Universe's End

Creeping through the underbrush, Rory held his breath, keeping as quiet as possible.

Just a little further.

Although his target was only twenty feet away, he wanted to maximize his chances.

Almost… there!

Stopping, he took a single slow breath as he watched his prey. It hopped about, thumping the ground rapidly with six heavy kicks before again hopping around. If you hadn't known better, you'd think it was seizing up, a mindless display.

But Rory did know better, as he'd seen the display several times over the last two days.

It was a mating call.

The damn monster rabbits bred like, well, rabbits. In the two days –three if Rory counted today–that he'd been exploring the forest jungle beyond his immediate campsite, he quickly found prey aplenty once he crossed what felt like an invisible threshold that the monsters seemed to avoid.

If I had to guess, I'd bet it's some boundary zone where my 'settlement' ends and the proper wilds begin.

It was a surprisingly large boundary, at least a quarter of a mile in radius, where the monsters seemed unable to cross unless specifically lured closer.

Such as by a monster beacon.

Which reminds me.

A miniature interface appeared, a simple timer counting down.

Twenty-seven hours and forty-eight minutes.

Rory dismissed it mentally, turning his attention back to his hunt. It had taken six days to prepare all his equipment. Then he'd spent three days, today included, simply foraging through the wilds, looking for any potential rabbits to hunt. When they weren't invading his camp as a mobilized force of death, they were relatively unthreatening, in groups of no more than four or five at a time. Well, there had been one exception, a den that was roughly two miles out from his camp, dozens of the damn things coming and going. He'd observed it for nearly two hours the day prior, before slinking away; there was just no way he wanted to poke that hornet nest.

Which had brought him to today. With only a little over a day left and the knowledge that the countdown timer wasn't precise when the wave would begin, he could only afford a few more hunts.

Disappointing but inevitable.

His ascension progress had crept up to fifty percent, which, while it sounded impressive, really wasn't when you considered that he'd slain at least three or four dozen rabbits over three days.

I don't think the energy gained is some simple linear equation or set amount. Rory had realized after the first dozen he'd killed that the progress made was not matching up with prior progress.

But then, I also capped my ascension progress before, so perhaps the energy fluctuates based on variables.

It was all a fun way to say that the system wasn't doing him any favors by showing his XP number on successful kills.

Bah. Stupid system and its disdain for easy-to-understand numbers.

Dismissing the thought, Rory counted down from five, letting the breaths come and go with practiced ease before, at last, he released the held tension in his shoulder as the arrow whizzed through the air, slamming through the monster rabbit's skull before it even knew it was already dead.

Bingo.

Releasing the tension that had been building, the mental sort, not the physical variety, he once more admired the bow he held as the analysis interface popped up.