An hour after they stopped to eat lunch, Edge’s team was ambushed by their first pack of predators that weren’t walking mushrooms—vicious cave spiders that were almost as big as Blue.

  The damned things were terrifying and would have been a nightmare to deal with even without their skills. With them, they were some of the most dangerous beasts he’d ever encountered.

  In addition to being astonishingly agile and way too fucking fast, the peak stage-two arachnids worked as a team and were able to turn incorporeal, making them hard to spot and immune to physical attacks that weren’t infused with mana. Given how prevalent shadows were in the rocky terrain of the Deep-Gill Grottos, a half dozen more didn’t stick out at all.

  As the crew passed between a cluster of giant stalagmites, Edge saw six dark forms emerge from behind the rocks and converge on the hunters’ position from both sides. If he wasn’t intimately familiar with the mechanics of Shadow Step, the beasts’ trap would have killed someone then and there.

  But today, the cave spiders had picked the wrong prey—the only creature they had ever encountered who recognized the threat they posed and was able to respond in time. Additionally, Edge was fighting six opponents the same stage as himself, which cleared the conditions for Raid Wiper to activate—his first time using the trait’s bonus damage in battle.

  Alarm bells resounded in his mind the instant he noticed the shadows moving toward the crew’s lights. He pulled his naginata out of his vault while flashing the hunters’ hand sign for “ambush by incorporeal enemies.” Then Edge ignited his core and turned into shadows himself.

  When the world faded to ash and fog, everything except his own body looked like it was made of clouds… everything except the pack of giant spiders skittering his way. He shuddered and fought the urge to flee while cocking his polearm over his shoulder with his right hand and reaching for his chakram with the left.

  By the time he had judged the distance and taken aim, Edge had already infused both weapons with Elemental Blade, putting a dent in his reserves to pay for back-to-back skill combos, since he was still using Shadow Step. Half a heartbeat later, he launched his naginata like a javelin at one spider before flinging his chakram at the next.

  The weapons resolidified as soon as they left his hand, but they were coated in icy mana, which meant they could harm incorporeal opponents. The move caught the pack of predators by surprise. The point of his polearm impaled one of the creepy fuckers broadside, freezing it solid within a matter of seconds. The other arachnid deflected his chakram with its legs, losing two limbs but saving its life.

  The abrupt turn of events made the beasts hesitate for a second, at which point a Disruption surge from Lilly canceled Shadow Step for both Edge and the spiders, as he hadn’t paired the skill with Counter Disruption.

  But that wasn’t a problem, since the move was exactly what he’d been counting on. By this point, he had already used his glove to retrieve his chakram. He took aim, then flung it again to keep the beasts off balance.

  The instant Lilly’s surge faded away, he conjured a Warlord’s Mantle for the entire crew, reactivated Fear’s passive for another boost of Speed, and manifested Foebinder. There wasn’t time or space to activate Maelstrom, so testing out its rank-two upgrade would have to wait. However, it was a perfect time to try out his new and improved Intimidating Roar.

  As every creature in the cavern surged into motion, Edge drew deeply upon the magic within, opened his mouth, and Roared. A mana-saturated soundwave broke over the beasts a fraction of a second later. While it didn’t paralyze the spiders, it did slow them down, impairing their reflexes while muddling their minds.

  Sasha flinched at the unexpected sound, but his allies were otherwise unaffected, thanks to his Pack Leader upgrade. These beasts must be high on Disruption. We’ll have to finish this in melee, but we’re in better shape than before.

  With that, the crew fell into their preassigned roles. Edge and Melenia formed the front line, with Sasha positioned between them and a few steps behind. Sasha provided support while protecting Lilly, moving out of the way to open a line of fire whenever the shadowkiller was ready to let loose with her boltcaster.

  He didn’t get to watch the first part of their fight, since he was facing off against three spiders while Sasha and Mel engaged the other two, including the wounded beast. By now, he had learned to build a profile of his enemies as quickly as possible, analyzing their tactics and everything he could deduce from what he’d seen of their skillsets.

  In addition to Shadow Step, the creatures had bladed forelimbs that were reinforced by some manner of skill, judging by the mana coalesced along their lengths. They didn’t seem to be the web-slinging kind of spider, but something in the way they moved—in how they used their limbs to try to break through his guard and set up a killing blow—told him their venom would be deadly, and the hunters needed to avoid being bitten at all costs.

  “Whatever you do, don’t let them bite you,” Lillian called out, mirroring his own observation. Edge was relieved that the veteran monster hunter was looking out for Sasha and Mel, which let him focus on his opponents without having to divide his attention.

  They’ve identified me as the primary threat but haven’t given up, even after losing a member. They’re confident they can win and are planning to kill the women before overpowering me with superior numbers. Good. They’ve underestimated Lilly, and they won’t live to regret it.

  That was as far as he got before the spiders pounced, having circled around to come at him from three sides at once. But Edge had anticipated the move and Leapt before they arrived, flinging his chakram midflight while hitting the beasts with another Intimidating Roar to keep them off balance.

  After making sure the arachnids were following him instead of switching targets, he reached out with Foebinder to grab a protruding crystal and changed his trajectory midflight. In the background, he could feel the heat from Sasha’s flames—hear the whirr of Lilly’s boltcaster as she unleashed a Vortex Shot, riding the air alongside Mel’s battle cry.

  Edge barely noticed.

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  He grabbed his naginata off the ground and swung it at the first beast to reach him, Double Slashing along the way. The spider was alarmingly nimble and began to dodge the instant he attacked. The impressive maneuver would have been quick enough to save its life if he hadn’t realized what was happening and flared his skill mid-swing.

  As the creature scurried to one side, the fields coating the dual blades expanded in the blink of an eye, adding several feet to their length. The extra reach was enough to carve a deep gouge into the spider’s face—mortally wounding the beast.

  He shifted his polearm to a right-handed grip, using it to engage one spider while Foebinder dealt with the other. The black chain was longer and stronger after hitting rank two—powerful enough to hold off one beast all by itself. It couldn’t keep its target restrained due to Shadow Step, but every time the creature materialized, Foebinder darted in before it could launch an attack.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Edge saw Sasha land a direct hit with Fire Breathing, bathing the wounded spider in a torrent of sticky flame. The beast must have been vulnerable to fire, because it began burning like a torch, dropping dead after skittering across the cavern and leaving a trail of burning footprints in its wake.

  Three down, three to go. These things are insanely aggressive. If they haven’t backed off by this point, they aren’t going to. This is about territory—not food.

  Regardless of their intentions, the situation had flipped 180-degrees for the eight-legged predators. Edge was now pinning down the bulk of his enemies’ forces while the women overwhelmed a solitary beast.

  Lilly had tried landing a few Vortex Shots. But even while affected by Roar, the spiders were too agile to hit. Instead, she switched to Scattershot and got in close. The shadowkiller waited until Sasha’s breath drove the beast into her line of fire, then Lilly pulled the trigger and hit it from point-blank.

  The upgraded skill manifested 99 miniature bolts, each of which boasted impressive penetrative power. Scattershot blew off half the spider’s legs while tearing into its thorax. Now it wanted to abandon the fight, but its revelation had come too late to save its life. Before it could get away, Mel darted in and hit it with a Force Cleave, bisecting the arachnid lengthwise.

  Meanwhile, Edge was holding his own, keeping two spiders busy while the women were kicking ass. By this point, he was confident the crew had gained the upper hand. However, the beasts weren’t the only ones who had underestimated their opponents. In his case, he hadn’t realized the spiders were smart enough to hold any forces in reserve—that they’d been driving him into a trap over the last breathless minute.

  As it happened, there was a seventh member in their pack. The beast had been hiding this whole time, waiting for an opening to take him out in a flash. As the pair he was fighting came surging toward him while unleashing skill combos, a third spider pounced from behind. He realized something was wrong at the last possible moment as Lilly called out a warning. “Ambush from the rear!”

  In that moment, Edge knew he was about to be bitten. There wasn’t time to dodge, and the spiders could counter Shadow Step by using it themselves. A fraction of a second before the beast hit him, he Hardened his entire body, just as the creature lunged with its fangs while slashing with its bladed limbs for good measure.

  He had a bad feeling that its bite would be reinforced by multiple skills and flared Harden as much as he could, using its rank-three upgrade in battle for the first time.

  It was the only thing that saved his life.

  In addition to being coated in Disruption, which dispelled Warlord’s Mantle, there were at least two skills enhancing the penetrative power of the spider’s bite. Even his extra thick, extra dense diamond scales cracked under the impact, although the beast’s fangs didn’t make it all the way through.

  Before it could try again, Edge focused and hit it with a maximum-strength Repel Water. His spell sent the spider flying into the cavern’s wall with an impact he could feel through his boots. The skill stunned the beast but wasn’t enough to finish it off. Before it could recover, he used Foebinder to grab a boulder and pull himself in that direction, Repelling the other spiders to keep them off his back.

  He dropped to the ground beside the dazed beast, conjuring a fresh mantle and manifesting his iceblade along the way. While the rest of the crew moved to engage the other predators, he stabbed the spider in the thorax and froze the tissue inside, disabling his opponent and rendering it susceptible to Extraction.

  Edge reached out, and the right chain emerged from his wrist, joining Foebinder, who was already manifested. The living links dove into the wound he had made with his blade and invaded the beast’s core, dragging his consciousness along for the ride.

  He found himself standing on one strand of an immense web. In the distance, hundreds of spiders were tending to egg sacs, repairing the weave, and keeping an eye on struggling beasts who were bound in silk until it was time to dine. I guess they spin webs after all. Maybe it’s a sexual characteristic in this species.

  Glad that the contents of an inner world couldn’t interact with his projection under ordinary circumstances, and that the beasts in the background were illusions rather than distinct entities, Edge turned his attention to the skills living inside the core. As he had suspected, most of them either enhanced the spider’s bite or the potency of its venom, but he already knew what he wanted to steal.

  He gave the chains their orders and they went streaking after a shadowy spider that was skittering along the webbing—the beast’s representation of the Rare skill Shadow Step. It was an agile avatar, so it took the living links a few minutes to catch it. Working together, the chains of oblivion eventually trapped the skill and hauled it out of the core.

  Edge popped back into his body—where only a few seconds had passed—as the chains flung the avatar into his mouth and then retracted through his wrists. He was pleased to discover that the skill had the texture of shadows instead of spiders, which would have been inherently creepy no matter how powerful he became.

  He didn’t have time to savor the experience, although the taste was exquisite—a savory flavor with no earthly equivalent. Shadow Step tasted like flitting through secret spaces and dark places. Like passing through blade and claw. It was spicy and sour, and his core grumbled in contentment when the skill dissolved into goo and slid down his throat.

  You have extracted the skill: Shadow Step (Rare, Rank 3).

  You already have this skill in your collection.

  Its experience will be added to your existing skill.

  He could tell that Absorbing the duplicate hadn’t granted quite enough experience to rank up Shadow Step, so there wasn’t a reason to step into his core. Instead, Edge turned to help Sasha, Lilly, and Mel—only to watch them converge on the final spider and overwhelm it in a flurry of blows.

  “Nice work.” He let out an appreciative whistle. “You three make a great team.”

  Edge was happy with how the fight had ended, although he wished that he’d been able to Extract another copy of Shadow Step… a wish that was granted when Lilly revealed she had disabled one of the spiders without killing it.

  “Here, Edge.” She pointed to where a legless arachnid was twitching on the ground. “I saved you one. Can I please watch you eat it?”

  “I am not going to eat it. I mean, I am, but not really…” He raised his hands in surrender. “Sure, Lilly. You can watch.”

  The gleam in her eyes frightened him a little, but she had done him a favor after all. And, if Edge was being honest with himself, he kind of understood where she was coming from. The strange biology of magic—the merger of magic and machines and all the rest—was a mysterious and captivating subject. Visceral, messy, and wonderful. That being said, the smile on her face still sent adrenaline surging into his veins.

  “Thank you!” The shadowkiller was standing so close that she was pressing up against him, transfixed as the black chains parted the skin of his wrists, pounced on the dying beast in a flurry of clinking links, and then dove into its core.

  The last thing Edge saw was Lillian lick her lips as he followed the chains inside.