Bab 88: Child Of Manas ( Part 5 )

On the other hand, the Asuras do not care who is what in the Vedas. They don't care about divine sanction. They can fight fair and square with any person with the divine sanction and this is their pride. I believe even your internal energy technique came from them, though I have no idea how your teacher was able to give it to you. Grandfather once said that the kingdom in Central Plateau is a mix of love-known and fear-unknown type of culture. I believe the fear-unknown side of them originates from Asura influence. I believe your teacher is trying to catalyze this influence into a fear-known type of culture and she is doing it with the help of your ten thousand barbarians!

You told me that the Asuras cannot stand the sight of you. I think it's not you they cannot stand the sight of, it's the barbarians. The barbarians exist in a fear-known type of culture. Because their most prominent emotion as a people is fear, they react to anything causing this fear in them with aggression. It's nothing but a survival mechanism. The Asura sects are actually the same way, but they do not know that the primal emotion they are most prone to is fear! Indeed, any culture that still believe that only the strong are worthy and follow the law of jungle are driven by the primal instinct to fear the unknown. The emotion exists in everyone, but in these people, it is most prominent. The teachings of the Asuras are intelligent and scientific. As such they believe their aggression is caused by an unwillingness to mix with society, their interest in martial arts or because everybody else is a hypocrite and so on. However, when they see a race that is pure in its aggression and without constraint, when they see what true barbarianism is, they see the truth about themselves. This is why they hate you!

And that is why you must subdue them, because when you do, these people will truly accept you. Because you have shown them the truth about themselves! A fear-unknown type culture could be sophisticated, but it will still be chaotic. On the contrary, a fear-known culture can be both sophisticated and orderly. It may not be a type of order anybody can digest, but it is still order. In converting the culture this way, I believe you will have an opening…

To conquer the Central Plateau.

I believe this is what your teacher ultimately wants from you. You asked me why she wouldn't just point a state to you and say, conquer it. You've fought hundreds of battles till date. None were too difficult. You could've conquered any small state and settled down…But no matter which state, it wouldn't be able to match up to Central Plateau.

Only one force in the world till date was able to overthrow the regimes of the Central Plateau. Suppressed too heavily from all sides, when various schools of Asuras are forced to ally themselves to each other, that's when it happens. And that's the only way it happens. It happens every cycle, when the reigning dynasty of this great empire gets too powerful, too complacent, too corrupt or otherwise detrimental to public welfare. Some say it is the cosmic cycle of order within chaos and chaos within order. None can stop it from happening as long as Asuras and Devas both exist in this world.

But what if both forces are brought to counter balance each other? What if the love-known and fear-unknown aspects of the mixed culture becomes love-known and fear-known instead? You can do that by subduing the Asuras this time. This segregation might make the two types of people in the plateau poles apart from each other, the Asuras might even need a separate state for themselves, but despite the differences, the periodic chaos need not come this time…

So many people need not die needlessly at the end of every cycle. Regimes do not need to change…Because there will only be one bloodline ruling the Central Plateau from now on.

Yours Kush.

Perhaps this was teacher Ashangi's vision. Think about it. Don't get frustrated too easily. I will always be wishing well on your behalf.

Your friend,

Cactus

PS: I had my first divine awakening three days ago. It was painful and confusing, but I am much stronger now. I believe you won't be able to beat me anymore.

Buddy, I'm on my way to become god. So we will only be rivals from now on if you acquire the rest of the world. Good luck!

If that for that damned postscript! If not for that single provocation, the Belly of Chandasura would not have been trampled underneath Kush's feet. Chandasura was once a cruel Asura who was said to have swallowed an entire race once when they ended up provoking him. They say that whoever provokes the Asuras in the Belly of Chandasura do not return for the same reason. They get 'digested' by the landscape.

Chandasura was cruel. But Kush was crueler. He showed the Asuras what fear is. He showed them themselves. Fear is not sitting in a corner and cowering, unable to face the world. Fear is the inability to react in any other way apart from what your instincts tell you! Kush appeared like the Lord of Instincts and let the Asuras know that there is no way they can win with him. The same instincts that have always been their strength turned into their weakness! The barbarians might not be superior to the Asuras in techniques, but they were superior in their instinct. The Asuras do not know their instincts are generated by their fear. The barbarians knew. And they ran when they cannot win. This was literally the only strategy Kush used throughout the war with the Asuras. His people knew when to retreat, so they lived. Theirs didn't know. They died.

It was a battle of attrition. It didn't matter how numerous the Asuras were in the jungles. If they didn't know when to run, they died. And they didn't know when to run because they cannot accept who they were. As creatures who are ruled by fear, when they accepted who they were, they submitted to Kush.

Through this one simple strategy, Kush was able to do what any Deva force had been unable to do for hundreds of years. He defeated the combined Asura forces…in their own territory. What colossal achievement was that! Perhaps even Ashangi didn't expect this level of achievement this early on in his conquests. And it was all thanks to that single line of provocation left at the bottom of many lines of encouragement.