Universe's End

Bloodletting was, shockingly, not fun, as Rory learned over three days of self-harm, collecting his blood into a jar. During those three days, he spent his excess time slowly gathering everything he needed, mostly snapping branches no thicker than his arm from trees, until he had a large pile half his height. The rest of his time was spent meditating, gathering as much ascension energy as possible. It was both practical for his ascension and good for his body, and the downtime was necessary for his aching and tired body.

The good news was that the meditation seemed to stimulate his body's healing ability. The cuts he’d carved into his flesh scabbed over in record time as the gathered ascension energy seemed to activate his body's natural healing rate to one hundred twenty percent effectiveness.

The bad news was it didn’t do much more than that. He wasn’t sure if it was due to his ascension and changed body or his body becoming acclimated to the ascension energy. Still, his ability to continue his ascension through simple mundane mediation slowed dramatically, even if he no longer suffered from the rampant itching. Three days should have been enough to cover his last ten or fifteen percent, but he only managed another meager three.

Well, that’s shitty.

Grumbling but unable to change the reality, he used the time to continue his planning. There wasn’t much else to plan, but at the very least, the unmoving time was good for his depleted stamina.

Finally, three days later, checking his jar of blood, an admittedly morbid thing to have in his possession, he was satisfied with how much he’d managed to gather.

I don’t think I’m going to have to bleed anymore, nor should I risk it as close as I am to the wave date.

With only three days and some hours left, he wanted to be in peak shape for the wave, which meant letting himself fully recover without gaining any more injuries, self-afflicted or not.

Taking his potential concrete powder replacement and the jar of blood, he began pouring the blood into the powder. Stirring vigorously but steadily, he soon had a concoction that reminded him of concrete, if it was horror-themed.

Taking the butt end of the blade meant for his carving knife; he dipped it into the mix before carefully fitting it into the groove he’d cut into the knife handle. It thankfully fit, a rather snug and tight fit that he mentally pat himself on the back for. Knife put together, he then used a rather crappy imitation of tongs he’d thrown together with vines and thick twigs to hold the blade over the fire, centering it so the heat was most directly focused on where the blade had been ‘glued’ into the handle of the knife.

Waiting until the wood there had charred lightly, something he’d also heard was good for the strength of a handle, he pulled it away from the heat. Taking more of his concrete paste from hell, he gently lathered a thin layer around where the blade and hilt were conjoined before slowly twining it with strands from a vine he’d painstakingly stripped down into individual fibers using his old knife. Once bound, he applied an even thinner layer of the paste atop the fibers before holding the knife over the fire again, only a few seconds this time. Inspecting the knife, he placed it atop a stone platter hoisted over his fire with vines hanging from the closest trees. This way, the heat could still work on the tool without burning the fibers that now helped hold it together.

Hopefully, that works.

Done with his jar of blood, he covered it before placing it in a small hole he’d dug near his firepit, where it would be kept warm and liquid. He’d run out of powder to make more of the faux-concrete mix, but since he had to wait for his knife to finish drying and hardening, he had time to go about preparing more.

Hours passed while he worked, grinding more ash and bone that he was running concerningly low on. Halfway through, he checked on his knife, gingerly touching where he’d twined the fibers around the conjoint point. Unsurprisingly, it was hot to the touch, but what was promising was that there was a certain amount of solid rigidity to it that the fibers had lacked before.

Almost there.

He worked on preparing his dehydrated dirt next, and once he had finished, he mixed the two concentrations of dehydrated and pulverized dust, a larger batch meant for his combat knife and a new ax. Putting it aside, the moment of truth was at hand. Lowering the hoisted stone platter on which he’d placed his crafting knife, he withdrew it using his makeshift tongs. Visual inspection showed no outward blemishes or apparent signs that the method had failed, but he would have to wait for it to cool to know for sure. Looking up at the sky, Rory grimaced as he noticed the suns were already heading toward the horizon.

“I swear it was just morning.”

The days almost felt like they were contracting in on themselves, less and less time until the destined wave date.

I’m going to have to work through some of the night. Rory admitted to himself, frowning. There was too much to do with only one person to handle it all, and he was hardly a craftsman to begin with. Looking for confirmation of his fears, he pulled up his interface, the timer reading under three days.

He would have to pick up the pace, meaning he would have to skip testing to see if his cement paste substitute had worked and instead assume. Aware of his time shortage, he drew out the last few bones from the bottom of the pit, adding a matching volume of ash.

I’m not going to have enough blood.

Rory stared at his powdered mix with growing apprehension. After preparing two other batches worth of the stuff, he had a solid idea of how much blood it would take, and it was obvious he didn’t have enough.

Damnit.

He had wanted to avoid the possibility, but there was no getting around it. He grabbed the jar from where he kept it stored and approached the pond of false water. Scooping up some of the false water, he covered the jar once more, shaking and stirring it into a grotesque slurry. He had diluted the blood, but he would have to pray that it wouldn’t weaken the mixture too much.

A weakened mixture is better than nothing.

No reversing what he’d done, he took his large batch of pulverized ash and bone and placed it into the fire, removing his second batch meant for his combat knife and ax. Mixing it with pre-dried obsidian-colored dirt, he sifted the two powders together until they were a wizened grey.

Ingredients are prepared; now all that’s left is to prepare the handles.

Grabbing the pieces of wood he had decided upon for both the handle of his combat knife and the haft of his ax, he placed them nearby. Then, testing the temperature of his crafting knife, he picked it up carefully at first. Seeing that it had cooled off enough, he firmly grasped it.

It feels good. Honestly, it’s shockingly well done.

He tested it lightly, pressing the blade into a piece of wood and slowly carving a whittle away from the rest. The blade didn’t even budge once; it was firmly locked down.

Good, because I can’t afford a re-do.

Reasonably confident his crafting knife would survive; he began whittling away at the two pieces of prepared wood. His new knife was far better for carefully sculpting the wood as he desired than his previous knife. Working until well after the suns had set and the campsite was lit only by his fire, he finally raised his finished results in front of his face, inspecting them closely in the dimmed lighting.

They look good. Or I think they do. What do I know?

Grabbing the obsidian shards he’d chosen, he’d had plenty to choose from with all his stone bashing; he slid them into their respective grooves, testing first to see if their sizes were correct. Only needing to adjust the ax handle a small amount, he finally grabbed his jar of blood.

Technically, it’s a blood-based solution now, not just pure blood.

Pouring what he reasonably estimated as the correct amount into his second prepared mix of ash, dirt, and bone, he stirred until it was the desired thickness. It was noticeably lighter in color than the original mix, being less concentrated in blood volume, but he ignored it. Dipping his chosen obsidian shards in, he slowly inserted them into their prepared handles. Repeating the same process as with his crafting knife, Rory placed them over the fire with his makeshift tongs before pulling them back out, applying more paste over their conjoint points, before further binding it with vine fibers. Again, he briefly held them over the fire before applying a final layer of the mixture directly atop the fibers. With the tools nearly complete, Rory placed them atop his drying rack that hung over the fire where the heat could work on them without the fire scorching them and ruining his work.

Absolutely tired, Rory finally left his work at the fire, retreating to his shelter. The fire would die out over the rest of the night, meaning he’d have to restart it in the morning, but he needed sleep. He could afford to waste some of his nights preparing, but going entirely without sleep was perhaps the worst thing he could do. Curling up on his cot, but not before placing his knife safely away from himself so he wouldn’t gore himself on the knife, he quickly passed out.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Rory awoke to a buzzing sound imitating directly inside his skull. Eyes snapping open, he found himself staring at a yellow wall.

No, not a wall.

Wiping his eyes of any nighttime remnants, he corrected himself as he made sense of his interface floating above him. It was obvious why it had buzzed him awake; the timer until the next wave was slotted just under two days.

Looks like I slept a little too long.

Rising as quickly as he could, he exited his shelter. When nothing immediately attacked, the first thing he looked out for every day, he quickly shuffled over to where his new tools had been placed upon the drying rack over the nearly dead fire, a sparse few glowing embers.

I’ll get that restarted in a bit.

First, he grabbed the knife and pressed his thumb against the flat of the blade, slowly applying more pressure as he felt for any wiggle in the blade. When it didn’t seem to budge, he slit the blade into a loop of his pants.

Not exactly safe, but I don’t have anything better for now.

Next up was the ax. Repeating the tests, he did an extra test by giving it a single solid chop against his sitting log. The axe bit solidly into the wood without so much as a budge.

Good.

They performed well enough, even if, for whatever reason, he didn’t feel the same sort of pleased resonance with his newest creations as he did with his crafting knife.

“Fickle feelings aside, they work,” Rory announced, partially to ease any worries as to why he didn’t feel the same sense of resonance in them as he did his crafting knife. “And that’s what matters.”

With only two days left, they needed to work for the last part of his preparations. Grabbing stray branches and twigs was one thing, but if he didn’t want to be overrun by monsters, he needed some form of defense to prevent them from simply battering him down from every direction. That meant chopping down sturdy-looking logs and smaller trees and dragging them around his camp. His estimates had such efforts taking most of his working hours for the next two days, so he wouldn’t have time for his tools to break down on him. That, and he still had to get his battle-bat made.

The only reason he didn’t take care of making his weapon first was that he intended to use whatever breaks he took from dragging logs and small trees around to instead work on that, making the most of his time while he could. He’d wanted to also prepare some personal protection for himself, but with how few workable hides he had from the caerbannogs and how hard they could kick, he had tossed the idea out as nothing more than a waste of time.

Tools prepared, Rory slid each one into a loop of his pants, firm in his decision that once this wave was defeated, he’d make something to more appropriately carry them around. Tools secured, Rory picked up a second jar he had made in his free time. It was hardly a ‘jar’ so much as a sort-of bowl-shaped piece of wood that he’d managed to fashion a cover for. Filling it with aisormba, Rory trudged out into the forest at large, leaving behind the relative safety of his camp. He had two days of hard labor ahead of him, with no time to waste.

------------------------------------------

“Damn heavy,” Rory grunted, dragging a heavy tree behind him. It wasn’t even that large, but for whatever reason, the freshly cut logs and trees seemed far denser than they had any right to be; he felt more like he was dragging a piece of metal behind him rather than living wood.

“Really damn heavy.” He grunted once more as he neared his camp, a faint flicker of a smile briefly resting upon his face. His camp, in a matter of two days, had come a long way. First was the obvious, the ring of logs around the camp. They weren’t large, and the caerbannogs could still clear them in a single bound, but they were there at the very least. It also didn’t hurt that they were further improved by the rows of sharpened branches he had dug into the ground on either side of his small wall. At the very least, if the bunnies returned in the next wave, they wouldn’t be able to rush in and overwhelm him. The log he was currently dragging behind him was the final one, or at least the final one he had time for. He dragged it over to its designated spot and firmly shoved it into place. Once there, he entered his camp through the single opening within the small walls before grabbing a jar of what looked like mud.

Which was because it was mud mixed with a small amount of ash. Taking the thick mixture, he began lathering it into the cracks of his walls, a practice he’d been doing over the last two days whenever he had an opportunity. Rory wasn’t sure if it would be enough to stop the charging rabbits, but it was better than letting them freely smash into his unsecured walls and toppling them in a single hit.

Because then I’d die. And I’d prefer not to die if I can prevent it.

After nearly an hour of back-breaking work, he finally wiped his forehead of small amounts of sweat that had begun to gather. It was strange; without any actual water, he wasn’t sure what the sweat was made of anymore, as it looked the same, but he was reasonably sure that it wasn’t water.

Thoughts to contemplate when I have a chemist around.

Now, that was an interesting question. He wasn’t alone on the planet; there were seven others. Yet, meeting them wasn’t likely any time soon. The other issue was that they weren’t precisely allies. While they weren’t allies, nor were they enemies.

Competitors, there, that’s the word I’m looking for. They’re closer to competitors than anything.

If the world spirit could bring the eight of them here, though ‘here’ was a bit of a simplification, why couldn’t she bring more? He was sure he’d make faster progress with more help, but he also wasn’t some magical spirit of a planet with direct instinctual knowledge of universal truths, so really what did he know? In fact, for all he knew, something was limiting her.

Or maybe she thinks it's better to keep the numbers small for now.

While it was just him for now, Rory could only assume that wouldn’t be the case forever.

Unless I’m torn apart and eaten by murder rabbits in a few hours.

With barely a conscious thought, he opened his interface and glanced at the timer.

Three hours, to be exact.

He’d taken care of all his important tasks. All but one, but even that was nearly finished. Sitting upon his ‘lounging log’ that he had dragged next to his fire, he grabbed his trusty crafting knife and his new obsidian bat. He’d finished it the day prior, late into the night, when he’d been struck by inspiration. Looking at it, it was closer to a cricket bat than a baseball bat, but that had more to do with his lack of technical skill as a woodcarver than any intentional design choice. What he had decided to change just this day was the very top of the bat. It had been a stroke of inspiration that since this bat wasn’t for sport but murder of blood-thirsty rabbits, he should also design it with that in mind. As comfortable as he could get on his log, he began whittling away at the bat, the rounded top slowly transforming into a thick spike much like he had placed around his walls. Occasionally, Rory would flick open his interface, grimacing as he did.

Two hours.

He was on a time crunch, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world if his stabby bat weren’t perfect; the spiked top was nothing more than an additional feature meant for the express purpose of extra-murder utility; he could still brain the killer rodents just fine without it. Still, a part of him wanted it to be finished in time, a part of him that had nothing to do with his desire for survival but rather an urge to ensure his creation was precisely as he planned. Working diligently, the minutes continued to creep by, yet Rory paced himself without rushing. Slowly, the wood transformed until, at last, he held the bat up in front of his face, admiring his work.

Design-wise, it had maintained its greater similarity to a cricket bat than a baseball bat, though not quite as flat. Inserted in the wood were plentiful shards of obsidian, jagged and sharp like shark teeth. The handle had been carved with gentle grooves to make it easier to hold, and the newest addition was that the top of the bat had been reshaped and altered so that it was closer to a wooden stake than the cap of an ordinary bat.

Not quite perfect, but… not bad.

Satisfied with his work, he glanced at his timer once more, standing up instantly as he did.

The counter had been replaced, now replaced by a single word.

“Imminent.” Rory let the word hang, digesting it.

So, it’s not an exact timer.

He wasn’t sure how much of a margin there was in the timer, but he could guess, at the very least, it was something like half an hour, and once that was crossed, the wave could start at any point.

Meaning it’s time to steel my nerves.

Rory wasn’t exactly shaking in his boots, but the threat of what could be his imminent death still hung over his head, an edge to his thoughts as he kept his eyes on a swivel for signs of movement. Searching for another two minutes, he finally froze when, from the corner of his eye, he saw the brief jitter of leaves upon a nearby tree. It could have just been the wind, but-

But since when has the wind only disturbed the leaves on a single tree?

With a single twirl of his death bat, he held it firmly between his hands, steadying his breathing.

If only I had played baseball more as a kid.

He hadn’t held a baseball bat in years. The closest had been when he’d gone golfing with some work acquaintances, something they’d made quite clear was not in his wheelhouse after the fact.

Here they come.

The start was simple. A lone caerbannog had appeared, hopping over to stare at him from the opening in his walls.

If I didn’t know better, you wouldn’t think this was a monster that itching to eat my face and drink my blood.

Perhaps the monster wasn’t that bloodthirsty, but it didn’t change Rory’s opinion of the beast.

As if on cue, the monster rabbit snarled, showing its savagely pointed rodent fangs as it lunged toward Rory.

Nope, they definitely want to eat my face.

Still bracing himself, he swung the bat, the archaic weapon smashing into the small rodent. The tremendous force of the swing launched the monster rabbit into the ground near his feet, where it lay prone for a moment. Not wanting to give the caerbannog a moment to recover, Rory teed up before launching the beast into a nearby tree with a swing Tiger Woods would have envied. The monster’s surprisingly tough body wasn’t quite tough enough to withstand the force of the uncontrolled collision with the tree, its broken body falling limply to the ground.

The entire exchange took less than five seconds, a rather impressive improvement compared to his first encounter last time.

One down.

The last wave consisted of seven stages, each bringing more of the homicidal bunnies. Perhaps due to how fast he had dealt with the first rabbit, he already saw signs of the next few appearing.

Well, shit.

Unlike a week prior, when the second stage had been three rabbits, it had already increased to five.

“This isn’t going to be easy then, is it?” Rory sighed as living projectiles began to fling through the air like white comets. The walls were already showing the worth, as rather than leaping at him from every which direction, they instead aimed for the path of least resistance, the single opening he’d left in the walls. It didn’t seem to matter to the rabbits that they could have leaped over the rest of the wall had they put in just a bit more effort; their instincts for murder simply told them to go in the direction of least resistance. First rabbit closing in, he swung with his bat, switching his grip at the last moment so that rather than collide with the flat side of his bat, the brutally sharp obsidian shards sawed straight through the tiny monster's neck. There was no time to stop or congratulate himself on how well the obsidian shards worked, already ducking the other four rodents. One of the four had jumped with too much vigor, propelling itself further than the rest and spearing itself directly onto one of the wooden spears he had lined around the walls.

Putting them on both sides was a good idea.

Only landing for an instant, the remaining three leaped forward, and again, Rory’s bat swung through the air, cleaving another head from yet another tiny white body.

Two left.

He was feeling good, which, of course, was when he slipped up. Just a moment too slow, he missed one of the rabbits as they flung themselves at him. Flinching out of the way, he avoided the worst of its wickedly sharp nails.

The good news was, rather than tearing out a massive gout of flesh from his shoulder, he only had an agonizing deep cut that was sure to leave quite a scar.

Just a flesh wound.

The bad news was he bleeding, but the fact that he wasn’t spouting blood meant it had missed any arteries.

Almost dead, that easy.

A single slip-up, a split second of not reacting fast enough, and he had almost been killed.

Faster. Quicker.

His growing overconfidence dashed within moments of its formation; Rory’s nerves felt like they had been lit ablaze.

I’m not dying here, not to some copyright-infringing rodents.

When they lunged for his neck, his eyes darted between the two as, with a single swing, he swept the black teeth of the bat to rip through not one but both of their fragile necks in a single strike.

That’d be a home run.

The corpses continued sailing past him, crashing on the ground just behind him.

Stage two of seven settled.

With more time to catch his breath than the gap between the first and second stages, the third set of caerbannogs appeared only a minute later.

Nine.

His assumption had been correct, or so it seemed, that instead of increasing by two, the stages were now growing by four. The final stage of the wave, assuming it was seven ‘stages’ again, would be a total of twenty-five rabbits.

The last two stages will have nearly as many rabbits as the entirety of last week’s wave. Not sure if that’s fair.

Clearly, Aelia, or perhaps the System -he wasn’t sure who was responsible for the waves- had little sympathy as the murder rabbits tried to do what they did best and rip his throat out, and once more, Rory set about the grisly work that only Elmer Fudd would appreciate. Body after body was torn apart by his bat as Rory settled into a groove. Mindless killers, the rabbits were easy to predict. They still seemed unable to resist pouncing if his back was turned, and they continued to stream in through the opening in his walls. Eventually, it reached the point where most of his kills came from simply standing directly in front of his sharpened wooden stakes, briefly flashing his back to the creatures before rolling out of the waves, the monsters more than happy to throw their lives away as they impaled themselves in an attempt to rip him apart.

Stage after stage, he persevered, the aching slash on his shoulder a reminder to measure his overconfidence lest it get him killed.

With one final swing of his bat downward, spiking the final caerbannog of the sixth stage through the eye, he took a moment to collapse onto his lounging log. Each stage had given an extra minute's worth of rest, meaning he had roughly five or six minutes to catch his breath.

Twenty-five more, then I’m done.

Pulling up his interface, he glanced toward his progress bar. It had been eighty percent filled after the last wave.

Surely.

For a moment, Rory was taken aback, staring in confusion. The bar was full, and yet-

Nothing happened?

He should have reached A2, yet his body felt the same.

Unless you’re unable to ascend during combat.

His estimated five minutes of downtime should have been plenty if that was the case.

On second thought, it's probably not a wise idea.

There was the genuine chance that, given this was a wave of monsters, it wouldn’t count until it was finished, and even if that weren’t the case, if he were mid-ascension when the final stage of the wave appeared, he’d be like a silver platter of food serving himself up to the monsters.

I think I’ll wait.

Shaking his head, he caught his breath as much as he could. Fighting was taxing work, comparable to a dead sprint, but with a more significant risk of having your throat torn out.

Not to mention the mental toll.

There was something quite different from an ordinary workout and the exertion it would have on the body, with fighting for your life. Not only were your muscles and cardiovascular ability pushed to the limit, but death was looming at any given moment. Rory wanted nothing more than to crawl into his small shelter and sleep for the next thirty hours, his mental fatigue as bad as his physical fatigue

No can do, sadly.

There was still one last stage to the wave, and-

Right on time.

Padding toward him slowly was the first rabbit of the seventh stage, except something was off. First, there were no accompanying rabbits.

Second was the fact that the fluffy white murder rodent had antlers.

A jackalope?

Flicking his interface open briefly, he saw a small notification window with a single tidbit of info about the creature.

Jackalope--???

“Wonderful,” Rory muttered as he dismissed the distracting interface. Either he was the first person to see the creature and had thus inadvertently given a name for the monster species with but a thought, or someone else had already seen it and named it as such.

Chicken or the egg, it doesn’t matter.

What mattered was the fact that, what should have been twenty-five caerbannogs, was only a single jackalope.

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure that out.

It was some variety of ‘boss,’ and it was watching him with a gaze that showed a spark of intelligence, a given considering it hadn’t instantly lunged forward to brutalize him.

No, intelligence isn’t the right word. It’s just not as mindlessly bloodthirsty.

Raising his bat, held firmly, he twirled it once. Prepared, or as prepared as he could be, Rory stepped forward to do battle with his destined foe.

It was time to tackle a creature of legend.