Saving The Future - Chapter 51

Aariv heard the war drums and understood that it was time for him to shine. He also got up and went to the edge of the terrace.

King Anantha Padmanabha was shocked by the sudden turn of events. He still didn’t get up and waited to get a report from his general.

Aariv figured that it would take some time for the soldiers to figure out whose army it was. He just leisurely waited for a soldier to come and announce.

Soon, a soldier came running and said something in the ear of the king Anantha Padmanabha. The King angrily got up and came to Aariv hurriedly.

“What is the meaning of this, prince Aariv” He loudly asked, veins popped upon his head.

Aariv smilingly looked at his face and said.

“I didn’t know that the King of Kalinga was so dense. Can’t you understand it yourself.”

King Anantha Padmanabha gritted his teeth and screamed for guards to surround Aariv. Aariv still kept smiling. The people around him were wondering why Aariv would attack while in enemy territory.

“Send your soldier to tell your father to take back the army or expect your head in return” The King shouted angrily after all his wedding was ruined because of this.

“Who said my father came with the army,” Aariv said.

He then called his father on holocom. The soldiers got anxious with sudden magical images.

“Easy, it won’t bite you”

The call was picked up by his father when Aariv saw the scene on the other side his eye twitched.

“Father, you’re too close to the camera, I can only see your eyes and nose”

“Oh… haha… I am still not used to this amazing thing,” he said.

“Father, can you please congratulate King Anantha Padmanabha and tell him that you are not here with the army,” Aariv said and turned around for everyone to see the hologram.

They saw Chandragupta leisurely seated on a couch and eating gr.a.p.es. People were shocked by the magic trick.

“Hmmm… where is that kid Anantha Padmanabha… oh there you are, congratulations on your marriage and I hope you are not a v.i.r.g.i.n. Dying without experiencing it at least once is just too bad and as you can see I am in Patliputra, playing chausar(a board game).” Chandragupta said in a playful tone.

King Anantha Padmanabha understood that he was talking to Chandragupta in real-time, but he was confused why he sounded so confident. Isn’t he afraid for his son’s life?

“King Maurya, your son is stuck here between my soldiers, don’t you value his life?”

“It’s emperor Maurya for you, no wonder you didn’t surrender till now. This attitude of yours is going to cost you your life and you seem to have misunderstood the situation you are in. It’s you who’s stuck with Aariv and not the other way around,” Chandragupta mocked.

“Arrogant, too arrogant… you are going to regret this… Guards, chop his head off,” King Anantha Padmanabha ordered.

The soldiers surrounding Aariv started waving their swords at Aariv and he easily kept on dodging them and talking to his father.

“Father, send the governor and other administrative staff and guess whom king Anantha was marrying?” he asked and showed him the face of Chola king.

“Hahaha… okay, I understand… I’ll tell Acharya to select another governor” Chandragupta said, he understood where his son was getting to.

“Okay, son, I am busy… tell me when you’re done with Kalinga,” he said and ended the call.

Aariv who was continuously evading the swords suddenly stopped and caught an oncoming sword with his bare hands.

Everyone’s jaw fell to the floor seeing that, then they heard a cracking sound and saw the sword breaking.

“What a lousy sword. I’ll show you what a real sword is.” He concentrated on his locket and a long sword materialized in his hands. It was nearly as tall as Aariv.

[SLASH]

he made a 360-degree slash at all the soldiers around him. In an instant some of then last their arms, some died with their throats slashed and some were lucky enough to just have their swords cut into two.

“You monster” King of Cholas, Purusaprabhu Chola, yelled with a pale face, only to receive a grin from Aariv.

“Now, now… calm down… It’s not the time to end the game yet. I am just starting,” Aariv said and went to the King, Aariv put one arm around his shoulder and dragged him towards the edge of the terrace.

“it’s such a beautiful city right, it would be bad if someone were to destroy it.” He said and then called Black.

“Black, destroy the city walls and send 2 or 3 of them to the palace.”

“On it, your highness”

…

on the field, soldiers were waiting for orders.

Black came to the commander of catapult division and ordered them to strike.

“Soldiers, set the aim”

“Load it”

“RELEASE”

at the same time, all 50 catapults fired. in 3 seconds the results started to appear.

47 catapults aimed for the city wall and 3 at the royal palace.

[Boom]

[Boom]

Stones weighing 80 kilos collided with the wall and smashed through them. Any shoulder that came in front of it died.

“Set the aim”

“Load it”

“RELEASE”

The second wave came soon and this time all 50 aimed at the city wall.

With each wave, a part of the wall would fall and soldiers would die.

…

At the royal palace, Aariv looked at the destructiveness of his creation. The 3 stone balls also destroyed a part of the roof structure and walls of the palace. Everyone in the room was palely looking at the slowly vanishing city wall.

Kings of those kingdoms that had not yet submitted to the Mauryan empire were now considering to submit.

“haha… it would be a shame if people were to see how weak and cowardly their king is,” Aariv said and again said something on his holocom to his men hiding in the city.

People of the city had already started to panic and gather together in different shelters. His men infiltrated as common people and started spreading hoaxes that their King has lost the battle and doesn’t want to surrender. He wants to use the people as his shield to escape from the city.

Slowly the people talked to each other and words reached everyone. People became angry and started to demand that the King surrender and save them.

The soldiers became busy calming the people down but to no avail. Things kept on escalating.

…

The night passed and Aariv didn’t let anyone leave the palace. He had killed every guard in the palace that came to rescue the King. Currently, his 100 soldiers had taken over the palace.

The bombardment of stones never stopped until the morning. But, still, there were waves of stones coming every now and then. Aariv had ordered the army to do this to keep people scared.

Many people had gathered at the closed gates of the palace and were angrily shouting, demanding the king to surrender.

“haha… how does it feels to have your own people turn against you?” He mocked King Anantha Padmanabha.

He was angrily looking at everything.

“You dare to go against me. I am your King, how can you… Guards Kill whoever shouts again” He yelled at the people in front of the palace gate.

Everyone clearly heard the King’s orders, They stopped shouting in fear. Only the royal palace was under Aariv’s souldiers, and city guards were still in the city. The guards surrounded the people.

Suddenly a man started to run away from the crowd but a Kalinga soldier killed him with his spear. People felt enraged by those actions and became more violent. They started to pick up stones and throw them at the guards. There were at least a thousand people and just 200 or 300 guards. They were quickly overpowered.

This was also Aariv’s plan. He had placed a death row prisoner in the crowd and one of his men dressed as Kalinga’s soldier. The prisoner felt threatened when soldiers surrounded the people and tried to run away.

Aariv wanted the people to denounce the King and accept him wholeheartedly.

“Haha… that’s not what you should say to an angry mob,” Aariv said to the King.

Still, Aariv hadn’t reached his goals. There were 200,000 people living in the city and only a thousand came to protest. He needed them all to protest.

“Do it,” Aariv said on his holocom.

His men then started to spread more hoaxes that the king is angry and has taken all the food in the city for himself. There is no food remaining in the city.

People became anxious hearing that, there was no way that they could go out to buy food, they hurriedly turned the shops upside down in search of rations but only found very little. It would probably last 2 days, when shared with 200,000 people.

…

6 days later.

Aariv was sitting on a chair and eating an apple. The people in the palace had enough food so they weren’t hungry but that couldn’t be said about the people in the city.

They had run out of food and rations 4 days ago. They were hungry now and nothing mattered when it came to hunger. People started violently rioting and marched towards the palace. They didn’t care about shoulders attacking them anymore. Their kids were hungry and crying so they had to do something. All they knew was that the king had hidden the food in the palace.

Thousands of people came out on the streets.

“I guess it’s time for my entrance but before that..” Aariv said and stood up. He materialized his sword and started the massacre.

He killed every official of the Kalinga empire, family members of the royal family, no one survived. The terrace was filled with butchered bodies. Some tried to run away only to be cut in half from their backs. Some tried to defend themselves and lost their arms before dying.

The carnage lasted a few minutes. Finally, only some allies of the Mauryan Empire, Chola King and his people, the Kalinga king and his wife remained.

He tied them all up with rope, except the allies.

“Don’t worry, I’ll come back soon for you all?” He said and jumped far into the city, soon he reached his army.

…

“What’s up Satya,” Aariv said, seeing Satya besides Black.

“Your highness, these big stone-throwing catap…catape” he couldn’t remember the word catapult.

“Catapult” Aariv helped.

“Yes, catapults are so strong”

“Haha… of course, I made them,” he said and ruffled his hair.

“What are your orders, your highness?” Black respectfully asked.

“We march, Leave 100 thousand men out here. Bring 50,000 horses and 150,000-foot soldiers. Also bring all those carts filled with rations.”

…

After that, they marched towards the city with Aariv at the lead. The city wall was nowhere to be found. Souldiers had also given up resistance. After all, they were hungry too.

He entered the city and the citizens blocked his was, they had armed themselves with whatever they could find. Swords, bamboo sticks, brooms, utensils, there were even some kids with their wooden toys.

Aariv held his hand in the air and stopped his army.

“I am Aariv Maurya, Son of Emperor Chandragupta Maurya. I do not want to harm you, you can see that if I wanted to harm you then I would have thrown stones at your houses too, but I didn’t do that. Because I do not want to conquer this kingdom but its people. I value you more than gold or this city.

You know your king has wronged you, he took your food and even told his soldiers to attack you. But, fear not… I have brought food for you all. Go back to your houses and bring containers. We will distribute rations and also cooked food to eat. I will also bring traders here tomorrow so that things can return to normal. This is your city, so let’s not destroy it anymore.

Let me pass and punish that false King,” Aariv finished his speech.

People calmed down and looked at each others faces, they still had their doubts…

“Bring the carts to the front,” Aariv ordered.

After a while, many carts filled with rations came forward. When people saw that what Aariv said was true, they all ran to their homes to bring containers.

Leaving his soldiers behind, Aariv headed to the palace with 10 guards.

…

“I am back everyone, I hope you’re not bored… okay King Anantha Padmanabha, it’s time to die. I have nothing against you but I must kill you because I know you would come and stab me in the back whenever you’d find an opportunity. After seeing your arrogant attitude I am ever more sure that Killing you is the right thing.”

He made him stand up and took him to the edge of the terrace, from there Aariv shouted and all the people looked in his direction.

“Why are you doing all this?” King Anantha Padmanabha asked, expressionlessly.

“Because I need to unify the whole of India,” Aariv answered.

“And?”

“Conquer the whole world”

King Anantha Padmanabha smirked upon hearing that, “heh… I wish you luck”

[SLASH]

He beheaded him in an instant. That was the least he could do, granting him a quick and painless death. The people didn’t feel anything seeing that, some of them cheered but most of them went back to filling their stomachs.

“May your soul rest in peace”

After saying that, Aariv looked at the tied up Chola King and his daughter. They were both terrified from seeing King Anantha Padmanabha getting beheaded. They thought that they would end up just like him.

“Please, hear me out your highness, we can talk this out,” King Purusaprabhu Chola pleaded.

“I haven’t decided what I am going to do with you… yet,” Aariv said.

“Close them in a room and guard it 24X7” He ordered a guard.

Soon, only he was left on the terrace.

“I shouldn’t feel bad for killing him, after all, Many kings rose and fell every day in this era”

Jojo came down from the sky and sat on his shoulder.

“There were some spies seeing all this happening from a distance,” Juno said.

“It doesn’t matter anymore. No matter who it is, they will submit soon”