Not wanting to get caught out in the open, I went to my favorite hiding place, the crown of a tree. I still didn’t know the full extent of what kind of monsters were around the fourth layer, so even if I could take most of them rather comfortably, there was no reason to not play it safe. After all, all it took was one mistake and my new lease on life would be over.

And I was having too much fun to just let it end like that.

It a while, but eventually the first third-party monster arrived on the scene. What looked like a massive ostrich with two pairs of wings that were entirely made out of metal skidded to a halt, looking around at the clear signs of a fight around it. Trees were uprooted, exploded, and sliced apart, the ground a mess, but there were no combatants and no corpses. It looked around trying to figure out where the fight was, but it didn’t have to wait long as a white bunny hopped out of the trees.

The ostrich and I both looked at the bunny in confusion. What the hell was a tier zero monster doing this far down? The last time I’d seen any was on the second layer.

The momentary confusion didn’t last long, as the ostrich was more than happy to attack anything that moved. It rushed toward the bunny while slicing forward with its wings, which sent four energy blades flying at the bunny. It was a sad sight since the bunny was so cute, but this was the nature of this planet. The weak only existed to provide XP to the strong.

Imagine my surprise when the little bunny perfectly dodged the energy blades and lunged for the ostrich’s throat, decapitating it in one swift move. A fountain of blood erupted from the stump as the head went flying and the body careened into a tree, collapsing into a lifeless heap. I looked on incredulously as the bunny landed and started to lick its paw clean of some blood that got on it.

Alright, so, looks can be deceiving. Got it.

I should have known since I myself technically didn’t look like a threatening monster, yet, was incredibly dangerous. I didn’t have much time to consider the bunny when the next monsters arrived on the scene. A fiery gorilla that seemed to leak lava wherever it went, setting the forest ablaze around it. A purple feline with bat ears the size of a tiger jumped out of a shadowy portal and into the fray, just as something resembling a mass of thorny vines in the form of a bear emerged. They all surrounded the bunny, looking at each other wearily only to start an all-out brawl a second later.

The gorilla was conjuring up balls of magma that it threw at the others, occasionally throwing a mighty punch as well. The purple feline was jumping in and out of the shadows, attacking the others from behind whenever it could. The vine bear was trying to catch the feline while attempting to dodge the fiery hot attacks of the gorilla, the vines spreading out, ready to capture and strangle anything that got too close. And in all the chaos, the bunny was jumping around lightning fast, leaving large wounds wherever it passed.

I took a moment to observe the bunch, learning about their capabilities before joining the fight as well. I conjured up four poison bombs while staying hidden before throwing them in between the fighters. The explosions disoriented the fighters, as well as drenched them with my poison. I couldn’t help but notice that the poison was evaporating from the skin of the gorilla before it could take effect. I’d need to take it out with void spells.

Not giving them a chance to react, I started throwing poison spears indiscriminately while charging up void javelins and throwing them out as soon as they were ready. I was sowing chaos and doing some decent damage when the vine bear suddenly disappeared. It looked like the ground had slurped it up like some sort of spaghetti. I briefly wondered where it went, when I received the answer.

The tree around me started sprouting vines that engulfed me before I could react. The entire bear was suddenly in the tree with me, the entire mass of thorny vines surrounding and crushing me in their vice. Not wasting any more time, I activated both of my defensive abilities, and quickly used the extra ability of my mucus armor. The mucus exploded with me as the center, disabling the skill for a while but giving me enough room to escape.

The vines were pushed back only a little, so as soon as I saw an opening I activated my leap skill, rocketing out of the tree and jumping again in midair to dodge the vines that were coming after me. I kept dodging the vines while charging up a full volley of javelins, shooting the entirety at the mass of writhing vines. The subsequent explosions absolutely shredded the monster apart, taking it out of the fight.

I redirected my eyes towards the rest of the monsters, seeing the gorilla stand victoriously above the feline and in a stand-off with the bunny. I took their momentary distraction to cast poison assassination twice, both of them on the bunny. The bunny didn’t seem to notice that it was attacked, continuing the stare-off with the gorilla.

Content to let my poison do the work for a bit, I decided to experiment. I conjured up a poison spear, using the void-infused mana to do so. The result was the usual green spear shape, but there seemed to be trace amounts of purple liquid mixed in as well. I conjured up a regular spear as well, deciding to test them both on the gorilla to see if there was any difference.

I shot the regular spear, which impacted the gorilla, seemingly doing close to no damage, the poison evaporating once again. The attack provoked both the gorilla and the bunny to act, though, as they charged at each other, presumably too focused on each other to notice that the attack came from me. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I fired off my special spear. Contrary to the regular spear, this one penetrated a bit deeper, before exploding with a lot more force than the regular ones did.

So the infused mana seemed to strengthen the spell quite a bit. Curious how the increased volatility would affect the poison bomb, I conjured one of them up with the infused mana. Once again, the usually green ball had traces of purple in it. I sent it in between the combatants just as they were about to clash once more, and the resulting explosion was almost on par with the void javelin!

The two of them finally seemed to notice that there was another monster interfering, both taking aim at me. Not wanting to deal with both of them attacking me, I jumped backward, holding onto a tree branch with my arm and swinging behind the trunk. Once I was out of sight, I activated the already prepared void cloak before immediately leaping away with my skill, which was off-cooldown by now.

Not a moment too soon, since a magma ball obliterated the tree I was just behind, courtesy of the gorilla. The bunny capitalized on the gorilla's distraction and attacked it with its signature lightning speed. Large chunks of flesh were ripped out every time the white blur passed by, infuriating the big ape. It let out a roar and banged its chest, causing a shockwave that sent the bunny flying and crashing into a nearby tree.

It jumped after the small monster, with what I was pretty sure was the leap skill, bringing both fists down like a hammer, causing a small volcanic eruption at the point of impact. The bunny apparently managed to dodge at the last second since it reappeared behind the gorilla, getting ready for another assault. Or at least it would have, but apparently, my poison had other ideas and the bunny keeled over, presumably dead.

Alright, just me and the big guy now.

The gorilla wasn’t looking too good anymore since the bunny had done quite a number on it. Not wanting to prolong the fight any more than necessary, I sent out a bombardment of spells, finishing it off before it could get a proper attack in.

Taking a deep breath, I took in the chaos around me. The gorilla had done quite a number on the surroundings, a big fire consuming the area around me. Not wanting to stay here and be cooked to a crisp, I shoved the dead monsters into my inventory before escaping through a gap in the fire, putting some distance between me and the flames. I had used up a large portion of my mana during the fight against the reaper snake, and then the skirmish right after, so I needed some time to rest and recover.

Maybe eat the hunter's corpse as well.

You have killed a T4 Lv.8 Vine Bear Abomination

You have killed a T4 Lv.15 Foul Tempered Rodent

You have killed a T4 Lv.9 Volcanic Gorilla

You have been awarded 69’850 XP

You have been awarded 358 Data Points

You have leveled up three times!

It was almost ridiculous how much XP these monsters gave compared to what I was used to. I only gained three levels, regardless of the huge amount, tough. I cursed a bit, seeing as I was less than a hundred DP away from purchasing the double DP achievement, but, oh well.

I was still racing through the forest, not willing to go into the plains just yet, but also not wanting to be too close to the fire. With any hope, the system would deal with the fire somehow, or it would just peter out by itself. I had to dodge a monster in my path twice before I felt that I’d put enough distance between myself and the fire.

Now, I needed some rest to restore my mana and health pools, which I’d ideally do in one of my bunkers. But I didn’t have any in this layer yet and since I was planning on eating huge a huge monster anyway, it would be a waste of time to build one large enough. So I scouted the area around me a bit, before unceremoniously dumping out the massive hunter from my inventory.

Time to dig in!

With my newly mutated mouth and teeth, eating had become almost laughably easy. I could just unfold my mouth over the desired area and my teeth proceeded to rip apart anything within reach at record speeds. I was devouring the hunter at a visible pace, more and more of the massive creature disappearing into the void in my stomach, pardon the pun. I managed to eat the whole thing without getting disturbed by any other monsters, the system coming at me with another surprise.

You have completely consumed your prey.

Due to the effect of Gluttony, you have gained the following:

8’320 XP

1 Strength

1 Agility

1 Intelligence

1 Wisdom

1 Constitution

1 Luck

I had to guess that there was some weird interaction between gluttony and a hunter-class monster since I got an attribute point each, which was highly unusual. It was amazing that I still got over eight thousand XP from eating the hunter since the gluttony skill only gave out 10% of what the kill would have given me. I didn’t gain a level, but the attribute points were worth more than a measly level anyway.

Eating the hunter had also completely filled up my reserves, which meant I was ready to go again. I briefly considered doing some more hunting in the forest, but my recent fights had more than proven that I could hold my own relatively comfortably against the monsters down here. I jumped to the top of a tree, took a look around, and saw one of the floating islands in the distance. I really, really wanted to check at least one of them out, so I designated that one as my next destination.