The killer’s blade traced a slow, almost loving line along Nikita’s throat. Her skin burned under the pressure.

Around them, the chanting grew louder, the air thick with incense and rot.

Jagendra ripped against the chains until blood ran from his wrists.

No good.

Too strong.

The killer raised the dagger high — ready to plunge it into Nikita’s chest.

And then — everything shattered.

A single gunshot cracked the air like a whip.

The knife spun from the killer’s hand, clattering against the stone.

Before anyone could react, a figure burst through the shadows —

lean, ruthless, moving like a ghost wrapped in fury.

Detective Arjun Mohanty.

Jagendra’s old ally. A man too paranoid, too stubborn to ever walk away.

He wasn’t supposed to be here.

He wasn’t even supposed to know.

But here he was — twin pistols barking fire into the stunned cultists.

One cultist dropped instantly, blood spraying the altar stones. Another went down screaming, clutching a shattered knee.

Chaos detonated through the temple.

Jagendra twisted his body sideways, wrenching his chained arms under his legs, bringing his hands to the front — brutalizing his own joints — and slammed the iron chain into the face of the nearest follower.

Bones crunched.

The man collapsed in a heap.

Nikita scrambled from the altar, grabbing the fallen dagger, slashing wildly at the hands that tried to grab her again.

Arjun moved like death itself — two clean headshots, then spinning low, shooting another cultist in the thigh to cripple him.

> "MOVE!" he barked at Jagendra, tossing him a key ring yanked from a dead cultist’s belt.

Jagendra caught it, fingers bloody, fumbling but fast.

The killer snarled beneath his mask, retreating up the steps toward the upper sanctum. Two fanatical followers shielded him, knives drawn.

Coward.

Jagendra broke his cuffs just as Nikita reached his side.

Their eyes locked for half a second — battle-forged, blood-soaked — then they charged.

What followed was brutal.

Jagendra fought like a man possessed — slamming a cultist into the stone wall, cracking his skull.

Nikita danced between the chaos, using the ritual dagger like a serpent — slicing tendons, severing arteries.

Arjun covered them with cold efficiency — shots precise, heartless.

But the cultists were many.

And the killer was slipping away.

Jagendra knew: If they let him escape tonight, it would never end.

"After him!" Jagendra roared.

They pushed through the bloodbath, chasing the killer into the collapsing inner sanctum of the temple.

Where the final confrontation waited.

Where everything would burn.