Lolling about the mansion's second-floor corridor, Karma studied an empty wall segment at his flank.
Oh. He found me.
Bam!
A percussive blast hewed his eardrums as a blurred behemoth blundered through the mansion wall.
Karma and his foeman, the former grappled between the latter's hooked arms, barreled out of the toppling estate into the forested sky. Karma's back appeared a mess of raked tissue, his tattered robes more rags than garbs.
Scowling, the monk soared Karma through the debris-matted air, fast approaching a two-story complex.
To his immense shock, Karma smiled, saluting his aggressor with a terse wave. "Work hard! I'll be off."
Then—to his wide-eyed perplexion—the monk was grasping at fleet gales and gleaming motes.
"Heh!" warbled a derisive jeer, provoking the monk's frantic turn. A splayed hand plastered across his vision. Through fingered gaps, he found his elusive payload grinning ear-to-ear, their backdrop a fleeting image of heaping rubble.
Pah!
The back of his head hit something hard. He watched through teary eyes as Karma transitioned from flying to dashing atop tiled flooring. His flailing body battered through layer after layer of sharding masonry, flaying scalp and skin like the peels of a blood orange.
When they finally escaped through the postern wall, Karma stalled to a hovering stop, dangling the monk from an outstretched arm.
"I must say, I'm disappointed. Was a self-operated cannon really the best Avatar you could think of?"
Slit.
A burgundy-robed figure plunged to the muddy plane below. After tracing its journey from fall to shallow crater, Karma returned his attention to the lifeless head still palmed within his grip.
Whoom.
Desert-white flames crawled along its surface, consuming it in a pall of acrid smoke.
"Okay, I left most of the corpse intact this time. Better?"
"It's an improvement. I think the deceased's kin would prefer the head remain attached to the body—uncremated, that is."
"I'm confused. If the head and body are to be pristine, how should I inflict a mortal wound?"
"Have you considered mummification?"
Karma's lips formed into an "O."
"That could work."
**
Back on the hunt, Karma waded through hill-encrusting groves of willows, gaining on the Buddhists' banner compound with every stride.
I'm nearing the perimeter manned by the mid-stagers ... Hopefully, they'll provide a comprehensive upgrade in Culling Merit and enjoyment.
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**
Pirouetting behind a girthy tree trunk, Karma's Ouroboric sight tracked a lone monk's traversal beside a river bank. Unlike any he'd encountered, their presence held a ponderous weight that seemed to permeate nature's ethereal joints.
Not permeate, thought Karma, dominate. This monk's very existence is overwriting the ambient natural law into his personal instrument.
Heaving a steadying breath, Karma critically analyzed the branching paths defining the throes of conflict.
Disposing of him quietly is intractable. If I choose to proceed, I'll need to bear some ... complications. This would, without question, put an end to future assassinations. Unless—
His brows jerked upward.
What if covertness was no longer a factor? In that case, I can reap a harvest far, far greater than I'd initially forecasted.
Giddy at the potential windfall, Karma unhesitantly spawned a non-linearity remnant.
Sending off Karma#2, Karma#1 doffed his concealment, stepping on the silver-crested shadow of the mid-stage Embryonic Inquisitor monk.
**
"Shall we dance, Senior Monk Prakriti?"
"Benefactor, you are mistaken," Prakriti intoned, tenuously swiveling about his heels. "My neglect of your craven nook was not an act of ignorance. It was an extension of Buddha's mercy—one which you've foolishly forsaken."
"What a coincidence!" Karma donned a visage of hollow surprise. "The opposite holds true for me; until a moment ago, I was pondering letting you live! Fate can be such a fickle whore, don't you think?"
"It's not Fate you should be insulting."
A monsoon of teeming vines, tree roots, and showering soil erupted in a rapacious maw.
"It's Karma."
The earthen swarm surged forth in congested files. Karma met the avalanche head-on, his fist rocketing forward in a savage riptide of Speed and Slice.
A roaring shockwave sundered a fissure about their collision. Both parties staggered over convulsing grounds: Karma reeling and Prakriti's horde all but crippled.
Finally, someone who can take a hit!
Snarling, Karma torpedoed back into the fray, nimbly twirling, twisting, and ricocheting through Prakriti's hasty resurgence. The botanic army knitted into a bulwark, obscuring Karma's approach.
Swish!
Prakriti swerved his roots to his rear, intercepting Karma's ripping chop.
Split!
The harried weave unraveled to its last, barely shielding its master from a shearing crescent. Behind Prakriti, a copse of cleaved willows lurched into a splintered heap.
Keen to escape the melee, he wrangled a bundle of vines and whipped Karma into the air.
Karma, leveraging the momentum, furthered his ascent above the treeline. Peering down, his hands orbited one another as if kneading a sphere of dough—a bead of pallid flame pouring into its nucleus.
Convergence.
His non-linearity Attunement heightened his sovereignty over fire from an art to a science. Soon, a point mass of orange-tinted volatility sat in his palms' epicenter.
Rolling the orb to the tip of his index finger, Karma took aim at the budding forest below.
Divergence.
And flicked.
The speck held its integrity somewhere between an instant and a blink. Karma averted his gaze as an infernal light—like the spillage from the grates of a kiln—bathed the night sky in an orange hue.
**
Barricaded in a cavernous pit, Prakriti struggled to his blistered feet, vainly attempting to straighten his spine from its sagging arch.
Is that a whistle?
Crack!
Dirt paraded into his orifices following a violent collapse. Breathing proved impossible—his lungs unable to expand within their constricting shell.
Compact earth below.
A two-pronged weight above.
**
Having landed in the instants prior, Karma planted his feet upon Prakriti's prone form.
"May your roots return to the soil and sprout anew."
Following Anlîthëma's advice, his flames intruded the monk's internals in a dormant state, penetrating deep into the recesses of his brain.
Poof!
Karma clapped. "Incineration: complete! No pain, no mess, and a—mostly—undamaged corpse. Your verdict, Anlîthëma?"
"8/10. Minus one point for the previous burns and another for standing on his back—which is most definitely a cause of pain; commendable progress, none the less."
"A fair assessment, indeed. Thank you, Anlîthëma; here, have a steam bun—"
"GET OFF!" interrupted a band of vocal monks at the chasm's rim.
"Demon!"—"Heretic!"—"Abyssal Crow dog!"—"Handsome devil!"
10 fuming glares beamed at the sole green-robed individual in their midst, who had unknowingly joined them in hollering at—
"He's gone!"
"You buffoon! They're the same—"
Karma's finger slashed in a semi-circle.
Neck height.
Thump.
Thump.
...
Thump.
"0/10," transmitted Anlîthëma, rife with disproval. "Minus one point for each decapitation."
Facepalming, Karma groaned, "Drats, I did it again!"