Prisoners of VR

On the ground lay the Liger, profusely bleeding from its neck. The knife was still lodged deep in its neck, and surprisingly, despite Rahu's intention to reset its condition, the Liger remain on the ground, unmoving.

He had no other choice but to retract it and manifest it once again. His focus was on the youth's blue uVR Earth for a moment, 'No, it's still a civilian uVR Earth. Then how is this possible? It doesn't make sense since only a DOVA Agent's uVR Earth is equipped enough to unleash Induced Reality.'

Through his abilities, Rahu had already determined that the source that had unleashed the man was the youth's uVR Earth. It puzzled him.

But the most shocking of all was the man that calmly picked up the knife on the floor. He wasn't supposed to be here, and definitely not this old.

The man died on 1st January 2042, the day prior to the launch of uVR Earth, at the young age of 25. Manav Sastry, a man once hailed as a legendary genius that had singlehandedly contributed to accelerating the research and development of uVR Earth by more than two years. He was Rahu's older brother.

"Who are you?" Rahu glared in anger. Manav died when he was 25 years old. Even if Pomegranate Corporation had created a 3D Model of Manav, it should have only been 25 years old.

Only after the completion of uVR Earth was the creation of a realistic 3D Model capable of ageing possible. So, the presence of the man before him should have been impossible, given how he seemed to be 33 years old, his current age had he been alive.

The man was silent. In response to the question, he calmly pulled out a gun and shot three times.

Startled by the response, Rahu manifested the Liger to act as a shield, watching blood spurt out of it profusely as it was killed once again.

"Koff!" The youth coughed out blood and dropped to the floor, gasping in exhaustion. It looked like he would drop dead any moment as his uVR Earth flashed erratically.

"You're weak," The man finally spoke, but it was directed at the youth.

"I'm...sorry for being useless." Saying so, the youth fell unconscious. But even after that, the man remained, continuing to draw power from the youth's uVR Earth.

"Well, there you have it, Rahu." The man flashed a calm smile, "Have you been well?"

"Are you really my brother?" Rahu was nervous, feeling like prey that was being observed by its predator. His palms became sweaty while the grip on his umbrella tightened. His uVR Earth shone with a dense jade hue, brightening the corridor.

Staring at the emitted light, the man commented in praise, "You have adapted well to this technology. That's an exemplary amount of power you're outputting there."

"Answer my question!" Rahu shouted. He wished to attack the man, but his body refused to cooperate. He got cold feet. Even his Liger was curling up in nervousness, its animal instincts warning it about the danger posed by the man before it.

"The proof is right with you." The man took a step forward, watching Rahu instinctively retreat a similar distance. Smiling, he raised his hand slowly and pointed at Rahu's heart, "Fear, nervousness, and most of all,"

"Abundant inferiority."

He retracted the gun and the knife, "Aren't these emotions familiar? There's only one person on Earth that can make you feel this way, isn't that right?"

"You're supposed to be dead." Rahu maintained a defensive pose, not even realising that his umbrella had slipped out. His grip had loosened subconsciously the moment he confirmed the 3D Avatar was his brother.

"I'm sure you'll like that outcome the best, since if I'm absent, people might consider you a genius." The man, Manav smirked derisively, "Anyway, only my fleshly body died that day. I have long since become a digital entity."

"That's impo..." Rahu was just about to retort when a tiny blade stabbed into his left arm. It was unleashed through Induced Reality, so there wasn't any bleeding, but it still hurt.

Moreover, it seemed to have hit a nerve as Rahu lost function of his left arm immediately, grunting in pain as his legs turned weak.

"Don't say it's impossible, I know you're smart enough to comprehend what I'm talking about." Manav approached the Liger, patted its trembling body, and sat on it regally, using it as a throne.

His words sent a shock through Rahu's mind as he muttered in disbelief, "How...did you know about that? None of us ever leaked a single clue."

"I figured it out," Manav shrugged casually, "Don't forget that I worked on Megasphere's evolution code. I obtained plenty of useful data from it. So, once I managed to piece them together, I derived the ultimate secret it had deduced. Of course, it took me twenty years to do so."

"Twenty years?" Rahu's eyes widened in surprise, "You..."

"Well, I can only live in Virtual Worlds. Time flows ten times faster there. So I ended up having a lot of time on my hands. Anyway," He said once his body began to flicker, "It seems this guy's about to die. Since you managed to discover me, I'll ask you this once."

He stared at Rahu with a spirited expression, "Won't you give me your Synchro Code?"

"Never!" Rahu bellowed with all his might in an effort to curb the sense of fear he felt.

"Well, it doesn't matter. Time is on my side. I'll collect all seven Synchro Codes eventually." Manav shrugged as his figure vanished, smiling at Rahu in the end, "I'll be waiting for you inside Worldcraft. If you have the guts, come confront me there,"

"That is, if you can endure reality."

"Wha...?" Rahu stared wide-eyed as the youth's head split open. It was as if he had been hacked open by an axe. Blood and brain matter spilled out and covered the floor, getting soaked up in his pants as Rahu had collapsed on the floor at some point in time.

"Sir, what happened? I smell the scent of blood..." Deepika's voice came to an abrupt halt as she arrived on the fourteenth floor and stared at the youth's corpse, vomiting all the contents in her stomach upon glancing at his spilled brain matter.

It took her a couple of minutes to regain her bearing as she looked at Rahu in a hurry, stunned to see him stare at the youth's uVR Earth with a vacant gaze, "Sir...?"

There was no response from Rahu. He seemed petrified, unresponsive to her shouts. Deepika touched him cautiously and shrieked in shock when he collapsed, losing consciousness.

"Sir! Sir! Sir!" Deepika hurriedly alerted the security team that rushed to the floor in a hurry.

The last that was on Rahu's mind was the figure of his Liger, one that seemed to have aged two years in a matter of seconds. One of its genetic defects seemed to have worsened as a couple of tumours began to grow on its stomach.

Deepika's shouts didn't register in his mind as the face of Manav flashed repeatedly, causing his deeply suppressed trauma to resurface.

He couldn't bear it any longer and faced a panic attack, fainting immediately.

The security team rushed him to the nearby hospital immediately while two of them stayed behind to call the police and forensic department.

...

W-News Branch, Coimbatore. There was hustle and bustle in the office as usual. Reports came in from numerous sources as they organised and summarised the articles that would make it into a slot on the news.

Forming a sharp contrast with the rest of the active staff was a youth in his early twenties. He stared at the screen displayed through Augmented Reality and surfed through social media, looking for any hints of news from there.

Since a lot of people these days had an uVR Earth, with the video captured directly from their sight, social media had evolved in a lot of ways. And of course, pursuing clout as usual, people recorded various things and uploaded them online.

The youth kept watch over all social media channels related to their city, displaying keen observation skills. A video uploaded on Pinstagram caught his attention. The video was auto-removed by a bot three seconds after it was posted.

But he was faster, quickly swiping it up as he used the prepared tools to download it. The video showed a bloody corridor seen through the peephole of one of the houses. The brain matter of a youth was strewn around, as if it had exploded out of the confines of the skull.

Plopped across the youth's corpse was a DOVA Agent, the bright jade hue emanated by his uVR Earth was a dead giveaway. Since the video quality is equivalent to what is captured by the human eye, it was pretty good, making it possible to zoom into the scene and stare at the DOVA Agent's facial expression.

'Can someone as powerful as a DOVA Agent display such a devastated expression?' The youth adjusted his blazer as he focused on the DOVA Agent's face, quickly pulling up the DOVA Agent list of their country, muttering in shock, "#6 DOVA Agent, Rahu Sastry, nicknamed the Liger."

He got up in a hurry and shouted, "Everyone! There's a massive scoop! We need to be present at the scene first. It involves a DOVA Agent and a gruesome murder."

His voice boomed across the office, stunning the staff working there. The attention of everyone fell on him as their gazes were fiery. Journalists were hungry for a scoop, especially for one as explosive as this.

Instantly, they dropped most of their tasks and prepared for the case. The W-News Director rushed out of his cabin and shouted at the youth, "Gopi, do you have any evidence to back your claim?"

"Yes, sir!" The youth, Gopi transmitted the video file to the Director.

"Okay, you lead this case! It'll be our primetime news for an entire week!" The Director stated in a hurry as he glanced through the contents of the video, excited.

"On it!" Gopi rushed out of the office, boarded his bike, and vroomed towards the location. He already messaged the person that had posted the video and obtained the address. His face beamed brightly, "Finally, my first exclusive!"

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