Something's extremely wrong, the further I go into the Elven Forest, the more out of touch with my mana I feel.
It's like I know that my mana's still there, but for seconds at a time, I can't access it. That not all either, the weather's getting crazier and crazier by the minute.
"Erythro, what's going on?"
"Whatever's causing this distortion is far more powerful than the Wendigo we dealt with last time."
"How much stronger do you think we're talking?"
"Tens of times at the very least," Erythro warned.
As I was flying, the mana around me became so heavily distorted that I started falling. This would have worried me if I wasn't confident in my physical abilities.
I hit the ground and forced myself to roll foward to reduce the impact. Perfect landing.
Alright, we can only go foward from here.
The only noise that filled the air around me was the sound of the roaring blizzard.
I can now see multiple silhouettes up ahead. As they came closer into view, a feeling of unease crept over me.
Closer...closer...w-what the hell?
Corpses, so many of them, some fresh, some rotting. Limbs and blood were strewn all over. It was mostly animals, but there were some people as well. Even animals that should be considered apex predators weren't exempt for the brutal massacre.
I guess in my shock, I hadn't noticed that it was no longer snowing until the roaring of the blizzard was gone.
I progressed further, only hearing the sound of snow crunching beneath my feet.
The carnage only got worse, the farther I went. Morbidly creative ways were being utilized to kill more and more. Heads on spikes, animals hanging from trees by their innerds, and much, much worse things.
What the fuck? It's clear now, whatever did this, did it for sport. There's something else strange about all of this, the bodies aren't turning into experience.
Erythro spoke up. "Perhaps...they aren't truly dead. Whatever is creating this distortion, it must be intentionally preserving the bodies in its domain."
"Why? That makes no sense," I rebuked.
Erythro fell silent for a moment. "Milo...there are creatures in this world that only exist to bring harm to others. I know not of what it is, or why it's doing this, but it's up to us to end it."
"Don't worry, I fully intend on putting this thing down," I declared.
"Good, because it's here."
"EX Combat Mode Initiated. All stats multiplied by 6."
Even though I readied myself, I still couldn't feel a solid presence. Nevertheless, I could still feel something.
As I waited intently, a dark blur dashed past me far too fast to make out any details. Then again and again. The process repeated until there was a swirling vortex of snow around me. Ice sickles formed in the vortex and began launching themselves at me with an unreal amount of force.
The first one grazed my face, slicing my right cheek open. The wound quickly repaired itself, but another one was opened up across my chest. Other than that, there were no direct hits.
Evading the crystals was all I could seemingly do, my mana was mostly cut off at this point. I can't keep this up forever though, then again, neither can my assailant.
In the spur of the moment, I caught one of the ice sickles and whipped it back into the hurricane of frost.
It must have made contact with something as a strange demonic squeal broke through the sound of whirling wind.
The vortex dissipated after a while, when it finally did though, I was face to face with the monster that had caused so much bloodshed.
A...rabbit?!
In my state of confusion, a huge fluffy fist collided with the side of my face, sending me crashing through the snow. I performed a backhand spring in order to land on my feet.
I returned my focus back to what had just hit me with such an outstanding force.
No, I wasn't hallucinating, that's a rabbit for sure. Granted, it's large and humanoid in shape, but it's still lools like a rabbit. In spite of it's large size, it looked like it was built to be nimble.
It stood hunched over, its large arms drooping in front of it as if waiting for the golden opportunity to pounce.
Its eyes were a shiny reflective red. In addition to this, its white fur and ears looked wild and unkempt.
"I-it's a rabbit?!" I shouted.
The creatures face turned into a menacing grimace upon hearing my remark.
"I can assure you, that this is no mere rabbit. That's a Devil Jack Rabbit. It's the resulting evolution of a creature that's lived it's entire existence as prey. Fueled by animosity, it's speed and power are hard to match in the monster world."
A Devil Jack Rabbit? The name's fitting.
The Devil Jack Rabbit raised it's right arm up to chest level, and snapped its finger-like appendages. The area around me warped; a ring of snowy hills surrounded me now.
The Rabbit began hopping on one leg lightly, it then pressed down with all of its force, and it started hopping and running off of the hills continously.
Eventually it was moving so fast that I could no longer track its movements.
I felt something brush past me, its strange, I feel lighter and more numb all of a sudden.
The numbness faded away after about 2 seconds. My left arm, its missing. I looked behind me to see my arm flying through the air.
Tendrils of red goo shot out of my arm and latched onto my missing limb. My left arm came back and reattached itself to my body. It was just an arm this time, but what if it's my brain ot heart?
That was extremely unnerving to go through, but at least I still have my arm. I need to focus, there's no telling when it'll attack again.
"Meditation Initiated."
With meditation active it's not like I can see it's movement any better, but I can at least anticipate them.
Left side, lower body. I jumped to the side. Immediately after doing so, it seemed like the ground where it was suddenly blew up.
Head. I leaned back and felt a violent wind whiz past my face.
It may be fast, but like most monsters, it lacks technique.
Seeing it won't help, I know that, so slowly I began to close my eyes and just feel my surroundings.
The Rabbit kept up it's never ending assault, however, I kept improving at dodging.
I took every opportunity I had to shoot webs at the hill line. I interconnected them in such a way that they would be extremely difficult to maneuver around.
Because of the Rabbit's nimble build, it didn't get caught by any of the webs. But its movement was progressively slowing down.
I need to catch it off guard. It spiraled around my webs and made a B-line for my head again. There it is. I activated my draconic aura, accelerating my movement speed beyond the Devil Jack Rabbit's just a little bit.
When it missed me and hit the ground, I grabbed it by it's foot and drove crimson spikes into it from my hand.
I then let go due to the insane jolt of strength it released from what I can assume was adrenaline.
It started running on all fours, even then, it was still extremely fast. It continued jumping from hill to hill. The rabbit started glowing and white sparks started coming off of it. The trailing afterimage lit up the area until it was a blinding light, but something unexpected happened.
The hills disappeared and I was now standing in the middle of grassy meadow. The grass was a beautiful luscious green and was littered with flowers of all different kinds. It almost seemed natural, but everything beyond the meadow was just a white void.
"What the-"
My thoughts were interrupted by a small rabbit hopping in front of me. Looking down at it, everything was so surreal. Innocent, that's how I would describe it.
Out of nowhere, a wolf pounced on the rabbit and ripped it apart. It struggled as hard as it could, but in the end, it couldn't do a thing.
I couldn't do a thing, I had been immobilized. I watched this process over and over again, each time was in a different setting, a different predator, but it all ended the same.
Something was welling up inside of me, burning, festering. Rage? Frustration? Pain? Of course I felt sympathy, but these emotions weren't entirely my own.
The hallucinations...no...the memories eventually stopped playing out in front of me. I stood there in the void for I don't know how long. I felt so alone, I couldn't even hear Erythro anymore.
At some point in time the Devil Jack Rabbit appeared in front of me. It just stood there, staring at me. It had no aggression in its gaze when it looked at me. In fact, it looked completely tranquil.
For the first time in this abyss, I heard someone else's voice.
"Some creatures exist only to die. It's impossible to survive without consuming another. Power is all that matters, and I won't be consumed like the rest," A small voice said.
The void disappeared and I was snapped back into reality. The rabbit had me in its grip, crushing me with its massive hands. The rabbit's mouth was now wide open, preparing to consume me. Unsurprisingly, it's mouth was riddled with shark-like teeth and a snake-like tongue.
I could feel it, I was dying, but I couldn't will myself to do anything. I felt physically drained. As I was on the cusp of passing out, 4 sharp tendrils shot out of my chest and pieced the Rabbit in its shoulder.
It dropped me to the cold, icy floor and jumped back, gripping its shoulder.
"Milo, where were you?" Erythro demanded to know.
"...."
"Milo?"
"I'm not really sure, in its memories maybe."
"What did you see?"
"A whole lot of suffering."
"...I see."
"But none of that's important right now. We need to finish this, it's already severely weakened."
"Agreed."
I pushed myself back onto my feet and looked at the Jack Rabbit. It seemed scared for the first time since we encountered each other.
It was already in such a condition, and its trump card already failed. It turned tail and tried to run, but I dragged it back using a web and psychokinesis.
I consecutively shot webs at the rabbit until it was completely tied up. It struggled and fought its hardest, but it was all in vain.
I bent down to the rabbit's level. "Had you not been the murderous monster that you are, we never would have crossed paths."
I put my hand on its hand and just pet it like it was an innocent pet. It stopped struggling.
Slowly, I began spreading my biomass over the rabbit until it was completely enveloped.
The absorbtion process took a while.
Then it was over, the distortion vanished and my mana returned to me. But that didn't erase the lingering hole I felt in my chest.