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Chapter 4 - Chapter 4: Midnight Council

**Codename: Obsidian Nexus – Global Shadow Conference**

**Time:** 03:00 IST / Global Secure Sync Active

The screen flickered.

Forty-two encrypted windows blinked to life, suspended in black silence.

No flags. No names.

Only titles, pulsing like heartbeat monitors in a dying world.

> "United States – President online."

> "India – Defense Minister present."

> "Russia – Chair of Supernatural Security."

> "Japan – Imperial Advisor connected."

> "France, Brazil, Egypt, China… Online."

No smiles.

No diplomacy.

Only dread held back by discipline.

The man who convened them bore no insignia.

No name. No allegiance.

Only a black suit and a voice distorted by layers of digital fog — as though speaking through a battlefield of ash.

> "Welcome to the first convening of the Obsidian Nexus.

> This is not about power.

> This is about survival."

Immediately, the feeds broke into overlapping voices.

> "Cities are warzones.

> Nothing we throw at them works.

> We don't even know what we're fighting."

> "Our satellites went blind over Brazil — then came back online with a new orbit pattern. Something altered gravity."

> "My city is praying. But my generals are deserting. What do you call that?"

A sharp voice cut through — thick with fanaticism:

> "This is divine cleansing. The gods are separating the faithful from the fallen."

A snort followed from the Western window.

> "You expect us to believe in… arrows that shattered dimensions? This is a mutation crisis — not mythology."

Someone banged a desk. Another's screen briefly cut to static.

> "Enough," the Moderator said, voice slicing through the chaos like a scythe.

> "Breathe. Listen. Watch."

He tapped a key.

The feed splintered.

Footage flooded the council:

—A horned beast dragging a tanker through Seoul, howling in a language that made microphones crackle.

—A child in Mexico, wrapped in cobalt fire, standing in a crater of liquified stone.

—A spectral woman in Nigeria halting bullets midair, her eyes burning green as emerald suns.

—A winged terror circling over D.C., vaporizing missiles with thunder-laced shrieks.

The NATO AI delivered the statistics in a voice like frozen steel.

> "Eighty-one confirmed spatial fractures.

> Casualties estimated: 2.4 million.

> Phenomena: bio-exoentities, quantum flux, dimensional bleed.

> Human mutations categorized: Codename — Resonants."

The Indian Defense Minister's voice broke the silence, low but cutting.

> "And these Resonants… what are they becoming?"

The American General answered flatly.

> "Unpredictable. Some manipulate gravity. Some heal like gods. Others… speak forgotten tongues. Their biology is changing. Their minds…"

> "This isn't evolution," the Japanese Imperial Advisor interrupted.

> "It's remembrance.

> Our scrolls spoke of these beings.

> The sky spirits. The thunder beasts.

> Warnings — not fairy tales."

A silence fell.

Then, the Indian Defense Minister leaned forward.

> "We've seen this before.

> Not in labs or data.

> In scripture."

He opened a virtual scroll.

Ancient Sanskrit flared across the screen, glowing like fire in the void.

> "'When Dharma is wounded, shadows will rise.

> Flame will find flesh.

> And forgotten names shall return, cloaked in mortal form.'"

The German Chancellor blinked.

> "That's not intel. What are you quoting?"

> "The Mahabharata. The Ramayana. The Puranas.

> They weren't myths. They were memory encoded as metaphor.

> Arjuna's arrows broke dimensions.

> Karna bore celestial armor.

> Bhishma chose when to die.

> Hanuman leapt oceans with faith and force.

> These were not legends.

> They were records — written in the only language our ancestors had left."

The room remained frozen.

Not in disbelief.

In recognition.

The Russian Chair — known for cynicism — spoke quietly.

> "Then… we sealed something. Long ago."

The Moderator tapped again.

New imagery appeared:

—Cave paintings in Siberia, echoing Vedic yantras.

—Peruvian monoliths carved with chakra diagrams.

—A cyclone above the Ganga swirling into a mandala shape.

> "You didn't evolve," he said.

> "You remembered."

> "And what now?" Egypt's Minister whispered.

> "How do you regulate gods?"

> "With W\.A.R. — World Awakened Regulation," the Moderator replied.

> "Track them. Classify them. Control them.

> Neutralize them… if necessary."

The Indian Minister's voice sharpened like a blade.

> "Neutralize Arjunas?

> You can't shoot down a Sutra.

> You can't cage destiny."

The Moderator remained still.

> "Then we do what must be done.

> Because the next Mahabharata will not be sung.

> It will be survived."

Silence.

The kind that tastes like dust and memory.

Then —

**\[Final Scene]**

The Indian Defense Minister's voice lingered like smoke in the air.

> "You cannot regulate Dharma.

> You can only choose where you stand when it returns."

A murmur rose among the council — not of dissent, but of ancient fear.

A fear not of death... but of being forgotten by history when it wakes.

Then the Moderator stood, silhouette framed in black static.

His voice dropped to something deeper — not electronic, but almost primal.

> "The gods are not coming back.

> They never left.

> They became us.

> And now the mirror has cracked."

He looked directly into the camera.

> "From this moment, the world is no longer ruled by borders or treaties.

> It is ruled by resonance.

> And you will either awaken…

> or be swept away."

One by one, the feeds began to vanish.

Some leaders logged off with clenched fists.

Others sat frozen — watching timelines unravel like threads of silk in fire.

Only the Indian Defense Minister remained.

His final whisper was not to the council — but to the ancestors watching.

> "Arjuna never missed his mark.

> Kaal will not miss his either."

And far across the Earth, as if called by the name of time itself, the wind shifted.

A murmur passed through stone temples.

A crack opened across a sacred forest floor.

And a boy — ordinary, sleeping — dreamed of a bow made of shadows,

and a voice that called him:

> "Child of war."

The Age of Myth was no longer memory.

It was prophecy.

And it had begun again.

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