On the second floor of a high-rise apartment, four people were struggling for life against a humongous predator.
"Quick, retreat; go behind the pillar." A man shouted as he transformed into a snake and coiled around the snout of the predator.
"There is no space!" A woman held her two children with worry as she gazed to her left with resentment. A group of three people stood on an elevated platform, led by a man who sent a derisive sneer towards her.
"Beg me, and I might save you guys." The man said. His statement was immediately followed by the raucous cheers of his lackeys.
"You!" The woman raged in response to his taunt but felt helpless when she saw her husband getting cornered by the predator.
"Sheetal," The lady held the hands of her eldest daughter, "I'll create a diversion. Make sure you escape using the opportunity."
"B-But, mom," Tears streamed down Sheetal's eyes. She couldn't understand why her parents had been thrust into such a situation. They were all humans trying to survive, then why?
"Let me tell you why. Your mom and dad are traitors, hahaha." The Man from before jumped down; he hovered at a height 10 centimetres from the ground, as if he would never stoop to their level.
"My parents are not scum like you," Sheetal hollered.
"Oh, the lady's got some temper. Too bad, you have such traitorous parents." The man acted surprised but failed to conceal the disdain in his eyes.
He, Kishore, possessed a Karmic Art, something that was exclusive to him alone. It gave him enough reason to treat everyone like they were beneath him. Moreover, he was someone who had operated along with street thugs before, part of a group that belonged to the lowest rungs of the society.
In such a luxurious apartment, he wasn't even qualified to step foot into. As a mere delivery man, he always envied the rich who could live in such luxury. One day, he got the opportunity to deliver a food parcel to a house in this apartment.
When he knocked the door to the specified house for delivery, the door opened to reveal a beautiful girl in the prime of her youth. The girl happily received the parcel from him and gave him the money, all while he was in a trance, entrenched by her beauty.
As someone who had always mingled with dirty hugs all day long, such a pure beauty made many of his desires emerge.
Unable to control himself, Kishore leaped at the girl, planning to ravage her. It was then; her father noticed his actions on time and delivered him with a sound beating. As a cop, the man had enough experience to pummel the scum into a vegetable.
Upon his shouts, the neighbours too rushed towards the scene and took part in thrashing Kishore.
Somehow, Kishore managed to escape from their grasp and hurried towards his company scooter that was parked on the ground floor, 2 floors below the house.
"Just you wait, I'll be back." With eyes that were practically spewing venom, Kishore drove his scooter away.
The next day, he arrived with his band of thugs and beat up the security guards at the gate easily. They had even brought a gun and various other smuggled goods, intending to seek revenge. With bandage covering all across his limbs, Kishore actually sat on a wheelchair and had to be pushed from behind by his friend. Even his wounded state didn't satiate his desire for lust and revenge.
The cops were immediately alerted but, before they could reach the location, the apocalypse descended. In all the confusion, mayhem, and their struggles for survival, only two of his thug comrades survived. The good news was that he had obtained a Karmic Art.
After that, he sought revenge against the people who had a hand in beating him up. He enjoyed tormenting them one by one, all the while eyeing the family who were the source for everything, intending to save them for the last.
"If you promise to be mine, I will spare your parents." Kishore pinched the cheeks of Sheetal while his thug comrades laughed, making moaning sounds as they taunted her. His eyes greedily scanned through her body, the desire apparent in them.
"As if, you bastard!" Sheetal's mother slapped his hand away and transformed into a two feet long snake. The snake pounced at Kishore, intending to bite him when he transformed into a puppy.
'Splat'
Red blood spilled everywhere as the snake bit into the body of the puppy. The puppy, in turn, held the tail of the snake with its paws and bit onto the middle of its body.
"Had it been a poisonous snake, I would have been apprehensive. But, I know none of you guys possess one." Kishore thought as the puppy wriggled its head and eventually tore the snake body into two pieces.
The torn pieces of the snake body rapidly dissolved into purple smoke and gushed back into the body of the woman who had a pale face. Even though her body didn't suffer any wounds, the pain of having her snake body shredded into two pieces was completely transmitted to her, overloading her pain tolerance limits.
"Guh" The woman kneeled in pain while her eyes became clouded.
"On second glance, you too look good enough. You have maintained a good figure despite your age. I wonder how you would taste." Kishore licked his lips as he pulled at the hair of the woman and gazed at her plump but soft lips.
'Guh'
The woman fiercely resisted when he pressed his lips onto her while his hands roamed all across her body. She didn't have enough strength to resist due to the pain she was experiencing. Moreover, Kishore's brute strength overpowered her current weakened self.
"Mother!" Sheetal rushed to help her mother but was held back by a thug. Her younger brother was immediately knocked unconscious by the other thug.
"Delicious!" Kishore smacked his lips as he pushed the woman to the ground and sat on her. He used his body weight to hold her in place while the thug who had knocked out the boy held her hands.
"Leave me alone you bastards."
"Nice resistance, I like it." Kishore laughed when a loud sound interrupted his concentration.
Tracing to the source of the sound, he saw the crocodile clamping its jaws shut on a human and swallowing his mangled remains whole.
"Oops, it seems your husband just became dinner." Kishore snorted as he commanded the thug who held Sheetal.
The thug knocked Sheetal out cold and dragged the body of her younger brother towards the crocodile.
"No, stop please, no!" The woman begged as tears streamed out of her eyes but the thug did not stop.
"Too late!" Kishore whispered in her ears and locked his lips with her as the thug threw her son's body towards the crocodile.
'Bang'
The crocodile slammed its jaws and severed his body into two. It then swallowed his severed body.
"Hahahaha." Kishore laughed as he ripped open the clothes of the woman, revealing her smooth skin that glistened like Sapphire.
"On a closer note, I like you more. The two of you can enjoy the girl." Kishore said as he unleashed his Karmic Art to wrap up the limbs of the resisting woman.
Seeing that the thug was no longer required to hold her hands, he hurriedly pounced at the nearby Sheetal and tore her clothes. The other thug too jumped at her like a hungry dog.
The eyes of the woman turned vacant as she looked at the struggling figure of her daughter. A feeling of wrath emerged out from the depths of her soul as purple smoke exploded out like a volcano from her body.
"Gah, what is this?" Kishore was sent flying by the torrent of purple smoke that gushed out her body. Even his Karmic Art manifestation was sent flying by the force of expulsion.
"Oh shit. Everyone run!" Kishore exclaimed as he began to fly in the air and escape towards a certain direction. His Karmic Art gave him the capabilities of flight which he made use of to escape. He didn't care whether his thug comrades could escape or not. His life took the highest priority.
The dense purple smoke that had emerged out of the woman's body had completely turned blue by now. But, its intensity was still increasing as more and more blue smoke emerged out of her body. Two streams of blue smoke also emerged out from the stomach regions of the crocodile and entered the mix.
He had flown two metres high when something tugged him, stopping his flight with a jerk. Turning his head to take a look back, he got the scare of his life.
A human hand that had emerged out of the dense blue smoke held onto the neck of his Karmic Art manifestation.
It had a manifested appearance of a purple snake with the body of a butterfly in place of its head.
Currently, the butterfly body was struggling to escape as the vice-like grip of the humanoid hands began to crush its body.
Another hand emerged out of the blue smoke and clutched the body of the Karmic Art manifestation and pulled at it.
"Aaahhh!" Kishore screamed in fright as his body was pulled towards the blue smoke. He hurriedly transformed into a puppy and pounced at the blue smoke when something moved from within it in response to his actions.
The puppy suddenly found itself getting spun in the air by using its Karmic Art manifestation as a string with the figure in the blue smoke as the centre.
"Aaah"
One of the two thugs who was escaping towards the crocodile shouted in alarm as the body of a puppy collided into him. The sharp nails of the puppy tore his body to shreds in a matter of seconds due to the speed at which the puppy was being rotated.
The figure from within the blue smoke gazed in the direction of another thug that had transformed into a mosquito and was fleeing in the opposite direction. A serpent emerged out of the blue smoke and sped towards the mosquito, at speeds beyond what the juvenile mosquito could flee at. The thug clearly hadn't concentrated on comprehending his mosquito Karma, and hence his mosquito transformation was just a hatchling that could barely assume flight.
The snakehead swatted the mosquito which popped into a pool of red blood due to the impact. The red blood that splashed into the air abruptly turned purple and was mixed with the flesh and bone remains of the thug.
Zombies could directly attack the main body even if the human was in a transformed state.
'Bang'
The body of the puppy slammed into the face of the crocodile, enraging it. The only reason it had stationed itself in this cramped place was for the sole reason that human bodies were delivered to it at regular intervals. It had already consumed 80 humans by this point.
The crocodile snapped its jaws shut towards the puppy, intending to kill the creature that had slammed into its face. It was at this time that the figure concealed within the blue smoke pulled at the Karmic Art manifestation.
The body of the puppy abruptly flew towards the blue smoke when two pairs of hands slammed on its face. What followed next was a series of punches that broke its limbs and disfigured its face. Its jaws were also ripped apart into two, showcasing the brute strength contained within the pair of hands.
The jawless puppy dissolved to reveal the figure of Kishore whose body lay limp within the two humanoid hands. Purple blood dripped profusely from the place of his jaw which no longer existed, while somewhere on his forehead had also cracked and leaked purple blood.
His arms and legs that were twisted in various angles were plucked off one by one by the two pairs of humanoid hands, inciting shrill screams.
The blue smoke gushed into the figure, forming a vortex with it as the centre. All the permeating blue smoke was sucked into it, revealing a one-foot long humanoid creature with a serpentine head. Its upper body was fully enclosed by a thick turtle shell while its limbs were covered by a thin layer of turtle shell, looking like exoskeleton armour.
Holding his body with a chokehold, the zombie brought him closer to its serpentine face, revealing two fangs as it opened its mouth.
"…Touch…my..daughter...you...dare..?..." the shrill cries of Kishore stopped in fear after hearing the hissing voice of the Turtle Zombie.
"…." Only wheezing sounds leaked out of Kishore. After losing his jaw, he had lost his capability to speak coherently.
The Turtle zombie looked at the figure of the Karmic Art manifestation that slumped over its hands, clearly wounded beyond its limits. The only reason it couldn't dissolve into purple smoke and enter into Kishore's body was due to the Turtle zombie that prevented it from doing so.
'Gulp'
The Turtle zombie opened its serpentine jaws wide and swallowed the body of the Karmic Art manifestation whole.
The moment it was swallowed, Kishore stared at the Turtle Zombie in disbelief as his body vaporised into a puff of purple smoke.
A chain reaction got actuated within its body as a torrent of blue smoke gushed out of its stomach regions and coagulated into a cocoon that wrapped around it. It stayed in place for a few seconds before shattering to reveal the Turtle zombie from within.
It now spanned a height of 1 metre! It had increased its height to almost three times the original after swallowing the Karmic Art manifestation.
'Bang'
The turtle zombie turned towards the direction of the sound, only to gaze at the figure of the crocodile that was happily snapping the body of Sheetal into mush and swallowing her remains. It had made use of the window of opportunity to prey on the weak girl.
"Hisssss!"
The Turtle Zombie pounced at the crocodile in anger. The battle between two beasts ensued.