I opened my eyes in the middle of a dense pine forest, lying along the 45 degree slope of the mountain we were on. A sensation of panic gripped my heart as soon as I heard a twig snapping from above.
"Wake-up!!! Guyss!!!" I cried out in a mixture of shout and whisper.
Anik stood up instantly and went for his back with his hands, only to find nothing there. My hands had already started working as soon as I noticed that.
"Tsk, we don't even have weapons!!!" Anik stated with frustration. "Get up!! You two!!!"
"Take this!" I handed Anik a simple bow, strung tight with a Tether attached to it.
"What the fuck? What is this skill? Aksharas?" his face was a mixture of surprise and panic.
"Ask questions later!" I said kneading a circular training shield. While the bow was made with flexibility in mind, I made the shield thinking of a sponge at the back and metallic at the front. The weapons were probably not even created like that, but this was what I had as a general idea about them.
"Wake up! Dweep!" I kicked his thigh and dropped the shield on his chest.
"What the?" he muttered, "Are we back? We should get ready for school, right?"
"It's not time for school, you idiot!!!" Anik shouted, a Kundalini arrow already knocked onto the red bow.
Dweep got over his confusion and stood in front of Anik, covering all three of us.
I started kneading a curved sword thinking about flexibility and elasticity like a whip while summoning my Kundalini. Dweep was earnestly looking at my wiggling hands with a gloomy face.
"Look in front of you!!" I commanded him as he recollected his composure.
"Dweep, coordinate with me until Dhruva wakes him up. Our main priority is to stay alive for now." Anik started giving out orders.
As I slapped Saiyan's face, the bushes in our surroundings rustled, casting shadows of dog like beasts all around us. The fleeting shadows kept piling mental pressure upon us, making us unable to decide whether to fight, flight or hold our ground.
I didn't even ask his crush's name so that I can use it in cases like this!!!
"Wakeyy Wakeyy Saiyannn!!! It time for War!!" Dweep suddenly shouted out loud, as the shadows stopped for a millisecond, flinching because of the sudden sound. The startled Anik, let out an arrow accidentally, that sailed through the air and hit something with a 'shuck' sound. A cry echoed through the forest as aggressive growling sounds followed, vibrating the air around us.
Undulating flames of Kundalini lit up like will o' wisps over a dark swamp as a dreadful feeling rolled over me, forcing me to slap Saiyan too hard out of desperation, imprinting my hand on his cheek and prompting him to sit up in a frenzy. He looked around once and jumped up to a standing position, taking the Kundalini Sword from my hand.
Just for a second, an idea lit up in my mind. If they use my Kundalini weapons to kill Asuras, will it count as my kill? It will be mine right?
I pushed down the smirk that was on the verge of creeping up on my lips. Concentrate.
With seven or more howls, that came from different directions, the onslaught of Wolf shaped Rakshashas commenced.
Saiyan moved to the front and intercepted a white wolf covered in green Kundalini. His sword struck, stopping halfway into its neck as steaming hot yellowish blood burst out like a fountain.
Using the Tether, I circulated the Kundalini like a chainsaw along the blade as the white wolf fell down, decapitated. Three arrows flew out in quick succession, piercing various points of a big gray wolf that had glowing Kundalini tattoos over its body instead of a flame. Interesting. It retreated back to the shadows to recover. Meanwhile Dweep had moved behind me, putting me between Saiyan and himself with Anik on my right. My auxiliary and main chakra were already empty after I made the weapons, making me use up two Prana points to fill up both of them upto a satisfactory proportion.
I kept an eye out for potential hidden enemies that might be planning a stealth attack.
Panna!! Search out a Shakti Rekha!!
"Shit!! What are we even supposed to do with 2 points of Kundalini!!!" Anik complained.
Dweep stopped two wolves that slammed into his shield, shaking the ground below my feet with a light tremor, giving me a signal to feed more Kundalini into his shield to make spikes that protruded out from the front face of the shield.
Blood poured out from the faces of the Rakshashas, but they were far from dead. I again used up two points of Prana to fill up my chakras, as I had lost them instantly trying to materialise the spikes.
"This won't do." Saiyan commented swinging his sword to fend away a wolf that was already keeping its distance without pouncing on us.
"They're trying to tire us out. We need to think of something. And fast!!" Dweep exclaimed.
"How much more Kundalini can you still siphon out?"Saiyan asked me.
"Don't worry about me."
"Do that chainsaw thing again. I'll cut down some trees to create a little commotion." he suggested.
We nodded and decided to go with that. I used up two points of Kundalini, to circulate it faster, as Saiyan and Dweep broke out from the formation. With two strikes, Saiyan felled a tree. Rustling sounds came from up above as the pine tree tilted and slammed against a neighbouring tree, getting stuck there without any further movements.
"Shitt!!! Why did it fall in that angle!!!" Anik panicked.
Suddenly, Kundalini flared around Dweep as he slammed with his shield against the stem of the half fallen tree changing its angle and sending it down through the gaps of the trees. A few whelps and growling sounds followed, marking the start of our marathon.
"Run!!!!" Saiyan shouted as we bolted down the slope, with Dweep at the front slowing us considerably down.
"Just Roll down!! Why are you using your legs!" Shouted Anik.
"Tell that to me after you kill atleast a single wolf. What were those pathetic arrows huh?" Dweep argued from the front.
With Saiyan at our back, we bolted down through the gaps of the trees trying not to jump and stay close to the slope. We could hear the beastly gasps of the Rakshashas right at the back of our necks.
There was a powerful thud that signified a wolf pouncing on us, as Saiyan turned around and sliced off its paw. But it was not going down like that. Swinging it's other arm at the same moment, it almost shredded Saiyan's sword arm, sending flesh and skin flying everywhere.
"Keep running!!" I shouted back at him, "I can take care of that. Just don't get amputated!"
I sent a Kundalini Tether towards Saiyan's arm and activated Recovery while running.
"Keep going down. Just a few kilometres down." Panna alerted me.
"Keep going! A Rekha is nearby!!" I rallied the information converting another point of Prana to keep Recovery going.
Dweep power bashed through the individual wolves that had stayed here to ambush us at the lower elevations. We realised that the main force was above us, right at our backs.
"Panna! Any suggestions? We would be overrun otherwise!!!"
"There's about 12 points of Prana left," she replied, "Let's try out 'one with the nature' skill. You can keep moving your body, I'll take control of the trees nearby using the skill. Just make sure to touch any plant near you while you're going down."
At this moment, it was like Panna was using my body itself. My senses widened, making me aware of even the smallest spider on one of the leaves of a tree I just spanked while running.
I made sure to touch a few shrubs and parasitic vines that seemed to grow along the trunks of the trees here in this forest. My palm got caught in a thorny bush, but I jerked it out causing massive bleeding as pieces of my flesh remained stuck to its thorns. I could hear the rustling and howling of the wolves as they got trapped in the vines or shackled by the thorny bushes controlled by Panna. The pack kept falling behind as more plants in the forest came to our rescue.
We finally arrived at the flatlands and saw a small mountain spring flowing across.
"That's it." Panna pointed out as soon as my vision captured the stream.
"The line goes through the stream. Let's make it a base!" I shouted info.
"We might be surrounded on both sides!" Saiyan noted the risks of choosing that position.
"I'll also get slowed down because of the running water" Dweep let me know.
"As long as I am sitting on the Rekha, you guys won't die. Trust me."
"Just listen to him. You haven't seen him in action." Anik told Dweep to ease his concerns.
We made our formation on the stream. I sat on the river bed, with water upto my chest, while the other four took my north-east, south-east and western sides, standing in the knee deep stream.
"Automatic mode! Field of Protection! Recovery!" I whispered as green energy radiated from my body.
"Whoa! I can use more arrows with this."
"Try to activate the chainsaw mechanism as soon as the sword makes contact."
"Focus on the other two, it will take a lot to kill me. Just use heals when it's serious." Dweep suggested after the other two.
"Take them out!!" I said and closed my eyes starting to filter Shakti directly from the Rekha, "Saiyan, make sure to shout out just before using your sword, I won't be able to concentrate if I keep looking around. Anik, I'll use a Tether on you. Let me know when you require more Kundalini."
Saiyan sliced his sword through the air cutting a red arc, but a brown wolf easily dodged. It circled and jumped over the stream trying to change targets. Dweep kept covering the line of vision of two bleeding wolves one of which has already lost its vision. The wolves on Anik's side were the most aggressive. They understood that it was our Achilles' heel and kept attacking that part incessantly. Whenever a beast came close Anik changed to melee mode and started whacking them with the bow.
Saiyan killed another one of the wolves, as the stream started getting tainted with yellow serum, the decapitated head being lodged between some rocks upstream. Suddenly something slammed into me, sending my head underwater, water filling up my nostrils, burning and stinging, since I was still midway through the process of inhaling fresh air. I coughed and sneezed out water from my nasal cavity and oesophagus, only to see the stream turning red.
Anik's body was floating on the stream, his leg broken and sticking out of the water in an impossible angle, his hand which was devoid of muscle exhibited bones at multiple places.
"This was a really bad idea. We should have kept running." Dweep complained after the milk had already spilled.
I withdrew field of protection and used only targeted recovery on Anik, so that he won't lose his life.
As his bleeding stopped and color returned to his face, I stepped up.
"Dweep, just keep Anik safe." I said and activated Wood Flesh all over my body. I still have 5 points of mana to spare, with 6 points currently. That will give me about twenty minutes of action.
17 stat points to strength, and 8 points to stamina.
What a waste...
"Let's go."
"Yeah." Saiyan was clearly surprised at my transformation, but only said what was needed at that moment.
Sharpening the end of my wooden hands, I coated only those parts with moving Kundalini, and tackled the wolves directly.
I was delusional. A single swipe of a wolf's paw left three deep claw marks on my chest, penetrating the protective bark covering my body as I shoved my hand somewhere in the direction of the attack. It happened so fast that I could only hope that my offensive hit the target, didn't matter where on its body. Fighting is so fast paced and crazy, I thought, after retreating back to the stream.
"You won't be able to see most of the attacks in a fight. Go with your intuitive feeling. You'll feel pressure just a few milliseconds early, at the place you're going to get hit." Saiyan shouted, swinging his sword at the red wolf in front of him unsuccessfully. We were too inexperienced. Even after getting training for all these years since his childhood, Saiyan was struggling with these Rakshashas. What was 'I' supposed to do?
I realised I didn't have the capacity to take down enemies one on one right now. I'll be Saiyan's shield instead, I thought and ran to where he was.
"Use me as bait. I can take a few hits with this Armor." I notified and stood before him.
S: "Wrap your hands around your head and use your shoulders to tackle. If I don't have to worry about keeping myself alive, I can take out a few more."
D: "Okay" I followed.
The wolves also lost their patience and came out into the light. It might be a diversionary tactic, you can never know.
"Dweep, be careful. Notify us if you see anyone attacking from our blind spots."
"Yes!"
There were six wolves surrounding us currently. Two of them circled behind, as I and Saiyan stood back to back. None of our plans were working. Makes sense, we had no training in battle tactics. We were just imitating things we have seen in movies, where they don't even tell in details how the heroes won. Everything just seemed to work out for them.
I had arrived at the stream for the Shakti Rekha tactic, but it didn't work. Running away won't work either, we would easily get overrun. Fighting doesn't happen properly with only one guy doing all the killing.
My Kundalini and Prana kept decreasing through the Tether, that went into the recovery of Anik. I had three more usable Prana left.
"Fuck it. I'm going out front!" I shouted and pounced on one of the wolves, grabbing its neck and planting my legs to the ground. I felt a pressure on my stomach and tried to twist myself away, but the impact came faster than expected, removing more bark from my torso. It violently shook its head, trying to throw me off but I still held on. So many stat points in strength need need to work right? I suddenly felt hot liquid all over my body as I fell down, the detached head of the wolf clutched within my arms as if I was holding a pillow.
Realising one is down, I got up fast and prepared for the next.
"Behind you!!" Dweep shouted as I turned around following his direction and saw Saiyan already struggling below another wolf that was trying to bite his head off. I aimed for its eyes and rushed, trying to penetrate my sharp wooden hand tip into its skull. Moving Kundalini!! I whispered, coating the tip with violent energy and pierced the wolf through its cheek.
Getting stuck there, I slammed my other hand like a hammer twice, right at the wolf's forehead crushing it, depleting the life force of the wild animal.
A terrible pressure fell over my back as I braced myself and jumped forward, successfully dodging the attack from behind. The ground cracked right at the spot where the paw landed as I looked back in horror thinking what might have happened if I reacted a little late.
"Dweep, I need some heads up!" I turned to where he was and saw him already holding off two wolves.One was biting his shoulder and the other kept pouncing and banging its paws against the shield he was carrying. Blood flowed from his shoulder like he was taking a shower. Anik lay below, between Dweep's two legs that acted as a final pillar between him and his assailants.
Panna levelled up as Saiyan crawled out of the now dead wolf.
5 points to Agility. No choice!! I need to be able to respond to the attacks and also run away if needed.
There were still four more wolves left, with the seventh one which was hiding stealthily, dying by my hands just a few moments ago. Witnessing how we slaughtered their friends one by one, they took no chances and rushed at us together. Two who were already with Dweep and the other two towards us. Their aggressive claws and teeth threatened to tear us apart, as if they were butchering little helpless poultry birds. Pieces of my right hand flew away somewhere, the naked skin of my chest and stomach were exposed, through the torn bark and clothes that were once wrapped over me. I swung my hands in a frenzy, hitting the wolf that attacked me once or twice. We were like two beasts, devoid of any logic, hell bent on tearing each other to pieces.
My new agility points were helping, only a bit, as I somehow deflected the claws away from my vital points. I need to get close for a good hit, but I can't do that without getting pounded myself as things stood. The wolf got hold of my right leg between its teeth, penetrating through the layer of barks and scraping against my thigh bone. Intense pain threatened to paralyse my brain, but I grit my teeth, enduring it, stretching out my left hand upwards and bringing it down in a motion imitating soldiers planting a flag on the hard ground. My hand pierced through the back of its neck at the top, and travelled all across its body, coming out of from below its neck, tattering its organs, food pipes, and spilling them on the ground.
I fell back trying to stand up, only to find one of my legs missing. A bloody chewed up leg lay stuck within the maw of the beast I just slayed. Saiyan was still standing after killing the one engaging him, both red and yellow blood staining his body, as he ran towards the two final wolves assaulting Dweep and Anik currently.
Only two usable points of Prana left now. Shit.
I crawled over and pulled my leg out, placing it at its original place, while activating Recovery. Subconsciously, I knew I won't be able to connect them with the amount of energy I had left. Leaving my healing for later, I again turned around to see what was happening on the other side. Anik now lied between Saiyan and Dweep who were now confronting one wolf each. How best to utilise these last two points of Prana?
Snake. Durable. Bind. I released Kundalini worth one Prana point and rolled it between my hands, as if I were rubbing them in front of a camp fire trying to keep myself warm. The Kundalini, now shaped like a thick rope slithered towards the wolf in front of Dweep. Repeating the same procedure, I released another one, after converting the last of my Prana point, leaving a bit only for Recovery, just enough to stop my bleeding and create a thin blocking skin over the leg wound. With my Prana standing at 1 and every other energy at 0, I didn't have the will to keep my eyes open anymore.
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I opened my eyes to a dark sky. It was night I guess, with a campfire burning beside me. The momentary tip-tap sounds as the firewood burnt gave a pleasant feeling to my mind. My right side was heavy, as if the tremendous pain had tensed all my muscles to the max, and now they were lying like dead logs. My detached leg was laid right next to face. Who the fuck is pranking me like that?
Sitting up, I saw Anik leaning against a tree. Saiyan and Dweep were cooking raw wolf meat I guess, using rib bones as the sticks for holding kebabs.
"Take these and replenish your Prana." Dweep handed me two ribs containing three chunks of meat each. I devoured them and waited for my Prana to increase.
"Saiyan's Manipura chakra was finally helpful." Dweep commented pointing at the fire. "Don't know why he never used it against the wolves."
Manipura was fire attributed, I realised. Ohh...
"My Kundalini is Earth based, his fire energy will decimate the sword made out it." I sighed and answered to Dweep's accusation. Next week we were also supposed to get our personal dimensional storage cracks. We could have given a better performance if this happened at the end of next week.
"What happened? How did you defeat the last two?" I asked, gulping down the final piece of chewy and smelly meat.
"Dweep slammed his spiky shield penetrating the brain of one of them, I took care of another one. Both the wolves were going crazy after two snakes entered their ears." Saiyan answered.
"You can thank me later." Panna sent a message this time. We were now on different dimensions then.
"How's he?" I flicked an eyebrow at Anik.
"Better than you. You can attach that back right?" Dweep was unusually caring this time. Did something happen between Saiyan and him when we were out cold? Why was he talking to me respectfully while being so rude to Saiyan?
I looked at them and stared for a few seconds.
"Whatever problems you had, make sure to sort it out before I complete mine and Anik's healing." I said seriously as both of them looked away from each other, in totally opposite directions.
"Three more levels left. The wolf Rakshashas were surprisingly rich in experience." Panna's message notified. Her status was now level 7, increasing twice. I can meet her again after three level ups. These Rakshashas were weird. I thought Rakshashas were humanoid shape shifters. But these were essentially beasts, without making tactics and all, just following basic hunting procedures that wolves followed. They also didn't resurrect.
Saiyan helped me sit in the mountain stream, while Anik was brought by Dweep. They sat around, keeping me in the middle. Anik's unconscious body was leaned against Dweep, and Saiyan held my detached leg where it was supposed to be.
Green light flowed out of me as I activated my healing mode, with the Shakti filtering and Recovery powered by field of protection running all at once.
I had gained seven Prana points after eating the wolf Rakshasha meat. Over the next three hours we stayed like that, recovering until we were good as new, as both my skills levelled up once.
Anik woke up after we set camp and saw me feasting on the next round of meat. When you're low on Prana, even smelly and burnt meat tastes gourmet.
"I thought I would open my eyes directly at the Gurukul after losing one life." Anik sighed with relief.
"We don't even know if the dimensional jump will work like that under these circumstances." Saiyan corrected him.
"Where in the World are we?" Dweep asked, "What if it takes more than six days to return and our parents find us missing?"
This guy...he's asking the correct questions.
"Let's bring their claws and teeth back. Rakshasha by products might be useful." I commented, thinking about loots from video games.
"Leave it to me." Anik said and went off to work with two skewers. "Gotta work for the grace i received."
"Are they even Rakshashas or just mutated wild beasts?" I asked Saiyan, "What do you think?"
"I think this is a dimension where beasts like these are common place. They are about three times bigger than our wolves. Probably of Asuran descent."
I had questions regarding how humanoid Asuras could progenate wild beasts, but decided not to ask it now.
"What can be a good gameplan for returning back to our dimension? Without you know... offing ourselves..." Anik asked while skinning a white wolf, the first one that was killed. They have brought back the carcasses from the uphill too, how hungry were they?
My eyes fell over the body of a tattooed wolf, which was probably one the last ones to get killed after I had fainted. It had Kundalini running over those tattoos. 'What an interesting mutation' I had thought the first time seeing it.
Me: "Keep that one intact. I need to take a look."
A: "Ahh, okay."
S: "Right now, even with a good enough knowledge about the Lokas, I have no idea where we are. We can be anywhere among the seven lower Lokas."
Coming back to the Loka topic, the multistoried building contains 14 floors. 7 below the Marta are for 'dubbed' evil beings, and the 6 above are for the good and righteous beings. In simpler words, above for winners, below for losers. And we, the lost lambs, are sandwiched between their eternal war of pillaging and evicting each other from their current places.
Marta Loka is like a buffer, anything that wants to go above has to leave a trail of Destruction through our dimension. Whatever the case, we common people are sacrificed one way or another.
Saiyan continued, "But considering the demonic wolves, it is possible we are not very deep into the lower Lokas. Just fatal enough for young Rakshaks without proper training, to lose a life."
"Any deeper and we would come across multi headed snakes that can gobble up all of us in an instant, if the stories about Ancient Nagas are true. The ones that came during Vrata were just puppies compared to what's there underneath." Anik added.
"How do we go up then?" Dweep asked holding my Kundalini shield. Without the Tethers the weapons are just inanimate objects without the spike or chainsaw functions. Good thing they didn't vanish away somewhere. Living Aksharas need to move by themselves so they probably vanish when their energy is consumed concluding from this.
"You two can sleep now until daybreak. Me and Anik have slept enough I guess. We'll watch over you guys."
Saiyan and Dweep nodded and lied down on two opposite sides of the fire turning away from it. Did they resolve their problems? Who knows, I better not butt into things like these.
Anik came to sit beside me after skinning and extracting claws and teeth from the wolves. He showed me some yellowish gems that were inside the wolves.
"Whoa, they have blood clots within their bodies?" I asked remembering the color of the blood that spilled from the beasts."Dweep must have whacked them quite hard with his shield."
"No, these are the chakras of Asuras and their descendants. If you cut out our body, you'll find different shaped extra organs within, though right now there'll only be a single one, but it'll increase later. For Asuras, they have a single chakra, strong enough to work in a capacity equivalent to the seven in ours. Take this, only one among the six beasts had this. You deserve it for saving one of my lives." Anik handed it to me.
Is there something I can do with this? I can think of it as an engine right? If I put this into a living Akshara, what will happen?
I created a small rabbit and placed the core on its head. It bounced around me and Anik but di nothing special. Everything remained the same even after I pulled it out. It just jumped around happily without a care in the world.
"We'll figure out something. Just keep it for now." he said and looked up into the sky. It was just a normal sky, like the one back at Alik, but with a lot less light pollution than our cities.
"Wait...!" Anik suddenly put out the camp fire with some water from the stream and cried out. "There must be a town nearby. Look!!"
Saiyan and Dweep woke up due to the commotion.
"What in the Naraka broo..." Dweep was angry, "My eyes had closed just a few moments before..."
I stifled a smile, thinking hell was actually called Naraka in here. Dweep must have been preparing this for a while.
"Yep, seems like it." Saiyan agreed, taking a look at the night sky with some barely noticeable yellow hue.
We packed up some food and the tattooed wolf skin in another pelt, and started moving towards the light. A stupid decision, probably, but we needed information to formulate some kind of plan, as soon as possible. We can rest after that.
Cloaking our Kundalini, we moved through the forest, rustling through the shrubs and snapping the branches in our path, not an acceptable method, but we could hardly see in the darkness. Just as we entered a clearing, we realised we have reached the edge of a cliff, overlooking a massive castle city.
"Crazy...This must be bigger than dozens of cricket grounds." Saiyan commented, probably as an avid watcher of cricket.
A massive fort was in front of us glowing orange with thousands of magical lights dotting the outside boundary. The walls were so huge that only the tips of a gigantic castle, with pyramid like structures topped with colorful flags, could be seen. A thick moat surrounded it, with a bridge connecting the fort to the external land, where people were moving across busily. The humanoids were Asuras, all showing off their Kundalini, looking like fireflies from the distance.
"Okay...So it is confirmed we are currently in a Loka where the Asuras live." Anik said.
"I thought the Asuras live in utter poverty, how is a city like this in these areas then...?" I muttered.
S: "What happens in our own world? The rich keeps getting richer, and the poor keep getting poorer. The same thing is also present here, more like this is where we got our current system from. The more we get closer to the habits of the Asuras, the closer we are to the end of Kali Yuga. People die hungry in our Marta everyday. Maybe the same is true for the common Asuras." Saiyan explained.
"Let's take some rest tonight. Tomorrow we cover ourselves in Kundalini and infiltrate the fort. Hopefully we can learn more about this place and the dimension we are in." It was me doing the suggesting now. "Saiyan and Dweep, continue your sleep."
"Yess Sir..." Both of them replied, with a disinterested tone.
Are we gonna miss our first day at school? How does time move in this Loka?? How much time has passed in Alik Marta??? Questions filled my mind, but it presented me with no proper answers.
"Panna, how far is the next Shakti Rekha?"
"It is weird. The Shakti Rekha is just ending within the fort...as if there's a dimensional crack that's sending it to somewhere else, and not through here. Or someone is powerful enough to absorb everything the Rekha is sending from one of the Peeths." she texted the last sentence as a possibility. But deep down I knew, considering my luck, it would definitely be that one only.