Collection

"Wheeee!"

"This is fun!"

People were sliding on the back of Victoris towards the fourth floor, in style. What started with an apprehensive descent eventually turned into a fun amusement as the people became aware of the safety presented to them by the existence of the two youths who possessed the largest purple snakes in the group. They then recklessly jumped onto the back of Victoris, anticipating for an experience similar to a water slide.

"These people," Prakash felt pangs of irritation as one out of 5 people slipped on their way down and edged to the sides, sliding beyond the limits of Victoris. He had to hurriedly make use of his mini Victoris and catch them before slowly making them touch the ground.

He was also getting impatient as it was taking longer than he had expected to bring them all down. He feared that the birds would decide to raid them before he could get everyone to safety at the base.

"If worst comes to worst, we just have to fight it out." Prakash let out a helpless sigh and continued to use his manifestations to keep vigilant of his surroundings and catch the merrymaking idiots that continued to slip out of bounds in their reckless sliding behaviour.

it was at this time that he noticed Vikram giving out a set of instructions to two of the 32 warriors who had followed them. The two listened to his instructions with excitement and hurriedly jumped onto the back of Victoris and slid down.

"We'll hurry to the base first and make the appropriate preparations. The leader instructed us to use the pigeon." One of the two warriors who had slid down performed a military salute towards Prakash and hurriedly asked for his permission.

"Sure, go ahead," Prakash said.

The men performed another military salute and ran towards the pigeon parked a metre beside him. A small crowd had huddled before it and were inspecting it with curiosity. After they had turned small, this was the first time they bore witness to such a huge creature that was almost 4-5 times their height.

The two warriors hurriedly made their way through the crowd before one of them materialised his mini Shaggy and sent it into the pigeon's head. Judging by the situation, it seemed that not everyone among the 32 warriors possessed a mini Victoris.

The two warriors then climbed onto the back of the pigeon and took off to the skies. The pigeon flapped its wings in a hurry and flew towards their base.

Fifteen minutes later, a series of flapping sounds resounded through the air, alerting everyone present. Prakash immediately transformed into a puppy and scoured through his surroundings, intending to spot the direction and the numbers of birds that had arrived.

Though, the moment he laid his eyes on the approaching birds, he dissolved his transformation before heaving out a sigh of relief. It was just the reinforcements from their base. Had it been their foes, the situation would have instantly turned precarious.

Even Victoris that was gearing up for a fight settled down after Vikram had confirmed the approaching birds as their allies.

5 birds flew towards them, assuming a pyramid formation. A thick thread was tied to each of their legs which were then fastened to the handle of a small trolley bag. They were pulling the trolley bag that smoothly moved on the tiled floor thanks to the four wheels attached to its base.

A troop of 50 warriors ran behind the trolley bag, using their utmost efforts to keep up with the pulling birds.

"Haah"

"huff…puff"

The moment they reached their destination, all the 50 warriors slumped to the floor in exhaustion and panted heavily. They were heaving deep breaths when one among them pulled out a small sachet from within the trolley bag. It was filled with water.

The eyes of the warriors that looked dull with exhaustion became re-invigorated in an instant after drinking a mouthful of water. They looked like they could run another lap at a moment's notice.

They rested in their spots and awaited until all the people descended down. Their work would start after that.

It took a few more minutes as all the people had finished descending down. After seeing that they were consuming a significantly longer time than necessary, Prakash communicated with Vikram and layered his Ugly Shaggy next to Victoris.

The duo then inlaid their Minor Art manifestations on the edges to act as a guardrail so that people wouldn't fall out when sliding down. The process became quicker after that as batches of people could slide down at a time without worry of falling over.

After everyone had slid down, Prakash and Vikram coordinated with each other and widened the placement of Ugly Shaggy and Victoris so that they would align with the wheels of the trolley bag.

Vikram then controlled his mini shaggy to hold the handle and carefully align the wheels over the two parallel tracks. The five possessors of mini shaggy that each controlled a bird carefully flew them so that they wouldn't exert too much tension on the pulley bag and cause it to misalign with the two parallel tracks.

They were focusing on providing a stable pulling force while Vikram controlled his mini Shaggy to ensure that the four wheels of the trolley bag always aligned with the two parallel tracks. Prakash used his mini Victoris to act as a support from behind so that the trolley bag wouldn't slide down due to the action of its own weight.

It took them an entire minute to carefully pull the trolley bag to the fifth floor. The five warriors that controlled the birds immediately made them rest while all the other warriors sprang to their respective tasks.

20 warriors positioned themselves around the2000+ rescued people as sentries while the remaining 60 warriors climbed towards the fifth floor. The hurriedly opened the zip of the trolley bag and picked an assortment of plastic objects that were all either flat or had a slightly curved surface.

They then rushed towards the pieces of flesh and blood scattered all across the floor and scooped them up. They then deposited them near the trolley bag where two warriors worked to throw them into the trolley bag. Blood, flesh, and organs; the warriors scooped them all up without leaving anything behind.

They didn't bother touching the bones, feathers, and skin of the birds as they knew from prior experience that their mini Victoris could only gain Karma from the flesh, blood and the organs of a creature.

Vikram stood on the edge of the fifth floor and continued to command the working people while Prakash continued to stay on the fourth floor, keeping a vigilant watch for any potential attacks, both from external threats and from the people they had rescued.

"It will be a risky endeavour to blindly trust all these people and bring them to our base. But alas, we don't have the time and leeway to judge people based on their characters. We need all the fighting power we can get. As long as they don't harm our fellow humans, it doesn't matter to whatever dispositions they may possess." Thoughts raced through his mind like lightning as Prakash considered all possibilities.

On a rather honest note, he didn't care much for their well being. The only reason he was helping them so much was so that they could help him search for his family. Anyway, they were under the command of Vikram, and in these dangerous times, having underlings could prove to be rather useful.

"Brother!" Vikram shouted, gaining his attention.

Prakash hurriedly made his mini Victoris expand until its body reached the fifth floor. He would have to do a lot of work from here-on.

The 60 warriors immediately pulled out another thick thread from a side pocket of the trolley bag and fastened it to the handle. Like how people assumed positions in a tug of war, all the 60 warriors gripped onto the rope as the mini Shaggy slowly pushed it towards the two parallel tracks.

Sweat dripped from the foreheads of the five warriors who manipulated the birds as they had to carefully fine-tune their control on them so that their pull on the trolley bag only cancelled out its weight and nothing more. They also had to move in the air in such a way that their relative speed with respect to the descending trolley bag should be zero.

'Bang'

The trolley bag fell on the ground of the fourth floor, creating a loud sound that rattled the ears of everyone. The moment its wheels rolled over the bodies of the two Karmic Art manifestations, their bodies actually began to bend under its weight. No matter how much they struggled, they failed to keep their bodies straight.

They had failed to calculate the weight of the trolley bag after it was filled to the brim with the flesh and blood of the countless birds that had died. As a response, they could no longer control its descent. The base support under it gave way due to its weight as the trolley bag fell in a freefall to the ground, pulling the 60 warriors, Vikram, and the five birds with it.

Seeing that the situation went out of their control, the flying Vikram coiled his mini Shaggy onto a nearby guardrail while the 60 warriors hurriedly materialised their Skill manifestations and coiled them around the body of Victoris. Vikram used his two manifestations to torque himself to rest.

The 60 warriors used their Skill manifestations in an expert way to spin around the body of the Victoris a few times until all the force from the pull dissipated. They then landed on the ground and vomited out all the water stored in their stomachs, in response to the vertigo their bodies were experiencing.

The five birds weren't so lucky. Since their legs were tied to the handle of the trolley bag, they were pulled down despite their efforts to stay afloat. The trolley bag fell through a height of 3 metres, implying that the birds too fell through the same height before they barely managed to regain their balance. Though, they had paid a price to do so.

Many of their injuries that had just clotted opened in response to their overexertion while the speed at which they could flap their wings decreased drastically. Their injuries significantly impacted their flight capabilities.

Ironically, the trolley bag was perfectly fine for the most part. It was made to withstand much higher levels of shock, so except becoming a bit dirty, it hadn't experienced any other changes.

Vikram hurriedly opened the water sachet they had brought and made all the warriors take a gulp of the water in it. Their injuries immediately started to heal as they recollected their bearings.

"It seems like they no longer have enough strength to pull the trolley bag," Vikram muttered after he inspected the severity of the injuries that the birds had sustained earlier.

He then made his warriors untie the bindings on their legs and commanded for them to return first. In such a condition, they would only become useless baggage and might even become the meal of a bird in an instant should they choose to attack now.

"You ensure the safety of the people we have rescued. Leave the muscle force to me." Prakash said as he rounded up all the 80 warriors.

"Alright," Vikram enveloped his manifestations around the rescued people as a form of protection while the 80 warriors held the rope attached to the handle of the trolley bag once again and took a deep breath.

"PULL!" Prakash bellowed and transformed into a puppy. He made use of both Ugly Shaggy and mini Victoris to grab hold of the handle while he pushed forward. Like a bull that pulled a bullock cart, a puppy and 80 warriors pulled the trolley bag loaded with precious reserves of Bird Karma.