"I plan to organise another raid tonight. We strike the moment we have recovered," Vikram said. There was a stoic expression on his face that looked like he had resolved to fight until the bitter end.
Vidya collapsed the moment she heard his imperial decree. She still hadn't overcome the fact that they had lost about five percent of their population in the previous raid that ended in a grand failure, not to mention every capable warrior in their base had expended the entirety of their accumulated Karma and also had their Skill manifestations regressed to the lowest possible levels.
Vikram hurriedly supported the body of Vidya and helped her regain her bearings as he gazed at the surrounding members that averted their gazes, looking like they were ready to give up the fight before it had even started. Vikram shook his head as if he had expected their reaction before.
It was to be expected after all; all of their efforts had ended without bearing any fruit. The Lego structures they had painstakingly built were damaged to various degrees, the Skill manifestations whose attainment they had increased with even greater difficulties had regressed to the starting point, and they had also lost a greater portion of the ablest warriors from their base, severely impacting the strong manpower they could dispatch for future situations.
"And no, I won't force you guys to join. I'll be leading it myself, even if I'm the sole participant," Vikram said.
There was only one reason he was in a rush. Within the span of an hour, they had lost more than a hundred of their members to the birds, despite the fact that the ones that attacked their base were just a smaller portion of all the birds that had camped in the cinema halls.
Had it been the eagles instead of the pigeons and the crows that had attacked them, their entire base could have been destroyed.
Out of the 10 cinema theatres, they had witnessed the destruction of the largest cinema theatre which probably housed the maximum number of humans during their raid. They had permanently lost a huge source of future potential warriors because of that.
Moreover, the longer they delayed, the greater the time the birds will have to drill their way into the other 9 cinema theatres. Without any influx of fresh blood and as they continued to face one battle after another, their population would continue to dwindle until all of them died.
As their population decreased, their casualties would also increase in a proportional manner. And considering the frequency of the attacks they faced on an hourly basis, their annihilation may well be by the end of the week.
"Don't worry, I have your back," Prakash reassured the youth. As someone who possessed a Karmic and a Minor Art, Prakash could swiftly recover his strength, unlike the other warriors in their base who had to steadily accumulate Karma and attainment levels.
"Then what do you propose we do in the meantime? Currently, none of us have enough strength to participate in the next raid. We have also exhausted our supply of insect corpses, so gaining any Karma at present is a huge question mark." Shreya said.
As one of the few who hadn't participated in the previous battle and had still retained most of her combat ability, Shreya was the least affected by their loss.
"Before that, how many able-bodied birds have we obtained through our conversion?" Vikram replied with a question of his own.
"We currently have 3 pigeons and 5 crows whose injuries aren't severe enough to impact their flight capabilities. There are 3 more crows available, but they are significantly injured, to the extent that even walking is impossible for them."
"How long will it require for us to mend their injuries?"
"A week at the very least."
"Then kill them and absorb their Karma," Vikram said. "Prakash and I will arrange for something in the meantime. We'll also ensure that every human in our base will possess a Skill by the end of the night."
Vikram motioned for everyone present to disperse. They were incapable of providing any good ideas in their current state, so he might as well continue with his own plan.
On noticing that they were still seated in their seats and indecisive about their next course of action, Vikram sighed as he took charge to walk out of the room first.
"If we never struggle to survive first, then we no longer have the qualifications to breathe in this despairing world," Prakash said as he too walked out.
The eyes of the other people widened in realisation as they craned their heads towards the source of the voice, but Prakash was long gone.
The duo then walked towards an open place where 8 birds were kept side-by-side and picked a bird that looked to be the least injured among the lot.
Purple smoke gushed out of the pores on his skin and transformed into his mini Shaggy, which entered the head of the crow. The eyes of the crow regained a feeling of sentience as it flapped its wings in a display of regained vitality.
The duo climbed atop it and took off towards the first floor of the shopping mall and landed atop a shelf that peaked out of the reddish-brown waters. Alighting from the crow's back, the duo noticed numerous fishes swimming about and biting each other in the turbulent waters below.
There was a similarity between all the fighting fishes; it was the presence of numerous cancer-like sprouts that grew all over their streamlined bodies. Moreover, the more the fishes killed and devoured the similarly affected fishes, the faster the cancer-like sprouts grew on their bodies.
A fish that spanned a metre long had its entire body filled with such sprouts. It was one of the fishes that actively engaged in the slaughter of the other fishes. Every time the cancer-like sprouts grew on its body, tremendous pain accompanied it which was followed by an intense sense of desire that clouded its mental capacity.
Even though consuming it hurt its body, the fish still wanted to devour more of that substance, the substance that was capable of heightening its sense of self.
The one-metre long fish had long since lost its reason and wantonly engaged in slaughter until a sprout on its body had grown big enough to equate the size of its head. The sprout then exploded into a pool of yellowish puss that dissolved into the surrounding waters.
The moment the sprout exploded, like a chain reaction, all the other sprouts that littered its body began to explode one by one. The fish thrashed in pain but the sprouts continued to burst one by one, as if they were following a chronological order.
In a matter of seconds, the eyes of the fish had dimmed as all of the sprouts that covered its body had burst by now; it had died a horrible death, something it hadn't expected was possible when it devoured the fishes that had swallowed some of that substance.
There were huge gaping holes that had formed all across its body, displaying bits and pieces of flesh that were covered in a yellowish puss.
An empty space devoid of activity had formed in the water surrounding it where no fish dared to swim across. Something about the composition of the yellow puss that had dissolved in the waters repulsed the fishes, making them swim away from the source.
"Why does this always happen? Are our bodies really that delicious?" Vikram mumbled as he observed the turbulent activities of the fishes.
"It's like the strongest drug in the world to them, they can never resist its allure. Anyway, forget about such things. Time is running short, we have to recover quickly. You can use the Gharial for now and regain some Karma," Prakash said as purple smoke gushed out of the pores on his skin and transformed into Ugly Shaggy that entered the body of the crow and took control of its body.
The crow then flapped its wings and flew into the air, steadily increasing its altitude. After it had flown high up, the crow began to glide towards the water surface, rapidly increasing its velocity of descent.
When it was 3 feet above the water surface, the crow bared its claws and unfurled its wings wide, changing the angle of attack of the flowing wind that touched the front edges of its wings that made its body instantly assume a path similar to the word 'U'. At the bottom-most point of its flight path where its velocity was the highest, its sharp claws clutched onto the body of a fish swimming in the water closest to the surface and picked it out of the water on its way up.
The crow used its momentum gained during its high-speed descent and increased its height rapidly during the followup ascent in a matter of seconds and threw the captured fish towards the staircase.
'Thump'
The fish flew in the air like a projectile and impacted squarely at the edge of one of the steps. The resulting impact rattled its organs to such an extent that it lost consciousness while its body subconsciously twitched on the surface due to a lack of air.
Gazing once towards the fish to note that it could no longer wriggle its way into the waters, the crow began to increase its altitude once again, hoping to execute the same manoeuvre to capture more fishes.
Noticing that Ugly Shaggy controlled the crow in an exceptional manner without his inputs, Prakash had his worries dissipate as he lay down and manifested his 'Record'.
Gazing at the rows of Karma of the creatures he possessed, Prakash pondered about the creature he had to concentrate to increase his strength for the next raid.
"All the battles I have faced here and will be facing in the future are all fought in the air. So, maybe I should focus on flight-related creatures first? But I shouldn't forget about my Dog Karma, that 'Karmic Lightning' that Ugly Shaggy can unleash is really powerful and can drastically increase my chances of survival," Prakash pondered further and decided to raise the comprehension of Pigeon Karma first.
In the previous battle, the fact that he couldn't assume a strong transformation in the air lead to his severe injuries which rendered him helpless for the rest of the battle until he was saved by the other warriors from the base.
Closing his eyes, Prakash concentrated on his Pigeon Karma and entered the land of his dreams while his mini Victoris rushed towards the fishes the crow had piled atop the steps and plunged into them. As it began to devour their flesh, one of the fishes that the crow had thrown first had died due to suffocation. A purple snake then gushed out of its dead body and travelled towards Prakash.
Near his sleeping figure, the body of the huge Victoris and a mini Shaggy hovered beside Vikram who was still in a pondering state. As he looked beside him at the figure of Prakash who had already begun to sleep comfortably, Vikram gave a mental input to his mini Shaggy.
The mini Shaggy elongated its serpentine body and swam towards the steps where the body of a huge reptilian creature was resting. The hulking mass of the reptilian creature looked like a mountain range in comparison to the tiny dog face of the mini Shaggy.
The moment the mini Shaggy entered the body of the Gharial, its scaly eyes shot open in response as it wriggled its fat body into the waters. Its moments currently were sluggish as compared to when Ugly Shaggy had controlled it, but his mini Shaggy still did a fine job as the Gharial plunged into the reddish-brown waters without making a single speck of sound.
The Gharial opened its long narrow maw and turned its head sideways in rapid action of force, clutching the bodies of a couple of unfortunate fishes in its wake. The Gharial clamped its jaws shut as blood spurted out of the gaps in its teeth and spilled into the surrounding waters. It then spat out the mangled bodies of the two fishes that had been ripped into a few pieces each and proceeded to pounce upon the other fishes.
Victoris took this opportunity to pounce upon the bodies of the dead fishes and began to devour their flesh. A steady stream of Karma entered his body as Victoris gorged on all the dead fishes.
Purple snakes of all shapes and sizes rose out of the reddish-brown waters and rushed towards his body as Vikram hurriedly concentrated on his Pigeon Karma and began to sleep.
A moment after he was sound asleep, tens of purple snakes entered into his body and activated his 'Purple Transformation', turning his eyes and hair purple while the veins all across his body bulged in response.
The two puppet creatures continued with their massacre while the purple snakes that emerged out of their corpses added to the Karma accumulation of the duo.
The time they wake up next will signal the start of the second raid.