2:30:21
Aditya looked at the digital clock and felt exhausted just by the number.
His body is aching all over. He is surrounded by a bunch of bug carcasses. They all have metallic sheen and they are a lot different from the initial bed bugs that came out of that hole.
He looked at the bug that has a large indentation on its body, crawling towards him with a lot of effort and slammed the hammer on it once again. The bug died and he collapsed on the floor while panting.
One carcass after another disappeared. By now, the grey floor is full painted with the blood and most of the walls are also not spared.
He looked at hole while panting as he waited for the next round to begin.
This time he got a resting period of five minutes which is pretty generous. But what he saw next made him feel like the system could have killed him instead of giving those five minutes to recuperate.
The hole in the middle of the room extended all of a sudden and it became a hole of five feet diameter.
A large bed bug that barely fit in the hole crawled out of it and its shell is exactly like the bugs he just killed. Metallic and it is shining. He could feel the glares hitting his face.
There is no way he could take it on.
It came out and looked around after a few seconds it looked at him and slowly crawled towards him. The speed seemed to be inversely proportional to the size of the bug.
And this one is extremely slow.
Aditya took advantage of this and ran to the other side of the room. The bug slowly followed him. This gave him enough time to waste and increase his score by a lot.
He is already in the top five and it seems like most of them spent their time here and managed to increase their ranks. In fact, he has half a mind to give it up and be done with it. But when he thought of how this bug might suck the life out of his body along with the blood, he couldn’t bring himself.
Even if he felt like his bones are breaking, he could only continue with this. He dragged the hammer as he moved around and wasted some time.
In process he closely examined the bug. The limbs of the bug looked like they are machined and manufactured out of some solid silver-grey metal. The points of the limbs are extremely sharp and it could easily stab someone to death.
In fact, he might just die if he fell under it. But committing suicide is easier said that done and people that talk about how they want to die most of the time are full of crap. Most of them wouldn’t even have enough courage to just imagine themselves in the situation.
He could only try to stall for as much time as possible.
Fifteen minutes passed just like that and Aditya’s panting stopped too. His breathing is much more even and he could feel some strength in his body.
He couldn’t help but wonder how he could recover this fast, but he is sure that this is not the time for thinking about that.
And to further assure that it was a wrong time, he saw another bug climbing up of the hole.
“This is cheating, damn it. How can you send another bug before I finish this off?” He yelled out loud and Ram appeared near him with an answer.
[What? You are the only capable of being a smartass? Just go and fight with it. If you don’t, you are going to regret it later with how gruesome your death might be. Or just jump under one of its legs and be done with it.]
Aditya gritted his teeth and looked at the second bug that came. This one is a bit smaller than the first one. It seemed like a penalty for stalling too much time.
If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
Since this is smaller, he went after that one first.
While it was coming for him, he ran towards it and gave it a side-ways swing.
It reached his knees so it was quite convenient to give that smash on its head. Even though it did just fly across the room, he managed to make it go upside down.
Aditya looked at the large bug that is making its way towards him and he looked at the smaller one struggling to get back to its original posture and immediately started smashing his hammer on it.
The bottom part is not as hard as the back of the shell, so after he got four hits in and made it turn into a bunch of mush, he ran away immediately.
But in the process, one of the limbs slightly tore his pants and scraped on his skin making him bleed.
He didn’t stop and just ran to the other side before checking the wound. The cut was not too deep, but it was so smooth and precise and he is sure the tendons would have been gone if the cut was any deeper.
He looked at the time, it is almost three hours and he is currently in third place.
He didn’t expect this at all.
He ranked Ninety in overall rankings after round one. He is one of the most insignificant guys in the whole game, but he came at third place in the current rankings. All of this came to be, because of his obsession and unnatural level of aversion towards these bugs.
And his sister calls this a useless obsession, she would never be able to guess, how useful this is.
He looked at his current state and then at the large bug that is slowly making its way to him. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to keep this up for long, he gritted his teeth and decided to make a move.
He ran with the sledge hammer and slammed it on the right side of the bug and ran to that very side.
The hit landed on the limb joint leaving a large indentation in place.
He ran with all his might to keep as much distance as possible and the bug found it harder to move because of that indentation.
As it came towards him, once again he kept himself to the right side of the bug so that it would be harder for it move and once again he ran and hit the same joint. This time, he wasn’t so much precise and it didn’t cause as much damage as he wanted it to cause and also made the bug a bit angrier.
It started moving faster towards him and Aditya still tried his best to keep his advantage and kept on making the hit and run in that one particular direction.
*BANG* *CLANG*
The limb finally dropped on the floor with a metallic sound making the bug’s balance a bit off.
It started raging and tried to catch Aditya faster, but its big body didn’t allow it to happen.
Aditya landed a few more hits on other legs on the right side making it harder for it to move. But soon he could feel himself running out of energy completely.
He knew that he wouldn’t be able to keep this up much longer. He then looked at the gap created with the fall of the leg and had a weird idea.
As he made the bug run circles in one area, he ran towards it and slid under the bug through that gap.
He held up the hammer and started thrusting it from the bottom. The attack is not as good as he wanted it to be and without enough space to land a proper shot, even the soft body underneath couldn’t do much to it and with the way the bug is moving, he wouldn’t be able to keep that spot for much time.
He looked around and finally noticed the limb that fell off. He came out and ran towards the limb to pick it up.
The limb has one joint in the middle and the upper part of the joint is smaller compared to the lower one. The lower part is around two feet tall. It looked like a mammoth tusk from an angle but only made of metal.
He ran to a corner and used the hammer to make the upper part of the joint go away so that he could use the lower one as a weapon.
He once again slid down under the bug and this time used the limb to stab it in.
The bug didn’t make any sound. But it halted in its tracks. Aditya took his chance and stabbed it deeper into it and even used the hammer to hit it a bit inside making the bug crazily and then something happened that he didn’t see coming.
“AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHH….”
The crazy bug danced around and one of its limbs suddenly stabbed into Aditya’s belly from the side. He was hooked to the limb and was about to be pulled out. He caught the protrusion of the sharp limb he stabbed into the bug for support.
The limb in his stomach pulled him making the limb in the bug’s belly loosen a lot and eventually the limb in his stomach tore his flesh apart.
“AAAAAAARGGGGHHHHH….”
Aditya screamed and he was left with the sharp limb in his hands while the bug frenziedly fell on the ground. Beside him with one of the limbs falling on to him.
*Cough* *Cough*
Aditya started coughing some blood as he couldn’t stand the stink of the liquid on him and Ram appeared in front of him.
“This is one hell of a sharp leg this bug had. It killed me with it and it kind of killed itself with it.”
[Maybe if your brain works smart enough, you might kill some more with that leg.] Ram said and Aditya frowned at those words.
He could feel the blood draining from his body and he felt his consciousness slowly fading away.
Right before he lost his consciousness completely, Aditya thought of something. The limb in his hands was surrounded with a faint grey light and disappeared.
Aditya’s vision completely went blank and the ranking list of the strength AIP got updated.
Aditya’s pseudonym Syam appeared on the list at third position with Three hours and seven minutes.