Vile Rabbit

An invisible tower-shaped ship sailed through the dark and cold vacuum at speeds nearing the limit of the universe. Inside the top floor of the ship stood Malavan, his eyes staring intensely at the darkness outside the ship. The ship’s walls were transparent to him, allowing him to see everything on the outside...

It had been two days since he had started this expedition, and the outside world was just as he imagined: a stifling emptiness that threatens to suffocate those who stare at it for too long. He once again questioned the goal of this expedition. Would he be able to accomplish it, and if he did, when would it be? How long would it take? A hundred years, a thousand, ten thousand, or a hundred thousand years?

"On second thought, I shouldn’t be worrying about time. After all, I can now live for over a million years—more than enough to squander a hundred thousand or two… plus, it’s not like I’m completely alone in this darkness. I have friends accompanying me, plus her…" He sighed, with warmth flashing in his eyes at the end. He then set the ship on autopilot to continue traveling straight, after which he removed his right hand from the control core and vanished.

He reappeared on the second floor; this floor was huge, the size of three worlds. The space was harder compared to the rest of the floors, and the walls were gray and covered in countless gravity inscriptions. This floor was meant for combat training.

He gazed at the beautiful female hybrid who was about ten thousand km away. The female seemed to be a mix between a Crystalian and a Sky Clan member, standing five meters tall with sparkling silver skin, long crystal locs flowing down her back, her pupils resembling silver gems under the morning sun. Her wings were formed from silver crystals that glimmered, and she was clad in light silver dress-type armor, something that she was born wearing.

She radiated a calm but sharp aura, equal to that of the world stumper rank.

Sensing his presence, she turned and looked toward him; her gaze instantly penetrated the distance and landed on him, their eyes locked.

His eyes shone with endless love as he gazed into the depths of her eyes Angelica’s eyes, his mate, the one he loved the most in all of existence. He then took a single step and appeared before her. He pulled her into his warm embrace; she returned his embrace by wrapping her arms around him, pulling him closer and leaning the side of her head on his now shirtless chest. She calmly listened to the rotation of his apex rune inside his core, her eyes closed with a loving expression on her face. He absorbed the compassionate warmth that pulsed from her body, and his hair stopped floating upwards, draped over his back. Their wings slowly opened wide, then slowly closed halfway until their ends touched.

Words could not describe the love they had for each other, especially Angelica, because of her Crystalian side, which dictated that she could only feel love a creature once in her lifetime, and when she did, it would be akin to obsession blessing whomever she deemed worthy a loyal and capable partner for a lifetime and beyond.

At the same time, not too far from them stood an invisible and untraceable figure, Ava. She gazed at them with a somewhat complicated expression; she should be happy that her son had found love, but for some reason…

After a while, the two stopped embracing each other and separated, their gaze still locked. Angelica placed her right palm on her tummy and spoke in a loving tone,

"Mal, I’m pre—" but before she could finish, Malavan interjected.

"I know… In a few years, we will have a little one of our own," he said as he held her by the waist and spun her around, his voice laced with happiness and anticipation.

"Hehee! Calm down, Mal; careful you create a whirlwind!" she shouted in a flustering and joking tone while gently patting his chest with her palms.

"No, I am too happy to… I’m going to create a giant whirlwind—no, two, no, three, a thousand. Ahahaha!"

Mal laughed as he spun her faster, creating an actual whirlwind.

Whoosh!

"Ek~Mal~Hehe~Mal, you bad, bad barbarian~hahah!" squealed Angelica as she buried her head in his chest once again.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

If any of their soldiers were to witness this scene, they would be overwhelmed by shock and question themselves: was this the same indifferent and cold Angelica that they knew? And was this also the duty-bound Malavan that trained them till their bones cracked? The answer...would be yes; the only difference was that now they had fallen into the embrace of the thing called LOVE—the thing that dulls the rationality of all sentient beings, warping their logical thinking and trapping them in self-inflicted illusions of eternal happiness… ’Oh love.’

…

At the same time on the first floor, about one hundred thousand creatures wandered about the newly built city. Some talked and laughed as they shared stories of their travels around the realm, while others gazed at the ship’s walls, staring into the darkness outside. Their figures pulsed with fascination and caution, and some secluded themselves in the loneliness of places, with unknown thoughts flashing through their eyes. One of them was a young man who seemed to be a member of the long-lost war ape clan. He had golden hair, and a long monkey tail that swayed behind him. He stood in the shadow of three that were a hundred kilometers from the city, staring at a specific spot with extreme killing intent shining in the depths of his eyes.

’I will kill you! I will rip you apart! I will boil your spirit in the hottest of star flames for a million years, after which I will consume your entire clan before your eyes, and only then will you be able to comprehend a percentage of the pain you have inflicted upon me. Kill!’ he raged in his mind. There was a creature on this ship he desperate to get his hands on, but unfortunately for him, he couldn’t defy the rules the commanded ship had set in place. At least, not yet.

…..

Time passed; over a hundred years. Malavan carefully sail at the ship, in a specific but not random direction—not random because he had somewhat of a navigator by his side: Angelica, his beloved, who had the innate ability of intuition.

"Go left," she guided, and he followed with confidence. Well, there were no defined directions in the vacuum, per se; the axis was now free in a sense, and you could now turn and rotate in any position—truly omnidirectional-ish. But he understood her nonetheless.

They continued to travel for a while when suddenly his body tensed up, and instincts along with the instincts of every creature on the ship screamed at them, telling them that death was near. He instantly suppressed his instincts and gazed at the sensor on the command core, where he could pick up everything within a thousand light-year radius, and he saw nothing. A second passed, and his instincts screamed even louder. ’What? Where? Could it be? Where is it?’ His thoughts burned, and without hesitation, he activated the ship’s space jump ability.

Shing! Swish!

The runes within the command center lit up, and the space around the ship started to twist. ’Come on!’ he urged while using one of his wings as a protective umbrella for his mate.

Shoozap!

The ship started to fade three, two and right when it was about to completely fade, something catastrophic happened,

PASH!

"AAAAAH!"