Beneath The Ashes (ARDI Story)

Chapter 7

The leader's body collapsed to the ground with a lifeless thud, and Arjun's breath hissed through his teeth, but his victory was short-lived.

He did not see the group of assassins behind him, swords raised high, ready to bring down death with a blinding swiftness.

The metallic gleam of their blades sliced the air, hurtling towards him like lightning.

But then, a pulse of energy rippled through the clearing—a shudder that seemed to come from the very earth beneath them.

Draupadi’s eyes fluttered open, her vision blurry and her head pounding with searing pain.

The world around her was hazy, but she could make out the dark figures advancing on the man who had saved her, their intentions clear as death loomed above him.

Agony shot through her as she forced herself to move, her muscles screaming in protest.

Her body was a battlefield of wounds and fatigue, but a surge of fury burned through the haze, driving her to act.

She summoned the energy from deep within her, letting it course down her limbs, igniting a blaze of vivid color that seemed to burst from her skin.

The air around her shimmered, glowing with an otherworldly luminescence that formed a fiery halo.

It danced like a living thing, coiling and twisting around her as though the very essence of wrath and power took shape in the space between breaths.

The armband she wore—black and serpentine, its emerald eyes glinting like malevolent jewels—began to move, shifting with an unnatural fluidity.

It slithered down her arm like a living creature, winding itself into her hand, where it unfurled into a long, wicked whip. But this was no ordinary weapon.

At Draupadi’s command, the whip morphed, five distinct heads of snakes sprouting from its length, each one snapping and hissing, baring fangs that gleamed in the dim firelight.

Their eyes, filled with venomous intent, glowed with a hauntingly beautiful malevolence.

With a flick of her wrist, the whip cracked through the air, the snake heads lunging forward with terrifying precision.

They struck like lightning, their mouths widening as they found their marks—the heads of five assassins whose swords hung uselessly in the air.

The jaws of the snakes clamped down with a sickening crunch, and the men’s screams tore through the night as Draupadi pulled the whip back, ripping the heads from their bodies.

Blood sprayed in a gruesome arc, and the sound of bones shattering filled the clearing like the breaking of dry twigs.

Five heads dangled grotesquely from the whip as she stood, her form wreathed in the glow of the fading halo, her expression cold and unyielding.

The five lifeless bodies fell to the ground, blood pooling around them like dark flowers blooming in the moonlight.

Arjun spun around, drawn by the screams that tore through the forest, and froze at the sight before him. For a moment, he could only stare in disbelief, his eyes widening as they took in the scene.

The five decapitated heads hung from the snake-headed whip, which seemed almost alive in Draupadi's hand, coiling and twisting as if tasting the blood in the air.

The aura that surrounded her was both terrifying and mesmerizing—a manifestation of wrath that seemed to consume the night itself.

Draupadi’s hair fell in wild waves around her face, streaked with blood and dirt, but her eyes burned with an inner fire that seemed to scorch the very air.