No! I don't want to be a Super Necromancer!

Two dragon priests in black robes suddenly threw up talismans and began chanting, "Blessed be the sacred beast! Lead us to the Vault of the Heavens!"

Another cultivator fell to his knees and wept. "Finally! My fate has come!"

Three more warriors tackled each other midair trying to be the first to intercept the rabbit.

The rabbit, of course, was completely oblivious to the legend it had suddenly inherited. It squeaked cheep-cheep-cheep! Like a damn chick and kept running like its tiny undead life depended on it, the Liferoot Orchid still wobbling on its head like a royal tiara.

Damien risked shouting through the link.

"Run faster, you stupid gremlin! If you die now, I'm coming down there and resurrecting you just to kill you myself!"

The rabbit chirped loudly in protest and in panic and sprinted even faster.

Cheep! Cheep! Cheep!

It squeaked indignantly.

It was probably saying something along the lines of "I demand higher compensation! This is way out of my job description, I will call the unions on you! I will tell the Necromancer Police!!"

Blackie caught up to him in a flash, her breathing shallow but controlled. "This is madness. Just how did your rabbit become such a legendary fertility beast?"

"This is a blessing," Damien panted, grinning. "Let the freakshow play rabbit-chase. We circle back once I break the tether and the Guardian drops off."

Below them, the scene continued to devolve.

A trio of elders were now arguing loudly:

"It's a sign from the heavens!"

"No, it's an ancient beast king reborn!"

"No, you idiots! That's clearly the child of the Nether Rabbit and the Orchid Fox!"

"I TOLD you guys! I wasn't crazy!" howled a shirtless man spinning in circles. "I dreamt of this rabbit twice last year!"

A beautiful sect mistress tried to grab the rabbit with a floating lotus hand technique. The rabbit squeaked, jumped over it, and slapped her in the face with its tailbone.

She gasped. "It touched me! I've been blessed by the fertility Gods! Someone do me and get me pregnant!"

"Let me do it!" Shouted the old geezer who couldn't get it up.

"Scram!"

From behind them, the Guardian screeched again and slammed its spectral fist into a nearby hill. A shockwave erupted, throwing several dragon-blooded warriors into the air like rag dolls.

This time, dozens of vines exploded out of the earth, flailing like tentacles. One almost clipped Damien's thigh. He leapt, spun midair, and flung a death glyph backward, just enough to disorient it.

Up ahead, Rage Monkey was waving both arms wildly.

"THEY'RE COMING!" he bellowed. "A LOT OF THEM!"

Behind the chasing dragons, a second wave of opportunists had broken away from the main battle, mages, summoners, beast-knights, each convinced they could snipe the "Treasure Beast" before anyone else.

The undead rabbit, realizing the field had become too hot, made a sharp ninety-degree turn and dove into the hollow of a Zerg corpse.

It vanished.

The pursuers paused, confused.

"WHERE'D IT GO?!"

"IT WAS RIGHT THERE!"

"IT'S HIDING!"

"IT MUST HAVE A BURROW!"

"BURROW? THAT MEANS BABY RABBITS!"

"HUNDREDS OF THEM!"

"EVERYONE START DIGGING!!"

And so, thirty Dragon-ranked fighters, screaming and flinging spells, began digging into the skeleton of a long-dead Zerg.

Damien nearly broke into laughter mid-run.

"Oh this… this is perfect."

But the Guardian was still on him.

Blackie shouted, "You need to break the link with the rabbit, or it won't stop chasing you!"

"I can't," Damien growled. "If I cut the tether now, it'll drop the Orchid."

"You want me to carry it instead?"

He shook his head.

"No. I want you to buy me five seconds."

Blackie didn't argue.

She peeled off and spun around, transforming mid-motion. Her form shimmered, bones rearranged, and in the space of a heartbeat she reverted into her true shape, a sleek, jet-scaled black dragon, her wings rippling with kinetic force.

She roared, a sonic shockwave that slapped the Guardian's vines sideways, and slammed headfirst into the creature with a full-body tackle.

The forest cracked.

Damien skidded to a halt, boots tearing twin scars through the muddy slope as he spun around, cloak flaring behind him like a torn banner. He dropped low, one knee slamming into the dirt, and slammed his palm flat against the ground.

A wave of death mana rippled outward, slick, refined, predatory. The air itself tensed as a new glyph spiraled into existence beneath his hand—black veins pulsing outward like frost on shattered glass.

A storage rune. Small. Precise. Powerful.

"Come on…" Damien hissed, sweat beading along his jaw.

The tether in his chest, a thin thread of soul-anchored death energy, burned white-hot. The rabbit was still alive, still running, still clinging to the Liferoot Orchid like it was born to be the crown prince of chaos.

From across the battlefield, he felt it.

The rabbit burst from its hiding hole in the ribcage of the Zerg corpse, squeaking wildly, still dragging the glowing Orchid root like a victory banner behind it.

Spells flew overhead. Cultivators screamed. One of the priests had somehow caught fire and was spinning in circles yelling, "I AM CLEANSED BY FATE!"

"Now," Damien growled. "Now!"

He clenched his fist. The rune pulsed.

And with a crack of dark light, the rabbit flared blue, a soul-flame bursting from its bones, and vanished.

No explosion. No drama. Just an elegant snap of reality as it was sucked into the storage dimension, Orchid and all.

The tether snapped.

Damien felt the break like a needle dragging across the inside of his skull—then nothing. Emptiness. Silence.

And that silence…

Was mirrored in the air.

The Guardian paused mid-sky.

No vines moved. No petals rustled.

Its spectral form trembled, flower-eyes twitching in confusion, its limbs suddenly stiff, its vast aura collapsing inward like a beast that had lost its prey.

Then, without warning…

It howled. Not with sound, but with something worse: a pressure, like every molecule of air screaming in unison.

The Guardian's body contorted into a whip of floral shadow and fury.

And it turned away from Damien.

Instantly.

Its eyes locked onto the battlefield below.

Specifically on the thirty warriors still digging furiously into the Zerg skeleton, convinced the sacred rabbit was burrowed somewhere inside.

One warrior had his entire upper body inside a rib cavity, yelling, "I CAN SMELL THE FUR! IT'S CLOSE!"

Another had summoned a massive golden net and was tossing it wildly over the area while shouting, "COME TO DADDY, FLUFFY!"

One woman was screaming, "THE BUNNY IS MY DESTINY! GET YOUR GRUBBY FINGERS OFF MY FATE!"

And then the sky turned black.

Vines lashed down like lightning.

The Guardian dove.

Straight into the crowd.

Hell began.

Screams erupted.

Explosions cracked the sky.

A sect elder was flung a hundred feet by a vine slap so strong his soul exited his body midair and yelled "I'm suing!"

The Guardian didn't target one person.

It targeted all of them.

It didn't ask questions.

It didn't negotiate.

It destroyed.

Damien stood slowly, eyes reflecting the chaos as a fireball exploded in the distance and a yak-headed cultivator got suplexed by a root.

He dusted his hands off.

"Well," he said, "that solves that."

Blackie soared overhead, laughing so hard her wingbeats wobbled.

Rage Monkey was still stomping in place, chanting, "BEST. RABBIT. EVER."

And then they ran.

No one chased them.

The battlefield was too busy turning into a treasure-chasing comedy of errors, complete with mages screaming at one another, dragon lords throwing fists, and three different sects now arguing about the correct ritual to tame a "Treasure Rabbit of Destiny."

And Damien vanished into the mist with his prize secured, the Liferoot Orchid tucked neatly into his dimensional storage.

He didn't have the Soulroot Mushroom yet.

He didn't have Jiang Xiao Yu's Core repaired.

But this was a start.

And what a damn fun one it was.