Chapter 7 : The First Hunt

The night bled slowly into dawn. Fog curled around the ridges, wrapping the valley in a shroud that muffled footsteps and silenced whispers. Beneath this veil of nature, the Devil stood at the center of a gathering — a circle of men, women, and children, all sharpened by days of secret training.
Maps drawn in charcoal spread across the ground, marking Varma’s convoys, his guard outposts, and the hidden supply caches. The villagers leaned close, listening, their eyes reflecting fear and fire.
“This is not a battle,” the Devil said, his voice low but sharp as a blade. “It is a hunt. A strike in the dark. You will not scream. You will not hesitate. You will move like shadows and leave only blood and silence behind.”
The villagers nodded. Fear trembled in their hands, but the weight of his words anchored them. Even the children, tasked only with relaying signals, stood stiff and silent.
Beside him, Ishani scanned the group. She had shed much of her former hesitation. Her voice, once timid, carried steel now: “Every bullet you fire, every step you take, remember — it’s not for revenge. It’s survival. If we fall, the Lords will chain us again. If we rise, they will learn fear.”
A murmur of agreement passed through the circle.
The Devil’s gaze shifted upward. Beyond the fog, beyond the peaks, Varma’s convoys moved like veins — arteries of food, weapons, and control. Tonight, those veins would be severed.
He raised his rifle, resting it on his shoulder, and uttered the single word that cracked the silence.
“Move.”
And like shadows, they melted into the fog.


The first target was a guard outpost perched on the northern ridge — a squat concrete block with steel mesh, surrounded by bored enforcers who smoked and joked, unaware that their laughter was the last they would ever hear.
The Devil crouched behind a fallen log, rifle steady, eyes narrowed. Ishani was beside him, dagger in hand, every muscle taut.
He signaled once. A stone clattered down the slope — the bait. Two enforcers turned lazily, peering into the mist. Their forms barely emerged before the Devil’s suppressed rifle coughed twice. Two bodies dropped, throats torn open.
Silence. Then chaos.
The outpost erupted in shouts, rifles swinging wildly. But the fog was their enemy. From one side, women slipped through shadows, sliding knives across exposed throats. From another, children whistled shrill signals, guiding the men to weak spots.
The Devil moved like a storm given flesh. His rifle snapped, reloaded, snapped again. When ammunition ran dry, he closed distance, blade flashing, boots crushing skulls into the mud.
Ishani struck her first kill that night. An enforcer lunged, grabbing her wrist, teeth bared. For an instant, terror surged back. Then she drove the dagger up through his chin, feeling the warm spray against her cheek. Her hands shook, but her eyes did not falter.
The Devil caught her glance — a fraction of a second amidst blood and smoke. He said nothing, but in his silence was recognition.
Minutes later, the outpost was nothing but corpses and fire. The villagers dragged crates of ammunition, sacks of rice, and stolen rifles into the forest. Children smeared blood on the walls in jagged streaks — a warning for Varma’s men.
On the ridge, the Devil lit a cigarette, smoke curling from his lips as he watched the flames consume the outpost. His voice cut through the night:
“This is only the first.”

The strike did not go unnoticed. By the next dawn, word had spread across Varma’s territory. Enforcers doubled patrols. Convoys tightened their circles. Villages near the northern ridge found themselves under sudden interrogation — men dragged out, women slapped, children screamed at with rifles shoved in their faces.
Varma himself, seated in his steel fortress, slammed a jeweled glass onto the table. The Lords’ faces flickered in his mind — if he lost control of his supplies, he would not only lose territory but also reputation.
“Find them,” he snarled at his captains. “Find this… Devil they whisper about, and burn him where he stands. I want his body hanging from the ridge.”
But his fury only fed the myth. For in the villages, whispers spread faster than orders. Mothers told their children of the man who fought with fire in his eyes. Farmers whispered of the girl who stood by his side, dagger wet with blood.
Hope spread — dangerous, intoxicating, uncontrollable.
And the Devil, watching from a hilltop, allowed the myth to grow.



The next strike would not be as simple. Varma’s men were alert now. The Devil knew it. Every move had to be sharper, every shadow tighter, every breath measured.
He gathered the villagers again in a ruined barn, lit only by lantern flame. His words fell like hammer blows:
“We bleed them until they rot. We starve them until they turn on each other. We strike their convoys, not their armies. Their strength is in numbers — our strength is in silence. Remember this: fear is stronger than bullets.”
Ishani stepped forward, eyes blazing, her voice cutting through the heavy air:
“I am not your burden. I am your ally. I will not sit behind while you fight. My hand will strike as yours does. My blood will spill if it must. Because I don’t want to live as their entertainment. I want to live as their end.”
The Devil turned toward her. For a moment, the mask cracked — a faint glimmer of something human passed through his eyes. Then, with deliberate slowness, he nodded.
“Then stand with me.”
The villagers echoed it, voices trembling but fierce: Stand with him.
Outside, the forest howled with wind. The hunt had begun in earnest. The Devil’s war was no longer a whisper in the fog — it was a storm sharpening its teeth.
And somewhere in Varma’s steel fortress, fear took root.