Bunny Girl Evolution [A Monster Evolution LitRPG]

89 – Dragon & Princess

“Are you ready?” asked Iris.

“Yes,” said Sophie, nodding seriously.

“Once it starts, it can’t be stopped.”

“I know.”

“Good. Then go. I will begin in five minutes.”

Sophie nodded, then turned around to jog out to the edge of the island. Iris was sitting in the lotus position in the center of her formation, meditating with her eyes closed. She had been lucid for a full half hour at this point, the longest Sophie had ever seen, and she was going to have to remain so for another half an hour, if her words were to be believed. Sophie was nervous, but Iris had assured her it would be possible, as long as she did her job, and Sophie didn’t want to be the reason the plan failed.

She reached the edge of the island after just two minutes, then immediately hopped onto the raft and paddled out to the earthen platform they had set up previously. She stood on the narrow piece of land, watching as the sun set over the island until it finally began.

An enormous black figure rose up from the treeline, blotting out the sun. It was Iris in her true form, and even though Sophie had been warned, she still couldn’t help but feel abject terror. She thought that Iris had a lot of mana before, but it was less than a tenth what she had now. For a moment, the dragon did nothing, simply staring at Sophie with its baleful yellow eyes. Then, it nodded once, and started channeling all its mana into the ground.

The lines of mana all across the island that had been faint and thin before flared up, painting the entire island in the purple hue of spatial magic. Sophie felt the air trembling around her as the light only got more intense. If she didn’t know any better, she might have thought something apocalyptic was happening. The mana intensified for another five minutes before Sophie finally sensed what she was waiting for.

Behind her, the barrier around the island became unstable, its strength oscillating between full and next to nothing. Sophie immediately began channeling her own mana into the barrier, trying to form a small portal right on the barrier. Ordinarily, this would have been impossible. The barrier rejected any and all attempts to interfere with it, making even dragon magic ineffective.

Now though, it was different. Whenever the barrier weakened, Sophie was able to just barely punch a hole through. The hole immediately closed when its strength returned, but that was as expected. Sophie did not give up. Every time its power waned, she punctured a new hole, then did not resist as the barrier closed itself up, and every time, it closed up just a bit slower. Part of that was due to Iris’ ritual weakening the barrier, but Sophie could see that her own holes were causing minute damage to the intricate patterns contained in the barrier.

Each time it closed, the barrier made haste to replace the broken part with more mana, but each time, the patterns were simpler. According to Iris, these would normally be repaired and brought back up to the standard of the rest over time, but they would not give them this time. After a few minutes of punching small holes, Sophie started slowly expanding her portals, taking out larger and larger sections each time.

The first holes had been barely enough to fit a pinky through, but they rapidly expanded until they were big enough Sophie could fit her entire arm through, and it took multiple seconds to close. Her progress only accelerated as the barrier got weaker. After another five minutes, the hole was almost big enough for her to step through, and the edges only barely shrank before the barrier weakened and she was able to force them open further again.

Sophie was starting to run low on mana, but they were nearing the end of the ritual. She just needed to hold on for a few minutes longer, and she had enough for that. An almost maniacal grin spread across her face as the time for the final step came. Her situation was not one she had wanted to be in, nor was it a desirable place to be, but she couldn’t help but feel excited. She was working with a literal dragon to perform a ritual that would do the impossible. The barrier had been able to trap a fully-grown dragon for centuries, and Sophie was helping to break it. It was beyond anything she had even dreamed of learning how to do at the University.

As the time for the final step approached, she took a quick glance back at Iris. The dragon’s seemingly infinite mana reserves were running visibly low, but the power of the formation was still only increasing. Iris had her eyes closed, but as if she felt Sophie’s gaze, she opened one of them, and nodded again, then turned her head up and opened her mouth. A beam of impossibly dense mana mixed with aether shot straight up from Iris’ mouth, punching a hole through the barrier.

Sophie quickly turned back to her hole to finish her side of the ritual. While somatic components were no longer necessary for her to control mana, she still found that they helped a bit, so as the barrier strengthened, she crouched low, and when it weakened again, she shot upward, her hand outstretched as if doing an open-handed uppercut. A crack shot up from the hole she had made in the barrier, rending space apart as it traveled upward like lightning.

She did not have enough power to reach all the way to the top, but Iris angled her head slightly down as her breath weapon ran out, just barely making her own breach meet with Sophie’s. Something seemed to change in the barrier, and as though it had an adrenaline surge, it rapidly closed itself up entirely. Then, the ritual pulsed again, and this time when the barrier’s power waned again, it did not recover. It remained in a severely weakened state until a final pulse of the ritual made it vanish entirely.

Sophie held her breath, as if waiting for the barrier to return, but nothing happened. She reached her hand out to where it had been, half-expecting to be forced back to the beach, but nothing happened. All she saw through her {Dragon Eyes} was the open ocean and the environmental mana. All signs of anything that had been trapping them was gone.

Suddenly, the air quivered as Iris let out an ear-splitting roar. The roar contained more of the mysterious unknown energy than Sophie had ever seen, and when the wave hit, her knees buckled, and she fell to the ground. As she stood back up, she saw Iris staring at her, a glint in her eyes, just before the dragon collapsed to the ground with a crash.

“Iris!” shouted Sophie.

She got back on the raft and used what little was left of her mana to propel herself back to shore before she ran back to where Iris had fallen. The dragon was limp on the ground, her tail dipping into the pond from which they caught their food, and her falling body had knocked over a few dozen trees, but Sophie was relieved to see that she was still breathing. As far as she could tell, the only thing wrong was Iris’ near complete depletion of mana.

Sophie walked up to the dragon’s head, which was even taller than she was, and put her hand on the snout.

“We did it, Iris,” she said, smiling.

***

Never before had so many of the Blood Syndicate’s executives been gathered in the same place. Never before had there been so many executives either. The Syndicate had been around for well over a century, but it was only in the past few decades that it had grown to become internationally known, and that growth was in large part due to the construction of the headquarters in the Jungle, and the one who controlled it.

As the executives socialized and played political games, Henry found himself constantly glancing at the door of the VVIP booth. He was supposed to be guarding his master, the chief of the west Jelorian branch of the syndicate, but there was really nothing to do. Henry was just one of dozens of 7th tier bodyguards in the room. It would nearly take a full nation’s combat force to be a real threat, and if such a force was planning on making moves against them, they would have heard about it.

This left Henry’s mind free to wander, and wander it did. The leader of the Jungle headquarters, and the one rumored to rule the entire Syndicate from the shadows, would be arriving soon. He wondered what she looked like. Her existence was quite mysterious. Many had seen her, but few had actually met her, as she only made public appearances occasionally during these events, and rarely talked with anyone.

She was known simply as “the Lady,” and Henry had heard one of his fellow bodyguards say before that she was incredibly beautiful. Dangerously so. In fact, the former chief of the west Jelorian branch had once tried to make a move on her at one of these events. She brushed him off at the time, but apparently, he was quite persistent. After the event, she agreed to take him back to her room. He went excitedly, and the next day, his second in command was promoted to his position. He was never seen again.

Henry was smart enough that he knew not to do anything too early, but he was also curious to see how beautiful this woman must have been that his former boss died for her. If she for some reason ever spoke to him, he planned on thanking her, actually. It was largely due to her that he had been promoted to his current position, allowing him to infiltrate this gathering. With the death of the former boss, his bodyguards were dismissed for failing to protect him, and Henry was perfectly poised to take their place.

It had been a long five years pretending to be a bodyguard, and many times, he thought he would break character. Both his former and current bosses were licentious, and had proclivities for non-humanoids. The number of times Henry had to watch his fellow fey arrive in chains, knowing they might never emerge hurt him to his core. But he did not break. He maintained his stone-faced demeanor, letting the rage build up inside him, all for this moment.

He was finally in the VVIP booth. He was finally about to face the one behind this whole organization, and he was more than ready. As soon as “the Lady” arrived, he would give the signal, and Operation Blood would begin in earnest. Until then though, he had to bear with it. He turned his attention back to his “boss” as he talked with one of the other executives who was a more frequent patron of the arena.

“Oh yes, the Berserker is quite exciting,” said the weaselly, middle-aged man. “Still quite rebellious too. Just last month, he fought against a changeling. It was an interesting bout, and I’m sad to say that I lost quite a bit of money on it. I had been watching the changeling for a while, and it was impressive. A shame it died so soon.”

Henry felt rage boiling inside him, but pushed it back down. He only had to last another few minutes.

“Do you know what the tower is for?” asked Henry’s boss, a tall, overweight man with a massive mustache.

“Ah, I wish I did,” replied the other. “I’ve never seen anything like it used here. The Lady went all out for this event. I overheard something about a princess, though I haven’t heard of any princesses being captured recently, so it’s most likely more figurative. I’m still excited.”

“I as well.”

Henry looked out at the arena. The stands were almost full, and the rumble of the crowd was to the point where even with the booth’s sound-proofing spells, he could still feel it in the ground. In the center of the arena, a stone tower had been erected, sprouting from the ground like an odd tree. There were windows all around, but they were blocked by similar stone. He assumed the windows would be opened whenever the event started, which, based on the crowd, would be soon.

Henry tried to tune out the conversations of the people around him, turning to his own mind to help stay calm and undercover, until after a few minutes, the conversation in the VVIP booth faltered, and the room’s attention turned toward the main entrance. She had arrived.

Clad all in black with a veil over her face and an air of supreme confidence, she walked right down the center toward the official leader of the Blood Syndicate. The man turned toward her with a smile, and bent down to kiss her outstretched hand.

“Welcome, my Lady,” he said.

“At ease,” she responded, her voice cold and emotionless. “I see that all of you have made it safely. I’m glad you could join me. You are all in for quite the show.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” said the leader.

“Then we should start without delay.”

She waved her hand, and everyone in the booth turned as fireworks started going off in the arena, and the crowd started cheering wildly. Henry, however, remained facing her. She was not quite what he expected. She matched the physical description that Rayna had given, but somehow, he had been expecting more. The woman in front of him was short and slight of figure, and while even through the veil, he could see that she was pretty, she was not as dangerously beautiful as he had been imagining.

She turned to him, their eyes making contact, almost making Henry flinch. It was not because there was anything terrifying, but her gaze did not feel like one of the sadistic ruler of an international crime syndicate. Rather, her emerald eyes seemed to carry a deep, almost knowing sadness. It was almost enough to make Henry falter, but he didn’t let it fool him. He knew what she was, and he had a mission to stop her. As the arena’s announcer explained the rules of whatever cruel entertainment had been prepared, he set his jaw and sent out the mental signal.

Operation Blood is a go.

***

Bianca had not once left the room since she arrived, and she had not had any visitors since the vampire woman. She simply lived a steady routine of boredom and sleep. At least, that’s what she had been doing until today. Just an hour before, the enchantment on the room constantly draining her mana had turned off. Around that same time, a rumbling started. At first, she had no idea what it was, but as it grew, she thought she recognized it. It was a crowd. Somewhere outside of her room, there were thousands of people gathered, talking amongst each other.

She had no idea what was happening, but she doubted it was good. Seconds after the enchantments turned off, she immediately started meditating to replenish her stores. Though breaking stone wasn’t something she would say she specialized in, it was definitely something she could do now that she had mana. A few plants sending their roots in to destabilize the structure, and a basic unattributed spell like {Magic Missile} and she would be able to force a hole to get out. She wanted to be full on mana though, since she had no idea what awaited her outside.

Her meditation was interrupted when she was nearly full as the hatch opened up and someone emerged from below. Bianca opened her eyes to see the same vampire woman from before standing at the foot of her bed.

“Looks like you’re almost done,” she said with a fanged smile.

“What’s going on?” asked Bianca.

“You’ll see,” said the woman, walking around the bed.

Bianca scooted over to the side to get out of her way, but a moment later, she found herself frozen in place, unable to move.

“Don’t resist,” said the vampire. “Actually, do. If you don't, your fiance might not have time to save you.”

Bianca’s heart rate skyrocketed as the other woman got closer, kneeling on the bed and reaching out to grab her mouth. Bianca was helpless as her mouth was forced open, and red blood seeped out from the woman’s hand traveling down her throat. As soon as it entered her body, Bianca felt her mana running rampant, as if trying to destroy her cores.

“You’ll want to circulate,” said the vampire, pulling back. “Or else it will be over too soon.”

The restraint was released, and Bianca fell onto the bed, writhing in pain.

“Good luck,” said the other woman before seemingly vanishing.

It took Bianca almost a full minute to regain enough control to start {Mana Circulation}. When she did, the pain lessened significantly, and she was able to better focus on what she was doing. She laid back on the bed, perfectly flat, letting {Mana Circulation} do its work trying to purify her mana. After another minute, she almost lost focus when her surroundings suddenly changed.

She heard a loud crack, and suddenly the sound of the crowd was nearly deafening, and a light breeze entered. The formerly blocked windows had been unblocked, but she didn’t dare look. She could feel the foreign mana trying to change her from the inside out, and in case the vampire was being truthful about Nick coming to save her, she couldn’t afford to stop circulating.

“Welcome, welcome!” a voice rang out over the crowd. “Welcome to the first of hopefully many Grand Auctions. You all have come from all over the world, looking for a chance at our most prized possessions, and don’t worry! We will not disappoint. However, every auction needs entertainment, and our very own Lady has prepared a rather exciting event: a live recreation of the Princess and the Dragon.

“In the tower, you can see the Princess Bianca, cursed by the evil witch to eternal slumber. The only thing that can wake her is true love’s kiss. However, her tower is guarded by the evil Dragon that none but the bravest knight can slay.” Bianca heard a spine-chilling roar. “Our hero, Sir Nicholas, has bravely volunteered for the task, but will he be able to do it? Will he be able to save his true love?”

The crowd roared a mix of boos and cheers as Bianca heard what sounded like a stone door sliding away below. Then, she heard a new voice through the window. A familiar voice. A voice she had been waiting to hear for months.

“Bianca!” shouted Nick.

Bianca wanted to call out to him, but the foreign mana was progressing rapidly through her system. It was all she could do just to keep it from having free reign.

“Now that the stage has been set,” said the announcer. “Without further ado, let the play begin!”