Victory is ours!

"HAR HAR MAHADEVA," The crowd cheered as their beloved elephant, Lakshmi banged his head on the castle's stone wall. The wall developed cracks at each and every hit.

"VETRI VEL!" Adithan shouted from the top of the elephant. Adithan was filled with adrenaline, with the amount of adrenaline coursing through his body one could fill an entire river.

"VEERA VEL!"

With a few more hits and the wall will dissipate into pieces. Lakshmi shook her head and ran head-first into the wall.

Creek. 

Creek. 

Creek.

Before long the archers on the other side realized what was going on. But they were perplexed about how the Chozha army scaled those tall mountains in a short amount of time. That too without dying.

They took their positions on the towers and aimed their bows at Lakshmi and Karikalan.

"FIRE!" The chief of the archery commanded them to shoot, the arrows were launched at rocket speed. They whizzed past Karikalan just missing him by a few meters.

"Woah," Karikalan ducked as one flew over his head.

The chozhan soldiers got on their knees and aimed at the watch towers, with one slight gesture from Adithan they let go of their arrows. Each one of those stray arrows found its home, deep down in the enemy soldier's chests.

"Don't stop until each one of them is down!" Adithan shouted from atop Lakshmi.

The arrows which came in return bounced off Lakshmi like they were pebbles. Adithan patted Lakshmi's head.

Lakshmi lifted her trunks and trumpeted loudly. Getting annoyed by the arrows. "Just one more hit girl," Adithan whispered into her ears.

"FIRE!" Adithan shouted. Just like the arrows, Lakshmi darted toward the wall. This time the wall shattered into dust. The whole wall came crumbling down.

The soldiers roared as they rushed past Lakshmi and invaded the palace.

The small infantry soldiers came rushing toward the invaders.

Adithan jumped down Lakshmi and patted her on her trunks. "Good girl," He smiled, Lakshmi trumpeted in return. "Go have fun!" Adithan patted her trunks and took off towards the Senatipathi.

"Stay close," The Senatipathi warned Adithan. He nodded and drew out his sword.

Then it was chaos. Swords clashed with swords, arrows lunged into the enemy's chests, and Lakshmi stomped past the infantry like they were bugs.

Whenever someone approached Adithan. The senatipathi jumped in and slashed their heads off.

"C'mon, I know how to protect myself!" Adithan whined after the third time.

"Your grandfather's orders," the Senatipathi said as he planted his sword into his fifth victim.

"Did my grandfather also tell you to not let me fight in a freaking war?" Adithan asked sarcastically.

"Pretty much," the Senatipathi shrugged as he found his next victim.

Adithan hands itched for a kill and he grew restless. "Did he also tell you to stay with me at all times?" Adithan asked.

"Yes? Why?" The Senatipathi asked.

"Because you're going to be punished for not following his command," Adithan smirked.

"What?" The Senatipathi turned towards him after finishing someone off, but Adithan was nowhere to be found. "Ilavarese!" He shouted. "Children..." He scoffed.

Blood ran like water, heads rolled like sozhis and for every Chozhan soldier, three Rashtrakutan soldiers lost their lives.

Adithan found his first victim. Well, his first victim found him.

A man spotted the prince and rushed towards him at full speed, Adithan spun his sword and approached him, their swords clashed with each other with so much power that they almost lost their balance. Adithan recovered before the enemy soldier, and took him out in his daze.

His first victim's body fell on the floor with a thud, lifelessly. "Aha!" Adithan celebrated his first kill. The war rage got to his head.

Parthibendran was fighting with someone in the distance, while he was distracted another soldier was approaching him from behind. Adithan swiftly ran towards Parthibendran and distracted the other soldier.

"Parthibendra, watch your back!" Adithan said as he plunged his sword into the soldier's chest.

Parthibendran looked behind him to find the prince engaged in intense combat. He turned around and blocked the attack from his own enemy.

Karikalan feinted towards the right and stabbed his enemy on the left-side of his chest.

"What are you doing here?" Parthibendran asked as he slashed the enemy's head off.

"What do you think I'm doing? Playing?" Karikalan joked as he approached his next target.

"I thought you were supposed to stay with the Senatipathi," Parthibendran asked as he lunged his sword into someone's throat.

"I escaped from his clutches," Karikalan joked as his sword penetrated through his victim. The rage made Adithan forget how tired he was. Sweat dripped down his hair along with the blood of his enemies.

"What the hell is happening here!?" Someone shouted from the courtyard.

A smile played on the edge of Adithan's mouth. Killing him would end the war he thought. Parthibendran read Adithan's face as if it was a book.

"Don't even think about--" Parthibendran started before he could finish he was ambushed by someone. Adithan slipped away and approached the rashtrakutan king.

"Surprise!" Adithan jumped down to the courtyard.

"Oh! You!" Krishnarajan exclaimed. "The young Prince who the Chozhan's sent! Such a pleasure to meet you," Krishnarajan jumped down from his horse with a shield and a sword in his hands.

Adithan gave him a cheeky smile. "Pleasure meeting you too, So bad that I'll have to kill you now," Adithan spun his sword.

"Kid has got tricks huh?" Krishnarajan said unimpressed as he took out his own sword.

"Kid? Who?" Adithan asked looking around.

"You," Krishnarajan said lunging towards him. Adithan rolled towards the left and got up. "Well the corpses down there beg to differ," Adithan said as he deflected another one of his attacks.

"You got lucky," he snarled.

"Maybe," Adithan shrugged. Krishnarajan jumped into action, repeatedly slashing his sword, Karikalan tried his best to deflect every attack he could, but each one of those slashes was so powerful, powerful as a gust of wind. Whenever Adithan tried to attack he blocked it with his shield, which was unfair since he didn't have one.

It was not before long when one of them drew first blood.

And it was Krishnarajan's sword that drew blood first. When Adithan was busy deflecting his attacks, he feinted left and slashed his sword aiming for his back. But at the nick of time, Adithan turned right which caused the sword to miss its point, but it didn't fail to draw blood. It wounded Adithan's arm.

Krishnarajan gave out a laugh as Adithan grunted in pain looking at his hands which was losing blood freely.

"You got lucky," Adithan breathed out.

"It's not luck, little one, it's years of practice," He laughed. "Your age is my experience,"

Adithan recovered from the wound pretty quickly and straightened up. Karikalan knew his blows would be useless because he would just simply deflect them with his shield.

"Years of experience huh?" Karikalan asked in a mocking tone, circling around Krishnarajan. "So you never learned how to fight without a shield in all those years?" Adithan asked pointing his sword to the shield.

Krishnarajan looked down at the shield, his expression tightened.

"Well if you need a shield to protect yourself against a 'kid' in a sword fight, I don't think you believe in yourself to be stronger than me," Adithan raised his eyebrows.

"Enough!" Krishnaraj shouted as he got tired of Adithan's mocking tone. He dropped the shield and tore off his breastplate to prove a point. Adithan's plan worked. His chest was now exposed to Adithan.

"Come!" Krishnarajan challenged him.

Adithan ran towards him, Krishnarajan raised his sword getting ready to chop Karikalan to pieces, at the last moment Karikalan ducked and went behind Krishnarajan and slashed his back.

Krishnarajan stumbled forward, blood soaked his clothes turning his white clothes red.

"I deeply underestimated you," Krishnarajan said gritting his teeth.

"I deeply overestimated you," Adithan smirked, before Krishnarajan could recover from the previous blow, Adithan slashed his sword again, this time aiming for his chest, but Krishnarajan dodged the attack and kicked Adithan to the side.

"Is your entire family as big-mounted as you?" Krishnarajan got up.

"Oh! You haven't met my sister yet yea? God, she's a talker," Adithan flipped his hair which was wet from sweat. "Her tongue is sharper than my sword," He joked as he got up to his feet.

"Good, I'll have my fun with her when I invade Thanjai," Krishnarajan said.

Krishnarajan struck Karikalan's sword, both their swords wounded each other, blood ran freely from their cuts, and gashes. Blood and sweat ran akin.

Soon enough they both got tired pretty quickly. Karikalan's hands felt heavy from blocking all the attacks. Krishnarajan's wound burned as sweat trickled down his back.

"Enough!" Adithan pushed back Krishnarajan with all his might, his eyes turned red from the war rage.

Krishnarajan lost his balance and fell on the ground, the sword fell from his hands. Before he could get to his sword, Adithan pushed it away with his feet.

Adithan got on top of Krishnarajan and pointed his sword to his chest.

"I win," Adithan smiled weakly.

Don't showboat. His grandfather's words echoed through his head.

Krishnarajan tried pushing Karikalan off of him, but he wasn't budging, his life flashed before his eyes, the fear of dying shimmered in his eyes.

"Love live the chozha empire,"

With an ear-piercing scream Adithan delivered the final blow of the war.