Vikram felt that he could kill all those abominations, but the more he killed, the more overwhelming it became. The damn midgets were agile as well as slippery.
[You have been slain.]
The midgets didn't have an ounce of self-preservation, and they stuffed the knives in their hands into the most vital spots.
[You have been slain.]
The last time, the little midgets stabbed the knife into his little general, and Vikram permanently banned that memory from his brain. The level of pain that coursed through his body...
Vikram shuddered violently, as though trying to shake the memory from his very being. He couldn't ignore the peculiar sensation that followed each respawn, a faint, indistinct wave of energy passing through his body.
He didn't know what it was. Logically, he should have been terrified, burdened by the trauma of dying over and over. But instead, he felt strangely invigorated. With every respawn, his mind and body seemed to reset, leaving him refreshed, as if cleansed of the horrors he had endured.
So Vikram made an educated guess that it had some mild calming and restrictive effect on trauma or anything that had a bad effect on the mind.
Because if Vikram analyzed the situation, he knew that there was no human body that could handle the trauma of dying over and over. The human body was not supposed to handle multiple deaths back to back.
These experiences would make all the evolutionary information stored inside the human body go haywire. And then there was the trauma. The sheer variety of ways he had been killed was a torment of its own was an another matter altogether.
Vikram respawned and killed all that had movements outside the village and entered the village again. Now, Vikram did the only plausible way he could get away with this situation.
He went towards the statue, upped his Muscle and Bone Density to 2, and tried again. Even though he was having an easier time culling the damned imps, he ultimately died.
The thing was, no matter how hard his skin and muscles became, his eyes, ears, and brain would always be a vulnerable place. And these bastards would always target these regions with their knives.
It was really getting frustrating, but suddenly, Vikram received a notification.
[Do you wish to Exit the game?]
Vikram stared at the notification floating before him, the flickering text humming faintly in the silence.
"If the notification popped up out of nowhere..." he muttered under his breath, "...it might mean the sun's already up in the real world."
A sigh escaped him. He'd hoped to stay just a bit longer. But there was no denying it now.
He willed himself to exit.
The world around him collapsed into darkness.
The ceiling stared blankly back at him. His fan rotated overhead, squeaking ever so slightly with each turn. He sat up, breathing shallow and careful, as if the air here didn't know how to carry weight anymore.
Something felt off.
Immediately, his hands moved over his body, shoulders, arms, chest, searching for the strength, the surge of vitality, the density of muscle he'd earned in the game.
Still nothing.
Still no power.
Still no change.
His limbs felt just as tired, just as frail. As if all the pain, all the sacrifices, all the blood and fire and triumph had evaporated the moment he woke up. Like a bad trade. Like a goddamned scam.
"What the hell..." Vikram whispered, dragging his palm across his smooth, bald scalp. The skin felt cold with sweat.
He glanced at the clock.
Morning.
The sunlight bled through the curtains, soft and golden, turning the room into a gentle prison.
He didn't belong here.
He'd just been charging through enemy hordes, ripping through magical beasts, fighting like a man possessed, and now he was back in a body that felt like it belonged to a frail streamer with a third stage cancer. The contrast struck him hard, like being tossed out of a roaring Ferrari into the creaky seat of a rusted scooter.
Everything felt muted.
Wrong.
The contrast was too sharp.
Too brutal.
Vikram sat on the edge of his bed, the silence of his room pressing against his skin. The emptiness of his limbs, the dull ache in his bones, the soft hum of an ordinary morning, it all felt... fake. No, not fake. Smaller. Dimmer. As if he had returned to a world made of paper after walking through fire and steel.
He didn't want to believe that it was all just a dream.
That everything he had endured, the pain, the battles, the fear—was merely a trick of his own mind. A simulation. A game.
He turned his gaze toward the window. The sun had begun its slow climb across the sky, casting streaks of gold through the dusty curtains. The warmth should have been comforting, but to Vikram, it felt distant. Unfamiliar. As if this light could no longer reach the parts of him that had truly changed.
And then an idea struck him.
He crossed his legs on the bed, exhaled slowly, and focused inward.
Breath of the Crimson Pulse.
His breathing fell into rhythm, deep, slow, intentional. His heart pulsed louder in his ears. His blood began to stir, not in the usual biological sense, but as if something ancient within it had heard a call. Something deep-rooted. Primal.
For a moment, he touched it.
That presence.
That echo of a lineage long buried.
A whisper of something greater.
And just as he began to grasp it, just as the connection started to throb with life, it slipped from his fingers like water through clenched fists.
He opened his eyes.
But rather than disappointment, there was a sharp gleam in his gaze.
He was excited.
Because that brief moment, that fleeting link to something older than his body, proved one thing beyond doubt.
It was real.
Whatever he had experienced, whatever world he had fought in, it wasn't illusion. It was simply on another scale of reality. A reality that now brushed against his own.
Breath of the Crimson Pulse.
It wasn't just a cultivation technique. It was a map written in blood, leading back through time. The stronger the technique, the further back one could walk their ancestral tree, and awaken the blood of those who came before.
But Vikram had failed. Not because of his will. Not because of his body.
Because there was no one in his line who had carried a powerful bloodline.
No ancestors with divine traits. No legends. Just a few flickers of minor enhancements, sharper senses, slightly sturdier physiques. Insignificant sparks. He had scoffed at them.
He had already made up his mind.
He didn't need half-measures.
He needed the impossible.
He needed the Barbarian Body to reach the Great Perfection Realm, the final, unattainable tier. A realm so absurd that even the descendants of gods had never touched it.
Because once someone did,
Once they reached that point,
They could awaken any ancestral blood.
Any era.
Any lineage.
Even Adam.
Even the First.
If Adam was the progenitor of the human race, Vikram could awaken the purest seed of mankind within himself. The thought was terrifying. Tempting.
He could become a religious icon in this world.
A walking myth.
He shook his head, trying to banish the thought, but it lingered like smoke in his mind.
And then the memories came rushing back.
The blood. The screaming. The feel of his skin tearing. The stench of burning hair. The Barbarian's roar echoing through his bones.
And then, a message appeared.
Clear. Simple. And absolutely confusing.
{Do you wish to summon the [Barbarian]?}