All Creatures Are Your Enemies (Part-1)

'Boom'

Prakash felt his face kiss the ground while his hands stung in pain. He failed to control his strengthened body which had become at least 10 times stronger.

Prakash steadily stood up as he wiped away the blood that leaked out from his forehead with a pondering expression, "I gained 1% of an Ant's stats when my comprehension of an Ant's Karma reached 1%. Does that mean I got almost 10% of Shaggy's stats since my comprehension of a Dog's Karma has reached 10%?"

As he thought more about it, he felt that his initial conjecture was wrong. If he had gained 10 percent of Shaggy's stats, then his strength should have increased to become many times than what he currently possessed. So it felt more like he gained 1% of a dog's stats. That felt more likely to be true.

His strength and agility attributes had multiplied by almost 10 times which was a significant amount of power but that was only in comparison in regards to his measly strength from before. Moreover, he had to quickly gain control of this strength; otherwise, he'll likely end up in the tummy of a random bird soon.

Prakash stood and began to perform a series of high jumps atop the mound he woke up. Jumping high into the sky and landing on the same spot he jumped from; as he repeated his actions numerous times, his body began to slowly get used to his new strength. It was more like his legs were getting used to the strength concealed in its muscles.

'Woosh'

Prakash felt his stress melting away as the wind brushed past his hair every time he jumped up and fell back. Next, he proceeded to do pushups when he hurt his face numerous times.

Unlike when he jumped up, the moment he failed to exert precise strength in his hands, his face kissed the ground or had the back of his head hit the ground after performing a 180-degree flip.

"Aaahhh," Prakash wailed as he clutched his bloody mouth; a tooth had clearly broken when his face kissed the ground once again.

Prakash hurriedly walked to the edge of the stone mound and dipped his face into the murky water below.

'Tsssch'

Prakash exclaimed in satisfaction as he felt his face heal rapidly under the healing effects of the water. This was the only reason he dared try such a ridiculous exercise in order to quickly get his strength under control. The human body remembers pain the most and would absolutely try its best to prevent getting injured in a similar manner more than once.

'Thump'

'Tsssch'

'Thump'

'Tsssch'

As the process repeated itself between getting his face smacked and hurting his knees, the control he had over his body had already grown to an acceptable range. When he went over to the edge of the mound intending to heal himself once again, Prakash gazed at the murky waters below with suspicion. Something felt off now that he had a good look at it.

Not intending to gamble with his life, Prakash steadily retraced his steps until he stood at the peak of the mound. The mound was a mixture of sand and soil spread over a huge block of concrete that was about a metre in radius whose peak stood 40 centimetres above the water surface.

Prakash hurriedly willed for his 'Record' to appear as he tried to formulate a plan of action. This mound was way too conspicuous in the open without a single possible area on it that could act as his shelter against other creatures.

Prakash closed his eyes as he thought about the experiences pertaining to his first transformation. He had been thinking about the carcasses of the ants and the smell that wafted out from it when his transformation activated automatically leading to the growth of the antennae on his head. After that was the time when he activated the transformation to turn his palms and the soles of his feet ant-like to scale up the handrails, and finally when he fought against Shaggy.

All these experiences gave him a basic idea as to how this so-called transformation ability of his worked. Four factors were required to successfully activate the transformation: the availability of the concerned Karma, the mentality of the mind seeking to become the creature itself, knowledge of the creature, and the surrounding environment.

'Phew'

Prakash exhaled a breath of turbid air as his eyes shot open to reveal confident sky-blue eyes that were brimming with vigour.

'Swoosh'

A log of wood slowly drifted towards the mound he stood on as Prakash intently gazed into the scaly eyes of his predator, the one that had been titled as the predator of the seas. It was the existence of this predator near him that averted other creatures from approaching this location till now.

"I must thank you," Prakash said as he gazed into the predator with a smile, "If it weren't for your presence, I would have been devoured by now during my unconscious state."

The head of the predator slowly rose up from the water until 5-6 centimetres of its head peeked out; it had an elongated narrow snout with its body covered with smooth, non-overlapping scales. A species that had become critically endangered due to a loss of its fresh-water habitat and found only in certain rivers in the northern part of India, and a couple of other countries.

It was physically impossible for Prakash to encounter this creature in his city that was practically located in the southern regions of the country, thousands of kilometres away from its natural habitat and that too in a saltwater body.

"I see, it must have been one of those that managed to adapt to saltwater and had travelled through the seas."

Prakash had a sense of admiration for this predator that had the guts to take a step beyond its racial limitation and venture out into the vast seas. Though, as an apex predator it wouldn't have encountered much threat in the shallow regions of the sea since as a cold-blooded creature, it wouldn't stray far from the land.

As Prakash concentrated to his limits, his perception of time slowed down to a crawl that enabled him to clearly make out the image of the Gharial as its long narrow snout peaked out of the water and shot towards him like an arrow that was released from its strings.

The jaws of the Gharial opened as it neared towards its prey, like a reaper of death, not producing even a single sound. Prakash didn't dodge, he seemed to be waiting for something as he gazed at the long narrow jaw filled with razor-sharp teeth rapidly close in on him.

At the next moment, purple smoke gushed out of his body and completely enveloped him, rapidly forming into a cocoon that abruptly shattered into pieces revealing from within a small fish that was barely 2 centimetres in length.

The opened jaws of the Gharial quickly passed through the spot where Prakash had been standing before; its scaly body now stood on the mound as it watched a tiny fish wriggle through the gaps between its legs and slip into the waters below.

Gharials were expert hunters in the waters, many times better than crocodiles and alligators. But, they were somewhat limited in their prowess to hunt on land due to their weak legs that weren't even strong enough to bear their body weight.

As the Gharial twisted and turned its body on the mound, the small fish rapidly swam towards another mound which seemed to be bigger than the one it initially stood on. It had to reach there before the Gharial entered the waters.

The small fish swam quickly in the waters and just when it was within a metre away from another mound, another fish, whose body was at least five to six times bigger than it swallowed it whole.

A second after it had swallowed the tiny fish, the body of the bigger fish exploded into a mass of flesh and blood to reveal a fish that was 10 centimetres in length. The fish that spanned a length of 10 centimetres deftly swam in the water to rapidly heal its injuries and then immediately jumped out of the water, towards the bigger mound.

But, the moment its body exited the water surface, the screech of an eagle resounded in the air as its claws pierced into the flesh of the fish. An instant later, the fish exploded into purple smoke and from the region of the fish's head, a tiny human figure peaked out as another cocoon wrapped around it immediately. The cocoon then shattered to reveal a cute puppy that swiped its paws at the wings of the eagle as it fell towards the mound.

"Aieee!"

The puppy screamed in pain as it fell on the hard surface of the mound and had broken an ankle. But, without minding its injury, it limped higher up the mound and entered into a crevice between two bounders.

The puppy dissolved into a mass of purple smoke which revealed a tiny human figure from within that weakly lay on the ground, gasping for air.

"Huff…puff..that was a close call." Prakash hurriedly inspected his surroundings to discover that the crevice he had entered was quite narrow that extended for three to four feet and spanned a height of 2 feet. The entrance was barely wide enough for the puppy he had transformed into before to enter, which meant that any small bird or rodent could also enter the crevice, which would spell doom for him.

'Flutter'

'Flutter'

Sounds of the flapping of a bird's wings resounded near the entrance to the crevice as three pigeons landed there, blocking his only exit.

"Seems charging out is the only way." Prakash thought about the different transformations he could currently undertake: he barely had enough karma to transform into a mosquito for a second, transforming into a fish would spell his doom, leaving him with the only option to transform into a puppy. It seemed that his understanding of a creature's Karma determined how old it would be. Thankfully, the second fish he had transformed into seemed to have a really huge body at birth.

As Prakash willed himself to transform into a puppy once again, purple smoke gushed out of his body but when it was about to envelop him into a cocoon, it abruptly paused in the air for a second and dispersed back into his body.

"What?" Prakash screamed in shock when his transformation failed and witnessed his body turning into a deep shade of blue.