Bunny Girl Evolution [A Monster Evolution LitRPG]

90 – Operation Start

When Nick entered the arena, his blood was boiling. He was half-ready to just use {Berserk} right then and there to get things over with quickly. If the Lady was being truthful, as long as he was able to win, she would let both him and Bianca go free. It wouldn’t matter if he was weakened after using the skill, because he would be able to just sleep it off and leave afterward. Of course, that was only if he trusted her to keep her word, which he didn’t. Especially not when he sensed what was inside the tower in the middle of the arena.

The arena looked largely the same as he remembered, but in the center, there was a great stone tower that reached almost all the way up to the roof. The entire interior was cut off from his senses at first, but when the announcer called out “Princess Bianca” and the windows fell away, his blood ran cold. From inside the room at the top of the tower, he sensed a familiar aether running rampant. The same aether that had tried to transform him. The Lady had done the same to Bianca.

He could tell that she was not yet turned, but he knew it was only a matter of time. She had more mana and better mana control than him, but her physical stats were far, far lower, and she didn’t have his self-healing skill. She wouldn’t be able to hold out for very long cycling her mana like that. At first, he had no idea how he would even begin to save her if he could make it to her, but the solution came to him almost immediately. There was one skill that he had yet to use after evolving into a Pseudo-Dhampir: {Absorb Aether}.

The skill description didn’t go into great detail on what would happen to the aether after he absorbed it, and he was a bit apprehensive about taking it inside his body again after seeing what had happened last time, but he knew he had no choice. If he wanted Bianca to remain human, or at least mostly human, he would need to do it.

Before that though, he would need to get past the “dragon.” While it did indeed look like a dragon, Nick could tell it wasn’t. For one, he doubted even the Lady would have been able to imprison a dragon and force it to fight like that. Second, while {Fighter’s Instincts} told him that the monster was powerful, it was not so much that it was hopeless. If he was facing a true dragon, he wouldn’t stand a chance.

What he was facing was a drake. It was a powerful monster, no doubt, and theoretically, it would be possible for it to eventually evolve into a dragon, but for now, it was still just an unintelligent beast. An unintelligent beast that was standing in the way of Nick and his fiancée.

It was perched on top of the tower, staring down at him with a pair of beady black eyes, blowing smoke out its nostrils. It was about the size of an elephant, with red scales and wings that spread a quarter of the way across the entire arena. Its claws were long and sharp, digging into the tower like it was made of butter. It was not a monster that Nick would ever fight at his level if he could avoid it.

He didn’t have a choice though, so he immediately started thinking of ways to beat it. He had been allowed to equip himself with a full set of armor, a sword, and a shield so that he could play the part of the knight prince. Unfortunately, he did not have any ranged weaponry, meaning he would need to get the drake down to his level if he wanted to be able to actually do anything about it.

“Get down here, you coward!” he called out to it as soon as the announcer stopped speaking.

That didn’t work. The drake instead simply shot down a line of fire at him, forcing him to dodge to the side. The beam of white-hot fire left a black scorch mark on the ground where it hit, making the crowd go wild. Nick was once again disgusted by them, and also impressed at how much they trusted the barrier around the arena. Fights between 4th and 5th tiers were one thing, but the drake was likely a full-fledged 7th tier monster. The barrier might have been strong, but would it have been able to take that beam of concentrated fire? Nick wasn’t sure, and he was surprised at how it didn’t seem to cross any of their minds.

Those thoughts aside though, he still had a battle to fight. The Lady’s aether was still going strong in the tower, and with every minute Bianca’s situation got more dire. The drake shot another fire beam down, which Nick dodged again before deciding to take a different approach. He was typically a more grounded fighter, but if the drake wasn’t going to come down to him, he would just have to go up to it.

He had no climbing skills, but seeing how easily the drake’s claws had pierced the tower, he thought that said more about the stone than the power of the monster. He empowered his fingers and jabbed them into the mortar between two of the bricks, and just as he hoped, they went right in. He immediately sheathed his sword and started climbing.

The drake roared, and shot another breath weapon, but Nick was able to shimmy to the side, just barely avoiding it. The armor on his arm heated up to the point where he could feel it burning his skin underneath, but he just gritted his teeth and let his healing skill patch him up as he continued on his way up.

He dodged one more attack, this one actually washing over his right arm before he could get out of the way, but he still didn’t take any permanent damage. Seeing this, the drake roared again, then spread its wings. When it did, Nick realized something; he actually had an advantage here. The drake might have been bigger, stronger, faster, and more powerful than him, but it was confined to the arena the same as him. It was way too big to be able to fly around, and if Nick managed to build some momentum, it would have nowhere to run. Additionally, while drakes and their whole evolutionary line had an inherently huge amount of mana, its breath attacks also took a huge amount of mana to power. It had already used it four times, and he doubted it had enough to use it more than a couple more times.

It realized this as well, which is why it had gotten up to move, but this helped Nick more than anything. It leapt from the tower, its wings outstretched, seemingly aiming to get right behind Nick to attack, but Nick never gave it the chance. As soon as it started heading downward, he gathered himself and pushed off the tower, launching himself backward, straight at the flying lizard. The drake was surprised, and though it tried to twist its body out of the way, it was only barely able to move before Nick’s sword found its way into its body.

The blade missed the drake’s heart, but empowered by as much mana as Nick could get into it, it was able to sink deep into the scales. The drake jerked back in pain, and Nick was barely able to hold onto the sword, but he managed to remain for a few seconds as the drake bucked. With every movement, the wound got wider as the sword dug around, until it was so wide that the sword could no longer hold on.

Nick was prepared for the sword to lose its grip, and gracefully fell back, turning his body so that he would land on his feet, but as he fell, the drake managed to orient itself as well, and send a tail whip straight at him. With no way to dodge in midair, all Nick could do was brace himself as it struck him and sent him flying into the barrier.

A few dozen people screamed in terror as Nick flew straight at them, but when he was stopped by the transparent barrier and fell back to the dirt instead, they started laughing. His armor was dented, and he was certain he had broken a couple ribs, but he was far from out of the fight. As he got to his feet, the drake landed right in front of him, baring its fangs as the wound in its torso leaked steaming hot blood all over the ground.

The two stared at each other for a second, then, simultaneously, they both charged forward. Nick was not foolish enough to believe that the drake was out of fire, but it seemed to be saving it for a finishing blow, which was fine by him. He would just have to finish it off before it got the chance to use it again.

The drake raised one of its front legs to swipe at him as he approached, and a split second later, its long, thin tail whipped around, trying to take his legs out. He ducked the claw, and stabbed his sword into the ground to stop the tail. His tactic worked well, and the tip was severed as it slammed into his blade, but he underestimated its momentum. The severed tip still continued on, smashing into his ankle and sending him to the ground.

The drake roared in pain, but wasted no time and attacked again, bringing down one of its front legs toward Nick’s prone form. Nick barely managed to roll out of the way in time, but one of its claws still snagged him, ripping off a piece of his armor and leaving a long gash in his shoulder. He pushed himself to his feet and dodged another swipe of the drake’s claws as he ran to retrieve his sword which was still stabbed into the ground.

The blood of the drake was incredibly hot, and it covered his sword, heating up the metal so much it hurt to touch, but he ignored the blistering of his hands as he swung it to meet the drake’s next claw attack. Having learned its lesson with its tail, the drake pulled back, making Nick’s sword hit only air, instead going for a biting attack from above.

Nick used the momentum of his missed counter to dodge to the side, then continued his swing, spinning to hit the drake in the snout with a vicious backswing. The sword sunk almost a foot deep into its massive head, and though he didn’t hit anything vital, he knew that his blow had done some serious damage. When it pulled away, blood was pouring from both the wound, and its nostrils, and it now had to hold its mouth open to be able to breath, since Nick had cut through its nasal airways.

It roared again, then backed up, taking a deep breath as its mouth glowed again. Nick dove to the side, somersaulting to get away from the breath weapon, then stood back up, waiting for the drake to make its next move. Nick felt good about how the fight was going so far, but he knew that everything could still change in an instant. He had done good damage to it so far, but the drake only needed one good hit and the fight would be over. He couldn’t afford to get overconfident.

He waited for a few more seconds for the drake to make another move, but to his surprise, it didn’t do anything. In fact, it even looked away from him. Nick stepped forward to take advantage of its distraction, but then he paused too. Something was off. He took a chance and followed the drake’s gaze up to the right toward the VVIP booth. Rather than a bunch of rich sadists watching as he suffered like he had become accustomed to seeing, what he saw inside the booth was utter chaos.

There was blood splattered on the windows, and a few dozen people inside were locked in combat. He tried finding the Lady, and for a second, he thought he saw her. There was a woman wearing a black dress and a veil, much like the Lady did, but as she dodged an attack, her hair spread out around her.

Blonde? thought Nick.

A moment later, she was attacked again, and the veil came off.

Rose!

He didn’t even have a full second to contemplate what was going on before his attention was torn away when an explosion rocked the arena.

***

While whatever event was happening in the arena had already begun, Elise’s group did not give up their stealth just yet. Operation Blood was a multi-stage plan, of which they were one of the later stages. If they tried to go in too early, that would only result in them drawing too much attention from the Syndicate. At the same time, if they went in too late, their enemies’ defenses would be up, and it would be much more difficult to extract the prisoners.

Timing was key, and they estimated that they would have around a twenty second window to begin moving. They would have more time once they actually got inside, but if they started too late or too early, they would run into one of the aforementioned issues. Because of this, they crept forward, making sure that they would be in position when the time came.

Oddly enough, despite how many important people were present, the Blood Syndicate seemed to have relaxed their security, rather than increased it. They had been informed of that at the briefing, but it was still odd to see it in person when they got close enough.

The arena itself towered hundreds of feet in the air, almost reaching the height of the tall trees, and while it was at the edge of the complex, there was still another fifty yards of room between it and the outer wall. The outer wall appeared to just be ordinary sharpened logs, lashed together and stuck in the ground, but Elise could sense powerful mana contained within. She had no doubt that they were much more durable than they looked, and likely had other defensive functions as well.

There were a few gates placed periodically on the wall, each guarded by a pair of armored guards. They were still too far out to identify, but Elise could tell from their mana that they were strong. They were also lazy. Most of them were leaning against the walls or their spears, or even sitting, with some even going as far as to nap on the job. One pair of guards off in the distance was drinking with a pair of young women, their gate propped open by a tree branch.

As they were at the moment, they would be incredibly easy to get by. Hans could probably kill any pair of them before they had a chance to react, and Elise was sure that either her or Maia could get past them using similar, less lethal methods. Especially once Elise activated {Rune of Fate}, which she planned on doing as soon as it was actually time to start.

The sounds from the arena had lessened for a moment as a single voice–an announcer, from the sound of it– had said some things, but now the cheering and jeering was back in full force. Occasionally, the sound would reach a momentary peak, causing the guards to glance back, and causing Elise and her companions to tense up. Penelope was gripping the hilt of her sword so tightly that Elise was worried she might damage the metal of her armor. They all knew it was likely Nick who was in the arena right now, but they still couldn’t do anything about it. They would just have to trust the rest of Ostra.

Thankfully, they didn’t have to wait much longer. It started on the far side of the camp, the sounds initially lost in the roar of the crowd. Then, the sounds of the excited crowd were joined by the sounds of terrified screams and battle cries from those not in attendance. Elise saw a plume of smoke rise up from a section of buildings a mile away, and knew that the main distraction force had begun their work. It was still not time for her to move yet, but that, at least, was confirmation that the plan was underway.

Soon, the guards on their side of the encampment suddenly stood up straight, on full alert. They started actually doing their job and watching for intruders, which unfortunately forced Elise to duck behind a tree, knowing her bright white fur would be easily spotted amongst the usual browns and greens of the Jungle.

A minute later, the sounds from the arena changed. Excitement and amusement became confusion and terror as a deafening explosion rang out, sending a slight shockwave even to where Elise and the others were hiding. It was not on their side of the arena, but they could see the small mushroom cloud of fire and smoke appear above it. At the same time, Elise heard a bestial roar from within.

That was their cue. Elise immediately dashed out from behind the tree and took her human form as she flew down toward the guards.

“Intruder!” one shouted.

“I’m contacting the- the…” started the other.

The reason he faltered was simple. Elise had removed her hood, at the same time praying to Titania to activate {Rune of Fate} and using {Charm}. Both guards were effectively stunned, and when Elise flashed them a smile, their faces turned red. She didn’t have time to check her status window, but she felt more powerful than she usually did in her human form. For a brief moment, she regretted not testing {Lesser Transformation} last time she had {Rune of Fate} active, as she now realized that it too ran on aether, but she pushed the thought aside to focus on the task at hand.

“I have a gift for you,” she said to the guards.

She used {Suggest} at the same time, and both guards approached her. They looked a bit apprehensive, and even her divinely-empowered skills couldn’t make them ignore the chaos happening behind them, but they still walked up to her nonetheless. When they were right below her, Elise activated {Fairy Dust}, cursing them with a deep slumber.

It was a much slower way to do it than having Hans kill them both, but even with their time constraints, they had all agreed this method would be better. While Ostra fully intended on slaughtering every single leader of the Blood Syndicate, decimating their power structure, they also wanted to keep the number of unnecessary casualties to an absolute minimum. It would be terrible for Ostra’s optics if their first official appearance was a merciless massacre, even if they thought those people deserved to be mercilessly massacred.

With {Rune of Fate} active, Elise could be fairly certain that no matter what happened, those guards would not wake up for a long time. Even if she overestimated herself, they didn’t plan on being there for more than a few minutes, so hopefully it would last at least long enough for that.

As soon as the guards collapsed, the others emerged from the foliage and the five approached the gate. As she suspected, the wall was not as simple as it looked. It even seemed to have enchantments to keep flying creatures out. The amount of mana required to form an actual barrier to stop them physically entering would have been far too high, so instead, they opted for a mental barrier, making anything trying to go over feel a strong urge to turn around. This had no effect on Elise in her current state, so she simply flew over the wall and opened the gate from the inside.

She then flew toward the tunnel through which they would enter the arena, where another pair of guards were looking quite panicked about the situation. Hans, Penelope, and Maia followed close behind as she repeated the same trick, knocking these guards out as well. Meanwhile, Jag stayed behind to use his much higher Strength to try to tear the wooden gates off their hinges, allowing for an easier escape in case reinforcements came to block their exit.

With the two other guards knocked out, Hans immediately sprinted in and down the stairs, moving so fast Elise could barely see him. Maia followed behind as closely as she could, with Penelope bringing up the rear. Elise, however, did not join them. Not yet, at least. She had a different job, for the moment.

The four guards she had knocked out were important, and allowed the others free entry to the arena, but they were not the only ones around. As the others entered the tunnel and Jag finished dismantling the gates, another dozen or so guards were running over, weapons raised toward Elise. When she turned to look at them, even before using {Charm}, a few of them faltered. Once again, Elise regretted not using {Lesser Transformation} at all last time she had activated {Rune of Fate}.

As they got near, Elise flew up into the air again, smiling. She felt like she probably looked quite angelic. The effect was slightly ruined by her wings being insectile, rather than avian, but she was sure it had a similar effect. Especially since both them, and her eyes were glowing golden. When they got within range, she immediately cast {Charm} on each, switching targets so quickly it might as well have been a multi-target attack.

“I mean you no harm,” she said with a smile.

At that moment, Elise had a minor epiphany. She had been using {Charm} wrong the whole time. It was largely not her fault, since no one had ever really taught her, and its effects were so subtle that they were hard to notice, but now that she was overflowing with aether, it was obvious. The description of {Charm} was about as accurate as the System’s description of Charisma. That is to say, it wasn’t accurate at all. It narrowly focused on a single aspect of the skill, without properly explaining how it did what it did. {Charm} did indeed increase a target’s attraction, just as higher Charisma increased appeal, but what it really did was make the target more susceptible to the user’s aether.

Elise noticed this because while her initial cast of {Charm} had obvious effects, the effects of her words were even more obvious. She could not sense aether, but she knew that she was positively radiating it, and that every one of her actions was infused with it, including her speech. Unfortunately, despite this useful revelation, one guard was not affected. He stood out from the others, his armor much more extravagant, and his mana was much stronger, indicating that he was likely a tier higher, and likely of a stronger variant class as well.

“Don’t let her fool you, men!” he shouted. “That’s a monster in human skin. We are under attack, and she is part of it.”

Elise was shocked as she felt {Charm}’s hold over the guards break. Not only had the leader managed to resist her skill, but he had even managed to dispel its influence over his subordinates. She didn’t even know that was possible when she was using {Rune of Fate}. If it was, why didn’t the dwarven guards do the same?

After another second of thought, she came up with an answer. She had no idea if it was correct, but it was plausible, and if it was, she realized that she may have slightly overestimated herself. The reason that this guard captain could resist and the dwarves couldn’t was obviously that he had a skill to do so, but why did he have such a skill and not the dwarves? Well, skills were determined by classes, and classes were determined by circumstance. The dwarves had no need for mental resistance– or at least they believed as much– and therefore, their classes were geared more toward physical combat, and likely detection.

As to why this guard had such powerful mental resistance, she did not know, but when she used {Inspect}, it was clear that it was integrated into his class.

[ Indomitable Syndicate Guard Captain, lvl ??? ]