Donovan and Kalika fled in the forest. Their hearts was beating fast with Donovan fear clearly palpable, while Kalika was simply shocked by the unfolding even.
Glancing back, They saw that the horde of horned rabbits, were still chasing them. They jumping and hopped their way with ease past the trees and roots as they pursued Kalika and Donovan. The rabbits had a mix of both black and white fur, with pure red eyes and had a horn fixed on their head.
A rabbit jumped from a tree above, charging in with its sharpened horn at Donovan
"Crap!" Donovan somehow dodged the particularly nasty attack from the rabbit. He never would've imagine such an innocent looking creature ot be so dangerous.
"Donovan? What do we do about this?" Kalika asked, keeping abnormally calm.
"I-I don't know. Didn't you see how fast that thing ate your arm?"
********
Remembering back a few minutes ago, Kalika and Donovan were checking on the snare they set up a day before. They found a cute looking horned rabbit with cute beady red eyes.
Kalika couldn't help but be attracted to such an animal, finding it adorable. "This is cute."
She reached out to the trapped animal.
"It's not a pet Kali-"
In an instant the cute rabbit devoured her entire hand, shocking both Donovan and Kalika. Her hands grew a moment later as they just stared at the rabbit with blood-stained lips. Looking as though it had done nothing abnormal.
"W-w-w-what the hell!????" Donovan exclaimed.
From the darkness in the forest. Many red eyes peaked from the darkness causing both Donovan and Kalika to let out a cold sweat as they stared into the dark forest..
The still trapped rabbit then burped, with satisfaction. Seconds later the horde of horned rabbits emerged from the darkness!
They both turned tailed, fleeing from the horde.
********
The rabbits behind kept on attacking at them. They couldn't run forever from this increasing unusual circumstance.
Mustering the courage, Kalika turned around, conjuring her blood blade.
"Hey, what are you doing!?" Donovan questioned.
"Go on ahead, I'll deal with them."
Biting his lips, Donovan reluctantly declines. "That's not happening." He brought out his broken pipe that he had on hand and readied himself for a fight.
"Damn iiiiiiiitt!!"Donovan swung, hitting several rabbits. A swung into the horde again, hitting several more rabbits,
It became delicate dance of keeping his distances while trying to not become these rabbits next meal.
As much as Kalika wanted to push him Donovan from this fight, she too was stuck killing rabbits after rabbits, just like Donovan.
It didn't take long for Kalika and Donovan to finally get the upper hand on these cute monsters. They slowly started to become easier to handle with their relentless attacks as they each rabbit would just charge in with their horns.
Eventually after all the relentless attack, and all the blood from killing, Kalika finally killed the last rabbit. Her hands and arms looked chewed through as did her legs. They soon regenerated back to normal, leaving no traces of any battle occurring.
Donovan still couldn't get used to seeing something like that. it was strange to witness and hard to believe that demons could regenerate their limbs and flesh. And what was even stranger to him was the fact that Kalika's blood was pitch black.
He sat himself onto a tree, still trying to recover from the battle. Both him and Kalika looked around, finding mountains of blood and dead rabbits.
"Whew… That was close." Donovan said. "I thought we were goners there…" He wiped his now scratched up face with his arm that was just as, if not, more scratched and bruised. He felt lucky not to have been eaten by any of those demonic rabbits.
"I'm surprised we didn't become their dinner..."
"You're telling me." Donovan looked back to the pile of rabbit corpses that littered the ground and back to a bloodied Kalika. "Yup, I'm definitely leaving the hunting to Kalika…" Donovan thought.
"What do we do with all these rabbits?" Kalika asked.
Shortly after, Kalika and Donovan found themselves dragging back the tied horde of dead rabbits. "So, we're going to use all these rabbits?"
"Yeah," Donovan said. "We need their skins to back some pouches to carry thing if we're going to travel. Besides, we'll need lots of food for this journey and there's nothing better than rabbit meat in my opinion.
After their trek out of the forest, They finally arrived back at their cave. The worked together, piling up rabbit after rabbit, readying to process them into the skin and meat.
Kalika glanced back at Donovan, hanging the first rabbit upside down. "How long does this take agai-"
She stopped and dropped the rabbit, witnessing Donovan professionally skin and collect its entrails. The very sight grossed her out to a point where she wished she started to feel bad for the rabbits they slaughtered.
"Wow, This knife Bjorn Made work's better than I thought." Donovan glanced back. "Make sure to take its guts and stuff out, but only after taking its skin off, okay?"
Donovan noticed Kalika increasing blank expression. "Hmm? Is something wrong?" She seemed unresponsive. "Hey, Kalika. While I'm doing this would you like to help me get some of the water and bowls Bjorn made?"
"Y-yeah… Sure." Kalika took her leave, into their cave.
"O-oh and make sure to grab some of the salt too." he called.
Entering the cave with Bjorn, he seemed to have finished skinning the wolves that she and Donovan killed the day before. He was napping with his arms crossed as he left a few separate piles. One of the piles were of the wolves guts and organs that she wished to clean from her mind.
She turned back to task, getting some empty bowls, water and the white rock of salt.
"Stop." Bjorn said.
Kalika turned back to Bjorn, who kept his eyes closed. "The bowls and water will be disintegrate in a moment."
Lifting his arms he manifested a few bowls made of earth magic and a much bigger cauldron, filling it using water magic. As soon as he finished, the bowls Kalika held disintegrated into nothing, along with the water she had previously.
She stared blankly at her hands, annoyed by what had just occurred. Reluctantly, she took the newly made big bowls with her and returned shortly after for the water.
Bjorn peeked at Kalika with furrowed brows, curious by what happened. "What's with all the blood?"
She glared back, indignant. After some time of silence, she finally answered. "We were attacked… By rabbits…"
"Oh…" Bjorn was a little surprised to hear that such a thing happened. Shortly after Kalika left to rejoin Donovan and placed the large cauldron of water by him.
"Thanks Kalika." Donovan took the white rock of salt and cracked it into separate pieces. He threw a few into the cauldron and mixed it with the water. He promptly stuck the rabbit in and tidied up the other pieces and readied the next rabbit to butcher.
Donovan turned back to Kalika, finding that same blank expression from before. he sighed. "Hey Kalika, if you want, you can leave the skinning to me."
"Are you... Used to this?."
"Yeah… I guess. It's like I said yesterday, My father and uncle took me hunting when I was a kid. So I know a lot about hunting. compared to what I'm doing now, it's nothing to when I was a kid."
Don stuck his stone blade into the rabbit, cutting it down. "Ha. To be honest I was more of weenie when I was a kid. So I guess you can say that hunting toughened me up as a guy."
Donovan pulled the skin and he piled the entrails into the bowl. "So I'm a little more numb with this stuff. I'm sure you'll get used to it too."
At the corner of her eyes, Kalika saw a faint glow within it the newly placed guts. She looked away quickly, still a little grossed out by the pile that was steadily building up.
After a while of working on collecting the animal meat and skin, Donovan finally realized that Kalika was still watching him work. He began to stutter. "U-uhh… A-are you sure you want to keep watching me?"
"Hmm? Oh… I don't know… I just feel like something strange will happen if I leave."
Donovan cocked his head, confused. "Like what?"
"Well… For all I know, those wolf pelts might get up and dance around Bjorn."
"H-huh!??" Donovan was left in a stunned silence hearing Kalika's strange statement.
Kalika looked on, blankly at Donovan, unamused. "I had a dream like that once and it kept getting weirder after that. I refuse to let things get stranger."
"Y-yeah… R-right…" It became hard for him to tell if she was being serious or if she was just making excuses at that point. "B-but why would something that strange happen?"
"Cause we're in a dream, obviously." Kalika's expression was wooden with an unamused look, as she stared at Donovan like he was stupid.
Donovan gave up. "R-right."
"By the way, I think there's something shiny in their stomachs," Kalika suddenly noted.
Donovan, surprised at hearing this, looked himself. He saw a white glow from beneath the pile of organs. With practice ease, he picked up the stomach and squeezed out the small white crystal.
Turning back to Kalika, she was averting her eyes, trying to avoid watching the scene. She gave a sideways glance, seeing that he was already done finding the crystal in question.
"What's this?" Donovan furrowed his brow, curious by the strange glowing crystal that had a faint familiarity.
"That's a blue magic crystal"
"Magic cryst-" He stopped, remembering that these were used specifically with the gray power. He looked back at the pile of guts and rabbit organ. "That's strange… I wonder if there's more…"
"Yes." Kalika said. "They're clearly glowing. Don't you see them?." Kalika made sure to keep her gaze away from the pile in question.
Donovan looked at Kalika, then the pile of rabbits he still had yet to butcher. "Hmmm...."
********
Shortly after finishing all the horned rabbits, Donovan now sat in the cave with a horde of differently shaped crystals laid out before him. Bjorn opened one of his eyes, seeing Donovan looking over the glowing crystals curiously.
"What is this?" Bjorn inquired.
"Hey, Uhhh…. Bjorn. Right? Is it normal for the monsters here to have crystals in them?" Donovan held the biggest one, presenting it to Bjorn. "I've found some in those wolves too…"
"A lot of the monsters here like to eat from those white crystals every now and then, So I'm not surprised."
Kalika entered the cave with a thick tree the size of a wooden pillar for a home. "This is what you wanted?"
"O-oh yeah, you can leave it right there." She did as she was told and joined Donovan with the large group of magic crystals.
"This is a lot…" She gazed upon the crystal that glowed red, blue, green, and brown. She took it in hand only for it to turn gray in an instant, surprising both Donovan and Bjorn.
"H- How did you do that!?" Donovan blurted. He reached out to the newly dulled crystal, taking it from her hands.
"I don't know. Ever since I was little I could always use magic from these." She glanced at her blue hands. "But now-a-days they all become lifeless when I touch them… and I don't know why…"
"Really?" Donovan brought his hands to his chin, scrutinizing the crystal now in hand. "If I remember correctly, these crystals were used in those gray powers too. I wonder…"
How did you use those crystals?" Bjorn suddenly asked.
Kalika turned, looking at Bjorn coldly. "I don't know."
"Could you at least try to remember," Donovan tried probing for any little information he could from her.
Kalika looked back at him. She then turned her glance to the ceiling, pondering. "I don't know… I guess... I tried matching their feelings?"
"Feelings like how?"
Kalika looked back down and crouched at the crystal poking one by accident, and turning it gray. She quickly corrected by pointing to another in the group.
"Like this red one here. It feels like it's always moving fast." She pointed to another one. "This brown one here feels like everything is tightening together, This green feels loose and freeing, and this blue one here…"
She was pointing at the first crystal they found. "The blue ones feel like you're spreading apart."
Both Donovan and Bjorn watched her point from white crystal to white crystal. To them, they all looked the same.
"K…Kalika…" Donovan started. "These all look white to me…"
Kalika glanced at him, a little disappointed.
Donovan, feeling a little bad, pointed to a crystal she was referring to earlier. "This is a brown one, right?
She nodded in the affirmative.
He took the crystal in hand trying to feel anything subtle from within the crystal. "So, a tightening feeling..." She said to himself.
He tried focusing on feeling out a tightening feeling to no avail. Eventually after a few moments he started making a strange face. Both Kalika and Bjorn raised a brow seeing this.
"What are you-" Bjorn stopped, seeing a crusty ball form just above Donovan's fist. He gave in and the tiny ball fell to the ground without anyone else noticing.
"What were you doing?" Kalika asked, with her blank stare.
Donovan rubbed the back of his head a little embarrassed. "I don't know. I was trying something, but it looks like it didn't work…"
He turned his attention back to the horde of magic crystals in front of him, pondering. "I don't know what we can do with these, but I guess we should hold onto them for now."
"I would recommend doing so." Bjorn nodded.
Donovan and Kalika turned to Bjorn as he continued to explain.
"Those magic crystal's you can use to exchange here in the Pit. Just think of it as your gold coin you use above."
"I see… Well, that makes things a no brainer." Donovan, quickly set the pile aside, content with the news. He then got up grabbing the thick piece of tree, He gestured for Kalika to help, and with a smile he spoke.
"Hey Kalika, how would you like some new clothes?"
Her curiosity peaked with that statement and joined him.
Bjorn just watched the two as they started to get to work, with Donovan showing Kalika the ropes of cleaning the pelts. He couldn't help but to narrow his eyes at the two as they worked.
"That human… Is it possible he could use magic too?" Bjorn thought. "No matter…"
Bjorn then glanced back at Kalika who gave a bored and uncertain expression as she watched.
Slowly Bjorn began to get lost in thoughts about the revelations with the magic crystals. he couldn't tell whether it was the ramblings of a mad women, or a new found truth that was never discovered. Either way, it seemed that she knew more than what she was letting on with those crystal.
He glanced back at the horde of gathered crystals, now scrutinizing it. "Strange..."
********
In a dungeon prison, lines of guards were chained up and killed one by one, by a tall red demon with a broken right horn and a scar on his fit chest.
Each one tried in vain to break free from the shackle as the demon got ever closer to them. After slaughtering many of the chained guards, he grabbed the last with the throat. The rage in his green eyes was evident.
He ripped the last guard's head in an instant, throwing it to the floor like trash.
"Satisfied?"
A blue demon that looked like a little girl watched, sat at the corner of the room. She played with her tail, looking bored as she turned her gaze from the grizzly scene to the newly bloody demon, Rakon.
"This isn't nearly enough!" Rakon's eyes continued to gleam with his unfettered rage.
He then glanced at the small demon, Mae. "Is there any news on locating Kalika?"
"No… We still haven't found anything. We even went through the trouble of talking with some of the prisoners and guards."
"Then keep searching! We have to find her! She must be around here somewhere."
Mae hopped down the seat. "Okay. I'll let Magnus and the others know"
Mae took her leave from the arena, leaving Rakon alone in the room.
Suddenly, from his chest, black veins arose from his body. He hunched down, writhing in pain. He fell to his knees, with his hands now clasping his chest.
He exhaled as the black veins receded. Released from the sudden pain. It served as a reminder of his imminent death that was slowly approaching him.
"She couldn't possibly have escaped." Rakon narrowed his eyes, a flicker of concern washing over them. "If my brother and that woman are still alive, she shouldn't be able to escape…"
He blurted out a chuckle. "What a strange predicament, this is…"
Rakon wrenched himself back to his feet. He looked back at the bloodied scene.
Mustering what little magic he could, he burnt the bodies before him, surrounding himself in a blaze of burning dead demons. Demon's that betrayed his trust.