The sight of Vashistha was so unexpected, so impossible, that Kalpit thought his exhausted mind was finally fracturing.
"How...?" Anasuya stammered, mirroring his thoughts. "The Ashram is kilometers away, on the other side of a warzone. No vehicle..."
"The body is a vehicle. The Prana is the fuel," Vashistha said simply as they approached, his words carrying a weight that defied simple explanation. He showed no signs of exertion, no hint of having traversed the Sump's chaos. "Some paths are not made of steel and concrete."
His ancient eyes fell on Kalpit, and his serene smile softened with a hint of compassion. He saw the bone-deep weariness, the bleeding scrapes, the fried cybernetic eye. "You have fought the storm and weathered it. Come. Even a divine storm must pass. Rest is not a luxury; it is a weapon."
He turned and led them not deeper into the warren of tunnels, but towards a seemingly solid wall of rusted, corrugated metal. As they neared, a section of the wall shimmered, a holographic projection dissolving to reveal a narrow, dark opening. An entrance to one of the Saptarishi's hidden safe routes.
Inside, the air was clean and dry. Soft, ambient lights flickered on as they entered, illuminating a narrow, clean-hewn corridor. The door shimmered back into existence behind them, the sounds of the Sump and their chaotic escape vanishing completely.
"Atri has re-secured our networks," Vashistha explained as he led them. "Kali is... occupied with municipal repairs and containing the flood. He ripped control back from our systems, but in his rage, he is acting like a tyrant, not a tactician. He has created an opening for us, a moment to breathe."
They emerged into a small, spartan chamber, little more than a cave furnished with simple woven mats and a medical station. Rishi Atri was there, projected as a shimmering blue hologram from a small device on the floor. His face was etched with worry, but he flooded with relief upon seeing them.
<"They live!">> Atri exclaimed. <"Anasuya, your bio-signs are a mess. Kalpit... yours are a statistical impossibility. What in the name of the previous Yugas happened down there?">>
"We made him stumble," Anasuya said, collapsing onto one of the mats while Vashistha began tending to her wounds with practiced hands.
Kalpit sank to the floor, his back against the cool rock wall. "And in return, he threw a building at us." He touched the cracked lens of his dead cybernetic eye. "The fight wasn't what I expected."
Vashistha paused his work, looking at Kalpit. "You expected a monster with claws and horns. Adharma is rarely so honest. Kali's greatest weapon is not his power, but his logic. He offers a paradise that requires only one payment: your freedom. It is the most seductive bargain ever offered to mankind."
"I felt it," Kalpit admitted, his voice low. "The appeal. The peace. For a second... I almost believed him."
<"That is his trap,">> Atri's hologram said, his expression grim. <"He doesn't conquer you. He convinces you. He makes you cage yourself and hand him the key. The SamsaraNet is the most perfect prison ever designed, for the prisoners do not know they are captive.">>
Vashistha finished dressing Anasuya's head wound and moved to Kalpit, kneeling before him. "You awakened the Anahata to fight him. You used the heart. But you paid a price."
He gently touched the side of Kalpit's face, his fingers probing the damaged cybernetic implant. "This piece of tech... it has always been a crutch. A filter between you and the world. But it is also a backdoor. A connection to the very system you now fight against."
Kalpit flinched as the Rishi's fingers found the interface port at his temple.
"When you channeled that much raw Prana," Vashistha continued, "you fried its circuits. But you also opened new ones. Tell me what you see now, Kalpit. Not through your good eye. Through the broken one."
Kalpit hesitated, then concentrated. He closed his working organic eye and focused his consciousness on the shattered lens of his implant. At first, there was only blackness. Static.
Then, a new kind of sight flickered to life. It was not the structural blueprint of Muladhara, nor the flowing, vibrant Prana-sight of Anahata. This was different. Dimmer. Ethereal.
He looked at Anasuya. He saw a faint, silver aura around her. It was steady, disciplined, a controlled burn.
He looked at Atri's hologram. The projection had no aura, but the projector itself pulsed with a focused, blue light of pure intellect.
He looked at Vashistha.
The old man's aura was so vast, so blindingly brilliant and yet so perfectly calm, that it was like looking at the sun. A soft, golden light that filled the entire room, the entire universe. Kalpit felt an overwhelming sense of peace and reverence just by looking at it. It was the aura of a soul in perfect balance.
"I see..." Kalpit whispered, "light. Colors."
"You are beginning to see what the Ajna can perceive," Vashistha explained. "The Third Eye. You see the soul's true nature. Its Dharma and its Adharma. This 'broken' eye is no longer a machine. It is becoming a window. You are learning to see the spirit beneath the flesh."
Kalpit opened his good eye, the dual perceptions dizzying. "I'm still just a scavenger. I just learned a few new tricks."
"You are a scavenger who knocked down a god. You are a street rat who now commands a power that can reshape reality," Vashistha countered gently. "Your old identity is a shell you are quickly outgrowing. You must accept who you are becoming, Kalki."
The name still felt strange, heavy. A role too large for his shoulders.
Anasuya, her wounds treated, spoke up. "Kali won't stay occupied for long. His pride is wounded. He will unleash his entire army. The hunt will be relentless. We have poked the beast, Master Vashistha. What now? Where do we go?"
Vashistha rose, his gaze becoming distant, focused on a future only he could see.
"Kali's strength is his control. His perfect, centralized system. So we must attack from the place he cannot comprehend. From the chaos. Dharma-Kshetra City is his fortress. We will not fight him here."
He turned his gaze to the holographic map that Atri projected into the air. "For centuries, the outcasts, the glitch-ridden, and the rebels have been exiled from the mega-cities. They have been cast out into the wastelands, the scorched, toxic remnants of the old world. Kali believes them to be forgotten. He believes them to be broken."
The map zoomed out, past the glowing metropolis, showing vast, dark expanses of continents labeled only with warnings: UNSTABLE TECTONICS, HIGH-LEVEL RADIATION, ZERO INFRASTRUCTURE.
"But they are not broken. They are free," Vashistha declared, his voice filled with a new, resonant fire. "They have survived where the system said they could not. They are a scattered army, waiting for a general. A broken world waiting for a promise."
He looked at Kalpit, his meaning clear. "You have survived his wrath and tasted your own power. Now, you must become more than a survivor. You must become a symbol. You will go to the wastelands. You will find the tribes of the exiled. You will unite them. You will give them hope."
He pointed to a spot deep in the radioactive deserts of what was once the subcontinent of Bharat.
"And to do that," the old sage concluded, his voice dropping to a near whisper, "you must first seek the aid of one who has never forgotten the old ways. A man who has fought in wars you cannot even imagine, with weapons you would call divine. A being who has waited for your arrival for over six thousand years."
"You will find the teacher who knows only war. The Immortal of the Axe."
"You will find Parashurama."