Such wild guesses like symbiosm between him and violet moss, even if supported by facts were not good for his heart. Throughout his academic career, he had at many instances prevailed over others because of his wise conjectures, but it was his first time staking his life on a questionable fact.


    A smile showing obvious disdain towards monkey was raised on his face, as hefainted. Scorkeyswine, was the name given toit.Although, Karl was swayed by this victory of" brain''s over brawn''s,", deep down his mind he was hesistant at the thought of facing the monstrosity onceagain.


    (RKT)


    A world, where knowledge and forsight were power, wisdom was the key to survival and those without the latter were treated like cattle, was his world called Earthen Plane. There, evena tiny speckle of intellect can decide the fate of a country and it''s people.Thus he was unsuited for such barbarian duel''s like the oneearlier.


    Thanks to his natural clock, Karl knew it had already been two days since he arrived in this pit of darkness. The crystal beast from earlier was the worst birthday gift, he had ever had.


    Whileslowly opening his bleary eyes, he decided to review the chronology of absurd occurrences.


    On 13th January, 98 millionth and 4th year of Nero age, he attended the lecture of Zerith Duterman fluctuctuation''s among Pico chips at humanity''s so called greatest asset DLL Institute. Tomorrow was his birthday andof course, he planned to celebrate it with his close friends and family, back athome. Except for due tiredness ofwork, nothing seemed unusual thatday.


    If he had known ,what was awaiting him when he opened his eyelid''s that day, he might as well had slept through his birthday. This was undoubtedly the singlemost regrettable choice of his life. From waking up in a dark room and walking through the edge of a ravine, to falling in a pit of gel like ''moss'' filled with sadistic scorpion creatures. It was completely unbelievable tale. Absurd to the point that he would himself had a good laugh if somebody ever told him such, back in the days. He was not a protagonist of a gore filled Horror flick, but he felt relatable to them,a bond shared by pain.


    Just when he was starting to think that, he couldn''t be surprised any more, his eyes widened to their peripherals.Bright...


    A glowing cacoon like structure made of moss was encompassing the entirety of him. Miracalously he seemed to have recovered from all his, undoubtedly fatal injuries. His limbs were back at their places as well. This seemingly magical development, made him wonder if the battle with monkey earlier was a bad dream.


    For a second he pondered if he was dead but quickly dismissed the thought upon learning that the luminous cacoon was only that mutated sticky moss fromearlier, not some carriage toheaven.


    Being in a perfect shape with his limbs in their right places, had never been this appreciable before. He ofcourse valued his body much more than before.


    At first, he thought of controlling the moss to find the exit of this place.But these thoughts were banished on learning that he couldn''t do so. He was being used as a tool by the Violet Moss for it''s own mutation. Earlier it acted only in order to protect him as he was a benefactor in trade for it. It never submitted itself to him, under non lethal conditions. So he was unclear of how much of a sentience it had.


    "Meh, what a pain"


    As he forcibly tried to remove the hard coveringof cacoon with all his might, he simultaneously analysed the Pico chips in his body.


    "Wah!"


    Unexpectedly the chips had arranged themselves in a 3-dimensional formation within his body. Like an incomplete puzzle, it was missing in a few spaces. Atleast for now it wasn''t the time to studyit.He urgently needed to ensure hissafetyfirst.


    Metaphorically the luminous cacoon was like lamp amidst darkness. No matter how much oblivious one is, it will be clearly noticiable as something standing out from the rest.


    .A sense impending crisis stuck him, for first time since he came to this wretched world. Thinking back it was plainly odd for nobody to attack him during the recovery period ! Even if he thought of running away from cacoon, he knew he was carrying the rugby ball in the stadium in form of his breath. Wherever he goes,he will be surrounded by those bloodthristyhooligans.


    And then it finallycame.


    "Tap tap tap tap.!!"


    Resonating sounds of footsteps from all directions could be heard at the same time. The little, but cherished serenity of his mind finallyended.


    "Why ? Is this some horror game, why did they waited for me to open my eyes ? Those hellscrapers are coming from every direction like a ring tighening on my neck. How on earth Am I supposed to survive this?"


    That was ,probably, all the pointless rant he could come up at that instant.But knowing the answer won''t stop them from approaching. From his horrible experience from earlier, surrundering should be ruled out as an alternative. So all that''s left wasfight. A vulgar brawl between beast''s andman, tyranny and revlution in the hope ofsurvival.


    "You know what pieces of crap, I am done despairing already I will send you to your maker. Bring it on I will raise you to the earth !! "


    With he roar,he took command over the mutatedmoss.The empty voids in the arrangement were filled by the luminousmoss.As the battle, was about to start onceagain.


    ****


    Back in the day ,Karl had widely established himself as the "irregular workaholic prodigy", among talents. He, who fought against all odds with unorthodox solutions and self honed instincts, had made his way to heights that were deemed unreachable to those without talent. As such, he was a widely loved person but nobody dared to provoke him.The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    Due to the success that appeared an enigma to others, he was given the title "Paradoxy Champ" was spread in the DLL university .Though he never himself thought much ofit.


    This, so called "Champ" was on the verge of tears, upon seeing the sight in front of him. When he last fought with a scorpion , it came down to a victory grabbed by one''s head.


    Rationally he was confident that he could defeat 2 or 3 of those beast''s ,on his own under normal health conditions. Last time, he was severlyhurt to begin with.Naturally he couldn''t excercise any control over all the chips in his body without the help of moss.


    The horrible view, in front of his eyes was an army of roughly a hundred of those hellnbeings , approaching him simultaneously from all directions. This entrapping formation left practically no room for escape..This was frightening sight even for an warrior let alone, Karl.


    Like a ray of hope in misfortune, the "moss" had merged it''s consciousness with him upon sensing the incoming doom. So it was controllable when the left out places in puzzle were filled by it''s particles.


    Clad in glittery moss armor,Karl was taken aback in a nostalgic moment.He had controlled a gundam before in his world during the period of continental apocalypse !. He knew his strengths and weaknesses.So he gave an extra cover to area''s covering his heart andbrain.


    "Bang .......thump"


    Sensing the change around the luminous cacoon, the scorpion formation sped up their assault. Dozens of beasts flew towards him while raising their razor sharp pincers.Others covered the points of escape and many of them just appeared to observinghim.


    Karl instantly spread the shinymoss all over, the battleground and slipped through oncoming enemies like a soap in one''s hands. Actually he had drifted their feet by pulling on moss underneath them while simultaneously moving the moss covering his body.This scene appeared similar to that of Ice skating.


    Spontaneously he used the opening provided by the sudden shift in places, to target the observing units of battlion. In a dire situation, as long as one can make use of all such opportunities, he will able to breakthrough.


    .Selectively noting and striking the flaw in a formation, is one the fundamental of battling foes.Pinpointing the weak chest area also gave him an advantage over them.


    Luminous moss infiltrated their bodies and exploded them inside out. The first strike took out about 1/7th of the foes. He briefly felt like an error in judgement had been made on his part.It should''ve takenmore.


    Like residents of hell, the remaining foes suddenly startedhowling.


    "Ehhh..that''s cheating"


    There howl''s were accompanied by a peculiar change in their bodily structure The weak spot of their middle chest hardened itself with crystal, leaving behind visibly no possibility of penetration.


    "Crap.How can they do so? If so, then why did they have weakness to beginwith?"


    The monkey''s, he deemed too beastly to make such a tactical advance, had pulled the floor under his feet. Clearly, they had planned to utilise the impatience of Karl to find his mode of attack. Analysed and quarrentined their own weakness, from his attack, while using minimal amount ofbaits. Their intelligence was on par with humans and that rendered the possibility of falling to same move twicemeaningless.


    His hope of winning by playing defensive and counterattacking was as easily shattered as that of tealeave. Unsurprisingly the next couple of hours were spent by him doing his best,at dodging.


    Unfortunately for him, the beast''s were tightening around him. Even the same mode escape was rendered pointless, next time. Holes were few to begin, thus gradually he running out of possible paths of evasion.


    During many encounters with them, on seeing the hardened chest, he deeply regretted his impatience. If they weren''t covering it now,he could have easily reduced them by half on first strike.That would have also ensured to escape from this situation.


    Their was no doubt in his mind that he would lose, if the the current situation continued to progress. Even if considering the factor that more moss will mutated with time, the defeat would be inevitable at this rate. He was forced to admire their coordination and indisputable linkage, as much as it appeared like a rope around his neck.


    But praising them won''t make them show any mercy.What could he do against such large numbers ?. First he needed to calm down. Even though trapped like a rat, he wasn''t wounded yet.He had won in an equally hopeless situation earlier against one of tgem. Just cutting apart all of them in one go, was the way tovictory.


    "Oh Cutting apar..Yeah It''s the onlyway."


    This could be it.Even though it was significantly absurd.The idea which was the only thing that came to his mind, made him wonder if he was the barbarian here. Yet it fitted his title of Paradoxy Champ. Such a reckless thought in this desparate situation, would truly make others see him as anenigma.


    But he had made up hismind.Prolonging any further will only tire him out and reduce the odds in hisfavor.


    "Alright ,It is now or never. I am pouring all of me in it .Let''s create an opening first"


    Upon his command the violet moss, all over the area appeared to be pull towards him.Simultaneously he charged towards the centre of the centre of formation while dodging the oncoming stream of attacks. The using the momentum he had gain, he projected himself in the air.The scorpions covered the entirety of ground below viciously cringing their pincers.


    Karl gave a piercing gaze to the direction with most pincers and...


    "Slash"


    With a large Scythe in his hand, he had beheaded them.It happened in an instant and immediately the scythe dissintegrated.It was formed with same concept as that of luminous cacoon. When the mutated moss was condensed, it was far more lethal than that in lesser concentration.But the range on attack was it''s flaw as it could only initated at centre in the form of circularswing.


    Grudgingly commencing this attack, left his back to the remaining to the foes on the left direction. It became like an exchange of blows and as he pessimisticly predicted they tore him up.


    Before he managed to complete a revolution with scythe, he lost an ear ,a leg and a hand in the exchange.His condition was as miserable as it had ever been before.But contrarily to a pained face, a radiant smile showed on his face.Which made him question his psyche ,


    Had he turned into a war maniac?.The crazy word Spartan rang in his mind.


    According to what he saw, he had won.This time gamble was about if the damage dealt by the remaining beasts in that critical juncture would be able to take his life or not. Such risks wouldn''t be taken by any saneperson, but any sane person would have died long ago facing thesebeasts.


    .He used the scavenging-violet moss to decompose the nutrients of all dead scorpions.He also used it to bring the meshed biomatter of his limbs back to his body.


    Upon waking up in cacoon he found that the monkey''s body was nowhere to be seen. He predicted that it was decomposed in the form of nutrients to bring about his recovery. But now on testing this principle he found of a profound miscalculation.


    The cacoon was used as anasthetic and without it , the pain of recreating veins and limbs was truly hellish.Also his breath was heavy ,as the mere 30 second exchange had exhausted his mind much more than all his previous dogdes combined.


    He had released all of his mental strength while focussing on a single moment, utilising the combination of chips and moss to unreasonable levels.Thus he was completely vulnerable during the instant''s ofattack. He was blessed by heaven as he managed to survive through and complete the circulation ofscythe.


    He was so profoundly exhausted that even standing appeared tedious.But the valiant smile didn''t leave his face.He thought he had already succeeded and almost got drunk on this luck based victory while kissing his recreatedlimbs.


    "Finally I managed to get through. It was a hell of formations, you dead apes but you trapped the wrong man in.How did you like your daddy''s clean cut bastards? Don''t think about messing with me"


    Karl forgot that he was just ,on the corner of being ripped a few seconds earlier.It is widely known in Karl''s world about wars that movements like these decide the outcome.


    "BAM"


    Karl couldn''t keep up,with what happened in the interval of few seconds.A gigantic crystallised Gorilla with claws like a demon and hind legs of a pig plunged at him from above !!


    The impact was so huge that it broke nearly nearly all of his bones.The moss reacted on its own,barely in time to protect his brain and heart.


    The impact from the hit sended him to partial comatic state.His overall body appeared like a pile of flesh.Karl was barely able to theorise that he could only heal half of the inflicted injuries, with the absorbed nutrients from all the previously killed hundred apes.


    He was saved only due to violet moss which took control at critical juncture and pushed his body away.Now it was controlling his body to repeat his previous evasions while simultaneously healing him.


    Deeply regretful, he didn''t even had any teeth to gritt and the only manage tothought


    "I made the same mistake as those beasts earlier. Letting my guard down, like that.Unless I manage to escape to my home I can never win in this"Brawl".