"That was a failure," Prakash complained when he had reached the throng of battle-ready warriors.
"What were you trying to do?" Vikram inquired in a puzzled tone.
"I was trying to tame it into my puppet," Prakash replied honestly; it wasn't as if he needed to guard this as a secret which could have been easily figured out the moment he successfully used it. Though, he didn't have any intention to reveal the other aspect of his ability.
"So that's what your Karmic Art does huh," Vikram muttered as he gazed at Ugly Shaggy with curiosity. Ugly Shaggy was way too ugly in many aspects that he didn't even know where to begin, unlike his Victoris who was…quite balanced.
"Yeah…" Prakash replied when his nodding head came to a pause as his eyes lit up in surprise.
"You…"
"I know a Karmic Art too," As Vikram mentioned about his Karmic Art, purple smoke gushed out of his body in torrents and converged into a long purple snake that had a spider's head. Moreover, what was different about it as compared to Ugly Shaggy was that its body seemed to be made from crystallised purple smoke that was condensed to a significant degree and was also big.
"Meet Victoris," Upon his greeting, Victoris made a nodding motion towards Prakash who involuntarily took a step back in fright while Ugly Shaggy actually dissolved into purple smoke and retreated into his body.
The spider head of Victoris was actually as big as his body and with each of its eight eyes gazing in his direction, Prakash almost shat his pants. The visual impact that the spider created was even greater than the Gharial due to its ugly insect face that was magnified many times.
The rows and rows of humans who witnessed the appearance of Victoria roared in response and purple smoke began to gush out of their bodies and condensed into purple snakes with a spider's head.
"What the…?" Prakash witnessed that most of the humans who stood in a battle-ready formation had a mini version of Victoris hovering beside them. It was barely 3-4 millimetres thick but when hundreds of such mini Victoris' were simultaneously brought out, it began to exert a strange pressure on their surroundings.
The hovering pigeons faltered slightly when the strange pressure engulfed them but immediately regained their bearings and swooped in towards them while raising shrill screeches.
The pigeons assumed a 'V' formation with the pointed edge of the formation facing the net.
'Swoosh'
The pigeon at the forefront flapped its wings to accelerate in the air and impacted upon the thin net that seemed to have been created by using spider silk.
A gaping hole instantly formed in the net as the pigeon that charged through first crashed into the ground due to the sticky threads that bound it. It began to make a cacophony of shrieks as its wings tried to unfurl while its beak poked at the silky threads that were hindering its wings.
'Swish' 'Swoosh'
Thirteen pigeons charged through the gaping hole in the net and swept at the humans below while brandishing their sharp claws.
"Attack!" Vikram bellowed a war cry as purple smoke gushed out of the pores on his skin and coagulated into a cocoon that wrapped around him and immediately shattered to reveal a wasp from within.
The wasp immediately streaked into the air and stung on the stomach region of a charging pigeon. The pigeon immediately retaliated by brandishing its claws towards the wasp that darted between its blindspots as it began to flap its wings at a higher frequency to gain elevation.
It wanted to separate its foe from the rest and corner it into a one-on-one fight. The wasp didn't give the initiative to the pigeon as it darted towards another pigeon and stung its wings.
The hundreds of battle-ready warriors were immediately wrapped by cocoons made of purple smoke that shattered to reveal various insects of all shapes and sizes.
What was interesting was that mini Victoris was still hovering beside their transformed selves as they took off into the skies and engaged with the pigeons.
The house-flies took the charge of distracting their enemies as they used their agility to dart around the eyes of the pigeons and swooped in on their eyelids to harass them, while the dragon-flies used their bigger bodies as baits and made the pigeons focus their attention on them.
The mosquitoes settled on safer regions on the bodies of the pigeons and began to such its blood while the wasps took charge of attacking the pigeons.
Prakash sprinted on the floor with all his might towards the pigeon that was bound by spider threads and was still trying to set itself free. Part of his attention was focused on the battle in the air as Prakash gazed at the bodies of numerous insects that fell on the ground like rain every time the pigeons managed to land a hit.
The bodies of the insects that fell on the ground dissolved into purple smoke and revealed humans that once again assumed another transformation and charged towards the skies for another round.
Only the wasps were the prime damage dealers while all the other insects prioritised in distracting the attention of the pigeons, shielding the wasps from harm and taking attacks in their place. The mini Victoris that hovered around their transformed bodies plunged into the bodies of the pigeons when they were in range and returned back a second later. After every plunge of the mini Victoris, the body mass of the attacked pigeon shrunk by a minuscule amount.
Over the side of the wasp that Vikram had transformed into, the huge Victoris plunged into the body of a pigeon and began to consume its flesh. The pigeon became enraged at the phantom pains it felt in its body due to Victoris and increased its frenzy of attacks on the darting wasp that was now only focusing on evasion.
'Faster' Prakash manifested Ugly Shaggy and sent it streaking towards the bounded pigeon.
The struggling efforts of the pigeon stopped the moment Ugly Shaggy entered into its head as its body began to violently spasm in response.
10,60,200,800,1500…Prakash gazed into his 'Record' at the massive rate at which his Ant Karma was being expended and noticed that the pigeon was still far from being converted into his puppet.
Purple smoke immediately gushed out of the pores on his skin and coagulated into a cocoon that wrapped around him and shattered to reveal a puppy from within.
The puppy immediately pounced upon the pigeon and held its body in place to prevent its struggles. But it made sure that it didn't damage the pigeon's wings which would go against its efforts.
Almost 20 seconds passed in a vicious struggle when Prakash finally felt a connection form between him and the pigeon. Prakash took a deep breath of relief as he gazed at his 'Record' where the row pertaining to Ant Karma disappeared once again while his Dog Karma had also been reduced by a thousand units. The expenditure was way more than what he had initially expected.
"I should make good use of this pigeon now," The puppet pigeon flapped its free wings after the puppy tore off the silk threads that bound it and took off to the skies.
'Whoop' 'Whoop'
Strong flapping sounds were produced by its wings as the puppet pigeon accelerated in the skies and pounced upon a pigeon with its sharp claws. It managed to tear off quite a few feathers from its sneak attack as its beak plunged towards the eyes of its foe.
The wasp that was dodging the pigeon's attacks gazed in surprise at the pigeon that turned in on its own. It immediately spotted the body of a purple snake that streaked out from the pigeon's head and seemed to be connected to the body of a puppy that was running on the ground towards its location with a wagging tail.
The wasp immediately flew towards the puppy as its body dissolved into purple smoke and revealed the handsome figure of Vikram.
The puppy too dissolved into purple smoke to reveal Prakash that was gasping for breath while his skin had turned a mild shade of blue.
"Is that your doing?" Vikram asked as he pointed towards the pigeon that was engaged in a vicious fight against one of its brethren.
"Yes, I barely managed to succeed this time," Prakash took a moment to recollect his breath before replying. Moreover, as seconds passed, the mild shade of blue on his skin returned to normal while a distinct shade of blue began to permeate on the skin of the puppet pigeon and a mild rotting smell wafted out of its body.
"How long can your control over it last?" Vikram hurriedly inquired as he inspected the situation between the other pigeons and the transformed humans. The damage to their side had been piling up to a significant degree as they already began to have some casualties among their ranks.
"Don't worry; my control over it is permanent," Prakash assured him while a helpless expression appeared on his face. He didn't have any Karma that might give him a transformation with flight capabilities so he could only sit back and watch.
"This help is more than enough, thanks, brother." Vikram transformed into a wasp and streaked off towards another pigeon as he recalled Victoris towards him.
The moment Victoris emerged out from the body of the pigeon it was tussling with in the air, the puppet pigeon faltered in the air for a second before regaining its vigour after Victoris had flown far away from it.
The puppet pigeon once again engaged with its foe that had already lost a significant amount of its muscle mass and hardly had enough strength to resist its vicious attacks.
The pigeon screeched in pain as one of the lunges of the puppet pigeon's beak pierced through its eyes and removed an eyeball from within.
'Squelch'
The puppet pigeon swallowed the bloody eyeball as its eyes began to glow purple while the rotting stench on it further increased in intensity.
With another shrill cry, the puppet pigeon crashed into its pigeon foe and the resulting momentum made the two crash into the floor.
'Screech'
With a shrill cry, the puppet pigeon punctured the other eye of the pigeon and swallowed it with relish. After that, it began to devour its weakened foe while it was still alive as if such a notion was the most obvious course of action for it to take.