“Eh?”

  Suddenly, Anuj’s eyes flew open. He found himself lying on cold ground. He tried to get up, but...

  ‘?!’

  “My hands and legs?”

  His hands and legs were tied. He blinked his eyes hard, then opened them completely. What he saw in front of him made it clear he was inside a prison.

  ‘Huh? How did I end up here?!’

  He tried to think, how he had come here. He couldn’t remember much from the previous day.

  Everything in his mind felt blurry. The only thing he remembered was that he had drunk an extreme amount of poison, after which he had passed out from hunger.

  “Oh! Right, I was about to fight with that officer! After that…”

  After that, he remembered nothing at all, because he had lost consciousness.

  Step! Step!

  Suddenly, he heard the sound of someone walking. The footsteps were slowly approaching him.

  A moment later, a person stopped in front of his prison door. He looked thin, lean, bald, and seemed to be around thirty years old.

  He looked at Anuj.

  “So he’s awake now…?”

  He muttered to himself. Anuj angrily asked him,

  “Hey, who are you? Why have you locked me up here?”

  The bald man didn’t say anything and simply started to walk away. Seeing this, Anuj clenched his teeth tightly and shouted,

  “Hey! Can’t you hear me? Hey, Hey!—baldhead listen! Why have you kept me here? Let me out!”

  Anuj kept shouting, but the bald man didn’t listen and left.

  “...Looks like I’ll have to get out of here myself now…”

  Anuj said to himself.

  He couldn’t stay in this unknown place for long, who knew what might happen to him. First of all, he needed to free his hands and legs.

  He would have to break the ropes binding his hands and feet.

  Although he didn’t have a body as strong as Sharv’s, if he used prana, he should be able to break free easily.

  But…

  “What? W-what the fuck?”

  Anuj couldn’t make his prana flow through his body. He immediately understood someone had sealed his prana flow.

  “Which son of bitch did this!”

  On the other hand, the bald man entered the office.

  He first joined his hands and bowed his head respectfully toward the two people standing in front of him.

  The two people in front of him were talking to each other. They were slightly younger than the bald man, around 24–25 years old, but their positions were higher than his. And both of them were martial artists.

  “Oh! Dharmendra, it’s you.”

  A short-haired man said, looking at the bald man named Dharmendra. Dharmendra looked back and replied,

  “I pay my respect to you, sir Karan.”

  “My respects to you as well.”

  The short-haired man, Kartik, also joined his hands and bowed his head in greeting.

  “So, what brings you here today? Has your previous case already been resolved?”

  Karan asked Dharmendra. Dharmendra replied,

  “Forgive me, sir, but I didn’t come here to talk with you today. I have something to report to sir Kartikeya…”

  Dharmendra looked toward Kartikeya and then continued,

  “The person you brought in, he has woken up.”

  “Oh! That’s good. Excellent.”

  Hearing this, Kartikeya happily stood up from his chair to thank Dharmendra.

  Dharmendra had been keeping watch over him all night. After expressing his gratitude, Dharmendra left.

  Kartikeya stood up from his place and said to Karan,

  “You didn’t believe me earlier, did you? Now you’ll see for yourself.”

  Karan replied with excitement,

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “Yeah! Yeah! Let’s see then. I also want to see who this person is, someone who can drink five liters of poison and still stay alive.”

  They were talking about Anuj.

  When Kartikeya had brought Anuj here to Hastinapur’s Red Floor branch office, he had told everything about Anuj to his friend and colleague Karan. But Karan hadn’t believed Kartikeya at all.

  That was why he had now brought along a poison expert with him. His name was Hari, but people also knew him as Takshak(1).

  He was a highly renowned poison expert of Hastinapur and the surrounding regions.

  Kartikeya and Karan came out of the office, and outside they found Hari standing there.

  He was a middle-aged man, short in stature, with a thick black beard and mustache with some white hairs mixed in, and a light green turban on his head.

  Hari, Kartikeya, and Karan first exchanged respectful greetings, and then got down to business.

  “Kartikeya sir, just as you instructed, I brought it prepared. But let me warn you beforehand; this is extremely poisonous. If any ordinary person eats it, they won’t survive.”

  Hari said to Kartikeya. Kartikeya replied,

  “I’m very eager to see this poisonous thing. Where is it?”

  Hari took out a bowl from the bundle slung over his shoulder and removed its lid. Inside were… just some chapattis and a little grenish looking pickle. The aroma was quite pleasant; it didn’t seem poisonous at all.

  “Hari, are you joking with us? From what angle does this look like poison?”

  Karan said. Hari smiled slightly, then tore off a small piece of chapatti, dipped it in the greenish pichle and threw it out the window.

  “Just watch for yourself. You’ll understand.”

  Outside the window, within moments, a black cat appeared. It approached the chapatti, intending to eat it, but before it could even take a bite, it sniffed it, collapsed unconscious, and died.

  ‘?!’

  Kartikeya and Karan were shocked.

  When they looked closely, they realized that it wasn’t just the cat even some ants crawling near the roti had died as well. Seeing this, both of them understood that there was no reason to doubt Hari or his work.

  But a short while later…

  “W-what… how is this possible!!!”

  Hari said while walking, unable to believe his own eyes.

  And how could he believe it? Right in front of him, Anuj was sitting inside the prison, eating those poisonous chapattis and pickle.

  Kartikeya and Karan were standing outside the prison, watching him.

  Kartikeya’s expression wasn’t as shocked, because he had already sensed the previous night that Anuj was immune to poison.

  But Karan’s mouth hung wide open as he watched Anuj eat. He simply couldn’t believe his own eyes.

  Anuj was calmly eating the chapattis, completely unconcerned about the others around him.

  Right now, he was hungry, and these chapattis were doing their job of satisfying that hunger.

  Every time he took a bite, Anuj didn’t know why, but he felt an unusual pleasure. Inside his mouth, he could taste both sour and sweet flavors together at the same time.

  Suddenly, Hari came up close to the prison bars and shouted angrily at him,

  “How can you eat this? This is poison! Can’t you feel the poison in your mouth?!”

  “Hey! Hey! Calm down man...”

  Kartikeya said to him, but Hari did not, his eyes were filled with confusion staring straight at Anuj.

  While chewing the roti, Anuj replied,

  “Poison? Humph! You’re calling such good food poison? You’ll starve to death you bastard. You won’t even get a place in hell.”

  Clench!

  Hari clenched his teeth hard and asked Anuj,

  “You...You’re a martial artist, aren't you? Are you using some poison arts? Who is your master? What martial clan or sect are you from? Did he teach you these poison arts? Who is that person?! Tell me!”

  Anuj replied again,

  “I don’t even know who you are, man. At least let me finish this in peace.”

  “No!—Tell me first!”

  “Alright, fine, listen then. I don’t have any master. I don't belong to any clan or sect. I haven’t learned any poison arts. And I’ve been immune to poison since childhood. Poison is like honey and drug to me, got it? Now let me eat.”

  As soon as Anuj said this, the poison expert Hari’s eyebrows shot up.

  He thought for a few moments. He had calmed down now what Anuj had said sounded strangely familiar to him.

  ‘?!’

  Suddenly, he remembered something and shouted,

  “Extreme Poison Kundalini Body…?!”

  ***

  Meanwhile, on the other side, within the Crimson Heaven Society, in the middle of the valleys of Kashmir, stood the Divine Physician Hall. At this very moment, the Death Hall Master had arrived there.

  The Death Hall Master reached the hall with his severed hand.

  The Divine Physician Hall was similar to the Death Hall, these two were two of the great halls among the 5 halls inside Crimson Heaven Society.

  The only difference was that the Death Hall of the Crimson Heaven Society handled the capture of people and criminals and maintained justice and order, while the Physician Hall was where everyone worked as healers.

  At this late hour, no one in the Divine Physician Hall was awake, but the Death Hall Master knew exactly where to find Physician Narayan.

  As he walked through the corridors of the Divine Physician Hall, in some places he smelled the fragrance of various herbs, and in other places, near examination rooms, he sensed the mixed odor of human blood and medicines.

  Before long, the Death Hall Master reached one of the main halls of the Divine Physician Hall.

  There, he saw a man slightly older than him, dressed in white and light blue, sitting cross-legged in the center, cultivating prana.

  As soon as the Death Hall Master arrived, the man sensed him. He quickly opened his eyes and looked toward him.

  “Oh! So it’s you, Death Hall Master… I sensed someone coming.”

  The Death Hall Master didn’t say much. He simply showed his severed hand. Seeing this, Physician Narayan immediately understood.

  He stood up from his place, gestured toward a room behind him, and said,

  “Come, follow me.”

  The Death Hall Master followed him. He had been to that room many times before. In the center was a bed, and around it were numerous herbs, divine medicines, books, and many other things a physician might need.

  Without saying a word, the Death Hall Master went and lay down on the bed in the middle, handing his severed hand to Physician Narayan.

  Physician Narayan examined the hand carefully. It had already turned slightly bluish. Narayan asked,

  “Who cut off your hand? This doesn’t look like Surendranath’s work. He doesn’t make such clean cuts.”

  The Death Hall Master replied,

  “Actually… it was the Society Leader.”

  Hearing this, Physician Narayan’s eyes widened in shock, but soon returned to normal. He said,

  “This… this, has nothing to do with that incident from seven years ago, did it? Haa!… never mind, forget it. I’ll start my work now…”

  ‘Seven years ago…’

  The Death Hall Master thought to himself.

  That moment from seven years ago resurfaced in his mind. If that incident hadn’t happened back then, perhaps his life would have been much better today.

  Tak! Tak! Tak!

  Physician Narayan pressed the pressure points behind the Death Hall Master’s neck, along the spine, rendering him unconscious.

  The Death Hall Master’s eyelids began to flutter, his eyes growing heavy with sleep.

  His eyes closed completely. He fell asleep.

  But his mind drifted into his past, back to his childhood, when the Death Hall Master was just a child, a small orphan.

  He had no real name, no identity. From the tender age of five, he had begun stealing not out of habit, but out of necessity. To secure even two meals a day, he resorted to theft.

  But one day, he saw some martial artists resting by the roadside, dressed in black clothes. He had heard from others that martial artists were extremely dangerous.

  That was why he had never tried to steal from a martial artist before. But that day, he couldn’t find anyone else. Left with no choice, he was forced to steal something from them.

  What he didn’t know was that this single act of theft would completely change his entire life.

  1. Takshak (?????) :

  (excluding ch - 0, if included then 51).