The Spider King was heading towards the warehouse, in both of his hands he had two buckets brim filled with treacle-like liquid but blue. A very broad grin was plastered firmly on his face. The morning was good!

“Huh, what is this?” He noticed a congregation of shadows.

In the bright and happy morning, on a clearly visible spot, a number of shadow creatures had gathered. There was each of a kind: wolf, stingray, boar, slime, roadrunner, and a slime. His body tensed at the sight of the unusual gathering, but as soon as he spotted the slime among them he released a sigh of relief.

“Darkness, did you make new friends?”

“Morning, Master.” The slime bobbed. “Yes, meow, I did.”

The shadow monsters just stood there motionless and without a reaction. Yeah, those aren’t friends but puppets. But that didn’t mean that Darkness didn’t make friends.

“So, you tapped into their mind-webs?”

“Yes. I talked things through with roadrunners, boars, sting…” The slime began naming.

“Oh, they’re not linked all together, but rather in their groups.” In other words, the wolves shared their mind only with other wolves.

“Meow!” The slime jiggled in affirmation. “They all agreed to cause no trouble.”

It seems there were more shadow creatures surviving than he thought. That is good, right?

“Darkness?” He asked. “What if they start reproducing? Won’t that be a problem?”

“Reproducing?” It shook. “No, I’ll take care of that.”

He raised his eyebrow questioningly.

“I have it, meow. They won’t cause any trouble.”

“No, what I mean is that I don’t want too many shadow creatures in the MegaFarm. They look like a hungry bunch.”

“Meow! I understand. I’ll keep them at a stable number.” A tentacle stretched towards shadow roadrunner piercing its body. “Look. [Absorb Shadow]” The entirety of the roadrunner flowed into the body of the Darkness. “Oh, meow! This was hard to catch.” It meowed with regret. “Whatever, the wolves will help me again.”

Oh, it was already working shadow wolves to its advantage. Well done, Darkness!

The Spider King was also a craftsman and had a trained eye. “Darkness, did you grow bigger?” Albeit, only by an inch or so.

It quivered as if unsure. “Yes…” It responded after thinking. “I grew stronger, meow. I like this Monster System!”

Well then, all was good.

The King continued his trek to store the jelly, Darkness and friends followed him.

“I was thinking. The shadow… minions could prove useful in the war against the Holy Empire.”

“Meow?”

“They’re hard to detect, and even we had a hard time killing them. Physical Resistance and all that.”

“Meow…” it was thinking. “Yes, but they’re weak to magic, especially Light.”

True, even a single enchanted arrow was enough to kill a shadow wolf.

“Yeah, but we wouldn't send them against the Inquisition. Only against the peasant levy, and the supply caravans.”

“Hmm…” The tentacle connected with the shadow wolf.

“I’m sure it will work. You might not see it that way, but the shadow creatures are scary. They won’t need to attack the army proper, only lower its morale.”

The slime finished bobbing and jiggling. “I spoke with them, meow. They’re up for the job. Actually, they are giddy to go.”

He wondered if the Darkness got the ‘giddy’ part right, this was a risky mission he and doubted the shadow wolves wanted to die. “Huh, I guess they have their reasons.” He decided to leave it at that.

“I’ll send them then you’re ready.”

He nodded. He wasn’t going to leave everything to the minions of the Darkness, some of the spiders will be coming too. Namely spider scouts and spider saboteurs. The idea was to undermine the enemy on their way to the Aurelian Capital as much as possible; to weaken them before they reached it. And if he was lucky, they wouldn’t even reach it.

Of course, all thanks to the fresh morning intel he had just received from Johny, they knew most of the plans of the Enemy. So, it was easy to come up with counters and ambushes. Currently, the Holy Inquisition was moving towards the border villages and towns. Their goal was to subjugate the local residents, make them to denounce Aurelius the Great as a heretic and a traitor, and then forcefully draft the same people with an excuse that it was their penance. It was Human duty to fight the Demon Lord! – or so they would say. The Inquisition’s plan wasn’t a bad one. If other people saw that their countrymen were rallying against King Aurelius, they too would be more likely to switch sides. In other words, the Inquisition was trying to make itself look less like an enemy and more like a saviour.

Ha! That won’t happen. Because he already sent a Minor Phoenix summon to the Aurelius telling him all of this. The advice was to order the people to retreat to the capital. Even with such an order, some people wouldn’t want to leave their homes and farms unattended. So, it was up to Aurelius how he managed that. the Aurelian King could inform his people that the Inquisition was coming to ‘cleanse’ the towns and villages and tell them that they had to flee to protect their lives. Or he could play it sneaky and tell the people that there are a massive feast and games happening in the Aurelian Capital. A celebration of a century, where everything is free, all you have to do is just attend. Or something like that. Entirely up to him!

He had also sent another message to Lord G Bling, the spider had the most authority there. Lord G Bling will be responsible for building refugee shelters, procuring food and keeping the general peace. After all, he needed to support his allies.

How about sending weapons and spider forces? – At the moment he was hesitant to do that. Every time he did something like that there was only one result. So, it was best to leave humans to solve human issues. But if it went particularly bad, of course, he planned to roll out the entire Spider Kingdom might and defend his interests in the Aurelian Kingdom with full force.

Anyway, he didn’t have to micromanage everything, there was the Trusty Advisor helping him with that. And the actual war hasn’t even started yet, at least not the fighting part. So with plenty of time on his hands, he could allow himself a side project, or rather an experiment.

…

The Spider King burst out of the Shadow Walk into a lush forest. While this was still a forest it was unlike any other; not a single tree in this place was normal. He walked past a tree which was clouded in a veil of darkness, he ducked under the cage-like branches of another tree. A bird fluttered its wings trapped in the cage-like confinement. He ignored it; even trees needed to eat.

Finally, he emerged into an ashen clover garden. The crop had grown increasingly important, AshenClover was the preferred staple of the Centauri. The girls could eat TomGrape, and they did during their logistic missions, but they found it too nutritiously dense. Was that even a problem? Anyway, they preferred to eat the clovers whenever they could. And he, being the ever-pleaser, was up to the task of granting their desires. After all, he owed them for all the cheese they made. By the way, Centauri Champion’s Cream Cheese had blown his mind out, but that’s a different story.

The still modest field was currently tended by White Sprigans, and the guys were doing a great job, but if he wanted to expand it he would need to employ spiders. He could bring the crop back to the MegaFarm, after all, he had Acclimate and Unnatural Selection perks so even the dark rain wouldn’t be a problem, probably. However, there was a bunch of reasons he left this crop here. The main one was centralisation, or the drawbacks of it. It was all good and convenient to have everything in one place, that was until something like Shadow Plague struck and devastated the entire stock. As a preventative measure, he decided to grow some stuff outside the MegaFarm. Namely the AshenClover, EarthenYam and WitheringCabage.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

He walked deeper inside the field. The clovers were growing nicely. He plucked a leaf and deposited it into his mouth.

“Tastes mild and leafy. Just like a salat.” It wasn’t that amazing, at least to him. “But hey, Centauri loves it!”

A grey rabbit jumped right in front of him. The animal was unafraid of his presence. It used its fluffy paws to bring a clover leaf closer to its mouth and began to munch on it greedily.

“Aww, how cute. You like it too.” He crouched to pet the animal. “So soft and fluffy.”

Aside from the mutated squirrels, this was the second animal he saw today. It seems that life found its way back into the Magical Forest.

“Rabbit, just don’t go inside the CageBush or eat a nut from TrapBush. You will get eaten.” He warned the blissfully unaware critter. “Aww, so fluffy.”

A naughty idea popped into his head. A completely needless idea.

“This is not an experiment I had in mind, but…” He looked around guiltily. There was no one here to judge him. “[Evolve].” He invoked without hesitation.

Evolving plants posed little issue unless they ended up as a monster plant, but evolving animals was a big deal. They always ended up as monsters! And he was hesitant to create new life, because he would end up being responsible for it. But no one was infallible, and he did it on a whim.

A large amount of mana drained from his mana pool. 2000MP, almost half of his mana was just sucked out. The rabbit was enveloped in the iconic purple glow of evolution. It was growing big.

“Hopefully, not another Eldrich monster.” Not that there was anything wrong with Johny.

It was hard to see past the bright purple glow, but the rabbit was developing a human-like shape.

“I see no tentacles. So far so good.” He nodded happily.

The rabbit stopped growing and the light dimmed. Revealing what could be best described as demihuman or beastfolk; a rabbit with human features but not the other way round. He or she had all the signature traits of the previous form: fluffy grey fur, a puffy rabbit tail, long and droopy ears, and cute but clawed fingers.

The evolved rabbit was crouching and looking with confusion at the Spider King.

“Hello.” He gave a warm smile. “How do you feel?” He asked.

There was no reply presumably because it couldn’t speak, or didn’t know how yet. It was still unknown how intelligent the rabbit was. As if to imitate him the now bipedal rabbit stood up on its now improved legs; it was short barely reaching up to his chest. The rabbit tried to smile, but that smile came out awkward.

“Good enough, I guess. [Inspect].”

Monster Race: DemiMonster

Variant: Ashen Rabbit

Magic Affinity: None

🐰

HP:80

MP:40

STA:80

Active Perks

[Burrow]

Passive Perks

[Animal Affinity], [Luck]

Oh! So this was a demimonster and not a demihuman. By the way, the humans had their values close to 100/100/100, meaning that Ashen Rabbit was a weaker specimen by default. But it was a monster and monsters could grow, right?

“You came out surprisingly normal. And surprisingly average…” Which wasn’t bad at all. He gave the rabbit another pat.

The rabbit patted the King’s head in imitation, or tried to, it was on the shorter side after all.

“Cute as a button.” He smiled.

The rabbit smiled awkwardly.

They were feeling each other up for another good moment, each fascinated with the other’s body anatomy. From a distance it might have looked like the two were up to something.

“Interesting… I can’t have you around doing nothing. Let's put those arms of yours to the test.” But this was more of a mental challenge really.

The rabbit was keen on parroting him so he tried to teach the rabbit a few tasks. First, he planted some more AshenClover using seeds. The rabbit imitated him flawlessly, no, the rabbit was better than him because of its Burrow perk, it subconsciously used that when planting.

“You pick things up just as quick as spiders. Colour me impressed!” He rubbed the rabbit's head.

The rabbit smiled less awkwardly.

For the second task, they harvested some of the clovers into large bags. Once again the rabbit was dexterous enough to complete it with no issue. While working the Spider King talked with the rabbit but if it understood or even could speak was still unknown. However, the rabbit proved intelligent, it was able to do simple tasks.

“You’re very capable.” He scratched the rabbit between its ears. “Keep at it.” He handed the rabbit a large bag of seeds.

The outcome was not guaranteed, but he figured that the rabbit knew what to do with the seeds.

“I’ll leave you to it, and pop back to see how you do later.” He called a nearby White Sprigan who was casting Grow on the freshly planted seeds. “Look after the rabbit, please. Oh, and teach him some things.”

The White Sprigan nodded in understanding, they too didn’t know how to speak but were otherwise emotive.

The rabbit however had different ideas, it tried to follow the King. The White Sprigan stopped the rabbit with a firm grasp on the shoulder. The rabbit squealed.

“I don’t think I can take you. The Shadow Walk doesn't work like that. Nor can I stay here…” But he did feel sorry for the rabbit, the poor critter looked distressed. “Look, I’ll make you a companion. How about that?”

The facial expression on the rabbit softened.

Incidentally, there already were a bunch of rabbits at the Ashen Rabbit’s feat, no doubt all thanks to Animal Affinity. The King kneeled to pet a random rabbit, they all were cute and clueless. Ashen Rabbit, the ever-imitator, did much the same.

“Ah, it seems you like that one.” He touched the cute critter. “[Evolve].”

A similar scene just like before unfolded, but the Ashen Rabbit looked with awe and wonder as if it hadn’t experienced that first-hand. And with another 2000MP taken, there was another rabbit crouching on the clover floor. The new rabbit was a near-carbon copy of the first, but this one had only one droopy ear.

“Now look at that. You have a friend.” He clapped.

A new friend looked rather confused. The first rabbit began petting the second with affection; a thing it had evidently learned from the King. And soon the confusion was replaced with a blissful face.

“Now, since I have two of you, I can’t just go and call you rabbits. You,” he pointed at the first. “In the honour of your species, I name you Ashen.” He touched the rabbit with a finger. “Ashen.” He repeated. “And you, I name you Ever.” There was no deeper meaning behind the name. “Ever.” He repeated hoping that they understood. And just for a good measure, he pointed at himself. “Spider King.”

Surprisingly Ashen nodded as if in understanding. Ever the rabbit just listened without displaying any strong emotions.

“Please look after the clover garden, make it grow.” He pointed at the large seed bag lying nearby, without really expecting anything from the two. “Okay, now I must go.” He turned to walk away but only after giving them a broad smile.

Ashen smiled with the awkwardness all but gone. Ever did much the same. The rabbits might have understood him, or maybe not, but this time neither of them protested.

“Be good Ashen and Ever. [Shadow Walk].” He invoked. “The experiment was interesting.” He said so to himself while travelling through the dense tree line as if it was nothing. He took one step but flew a hundred, this was how the spell worked.

Let’s go back to the improvised experiment. He had found something interesting: the evolutions weren’t completely random, two individuals of the same species evolved into the same variants. Or so it seemed for now. But obviously, there were exceptions. For example, Corrupted Human and Lesser Angel, both came to be from an ordinary human, so there was that. But those two were under the Monster System and not directly evolved by his perk.

The conclusion was actually straightforward. He could evolve lesser beings into monsters, and the already sapient monsters could use the Monster System to evolve further. Their advanced evolutions must depend on their individual skills and talents.

“Yes, that seems like it.”

…

With the Spider King gone the two rabbits petted each other while rolling in the clover garden. Both of them giggled mirthfully while flattening the clovers in joyful motions. They were very happy with their new bodies and heightened consciousness.

After tiring of all the rolling, cuddling, and groping they stopped abruptly from exhaustion.

“Ashen,” Ashen said his name proudly. Then he nudged his partner. “Ever.” He spoke her name.

“Ever.” Ever nodded in understanding.

Ashen gave his partner a warm smile. He looked at the large bag of seeds, he knew what to do with it. But there were more important matters.

“Ever!” Ashen said with affection.

“Ashen!” Ever said with equal affection.

They nodded at each other in understanding. All life has a duty to perform; the seeds will wait.