Universe's End

"Well then?" Rory asked the creature, raising his voice. "I don't have all day. Come on!"

Rory did, in fact, have all day. He most definitely was not about to hit up the nightlife of a planet with only eight people, but Rory had no intention of dragging the encounter out.

The jackalope tilted its admittedly cute head at him. Half expecting it to charge him with its small set of antlers, he was surprised when the air around it began to wrinkle, warping as if space was bending until four black orbs had formed, dark as the void of space.

Well, that doesn't look good.

Instantly, the orbs launched forward, forcing Rory to leap out of the way and land on the ground before jumping out of the sudden tucked roll. A single glance backward showed four perfect orb-shaped holes in the wall behind where he had been standing.

If it wasn't obvious, avoid the space-deleting orbs.

The jackalope made no move to close the distance, content with firing more orbs after him. Thankfully, they appeared to have a linear path; they weren't tracking him as they flew, vanishing the moment they collided with anything.

The downside is that whatever they touched, they seemed to erase matter.

Yeah, don't get hit.

Rory wanted to draw closer to the monster, but the issue was that the closer he got, the less time he had to react and avoid one of those space-deleting orbs. He was playing defense with no way to turn things around.

Something. Anything! Think!

Rory continued to dodge, flinging his body every which way as the spheres flew about recklessly, with no end in sight. Hours and days of work were being shredded as the orbs erased matter, his camp deteriorating more and more by the second.

"Stop… breaking…my…. shit!" Annoyed at watching his work go to waste, Rory finally flung himself forward, leaping at the jackalope with his bat raised overhead, taking advantage of a moment of respite where no orbs formed.

Gotcha!

Time slowed as he brought the bat down toward the jackalope.

This moment feels strangely prolonged.

What should have only taken a moment had dragged on for several seconds as a more malignant thought began to form.

Wait… Don't people say everything slows down just before they die?

Eyes widening slowly, Rory saw his mistake. A tiny black orb had formed just a step behind the jackalope, one he hadn't noticed at first, as it was formed behind its antlers and not between them.

Shit!

Time unfroze, and without thinking, Rory did the only thing he could think of as the orb was sent flying directly at his face. Swinging the bat down prematurely, the orb collided with it.

The good news was that his face survived being erased.

The bad news was that the same could not be said for his bat.

"God damn it!" Rory yelled, examining his bat, which had been reduced to a handle after he threw himself away from the jackalope. "I just made that!"

He was down a weapon, his camp was being destroyed, and still, he had made no progress on killing the damned thing.

Tossing aside what remained of his bat, he withdrew his combat knife, spinning it to hold it pointed downward. For a brief moment, Rory considered flinging the knife at the jackalope. Logic took hold only a second after, as it was his only weapon left, and generally, tossing away your only weapon was considered a bad idea.

It's not as if I'm a trained knife thrower, anyway.

He needed to close the distance without being erased.

How!?

At the rate things were going, his camp would be destroyed, and he would be forced to flee.

That or he would die.

Think, Rory. Think.

Desperate, he flicked open his interface, skimming the small overlay for anything that might help. He had his vocation, Significance Triumphs, physique report, and contacts. Aside from that, there was nothing else. No special power-up button, no 'oh shit, save me' option, nada, nothing.

If this system were modeled after a video game, it wouldn't be a very forgiving one.

About to give up on it, Rory nearly dismissed the interface when he once more thought back to the contact screen. He considered trying to message the world spirit for a moment, but either she wouldn't save him, or it wouldn't reach her in time.

But I can do something else.

It was something the world spirit had shown him, and while it was a long shot, he was desperate enough to try. Dashing toward the jackalope, he saw an orb appear above it, ready to rip through his chest.

Not so fast.

With his interface still open, Rory tapped once with his free hand before flicking it away.

Toward the jackalope.

For the first time since it began its assault, the jackalope moved, startled by a golden-hued display flickering into existence right before it.

Using the split-second distraction for as much as it was worth, Rory dove at the jackalope, dodging the hastily flung orb, his knife slamming down hard.

Sucking in breath after breath, far more winded than he had realized, Rory's brain rebooted after a moment of inhalation.

Did it work?

The fact that there didn't appear to be any holes in his body, something his physique report confirmed, was already a good start. Tearing his eyes away from his interface, he took stock of the sight before him.

The jackalope remained where it was, except now there was a knife stabbed through its skull, pinning its head to the ground, the handle bloodied by how hard he had been gripping it.

I won!

A swell of excitement welled through him; simultaneously, a notification appeared on his interface display, which Rory quickly read.