D.I.E - DEATH IN EXERTION

CHAPTER 9 - VENGEANCE

After looking at that scene, the killer's attention turned to Karna's brother. Karna's brother pleaded to leave him, but the words fell upon deaf ears. He lifted his axe to the height, and with only one swift, he chopped his head. The head fell to the ground from the top of the hill. The head rolled all the way down from the top of the hill and fell in front of Karna's body. Karna, who is still alive with a last breath, raises his head only to see his brother's bodyless face. The face is covered with mud and blood, tears from his eyes, and a dark smile on his face. Karna became quite terrified by that and became unconscious.

Feeling that he had completed his task, the killer turned to look down the cliff and left, believing that Karna had fallen to death from such a height. However, Karna's journey was far from over. He descended into a coma, the weight of the traumatic events overwhelming his consciousness. After months of comatose sleep, he finally awoke, only to find his headless brother beside him, uttering haunting words of blame: "It's all because of you." Overwhelmed by fear and shock, Karna collapsed once again. When he regained consciousness once more, the doctors delivered a devastating diagnosis: he suffered from a condition of illusions, a result of his fall from the cliff. They explained that no medication could control the hallucinations he experiences, leaving him with the difficult task of healing himself internally. From that moment onward, Karna dedicated his life to seeking vengeance for his brother, driven by a burning desire to eliminate psychos and make the world a safer place. However, the hallucinations of his brother and the criminal he killed during his missions fueled his mental pain and sent him into episodes of uncontrolled anger and psychological suffering.

Karna recalled all of this when he saw the killer, who aimed the gun at the detective. He was the same killer who killed his brother. Driven by his deepest anger at seeing the person who had killed his brother. Then, he took a deep breath, closing his eyes, the air completely filled his lungs, making his vision clear and making all the other voices stop, and only focused on the piece of shit in front of him. Karna sprang into action, intent on taking the psycho down. The initiator of the game chuckled sinisterly, enjoying in the chaos unfolding before him. The detective lights a cigarette and stands before the psycho. Karna and the detective engage in combat with the psycho.

Karna's mind stops working as a result of his rage, and all he can think about is killing the psycho. However, the detective's energy was waning. Together, they fought with every ounce of strength, working really hard to catch him. The psycho is so skilled that he avoids all their strikes and hits them softly. The detective doesn't have the same amount of energy as he once did. Exhausted and drained of energy, Karna, Dharani, and the detective found themselves unable to stand, their bodies pushed to their limits. Despite this, they remained hopeful about capturing him. Their fight turned into something really terrifying. While Dharani isn't quite as powerful as they are. Karna, the detective, and the psycho are battling as they want to kill someone today. They fought for an hour till they were all so weak that they could hardly stand. All of them have fallen to the point where they are unable to get up.

The psycho lying down starts laughing and states, "You both aren't participants in this game, so killing you wastes my energy, time, and fun. Yet, you look strong. But not as me. Let's do a rematch any other day, and on that day you will be my partcipants... I want to kill both of you so badly and painfully. I just want to see your scared little faces and pain... So glad you chose to fight me; if there had been another psycho in place of me, you would have been dead by now. Well, the game has ended... Goodbye..."

After some time, Dharani gets up, summons an ambulance, and hurries towards Karna and the detective. When an ambulance arrived, the accompanying medical attendant started treating the injured and took Karna and the detective to the hospital. Dharani received only a few wounds because she did not fight much due to her lack of strength. Later, after sending both Karna and the detective to the hospital, she attempts to check on the psycho. The psycho vanished from sight as soon as she arrived at the spot where he had been lying. She looked everywhere, but she found nothing.

Karna and the detective were taken to the hospital, where the detective's recovery progressed swiftly while Karna remained in critical condition. Gradually, Karna, too, began to show signs of improvement. Before the detective's departure, the detective entrusted Karna with a diary, a repository of information detailing each psycho he encountered. Within its pages lay the detailed information of the twisted minds, and it revealed that each psycho had been addressed with a chess coin, symbolising their role and method of killing—a rook, a bishop, a knight, soldiers, a king, and a minister or queen, representative of chess pieces. Armed with this knowledge, Karna could now identify their weaknesses, feeling prepared for the ultimate showdown.

But there's one problem: the diary's last two pages were blank, despite the fact that it might be about the king and the queen/minister. Karna imagined it was far larger than he had anticipated. The mastermind behind all of this is the King, or perhaps the alligator... Whoever he is... If he gets captured, the story will come to an end. Karna had spent a week in the hospital, visited regularly by Dharani, who offered her unwavering support and companionship. She presented him with a chess coin, the "KNIGHT," found on the mall's stage. Vrindha, too, cared for Karna, spending countless hours by his side, providing comfort during his stay. During this week, Karna had no delusion issues, thanks to Vrindha's presence. However, fate had other plans in store. It was okay until one day, a mysterious man entered the hospital with the intention of killing Karna.