[ D day - 3 ] [ 56 H :30 M :30 S ] [ home town ]
In the Fox hole, things were not looking up for Vikram.
He has killed about hundred foxes by now, using himself as bait. He filled up the all-nighter genes thrice over, but agility genes are still at nine.
'Please! All Hindu gods, Christian gods, game gods and every other minority gods ! Bless me. I need the damn agility gene. I think I have suffered in surplus for the sins I committed and more by now. Please, Please, Please let an agility gene fragment drop.' He prayed.
His sword sliced through the fox biting his calf.
[ agility gene fragment 0.1 ]
Yay ..!
Vikram jumped with joy, with the fox head still attached to his calf.
From the moment he has obtained super recovery, it's as if his body has forgotten the memory of creating scars. All wounds healed cleanly.
So much so, he had a feeling if it were not the normal time, he could probably live off selling his organs.
[ Status ]
Vikram commanded mentally.
When mental commands are firm, the words show up in front of him.
[ Evolution specimen H-2234 ]
[ + dungeon orb : 1 ]
[ Evolution gene modifications : 3]
[ All Nighter : B ] [ Enduring muscles : D ] [ Super recovery : Ex+ ] [ Agility : D ]
[ night vision gene fragment 0.4 ]
When he touched the plus, it expanded to show he contained three all-nighter gene modifications in extra.
He had no idea what they were, but now that he has agility, time to stop getting bitten all the time.
Vikram moved with all of his speed.
The foxes head is sliced before it could get to hole.
While the sparrows couldn't wait to attack him, the foxes are always running away from him.
Yet, there was one fox which kept watching him lazily.
It was a blue colored fox, sitting on one of the yellow rocks as if it's watching a movie as Vikram lashed about.
Pissed at all the foxes that were running away from him, Vikram bashed his iron crowbar on the little head of the blue fox.
The moment his bar hit the fox, all the foxes reversed their tune .
So many of them were rushing for him, if he gets caught, even his bones would not be left for him to recover.
Vikram immediately started running to the edge of the foxhole. There was a giant rock there, he put his all into jumping up onto the rock with his bare feet.
This way, only then he started killing the foxes all around him, either by bashing them, or by slicing their heads.
The gene points madly accumulated as he punched his way through the foxes.
As time went on and Vikram became more and more proficient, so did his opponents.
They have become bigger, stronger, and more treacherous.
The night-vision gene fragments kept dropping. They got absorbed into Vikram as soon as they dropped, but there was no improvement in his vision.
The agility fragments have become a rare drop, after killing three hundred foxes, Vikram has only three of them.
Now, the foxes have become the size of Alsatian dogs, with thrice the aggression, he finally saw something that's rarer than the agility gene fragment.
[ Dexterous gene fragment 0.1 ]
All the same, Vikram collected it.
By now, his modus operandi was slowly changing to let the animal bite while he slices off it's head.
In the first place, he was not super athletic. Sure enough, he has a healthy young male's body, and he maintained it with exercise, but that being said, he was still an academic god type student who landed a well paying white collar job.
The most physical work his job needed is moving his fingers, not any of his muscles.
On top of that, all the martial arts he learned when young are body using martial arts, like karate, taekwondo and boxing. The maximum he reached is purple belt. Not because he has put in any effort, but because their instructor bestowed levels upon them to keep their parents paying.
He probably knows how to stand firm with his legs, but that's about it.
Rest of his knowledge comes from movies.
Among them, he only remembers few in essence.
One, he must hold the sword neither too tight, nor too loose. Some Asian movie said that, as a guy sat there cutting grass of all things. God knows why one needs to cut grass. It's not like cows are going to use chopsticks to eat perfectly sized grass noodles in a single bite.
Two, avoid what he can with minimum evasion. The short old guy in the mask of Zorro said that. He stood there with a walking stick as the hero hacked away without touching him.
Perhaps that's what he's supposed to do.
After all, the most important principle in the work is still 'keep it simple, stupid. '
Thus, he hacked away at the heads where he could, stabbed where he could, and poked out eyes where he could.
Slowly, but steadily, he discovered the pattern to the movement of the foxes.
As the dexterous gene fragments are collected, one after another.
Finally, he collected ten of them, when he sensed the danger coming for him from behind.
The slice would have lopped off his head.
Even if he had super recovery, Vikram wasn't sure he could recover from a cut that took off his head.
He fell forward and rolled sideways.
'Kala Bhairava'
That is the name they gave to the Cerberus equivalent of Indian hellhounds.
They guard the entrance of the hell, and this creature perfectly fits with the way the hell hound is described.
They were neither dogs, nor wolves, with a long snout, and even longer ears, nothing could escape their preternatural senses.
Golden fire ablaze in their eyes, light glinting of their sharp fangs, jowls with enough muscle to snap off a tree trunk if need be, and a sense of scent that could differentiate a single scent from hundreds of thousands.
No soul could escape their pursuit, no matter how cunning, no trick could be used against them forever, for they do not forget a scent once it's given.
Well, they probably looked a bit like Rottweilers if translated to dogs, but the thing is this is a fox.
The smaller animals usually made up for their small size with extraordinary strength in other areas.
For the foxes, it's their teeth, and dexterity.
This damned super boss has given plenty of power to both aspects. Though the being is attacking him in the periphery, this must be a super boss.
If it were not super boss, but a minion, Vikram would have no choice but to run away for the sake of his life.
He put away his knife-sword, and brought out the iron spike.
Vikram has specifically bought one that's overlong, and had it sharpened to a point.
He whacked the fox, and jumped down from the boulder, then ran in the direction of another, underneath which there's a crevice.
He stuffed himself into the crevice legs down, and stabbed upwards as the boss came for him.
Blood gushed down the iron spike, raining like a shower atop Vikram's head.
The wounded beast howled.
Vikram hung on to the spike as the black fox pulled back.
He fell down on the ground along with his iron spike.
He immediately rolled aside as the fox's leg came for him.
The spike fell down horizontally, and Vikram rolled towards it's tip.
It's hard for him to grab.
Vikram ran once more.
He couldn't stay near the fox boss, for he would get chopped in a single move, his super recovery is useless at such times.
He must get his knife.
Since he has thrown away his knife when he grabbed the iron spike.
The knife is still on the tall boulder. Adrenaline and agility genes helped him reach an unprecedented speed.
His mind cleared completely, save for the position of the knife on the boulder.
His feet automatically found the perfect holds as he dashed. In a single jump, he was able to get high enough to land on a boulder.
It's almost on the scale of kalaripayattu warriors.
He grabbed the knife, when he turned back, the fox boss was already coming for him.
Vikram did not hesitate.
He did a dash, and jumped up, as if he was hell bent on a head on confrontation with the fox boss.
At the last minute, he twisted.
It's a diver's twist he remembered from the news, and his execution was as sloppy as it could get. Even so, it achieved its purpose.
He collided with the fox boss's jaw, and his trajectory altered.
Thus, Vikram tried to find the hold on the black fox boss' body by digging his knife into its side.
The muscle of the foxboss is as tenacious as silicone, and it would have stretched as the knife hung on it in normal situations.
However, the fox boss is stretched taut to jump atop the boulder, so his tendons were stretched to the maximum. The wound the knife inflicted was as simple as a pinhole poking into plastic wrap.
Yet, the tension of muscles snapped, releasing their power, and in a moment, the fox boss's leg was almost hacked off.
Vikram did not remain there. He ran as if hellhounds were behind him, and to be truthful, a hellhound is indeed behind him.
He scaled the cliffs he saw as fast as possible without looking down at all.
Soon, the fox boss's body vanished in sparkles.
A red orb shone on the summit, right within his reach.
Vikram grabbed the orb, then checked his status.
[ Evolution specimen H-2234 ]
[ + dungeon orb : 1 ]
[ dungeon orb : 1 ]
[ Evolution gene modifications : 6 ]
[ All nighter : B ] [ Enduring muscles : D ] [ Super recovery : Ex+ ]
[ agility : D ] [ Dexterity : D ] [ explosive muscles : S ]