Edge had never witnessed a monster evolve until that moment.

It was one of the subjects that the System always censored on the feed. He had read plenty of firsthand accounts of the process though, often describing the final seconds of a tourist’s Prison World run. Even still, he hadn’t expected everything to happen so quickly.

Over the next three seconds, the reaver’s body continued to swell, bathed in an otherworldly glow that wasn’t mana or any other energy that he was familiar with.

Its limbs bulged as its skeleton lengthened, muscles writhing like serpents were slithering through its veins. It shrieked and threw its head back. Arms spread wide, shuddering in something that blurred the line between agony and ecstasy.

Somehow, he was certain that the changes to its physique were only half the story. That the monster’s core was undergoing a similar transformation, burning hotter and drawing in more magic from the environment. Its skills are going to be stronger now too.

That was when Edge realized that the reaver’s stomach was grossly distended. Like it had become heavily pregnant, all within the span of a deep breath. The stench of rancid meat intensified in that moment, to the point that the reek was nearly incapacitating.

Before anyone had time to launch another attack, two balls of feathers dripping inky black blood burst free from the evolved monster’s torso. They landed in the grass with a pair of sickly squishes. Shit, there are two monsters in that spawn. Edge had been hoping for just one.

As he watched with wide eyes, the mounds of meat began to expand. Bladed limbs broke through the surface, extending to form legs and arms. The spawnlings’ heads emerged last, starting with the tips of their serrated yellow beaks.

One of the reasons that monsters were so dangerous, besides the obvious consequences of their predatory proclivities, was that whenever a monster evolved, it spawned fresh progeny that were one stage lower than itself.

The exact number varied from monster to monster, alongside other factors that weren’t fully understood. When monsters attacked settlements, this process could snowball into a full infestation, killing hundreds within a matter of hours as the lethal lifeforms spread.

Trapper’s crew tried to rush the newborn creatures, but the other stage-one reavers blocked their way. The monsters unleashed a ferocious barrage of skills, heedless of the mana they consumed. They drove the hunters back, away from the evolving shadowreaver and its offspring.

Edge took the opportunity to reposition, looking for a chance to score another kill before all hell broke loose in another few seconds. Before he could close the distance, things went from bad to worse in the blink of an eye.

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The moment that its spawn were born, the stage-two shadowreaver reared back and roared. It stretched up to its full height of nine feet, much broader at the shoulders than it had been only moments before. It’s almost as big as the one I fought back in the ruins.

He had been hoping that the fiend would take some time to adapt to its new form. It demonstrated no such impairment as it launched itself at the hunters in a frenzy, eyes gleaming with the anticipation of a hunger that would soon be sated.

The hulking monster lashed out with its claws, swiping twice in rapid succession. The first set went streaking for Trapper’s throat in a bladed blur. It would have been the end of anyone else, but the hunter’s reflexes were second to none.

She brought her sword up just in time, catching the black blades with her silvery weapon a fraction of a second before they tore out her jugular. Unfortunately, that was the extent of the good news.

The force behind the blow sent Trapper flying into the tall grass, taken out of the fight for at least a few moments. By now, the reaver’s second attack had arrived at its target as well.

Its claws came up in a rising strike, set to gut Sasha from navel to sternum. But she had anticipated the move and raised her guard in the nick of time. Instead of sinking into soft flesh, the onyx blades tore into her shield instead. They cut deep into the wooden surface before deflecting to one side, sending splinters raining to the ground.

The blow knocked Sasha off balance, but she tried to counter anyway. She thrust with her flaming weapon, launching an attack at the center of the monster’s chest. It was a good move, but it wasn’t good enough.

Before her weapon landed, the reaver let loose a roundhouse kick with a heavily muscled leg. The tips of its talons pierced the woman’s wooden armor before coming back out, dyed crimson with her blood.

Another swipe of its claws caught the shaft of her spear, sending Sasha sprawling in the dirt. She was wounded and momentarily stunned. Helpless to defend herself from the creature’s next strike. It raised a set of midnight scissor-claws high into the air, savoring the fear in her eyes as it got ready to bring the blades down with the full power of its body behind it.

The stage-two reaver advanced while hissing in triumph, intending to finish the woman off before she recovered. Before it could launch another attack, an arrow came streaking toward its face, a second missile following a heartbeat behind the first.

The monster leapt out of the way of the first shot, then knocked the second from the air with a contemptuous swat. It was only distracted for a few seconds, which was exactly what the bowman had been counting on. Riller’s attack granted Sasha enough of a reprieve to cast aside the remnants of her shield and rise unsteadily to her feet, overcoming her exhaustion through sheer effort of will.

“I’ll hold the big one back for as long as I can,” Riller cried out, firing another arrow every two seconds. “Hurry and finish off the ones you’re fighting. We need to bring the big bastard down before its spawn finish forming.”

It was a perilous situation, where life and death were balanced on the blade of a knife. But after everything he had gone through, Edge was no stranger to betting it all on one final hand.

The stakes were high, and the deck was stacked against them, but he was still in the game.