[Varanasi – Present Day]
Ashura knew something was wrong the second he opened his eyes.
There was no birdsong, no honking from the early morning rickshaws, no temple bells. The city was holding its breath.
He sat up on his cot in the corner of his old room, the fan spinning uselessly overhead, and squinted at the window. The sky outside was… red. Not the rosy orange of sunrise. No. This was deep, unnatural—like fresh blood smeared across the clouds.
"That's... not right."
Ashura stood, bones popping, and walked barefoot across the stone floor. A breeze drifted in through the crack in the window, thick with heat and something else—like burning metal. He pulled the curtain aside.
And froze.
A giant, obsidian-black structure had appeared near the Ganga riverbank—near Dashashwamedh Ghat, no less. It hadn't been there yesterday.
It shouldn't be there now.
"A Gate…?"
He didn't know why he called it that. But the word fit. It was tall, smooth, and angular. Runes—glowing red and jagged—traced across its surface like veins. The thing pulsed faintly with every second, sending ripples through the air around it. A crowd was gathering at the edges of the ghat, unsure whether to run or pray.
Ashura stepped back from the window, his breath shallow. His heart pounded louder with every passing second, as if something ancient inside him recognized it before his mind could.
Then came the whisper.
Like a thousand voices trying to speak at once—soft, slithering, impossible to ignore.
It wasn't coming from the Gate.
It was coming from inside him.
Ashura stumbled to the corner of his room and yanked open a drawer. Inside was a small, half-burnt wooden talisman tied with red thread. His hand trembled as he picked it up. The talisman was hot—too hot.
The moment his skin made contact, the symbol on his palm lit up like fire.
"No no no—Not again."
Red lines burst across his arm, like runes being carved under his skin. They snaked up from his palm to his forearm, glowing brighter by the second. His breath caught in his throat.
"Not since I was eight. Not since that dream—""—No. That memory."
That night came flooding back. A burning village. A sky filled with crimson lightning. And a voice that told him:
"You are the seal. You are the curse. You are the Gatekeeper."
He'd spent years pretending it was just a nightmare. A hallucination. A story cooked up by a traumatized child.
Apparently, reality had other plans.
Varanasi was panicking.
He sprinted through the narrow gullies, dodging panicked locals, overturned carts, and dropped offerings. The Gate pulsed brighter now. The symbols on his arm pulsed with it. They were connected. He knew it in his bones.
And then—something crawled out.
No doors opened. The Gate didn't part. It simply leaked.
Smoke, like liquid shadow, dripped from its surface. The crowd gasped. People stumbled backward. A creature slithered out—tall, humanoid, but not. Its limbs were too long, its spine bent unnaturally. It was made of black bones wrapped in chains, and its eyes glowed red with an endless hunger.
Screams broke out. Dozens ran. Some collapsed.
But one old priest froze in place, paralyzed.
The creature lunged.
Ashura didn't think.
He moved.
He landed between the beast and the priest with a burst of wind and dust. He didn't know how he moved that fast—but his body had responded before his mind could catch up.
The priest collapsed behind him, unconscious.
Ashura faced the creature, hands up. His right arm burned, the red runes alive.
"Move," he said, his voice low.
The creature hissed, and a spiked chain lashed out. Reflex took over. Ashura dodged left and raised his glowing hand.
A beam of red light burst forward.
BOOM!
The blast knocked the creature back several feet. Its body cracked, chains unspooling from its shoulders, sizzling in the air.
"What… was that?" Ashura stared at his hand.
The system responded in his head like a cold machine:
"Gatekeeper Protocol Activated.""Welcome, Warden Unit #001: ASHURA.""Gate Threat Level: B.""Engaging Combat Protocol."
"Excuse me?! Warden? Protocol?! Since when do I have a SYSTEM?!"
But there was no time for answers.
The creature roared and charged again, chains flailing like whips.
Ashura's body moved again—his instincts reacting before thought. His hand formed a blade of energy, crimson and jagged. He brought it down as the beast leapt—
SLASH.
A clean cut. The creature's upper body fell in two. Black mist erupted from the corpse, screaming as it faded.
Silence.
Ashura stood panting in the middle of the chaos, hand still glowing. The city was still. The Gate... was quiet again.
But only for a second.
Three more red beams lit up across the horizon.
Three more Gates.
"You've got to be kidding me…"
The voice returned—familiar and calm. It wasn't the system. It wasn't him.
It was the voice from his dream.
"The seals are broken. You are no longer a child. You are the last Gatekeeper."
Ashura turned toward the largest Gate now glowing far off in the distance.
"Great. Just great," he muttered. "So... I'm cursed, glowing, apparently magical—and the world is ending."
He clenched his fist.
"Fine. If I'm the only one who can stop it…"
He took a deep breath.
"Let's open the d*mn door."
End of Chapter 1