Having obtained the command of the celestial forces, Skanda looked resplendent like a blazing fire of bright flames.  Accompanied by those companions and the mothers, he proceeded for the destruction of the daityas, gladdening all the foremost of the gods.  The terrible host of celestials, furnished with standards adorned with bells, and equipped with drums and conchs and cymbals, and armed with weapons, and decked with many banners, looked beautiful like the autumnal firmament bespangled with planets and stars.

Then that vast assemblage of celestials and diverse kinds of creatures began cheerfully to beat their drums and blow their conchs numbering thousands.  And they also played on their patahas and jharjharas and krikacas and cow-horns and adambaras and gomukhas and dindimas of loud sound.  All the gods, with Vasava at their head, praised Kumara.  The celestials and the gandharvas sang and the apsaras danced.

Well-pleased (with these attentions) Skanda granted a boon unto all the gods, saying, ‘I shall slay all your foes,’ then, that is, that desire to slay you.  Having obtained this boon from that best of gods, the illustrious celestials regarded their foes to be already slain.  After Skanda had granted that boon, a loud sound arose from all those creatures inspired with joy, filling the three worlds.

Accompanied by that vast host, Skanda then set out for the destruction of the daityas and the protection of the denizens of heaven.  Exertion, and Victory, and Righteousness, and Success, and Prosperity, and Courage, and the Scriptures (in their embodied forms) proceeded in the van of Kartikeya’s army, O king!  With that terrible force, which was armed with lances, mallets, blazing brands, maces, heavy clubs, arrows, darts and spears, and which was decked with beautiful ornaments and armour, and which uttered roars like those of a proud lion, the divine Guha set out.

Beholding him, all the daityas, rakshasas and danavas, anxious with fear, fled away on all sides.  Armed with diverse weapons, the celestials pursued them.  Seeing (the foe flying away), Skanda, endued with energy and might, became inflamed with wrath.  He repeatedly hurled his terrible weapon, the dart (he had received from Agni).  The energy that he then displayed resembled a fire fed with libations of clarified butter.  While the dart was repeatedly hurled by Skanda of immeasurable energy, meteoric flashes, O king, fell upon the Earth.  Thunderbolts also, with tremendous noise, fell upon the earth.  Everything became as frightful O king, as it becomes on the day of universal destruction.  When that terrible dart was once hurled by the son of Agni, millions of darts issued from it, O bull of Bharata’s race.

The puissant and adorable Skanda, filled with joy, at last slew Taraka, the chief of the daityas, endued with great might and prowess, and surrounded (in that battle) by a 100,000 heroic and mighty daityas.  He then, in that battle, slew Mahisha who was surrounded by eight padmas of daityas.  He next slew Tripada who was surrounded by a 1,000 ajutas of daityas.  The puissant Skanda then slew Hradodara, who was surrounded by ten nikharvas of daityas, with all his followers armed with diverse weapons.  Filling the ten points of the compass, the followers of Kumara, O king, made a loud noise while those daityas were being slain, and danced and jumped and laughed in joy.