sound that echoed through the shattered village.
"You think you can stop me?" he said, voice ringing with cold amusement. "Try."
The Queen roared and lunged, the ground quaking beneath her charge. She raised a colossal arm, vines twisting into a spear of stone and root, and hurled it like a lightning bolt.
Ansh answered with a single, sweeping cut. Black energy exploded from his sword, slicing the spear to dust and tearing a scar of shadow across the ground. The shockwave flattened the nearest huts.
Ashwini shielded her eyes. "This… this is impossible."
Vijay could only stare, awe and fear battling in his chest. "He's—he's not just fighting. He's winning."
The Queen attacked again, each strike a storm. Ansh met her blow for blow, his movements impossibly swift. Dark power coiled around every swing, each arc of the blade carving through ancient bark as if through water.
Daav darted in and out, flames searing weak points, a loyal ember beside the growing night.
The Queen howled, fury shaking the hills. She gathered her strength, summoning a cyclone of roots to crush the boy beneath a mountain of earth.
Ansh's eyes blazed midnight. "Fall," he commanded.
With a single, mighty stroke he released a wave of black light. It swept outward like a scythe, shredding roots, shattering trunks, cutting through scores of lesser ents that still lingered like dry leaves before a storm.
The Queen recoiled, her massive frame shuddering.
Ansh leapt, darkness spiraling behind him like the wings of a great bird. He struck again and again, each blow driving deeper, the night ringing with the sound of splintering wood.
From their shelter near the inner wall, Ashwini and Vijay watched, hearts pounding.
Ashwini's tears blurred the scene. "That's still Ansh… isn't it?"
Vijay's voice was faint. "I… don't know. He looks… like something else."
The Queen, wounded and enraged, reared back for a final, crushing strike. Her roar split the sky.
Ansh met her charge with a fierce grin. "Your forest ends here."
He spun, sword trailing black flame, and brought it down in a single, perfect arc.
The night erupted.
A column of dark light speared upward, tearing clouds apart. The Queen froze, her amber eyes widening. A heartbeat later her massive form split cleanly, a towering silhouette divided by shadow.
For a breathless moment the world was silent.
Then the Ent Queen fell.
The impact rocked the valley. Bark and sap burst outward in a crimson-gold fountain that glittered in the moonlight.
Ansh landed lightly amid the ruin, sword still humming with dark energy. The blood-rich sap rained down, soaking his hair, streaking his face and arms until he stood like a statue carved from night and shadow, crowned in the crimson of a fallen monarch.
Ashwini clutched Vijay's sleeve, unable to speak.
Daav settled on Ansh's shoulder, wings folding, eyes reflecting the strange black glow that still flickered around its master.
The boy did not look back.
He stood alone in the quiet aftermath, drenched in the shimmering lifeblood of the Ent Queen, a small figure haloed in darkness—
the black monarch of a battlefield he alone had conquered.