Masenia: Chapter 21 Down the Rabbit Hole (Patreon)

Chapter 21

Down the Rabbit Hole

Monsters began to appear, slowly at first. There was a distinct one for one monster to sentient creature ratio, but that accounted for the regular humans. Animals as it turns out, were especially sensitive to the changes brought on by mana. The oversized dog was but one example of this, as Maria drew closer to the school more and more signs of just how much mana could alter the conditions of animals began to show themselves to the world around her.

Ravenous carnivorous squirrels suddenly began going from their trees that lined the streets in droves, seemingly hunting any and all creatures that would come near.

Honk, screech, crash!

Squirls spread their membranous wings and flew out and crashed onto vehicles, causing many to crash and swerve due to drivers suddenly panicking from the ravenous creatures. Simultaneously bunnies, brown furred bunnies began hopping aggressively towards people and vehicles as well. With a thought, Maria saw the moment she realized that these, or rather bunnies just like these were the ones that evolved so long ago to form the necromantic bunny she originally defeated in the first timeline.

Just as she was running, she felt a sudden surge of energy envelope her and the world at large. Things were getting out of control, but by now Maria was close, so close to the primary nexus point she found of the football field that she was almost able to interact with the device.

Unclaimed Primary Node Discovered. Would you like to challenge evolved bunny pack leader for control over this zone? Warning, initial creatures have been artificially increased in power to help provide adequate challenges.

Just as she got close and saw the interface came up, she felt the world change around her.

Schooom.

Then there was the sound of energy being sucked dry and forced to hold still.

“Oh shit, they killed Larry, but who would do such a thing?” A voice asked, clearly confused. At first Maria had no clue what this voice was but given that the world was now once again frozen she had a fairly good idea that these creatures were here to find out what happened to the two Lesser Gods she had killed. Fortunately, Maria was certain that her Perk Title Obfuscation should help hide her identity from these beings. But there was one way to make sure she truly hid from these people.

“We need to find out who did this.” A second voice rang out.

“Any ideas on who could have done this?” A third voice cried out.

At that Maria felt her heart beat a little faster as she realized that there were now more of these weird alien creatures, these so-called watchers, or arbiters who were here to watch her planet be destroyed. They were supposed to be fair, but really, they only seemed to care about the bottom line, at least that is how Larry was. Though Maria for her part did not know which of the two was Larry.

“I can’t really same I am too sorry to see Cleftus go, but Larry will be missed.” The first voice said.

Hearing that Maria figured that the Cleftus guy was likely the junior member of the team, but she could not be certain. All she could be certain was that three guards were coming up now, clearly investigating the local area and seeming to stop the world. Seeing how she could all but feel their presence even though the event happened at the hospital showed Maria that these beings might very well be Gods, as per the system standards. Idly she wondered what it would be like to kill one of these beings, or even if she could kill one of these beings with her rare but clearly weak control over spirit magic.

“We should do a search to see who is abnormally high in power.”

“Don’t do that, that will take too much time. Besides we just need to look for the system tags.” The second voice said.

“System tags?”

“Yeah, the titles. Why else do you think we hand them out so easily. It is to show the big game bounty hunters who is someone to be taken seriously. Normally the truly big names go and find those with the biggest list of titles and will even let them go on a massive power spree, so they can get the reward for bagging the biggest trophy at the end.” The second voice continued.

“Is that even a thing?” The third voice asked.

“Oh yeah, while it isn’t officially sanctioned by the sponsors, you know there are plenty of side bets going on that are just waiting to be claimed. I guarantee they have a few bounties, and you can guarantee a person who killed a sponsor would show up on a list.” The second voice said.

A momentary pause.

“Um boss, no one has the titles that you are speaking about. In fact, there is only one person with any tag at all.” The first voice stated.

“Well it must be them.” The second voice commented.

“I doubt that. This title is for the Planet’s Designated Champion, that is it for the region.” The first voice stated.

“Well shit, then Larry and Cleftus must have uncovered someone attempting to enter early.” The second voice stated.

“That’s bad right?” The third voice stated.

“Real bad, if they found him and the person killed them, then this entire run could be forced to reset or be sanctioned as an automatic win by the populace.” The second voice stated.

“So what do we do? Do we report this?” The first voice asked.

“What, were you even listening. If we report this, even the suspicion that Larry and Cleftus were killed by someone trying to enter early then this will be paused at the very least. No, for now we need to keep this as low key as possible. We tag the bodies, and then set up monitoring around them to see if anyone comes back to move them. If someone comes back to move them, then we have our suspect.” The second voice said.

“What about the hospital.”

“What about it?” The second voice once again asked.

“The hospital is completely clear of monsters, but every native inhabitant is still there, living and breathing.” The Third voice asked.

Sigh.

“Gah, well we are either dealing with a criminal mastermind who wanted to enter early and not make any real waves, and as he entered, he was caught by automatic alerts that Larry and Cleftus both checked out. Odds are when he entered, the other mana beasts saw him as the greatest threat and targeted him. He slew the beasts, as he made his way, and then tried to cover his tracks by leaving the humans alive. Besides it is too early to even claim bounties for humans at this point. If this person is a big game hunter, then they would likely start stalking their prey from the shadows now, then go wild once open season officially began.” The second voice said.

Hearing the conversation, Maria felt that this brand of conspiracy likely happened a lot over the years and that these arbiters were used to covering up these types of interactions. Especially as it seemed that they were frightened of these big game hunters. This was good to know, as Maria did know she likely did, or would have a huge target on her back once the big game hunters came. They might have an ability that lets them see through Perks like her own, making it even more imperative that she get as much power as possible.

While Maria did want to hear what else the three speakers had to say, she also knew that disappearing before anyone could tie her to this node would be important. Nodding to herself, she mentally selected Enter. Then the world around her changed.

You have entered a Primary Node Instance. Depending on how powerful the Node you enter is, means the slower time moves by inside. This node is currently set up so that one month here is equal to a minute of time in the real world. This means that monsters here will grow and evolve at a much more rapid rate.

This was new, had Maria not seen this notice before, or was it only available now that her planet was actually up and running that she saw it? There were so many questions, if anything Maria felt that this was likely a feature that should have always been part of these instances but had been denied previously due to how new her planet was before this point.

As she became aware of her surroundings, she saw bunnies, not just one bunny but a whole fluffle of them. Watching them, Maria saw that these bunnies were stronger than normal, but were relatively weak, well weak compared to her. Compared to a regular human, she had no doubt that these bunnies would be deadly.

“Hya!”

The bunny squeaked out a cute battle cry of death, as it jumped forward and lunged at Maria.

On instinct more than anything, Maria moved her body into a defensive position, her hands coming up just at the exact moment that the lunging bunny entered her attack radius. The effect was as a matter of physics and applied forces working at their best. The bunny collided with her hand that was coming up in a defensive posture, the force of her superhuman strength and agility were on full display, as the impact caused a devastating blow to cause the bony to be hurled up into the air and then to be catapulted, or maybe bunny-pulted away.

“Ayee.”

The bunny let out a devastating squeak as it has sent hurdling high into the air.

There was a moment of silence as everyone, bunnies and Maria alike just stared up in wide eyed amazement at the bunny as it hurled off into the distance.

Then once the bunny finally met its apex and began to descend, only then did everyone subtly lower their heads and suddenly see out of the periphery of their vision the cause of such an attack. The fluffle of close to twenty large and roid raging bunnies saw maria, and Maria saw giant hairballs of bunny eared power all coil their muscles as one and hurl themselves forward.

On instinct more than anything, Maria first called forth and then channeled spirit mana into her hands. If she was going to survive this onslaught, she knew she would need to use everything she had at her disposal. Which in this case consisted of her magical energy.

Also, while here, she knew that this would be the perfect place to test and improve her own innate understanding of cultivation and meditation while moving.

Realizing this was a much a chance to train her body, as it was to gain access to places of power, Maria relaxed her posture. Particularly after she was able to take a quick hop-step right and avoid the first few bunnies. Then shuffle back to avoid the next barrage.

With a mana infused hand, she reached out and grabbed a bunny mid-hop.

Spirit Power Palm Grab.

Maria’s hand glowed with a bright purple glow, that caused the fluffy brown and white hairs on the steroid fueled rabbit to burn and sizzle.

“Squeak, squeeeeaaaakkkkkk!”

A horrendous pain filled cry came form the bunny that first moved, but then seemed to be unable to move after a few seconds of being grabbed by Maria’s glowing power palm grip. Then using the bunny as a very small shield, she began moving the bunny around, whipping it into its friends, and beating the other bunnies aside with relative ease.

Then on the third strike, where she used the grabbed bunny as an impromptu shield, she heard it.

Crunch.

The bunny died, its back had snapped. Whether that had been from being used to block the incoming attack that sent its comrade to the ground in a dazed state where it rolled around and let its head bob up and down, Maria didn’t know. What she did know was that she felt a slight surge of power fill her. This was her body, still marked and powered by her own soul branding, that allowed her to pull in the energy of her slain foe and use it to fuel her body.

Taking the now dead bunny, she jerked it back, and then infused it with a burst of spirit mana, before hurdling it directly into the last dazed bunny.

Spirit Infused Blast.

The mana infused bunny corpse landed directly on top of the still dazed rabbit, and exploded, violently.

Whoosh.

There was a quick flash and a dispersion of energy, as the bunnies that had been gathering in front of her were all suddenly pushed back by a violent force.

The system of course had a name for what she did, letting her know the attack. In this case infusing energy into an object was nothing new, and apparently nothing new for this invasion as she didn’t get a new title for it, that or maybe the titles would come at the end, once combat was over. Regardless of the reason all Maria could do was see the attack and learn to incorporate more of these types of attacks into her battle.

With this, Maria began relaxing slightly, these bunnies were far weaker than her, at most they were near the first evolutionary threshold, something that Maria herself had started this whole restart at. Seeing how powerful these rabbits were was eye opening as they were able to jump higher and cause more impact than any bunny should. Even those large heffer bunnies had nothing on these violent bunnies that were at the same size if not slightly larger than the average bunnies for this area. Still they packed a punch, well compared to what most humans would be able to deal with. She could imagine her brother Juan, or her twin sister Anita swinging about weapons trying to strike at these fearsomely cute creatures and missing with every strike.

As it was, Maria herself found the rabbits to be easy to deal with. Their strikes were fast, but not too fast for her to keep up with. While she put the bunnies at the base of first tier evolution for Attributes, or roughly forty points, she herself was at 126, minimum for Attributes triple the potency of these creatures maximum. Added to that was the fact that she still had her blessings in place, the ones from the guardians of fate, or whatever they were, ones that granted her a perfect evolution, at least at first. This was important as it meant that in time, she could be able to have attributes that were as powerful if not more so than monsters and even people that were higher tiers of progression beyond her own, so long as she made sure to continue to train her mind, body, and soul to work in perfect precision with one another. With that, in mind, she used this place for what it was always meant to be, a training ground of death.

Gentle Breathing.

Maria made it a staple of hers to always slow down the pace of combat to meet her body’s need. She did not want to go too fast, nor too slow. If she was breathing deeply, but not feeling out of breath, then she figured she was at that sweep spot for development. Also, pushing herself too much made it so she sweated, and while she was not adverse to sweating, having your hair clump in your face during the middle of a power infused spin kick can be distracting.

“Scrunchies.” Maria said to herself, as she marked down things she knew she would need for the next time she did something reckless like this, and she did know that this was quite reckless.

Power Infused Roundhouse Strike- Area effect

Maria let loose a burst of power from her foot that tore into every animal around, bisecting a few lunging bunnies that were both bisected and sent falling to the ground. Then with an extra push, she managed to keep the gaggle of other bunnies back.

Riippp.

The move was not without its own cost to Maria as the spinning attack caused her pants to rip apart just at the seems. Fortunately it was only at her calves down, which if she had to answer truthfully were the most narrow parts of her blue jeans.

“Yoga pants.” Maria said, nodding to herself as she temporarily glanced down to see the tear in her blue jeans.

“Yoga pants and scrunchies.” Maria said, realizing that her shoes would also be soon to go at this rate, particularly with how much energy she was pushing through the heels of her shoes.

Still this was good practice, could Maria find a way to attack by only using her hands?

After a few minutes the answer was a resounding yes. But this had a direct effect on the bunnies that were getting smarter and smarter as time went on.

Long ago, Maria realized that the whole point of this instance was to take down the large bunny at the very top of the hill. Logically she was to run past the hordes and hordes of fluffles that lined the hill in this dungeon and take out the leader, then try to survive while being swarmed by endless waves of cuteness.

Maria had other ideas. Again she had time. A month in here was the equivalent to a minute outside. She didn’t know if this had been the case earlier, when she fought the necromantic bunny lord. In that case she felt that she had traveled across space and time to fight that particular bunny. Now that her planet was integrating, there was no need for her to travel such vast distances, thus she didn’t think there would be any drastic moments of missing time. At least she hoped that would not be the case. Still she decided to take her time, to focus her mind body, and most importantly to evolve her abilities to the second tier away from any prying eyes.

Just like that she remembered the moment she had a double breakthrough at school. Ironically, or maybe just coincidentally her last double evolution had occurred only a few hundred yards away in one of the nearby school stalls. There her upgrade had cause an attack on Detective Quinn, Earth’s designated champion, which caused a whole planetary restart. This time she would not have the same effect happen again, particularly as she intended to complete this dungeon by herself, the correct way, with time, patience, and a whole lot of magic.

“Squee, squee!” A bunny general yelled, as it called forth one of the largest fluffles at the top of the hill, just next to the bunny dungeon master, to charge down the hill. Along with the bunny general, first dozens and then hundreds of bunnies began joining the charge. Their mana infused bunny paws struck the ground causing a terrible rumble to echo off into the distance. Maria, feeling the vibration of enemies charging straight towards her couldn’t help but smile as she waited for the seemingly endless wave of bunnies to come.

“Bring it!” Maria shouted, as the first bunny charged forward and entered melee range.