[ D day - 3 ] [ 14 H : 52 M : 40 S ] [ Home Town A ]
It has taken some time, but Vikram realized the butterfly is flying in a set pattern.
It is not just a coincidence or habit either.
All beings in nature are inherently balanced. To have such a great offense, the creature definitely must have sacrificed something.
The steel wings are great for slicing, but not so great for fast corner cutting. The muscle joints are not flexible.
The eyes of the creature are not good either.
While they do have the two hundred and sixty degree vision, they do not realize what's right in the front, nor what's right at the back. Unfortunately, that still doesn't mean Vikram could attack from front or back.
For in the front, there's a horn like protrusion, which Vikram was absolutely sure will extend like a spearhead in case of danger.
In the back, there are three cactus thorn-like spines right above the tail blade.
The moment he makes the move, the spines will release, hitting him right in the throat.
From their setting angle in the back of the steel butterfly, that does seem to be the case.
For the first time, Vikram thanked his lucky stars for having obtained as many vision enhancements.
Though his vision degree is still only one eighty, his ability to see depth, microscopic and megascopic obstacles has increased greatly.
Thus, he knew
First, he must take this butterfly's eyes.
To do that, a simple dart through is not enough.
In Caroms, there is a move called coin against coin. Or was it billiards ?
Doesn't matter. In any case, it's hiding another weapon in the shadow of a weapon.
Just one wouldn't be enough either, there must be two, and one more, just to be on the safe side if he fails to hit on the first challenge.
The butterfly flew in a fixed infinite pattern, filled with a mini infinite pattern flying path, just like the carriage patterned rangoli.
It's drawn with a single line swirling through dots, covering all the way. Vikram used to help his mother do this, despite it being a girly activity. Vikram used to think of playing games while doing this, imagining every crescent a valley, every meeting point a valley.
Thus, he was very much aware of the positions where the blind spot would fall in a situation like this. If it were three days before, he would have laughed in someone's face if they expected him to fight with the same fervor as a game character.
However, now, he has the gene transformations. He could easily play around, just like a video game character. Even more, if it comes down to that. After all, video games only allow set paths.
Vikram closed his eyes, and prepared himself.
There shouldn't even be a single mistake or single second delay.
As great as his healing is, it will not heal himself from being cut into a thousand pieces.
3 … 2 .. 1 . Go!
Vikram ran, every step falling at the just right place.
He did not have any great weapons, but he has steel bearing balls in his hand,
Six of the balls were flicked with explosive muscles in succession. One pair to the right, second pair to the left at a tilted thirty degrees, third to the right again at tilted ten degrees.
The butterfly avoided the first set of bearing balls as expected.
The second set hit one, bashing the eye in.
The butterfly automatically swerved away from the direction that hurt it, but the force of the fourth steel ball tilted it back to the left a little.
The steel balls flicked to the right hit in the right eye in succession.
[ Steel transform mod 0.1 ]
The rest of the dungeon was easy. There were ten more such butterflies, all with a different path, but same weak points.
Figuring out such puzzles is child's play for Vikram.
There were two more swarms of butterflies, with two, four and eight in them respectively, but Vikram solved them one by one. That is how Vikram discovered, the steel butterflies are deaf.
They also have tunnel vision. Their blindspots are greater in range than he expected.
After that, it was easy to take down a swarm.
The ceiling started coming off after the steel butterflies were dead.
It is only then did Vikram realize.
There was a reason all the other minions are small. They are just babies.
Talin said in one of his ramblings … that some one thought all dungeons started at the same time. More time they remain uncleared, the more the creatures within them grow.
However, no matter how great a creature is, there is one thing they could not escape. That is time.
Despite all their magical properties, the beasts within the portal abide by certain natural laws. They all age. They all die.
This must be the queen mother, though butterflies are not like bees.
The gigantic wings fluttered, creating a cyclone within the dungeon.
Vikram hid behind a boulder.
The butterfly is a veritable mothra in size. Yes, he is referring to that villainous butterfly which leaned on Tokyo's giant wheel, empire state building and eiffel tower to make its cocoon.
There's no way he could get this thing from the ground.
Vikram poked his head out, the next minute, a spike the size of a tree trunk passed right beside him, skewering boulders like they are nothing but soft rice balls.
Then the antenna shook, shaking off all skewered boulders.
This seems to be a spear fishing type insect.
A Gigantic mouth descended right next to him, drool dripping off it's far too big and sharp incisors. Vikram froze in shock. The gene traits are good and all, but unlike humans, animal's ability to sense predators is too good.
Once an unbeatable predator is met like this particular Mothra, his hands and legs froze, despite his very human brain. If the habit remains, he would one day become an infinite refill luncheon meat for a lucky dungeon beast.
Thankfully, this proved to be one time that this habit has actually come in use.
The gigantic white eye that looked at him is all white.
The being seemed to be hunting based on sense of smell and sound, even those, quite poor compared to other butterflies.
In one word, this Mothra looked old.
Vikram commanded in his mind.
[ Inventory ]
Thankfully, it world, as did the browsing the inventory.
There is still that one locally made grenade in his hands. It's a fluke, but still, this is the best chance he would get.
In a single move, he retrieved the grenade, pulled the pin out and threw it into screaming Mothra's mouth, which was coming straight for him.
As soon as he finished this series of actions, he fell flat on his face.
The Mothra bit just where he was.
It lifted it's head to poke at him, the next moment, the bomb went off.
The spear struck the ground, right besides Vikram's head.
[ Skywings beast armor 1 ]
[ gigantification 1 ]
There were ten other different types of mods, each with a number greater than one.
However, only one attracted him.
[ Winged bone structure mod 3.2 ]
This ended far simpler than Vikram had expected.
Thus, Vikram decided to come out early to celebrate. Also, this way, he may fill some of the gap in his inventory.
He decided to buy most of the stuff available, especially food.
This time, I opened the camouflage uniform, wore it.
Then, he applied camouflage to himself, rushed out of the portal.
Just like yesterday, there were an incredible number of cameras set up for him, many, with excessive motion detection capability.
Unfortunately for them, by now, Vikram had a reaction speed far greater than a normal person. Moreover, the portal is guarded by the army. He mixed in the crowd before the men could catch him.
Probably some of the most efficient cameras would have caught him.
However, humans definitely did not notice his movement.
One moment, he was not there, the next, he was standing beside a soldier, waving goodbye.
Vikram rushed down the stairs on the mountain, slowing only when he reached an area where there was no one.
He opened his phone, started walking down, like the decadent youths of these days, who are stuck to their phones.
However, the moment he opened his phone, the notifications rang like a flood.
There was a message from Vinod.
There is more than five hundred thousand cash in his paypal account. All of it was deposited in the past few hours.
Seems there are more than enough people who are willing to buy information for cash.
Then, he swept it away, and looked at the news.
The news all over is dominated by the information in his little essay.
The anchors have taken over the points, then publicized a few things.
The first is, there is one portal for a hundred thousand or more populace. Though, there is no rule that there must be at least one dungeon per hundred thousand people.
If it were so, state capital, which has an unofficial census of almost five million, would be overflowing with dungeons. However, there were only five.
The news guy explained this, then he said..
' Now we take a small commercial break. ' immediately, Vikram closed off his phone.