Eric groaned and shook his head as he rested in the waist high grass while a small pod of triceratops munched on giant ferns a half mile away. Knowing they posed no real threat to him, he reviewed his character sheet one final time, lost between wonder and dismay.
He had done it, achieving breakthroughs that were absolutely beyond the pale.
He had six crucial attributes above 1000, Strength and Vitality had just broken new records, and his Quickness now exceeded 1700 which seemed to be his key trait, at least according to the System that had allowed him to evolve a highly enhanced Battletime perk, and no other attribute perks at all, no matter how high he got those other stats.
And his resistances… he shook his head in disbelief.
“Almost everything’s in the 500s. With Hyperion Blazer, my Elemental Resistance is an absurd 675. And with 520 Qi Resistance, it’s almost double my actual Spiritual Energy now!” His heart raced with wonder... and a growing sense of dismay. “Most shit can’t even hurt me. But my Spiritual Energy’s taken such fucking hit that it’s gone from 343 to 288 in less than two hours!”
His resistances did absolutely nothing to ease the knot in his gut as he took a seat on the loamy grass, surrounded by his sentinels, and worked through what he had to do.
Of course the answer was obvious, he thought with a bleak smile, gazing at the handful of docile yellows and sensing surprisingly few red tier beasts in the region… numbering only in the hundreds, not the tens of thousands. And he didn’t dare claim this territory, easy as it would relatively be.
Not yet, anyway.
“I know my only shot is to push myself as a cultivator. I need every elite kill I can get, and I need to keep my cultivation foundation as pristine as I can, which seems to mean keeping my plaque under 5%, unless I want to have to face ever tougher opponents far faster than I would otherwise have to. And I need those levels or I’m truly fucked.”
Saying the words aloud didn’t help. Yet it all tasted like truth to him as he inhaled air smelling only faintly of wild spice.
His breath hitched for a moment, eyes flaring wide with hope.
He could so easily visualize Bunbun with him right now, giving him a curious half smile, one ear folding forward, the other perked for his response. “What’s wrong, Fearless Leader?”
Eric dared to smile. “The Spice… we know how docile the creatures here are… the air’s not as spicy! Maybe it’s thanks to the goblins being leaches and draining the shit out of everything, but maybe they did some good with this territory adjoining New York, being more tame, more Yellowish than wild, violent Orange… and maybe…”
“Yes?”
“Maybe I won’t risk as many impurities with a gentler territory? I mean, I got a massive surge of attributes and plaque, taking out that sniping asshole and consuming him like a territory. The Red regions I’ve taken since then, even the ascending black ones weren’t nearly as bad at spewing plaque all over my meridians. But if I can stick to Oranges… and just, I don’t know, try to have them ascend more gently… maybe I can somehow minimize the damage it does to my foundation?”
His memory of Bunbun gave him a curious smile. “Ooh. Wouldn’t that be exciting if it worked? But we both know what you’re goal is!”
Eric grinned, taking a deep breath of moist air rich with the scents of ferns, flowers, rich loamy soil and animal musk. “Damn right! Because if I practice enough, by the time I hit Rank 20 in a certain skill…”
“Who knows how you’ll be able to shape it!” Bunbun rejoiced, giving a happy leap upon his shoulder that Eric didn’t feel at all. He gave his familiar a sad smile. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you, Bun.”
The memory of his familiar snorted. “Why don’t you sit and cultivate for a bit. Try to clean some plaque and listen reeaally carefully.”
Eric smirked, before conceding with a sigh. “You’re right. I’ve been a bit of a pigheaded idiot about it. Sure, cycling my Qi won’t result in any new breakthroughs or ascension, but it sure as hell can help me keep my meridians clean and sparkly, because self-care is a positive evolutionary step, just like being clever and knowing how to swing a sword.”
Eric’s words died off, blinking back a tear as he gazed down at his empty shoulder.
Because of course, his familiar wasn’t there.
He shrugged. “But that’s exactly what you would recommend if you were here, so I really should by cycling my Qi more, shouldn’t I? Good thing we know from a certain mystic realm full of fire peaches that just being around undead, or even using Flesh Sculptor, doesn’t have any negative effects on me at all.”
He then swallowed, knowing there would be no response as he closed his eyes and took a deep, steadying breath, sensing the flow of his Spiritual Energy in just a moment’s time.
For long seconds he savored just embracing the flow of his silvery-white Spiritual Energy roaring through his meridians, noting the tiny specks of occlusion that were indeed coating his peripheral channels that seemed to perfectly mirror his lymphatic system, and he was both awed and dismayed by how much each and every one of his cells glowed with a golden light. Having been infused utterly and permanently with his precious Spiritual Energy, truly walking the path of the ultimate Body Cultivator, perfectly suited to take on the role of a tank in any group.
Yet he couldn’t help but wince with dismay. So much pristine golden energy was infusing his whole body, and the Spiritual Energy left to freely cycle through his meridians was now so depleted that it was only slightly higher then his Psionic Potential, a stat his System Interface hardly wanted to acknowledge at all!
But he refused to beat himself up about it, already knowing that, all irony of its origins aside, maximizing one or two of those resistances had already saved his life.
Without it, those triple-heart shots would have taken him out so damned fast. The only reason why he had even managed to last long enough to scream a few shouts in hyper-speak and swing his sword at least once was thanks to the combination of his resistances working in synergistic concert against both the physical penetration and the arcane nature of the Bronze-Tier poisons the bolt tips had been coated with, in addition to the absolutely absurd 14K Stamina and 17K Health pools that he had.
Because getting his heart pricked with bolts that were magically enchanted to kiss their target no matter what… but were still stopped after managing only a half inch penetration with the narrow sharpened tips of the bolts, was a hell of a lot less deadly than having his heart blasted apart by those same bolts ripping completely through him, leaving ragged bloody holes on the way out. Though both eventualities would spell the death of pretty much anyone or anything not so infused with System potency as he.
Without those attributes and resistances… without Unified Restoration seizing key muscles to clamp tight and pop those bolts right back out, even with all the dark curse magic otherwise messing with his healing, it would be his nameless foe, not he, that would have been holding their head up high and reveling in their kill.
So he silenced his regret, his doubts, his worry. Embracing golden silence broken only by the gentle flow of Spiritual Energy running through channels he used his shockingly absurd potency to cleanse so very carefully, so very gently, before being struck by a sudden odd flicker of memory.
What was it that his friend had said in his dream?
Lilly smiling at him with her tracksuit on still.
“You did good, Eric. Now please don’t forget about your awesomest perk!”
He smirked. Maybe the Path of Endless Bounty was his ultimate skill. Certainly, if he could evolve it in the way he hoped he could, if he kept his Cultivation foundation in mind then maybe—
He froze.
She hadn’t teased him about his best skill… but about his best perk.
His best Necromancer perk.
Eric snapped out of his cultivation as his heart began to race.
If there was even a chance!
But after what had happened, after her own warnings…
He closed his eyes, blinking back the sting of bitter tears. “I’m sorry, Bunz. I—”
His words broke off in a gasp of hope and dread, almost certain that he was hearing silent screaming.
Shuddering with the awful sense of something cold and dark and black and horrific about to consume her.
The image of a sneering woman with tiny horns, violet eyes, and a ruthless smile curving with silent words.
“Deals a deal, little girl. No free rides.”
A sealed life-support hatch.
The deadly void of space.
A desperate girl’s panicked screams.
“Bunbun… Lilly!”
Eric knew it was madness, his own delusion. But if he was right… even if he was wrong he was on fresh territory so who cared if it began to glow? He would make it work, oh yes he would!
Maybe he was being an idiot and risking everyone. Maybe he’d be forced to race into space himself, screaming as he burned from within his fraying ES Space no matter his resistances or perks, but he had to—
And he was hesitating. Even now he was hesitating as a lost girl’s terror spiked and she was shot out of a giant something and sent hurtling into the black depths of
“Ad Meipsum!”
His voice cracked like thunder.
Rain came pouring down from suddenly overcast clouds.
The air began to howl and shriek as winds raced over the plains.
Eric tasted terror, knowing he had just played the fool, readying himself for agony beyond all belief as he scooped up the irradiated and wildly glowing.
“Eric! You did it! Thank heavens, you great big goof, you did it!”
Eric was stunned.
Gobsmacked.
Gazing at his bunny, his favorite bestest overlarge bunny in the whole wide world, squeezing him against her fur with her paws as she tapped a staccato beat on his armored shoulder, and she was sobbing, actually sobbing when Eric, blinking back tears of his own, held her close and gently stroked her trembling fur.
His thoughts were racing. His heart was racing! There were so many questions he wanted to ask, as the air flashed with lightning and cracked with thunder, his tears hidden by the pouring rain.
There so much he wanted to know. Needed to know!
“You okay, Bunz?”
His familiar’s eyes were momentarily filled with the horror of the void. Then she forced a laugh. “Am I ever! I’m back home! Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
Eric laughed, eyes twinkling. “You bet, best buddy. You know I got your back. So, what the hell happened?”
Here his bunny shuddered and paled.
“Eric…”
He winced. “No, Jeez, I’m sorry. I know how hot those cores were. I could feel your pain… and neither of us should have to revisit that. I’m just so grateful that Recall Familiar actually worked!”
Bunbun sighed. “So am I, fearless leader. So am I.”
Eric’s heart broke, sensing her terror. Her pain.
“Bunbun? Is there anything you can tell me without it being, well… too much?”
She snorted. “Oddest serendipity, though now it makes perfect sense.”
Eric blinked at this as his familiar sighed.
“I jumped through that portal thinking it would be the end, you know,” she said fatalistically.
Eric winced in memory. “I know. I don’t think either of us thought we’d live through what went down.”
“And here we are, just a few hours later. Beating fuck-all odds again, probably because Conceptio, the spirit of the System, the ghost in the machine, has a soft-spot for mavericks like us. Or maybe he’s just bored.”
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Eric forced a chuckle. “So true.”
“Anyway, imagine my surprise when I found myself not popping in front of a citadel of steel or hurtling to my death, ready to give Malice’s world a big middle finger… but dangling off a giant tower made of soul-steel that was actually spiritually quiet. A multi mile high tower… anchored by, you guessed it! A portal.”
Eric blinked at that. “No kidding.”
“Not a bit! But the really interesting thing was, that high up, the cores weren’t shooting to the heavens, nor were they blazing with radiation in a planetary gravity well… they were in perfect equilibrium and I was just holding onto that steel platform that didn’t rock and sway like it should have, because it was anchored to a secondary moon in geosynchronous orbit with the first. And don’t ask me to explain the physics of it. I’m sure magic was involved somewhere. I was just grateful that I had even a moment to heal while trying to figure out what my next move had to be.” She swallowed, eyes growing haunted. “I knew I had to close that gate. That everything depended upon it. But after that…” she sighed. “It was hard trying to motivate myself to make a suicide jump that would utterly obliterate me and a fair sized chunk of that Endoria-sized moon surrounding its gas giant parent. And wouldn’t you know it, that’s when the unexpected joker popped into existence.”
Eric blinked. “And what joker would that be?”
His words cut off as he saw a wonder in his mind’s eye. Massive triangular shaped dreadnoughts looking near identical to the multiple mile-long fortresses in Nova Wars were suddenly overhead.
Vaster than comprehension.
“And a tiny part of me was in awe, Eric. Filled with visions of high tech utopias and the best sci fi series percolating in my silly head. You have to understand that.”
Eric flashed a wistful smile. “Believe me, I do.”
“So when these heroic looking souls ran their scanners over me after I announced myself with hyperspeak, and instead of death… offered me a way out of that death trap, how could I refuse?”
Eric chuckled. “I would have done the same. What did they offer? To cleanse you of hyperion radiation and give you a lift home?”
Bunbun’s smile turned wicked. “Damn right, they did. So let me show you something.” Eric’s eyes widened in disbelief when he saw the exotic looking crystalline pad in his familiar’s hand.
“What the hell is that?”
His familiar winked. “An extremely high tech toy that no one’s allowed access to here on Earth. Not even Blue Corp!”
Eric blinked. “But you…”
“That’s right, I stole it!” His bunny flashed a feral grin. “When they offered me a lift for cores even I’m smart enough to know can power a starship or ruin a continent… all I had to do was think about nuke cores and how much they sell for or are worth on the black market to laugh in their faces! They did not look pleased,” Bunbun said with a fond smirk.
“I bet,” Eric said dryly. “So, what happened then?”
“What happened is that I asked for a pad to check out current events, to orient myself before I made any deals, you understand… then I used my crazy high Scholarship to hack the child-lock and access the most basic of programs to ping Blue Corp and request a live feed with the Terran chapter head, since I can do that now!”
Eric blinked. “Really.”
His familiar’s chuckle was wicked. “Admiral Reiza then seized the pad and played it off like calling Caliban was her idea when I said with the most innocent voice you can imagine that I called a friend who can help us. And you won’t believe the look she gave me, offering me food and a nice shower and a free ride in return for those nasty cores that caused me so much pain… only to find herself negotiating with the Blue Corp chapter head!”
Eric blinked. “No kidding.”
“Not one bit!”
“So how much do they sell for?”
“Somewhere between 0.83 and 0.92 Trillion credits, depending on the state of the cores.”
Eric froze at his bunny’s smug reply. “Wait. You’re saying you got almost 900 Billion credits for selling those three cores?”
Bunbun laughed. “Of course not!”
Eric sighed, feeling oddly relieved.
“They had me and Caliban at a huge disadvantage, clearly. It was a fleet of battleships, and that bitch wasn’t above threatening Caliban with the help of some Intimidation bullshit Negotiation perk, I’m betting, if he didn’t agree to sell in her favor!” She twitched her nose excitedly. “All she said was that she’d give some Blade Consortium competing trading corp her business. But you could see the look in Caliban’s eyes. Like he was suddenly afraid she was actually going to risk major conflict and start attacking all the Blue Corp planets. On the other hand, considering how incredibly rare and priceless those cores are, vital for any world chomping dreadnought… maybe she would? So we negotiated down to 0.5 Trillion.”
“That’s still a lot,” Eric consoled.
“I know. And that was per core!”
Eric blinked at his too-smug-looking familiar. “You absolute fuck.”
Bunbun chortled. “I know, right? 1.5 Trillion credits. Admiral Reiza sent a third of that Caliban’s way after I deposited each core into the Faraday force cages they provided. She paid every credit, as per the deal struck, and even gave Caliban favored trading status with her people as a face-saving consolation prize for squeezing him so hard with the price.”
Eric whistled, more than impressed, swallowing the jealousy that was totally unworthy of him.
“Bunz, that’s fantastic! Even if she twisted your arm to get the cores for half what they were worth, that’s still such a vast fucking number of credits that I can barely wrap my head around it. Credits where we were expecting nothing but a big boom and tragedy. You played things perfectly!”
His familiar sighed. “Not really.”
“What happened?”
She gave a tired chuckle. “I was so focused on negotiating for a fair deal and making sure that the money was real and I wasn’t being played for a fool, with Caliban’s help… that I forgot the most obvious stipulation that I was stupid enough to take for granted.”
“And that would be?”
“Access to food, water, air, or being a passenger in their nice ships in the depths of space at all.”
Eric froze, clenching his jaw. “Shit.”
“That’s right!” Bunbun said with false cheer. “The moment Caliban approved the account and gave me the all clear, the moment I oh-so-carefully surrendered the cores into the absurdly high tech stabilizers they have in all their engine rooms to store any secondary cores they might ever find or procure, their gentle demeanor turned to smiles so hard and cold that I just knew I had somehow fucked up. And they way they hung up on Caliban so quickly, denying him any chance to ask for anything like the safe return of his helpful assistant as a matter of professional courtesy, now that the deal had been struck... made it perfectly clear what the admiral’s next move would be.”
Eric sighed, rubbing his familiar’s ears. “Let me guess… they wanted everything.”
“Yup! All 1.5 Trillion back, and my lifelong servitude. As if I could even do that, with the way Calibro and I had set things up! I didn’t even try to bargain, I think we both knew that money was out of her hands for good. I’m pretty sure they were just fascinated as fuck with what I could do with those cores! No doubt Admiral Reiza saw me as an extremely useful tool she would happily exploit. Trying to get me in a state of anxious desperation, declaring that I now owe her that money, that somehow I’m in the hole three whole cores worth of debt, when in reality she has those cores and brought them for a song. But she’d still used her skills to try to twist the facts and gaslight me all to hell and back. She wanted a ripe target overwhelmed by her unimaginable debt, all the more so when the admiral implied she’ll take it out on my own planet, hoping to soften me up with growing panic so I’d be willing to do anything to make that awful pressure go away.”
She snorted cynically. “I already saw her use some of those mind games on Caliban without being effected myself, since I actually get to share at least some of your resistances, fearless leader. I I even got a skill rank out of watching that all play out!” Bunbun shook her head, ears flopping sadly. “I’m betting the bitch wanted her own suicide squad with yours truly as the lead sucker. Perfect for taking out an enemy planet. And since I sure as fuck am not going to be roped into any slave contract or be used as a military tool with a very short and painful life expectancy… yeah. Things started to look very grim.”
She shuddered, her eyes growing haunted. “Anyway, I was an idiot, putting too much faith in their oath-binding not to kill me. So instead, they forced me into a broken pod and shot me off into deep space, saying it was a parting gift. Their oath fulfilled. And if I couldn’t hold onto my own air in a broken vessel, that was on me. Then they left! Didn’t even try to bargain further. Left out of sheer, hateful spite.”
Eric’s eyes widened in dismay. “Shit. Salvage rights!”
Bunbun sighed, dipping her head. “I hate to say it, but I think you’re right. Who knows what intergalactic salvage rights are worth? Maybe if a crew comes across an abandoned ship…”
“Or faulty safety pod.”
“They get salvage rights on any assets they find…”
“And in this fucked up galaxy, maybe their bank accounts as well.”
Bunbun winced. “That’s just scummy. So very, very scummy, making an absolute joke of their earlier oath not to kill me, or the deal they struck with Caliban. Do you think the galaxy’s really that corrupt? Never mind. Of course it is.”
Eric chuckled, rubbing her ears. “I’m guessing they didn’t realize that you’re a greater revenant. Practically an Underlord.”
Bunbun nodded. “It got real bad, Eric. I know I’m not supposed to feel pain and all, but… I feel more alive and less like any sort of undead every day.” Her eyes grew haunted. “So I was terrified. So I started losing myself in waking dreams with you and friends from high school, in a life I’m not even sure actually happened, was my only real escape.”
Eric kissed his trembling rabbit’s brow. “Shit, Bun. I’m beginning to think you really are crossing that threshold. Forced to linger between life and death... I’m sorry I didn’t summon you sooner!”
Bunbun shrugged. “How could you have known? And it would have been absolutely idiotic to, since I only sold the cores a short time ago.”
Eric winced. All too well aware of the disaster narrowly avoided.
He sighed, stroking his familiar’s ears. “Look on the bright side. At least now you’re rich!”
This too earned a snort. “Eric… do you seriously think those credits are in my name?”
Eric blinked. “Wait what you I saying?”
She gave him a smile filled with exasperation, fondness, and love.
“It’s yours, silly. What the hell am I going to do with 1.5 Trillion credits?”
Eric blinked, beyond stunned, heart roaring in his ears.
“Wait, Bunbun! Are you saying…”
“Well, yours and Caliban’s, anyway.” Her smile turned faintly apologetic. “I pretended I was Caliban’s factor, since supposedly you need to have certified cores whose origins can be traced and traders need to be properly licensed and bonded before they can deal in items a dozen times more regulated than powered armor or Mark III Hyperion Deathblazes, and we know that’s all bullshit, because the fucking admiral had ported to Malice’s moon! Because she was there to get highly illegal cores without any annoying paperwork at all, so how the FUCK she can act all holier than thou is beyond belief! That woman first tried to offer me 10,000 credits for hazardous duty and that was it!”
She snorted, shaking her head. “But since Caliban IS licensed and bonded to trade in all sorts of juicy commodities, even Starship Cores… Admiral Reiza was no longer bargaining with one vulnerable bunny but rather with Blue Corp itself! So she suddenly had to treat us fairly. Which meant intimidating Caliban into accepting half price. But fuck it. We still made out like bandits. So… yeah. Congrats, Fearless Leader. The Terran branch of the Blue Corp bank, of which you are a 50% shareholder, is now up 1.5 Trillion credits.”
Eric gazed at his cheekily grinning familiar for long moments before hugging her gently to his chest. “Thank you, Lilly! I just, I don’t even know where to...thank you.”
Lilly snuggled against him. “Thank you for saving my life, Eric.” She trembled in his arms as he gently stroked her fur. “Thank you for believing in me. Thank you for giving me a second chance… thank you for getting me back!”
Eric swallowed the lump in his throat, blinking back his happy tears. “I’m glad you are back, Lilly. More than I can say.” They then spent long moments just relaxing in the grass, grateful to be hale, whole, and alive.
And stronger than they had ever been before.
Eric savored the comfort of Bunbun’s soft fur, helping all the stress go away, appreciating the sweetness of his familiar’s company, the warmth of kindred souls that cherished each other unconditionally, before he finally sensed the full extent of his familiar’s transformation. One that went far beyond sharing an exceedingly impressive amount of his resistances without any cost to her at all.
His eyes widened.
“Lilly! You’re a Contender now? That’s fantastic!”
Bunbun gave him a very pointed look back.
“And your Spiritual Energy dropped all the way down to 288. You’re Qi Resistance alone is almost double that! What the fuck, fearless leader!? It’s the one potency pool tied to your very ascension! Not the Primal Adventurer crap you were following where you tried to balance all your powers and skills, but the but the actual ascension you chose. Or I guess, Mother Dearest chose? A big fiery multidimensional bird that happens to use SPIRITUAL ENERGY! So again, Eric, what the fuck?”
Eric’s joyful mood instantly deflated. He flopped back down to the soft springy grass and loamy ground that couldn’t hurt him even if he impacted from near earth orbit, assuming air resistance was in play, and sighed. “I know, Bunbun. I know. I’m royally fucked because my greatest enemy who is thankfully, finally, dead, bound me with a curse that I fear is a whee bit above Silver…”
His familiar’s eyes widened. “Shit, I thought you shattered banes and curses like glass, Eric. I thought maybe you did that as a result of what we had um…” She lowered her head, voice falling to a soft whisper. “And I’m giving you shit, after you saved my poor screaming soul, lost in an icy cold void and what I’m pretty damn sure was a decaying orbit around something I won’t even think about… and I’m seeing you in my dreams, praying you’ll remember me but I just couldn’t say it! Because I was that varsity track girl halfway in love with you when you’re falling for another team’s little starlet, but she was a lost soul you actually pulled free of the fire. A former Contender herself, and somehow, that means something. Even when it comes to slipping free of a demon’s clutches after death… so long as someone somewhere loves you enough to help pull you free.”
Eric blinked back tears and laughter, holding his familiar close. “Shut up, silly. You’re scolding me because you’re worried that I’m pulling another Eric… another fail-build that looks great at first glance, but when daring X-17 Maps…”
Bunbun snuggled against him. “I know. You pop so fast. But in real life… fuck. Your build is as solid as they come.”
Eric nodded. “So, yeah. I’m in kind of a pickle. All resistances will be forever maxed, with Cultivator’s resilience, and every territory cleared is boosting Vitality 15 points which really means over 40 points and that’s 8 more points of Physical Resilience being pulled from Spiritual Energy, and that’s not even counting the resistances my Soul Reserves also buff. And since the bane is actually helping… I can’t even fully call it a curse, so it slips right the fuck through!”
Bunbun nodded sympathetically as Eric explained his dilemma fully.
“So, the very territories you gobble up so well both drain your most crucial stat and plaque up your cultivation arteries, and once you get 5% occlusion it will be harder and harder to level up dueling the trash in these easier regions.”
Eric groaned. “Exactly.”
“Well then I think we know exactly what we need to do, Fearless Leader!” Lilly said, striking a defiant pose, before pointing her ear at the distant dinosaur herbivores that had so far ignored the pair of them. “We go snack on one of each type of beasty we can find, most especially the scattered reds! We don’t even need our entire army, with only a few hundred actual ferocious predators here, since we both sense the multiple bands of green blinking people on tribe human trying to level up in the only decent way they can, here in goblin/gnoll territory. At least for now, with Ashland hundreds of miles through do-not-fucking-pass territory we haven’t quite finished clearing.”
Eric took a deep breath and got back on his feet, pushing his dismay away with resolute smile.
“You’re right, Bunz. First we hunt. Then we claim. Gently. Carefully. If there’s any chance that I can evolve the Path of Endless Bounty in a way that I need to…”
“Then our problems are solved!” Bunbun chirped from his shoulder. “Now summon your sweet looking 25 foot spear, and let’s get hunting!”
With a laugh, Eric did just that, gazing almost apologetically at the distant prehistoric herbivores in the distance. “Sorry, boys! I won’t be poaching too many of you, I promise.”
His figure became a flash, a flicker that no mortal would have seen as more than a flicker before the skull of the closest contentedly munching ankylosaurus, just a few hundred meters away, exploded in a spray of brains, bone, and gore.
The pod of stegosauri nearby had time only to bleat their sudden distress, the herd not even having time to move a single step to surround their offspring before a blazing streak of fire cleaved the horned skull clean off the closest behemoth… and then all was still once more, save for the bleating distress of calves and the warning bellows of cows as both fallen corpses disappeared.
Within moments, the jungle of giant ferns was peaceful once more.
