Bab 120: Nara Narayana ( Part 5 )
It was as though the land bridge that they have been looking at all morning was but an illusion, and the strait of ocean water that was separating them from their target now was all that there was. Before the men even digested that, they were even more shocked when the gourd shaped island split into two! If someone reached the height of an aircraft and looked, they would see that one part of it was in the shape of tear drop, the other in the shape of a crescent moon.
And from the narrow strait in between the two islands, the army of the Devas saw disturbingly large bodies slowly crawling out. Of course, they only seemed slow because of the shock. But before the army could even react, huge naval ships surrounded them on the giant half moon shore. The path to retreat has been cut off as well from the repetitive landslides.
Very soon, the ships started to bomb the armies with explosives and fiery arrows. Great chaos ensued. Army lines broke before they even properly formed. Violent screams spoke of the pathetic state of the soldiers. The horses neighed as they went berserk. The camels dropped their loads and stomped recklessly. The Devas fired off their divine powers in panic. Everywhere was confusion and carnage. The empire's army took a violent hit in just under two hours before it managed to retreat.
Naval warfare.
Did it never occur to the empire's army when the enemy called them to sea? Of course not. But all the way to the location, they haven't noticed any vegetation! Ships need wood to be built, yes? They have travelled along the shore until they reached that particular gourd shaped land. Even then, they only noticed some palm trees here and there. Nothing that suggests there was actually a place with such lush vegetation nearby. Where would the ships come from?
When they did reach the enemy's land, the scouts were specifically sent to survey if there were any large naval movements. There was nothing.
Who would've thought the enemy hid the ships inland, perhaps on a river, and then split the land into two to allow the seas to bring them to the battlefield? This was inconceivable!
Then again…the enemy did mention he was god.
The campaign continued for a whole of six months. Emperor Chandra Kush, the leader of all the lands fought as though he was possessed. He personally led the troops many a times.
But every little advantage the great armies of the empire gained through numerous hardships and peril would be set back by a new disadvantages. When they army transported enough timber to build their own ships, they finally understood what true naval warfare is. Although on the mainland, some battles took place on rivers, the ocean was something else. The enemy was trained and experienced. Their formations were swift and unbreakable. And also, the ships that Dhatri built would collapse at the slightest injury while the enemy ships would stay strong even after taking damage for months. Not only that, they were armed with divine armaments (or explosives. Though the Aryans knew about explosives for centuries, the formula has been contained among the righteous ones and was not widespread). In front of them, the divine armaments brought over by Dhatri looked like a child trying to imitate his grandpa. They were not worthy of the name at all.
For the first time in history, men of the mainland got to witness for themselves the true majesty and power of the land where Rta flows. It was just a small country in the west, sure, but it was an insurmountable mountain the heights of which man can only dream of climbing.
The emperor was not at all satisfied by this type of fall in morale. He launched more and more daring attacks against the islands, trying to recoup his losses. Just when it appeared that morale returned to the army, an even greater disadvantage revealed itself. It would seem that more and more Devas in the army were losing their divine powers! It was said that divine powers do not work against an Aditya and that might be true for an entire battlefield. In the beginning, the emperor sent some Devas with weakening divine powers away in order to confirm that they got the powers back once they were far away. To everybody's great panic, even when the men with Deva bloodlines left the drylands completely, their power did not return! Some clever minister later investigated and found out that not just them, but even the clans that ruled the drylands have been losing their divine powers since the time they began to oppose the Martanda! Evidently, this was the reason Pranaya capitulated so fast when the empire brought its armies west. Their divine powers have long since weakened.
A lone soldier losing some power would not cause much ruckus among the Aryan tribe. But a Deva losing his divine power meant something more profound. It meant that the god that resided in the divine awakened has now left!
It unavoidably brought to mind the ominous prophecy which haunted man at the end of each era:
Chandra shall wane. Darkness will fall upon man.
Gods abandon, dissipation begins.
The eighth god is man. Half Moon shall reign everything.
Ever since the moment the officials realized this, they have been falling on the emperor's feet telling him to give up the campaign.
'You all are foolish!' Kush yelled at them many times. 'Dissipation began long ago! The gods have abandoned long ago! What's happening now is merely them taking back the vestiges they left behind!'
After all the bloodshed that he had seen in life, all the hopeless despair and chaos, how can Kush still believe Gods ruled this world?
He didn't go after Amaravati because his teacher asked him to. She didn't. He did so because there was no divinity left there anymore. Amaravati is not even a city, but a city's title. There are eight capitals of the Devas in Central Plateau, each ruled by a different Deva faction. Each city would fight bitterly for the title of Amaravati because all the other city-states would then pay obeisance to it. For the last sixty years, the city ruled by Indra had been named Amaravati. The title was originally supposed to be the Chandra faction's, but some mishap led to the Chandra faction going underground instead. Greed, betrayal, war, strife. This is all that Amaravati stands for these days. Every time, this mystical city changes places, thousands will be enslaved and made to work on the new capital. Hundreds of thousands will be displaced and many more killed. Yet the Devas continue in their madness of seeking Amaravati because that's the true city of immortals. That's where gods live.
Kush wanted to destroy this fallacy. He wanted to put an end to the superstition. A little bit of divine power makes you believe you are god? I have seen princes of the drylands with ten, fifty times more power, yet they still don't compare themselves to an Aditya who has no power at all. You want to destroy the lives of common people because you think everything gods do is in agreement with natural law? If the bringer of natural law and the charioteer of Rta agreed with you, he would've never empowered me to fight against you!
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone