Edge picked up his spear and assumed a combat stance.

  He cast his senses into his surroundings while warning Foebinder that an enemy was in their vicinity. By this point, his instincts were screaming that something was wrong—beyond the obvious threat of a monster prowling nearby. He sniffed at the air, wrinkling his nose while trying to locate the source of the stench.

  For reasons he didn’t even pretend to understand, all monsters stank something fierce, and each horrid odor was as unique as a fingerprint in its own vile way. The last time he’d scented a shadowreaver, the reek of rotting flesh was overpowering. This time, he might have missed it if he wasn’t intimately familiar with the creatures’ putrescent aroma.

  It either meant the monster was far away… or it was close and concealing its presence. Since he hadn’t noticed the smell on the way in, his money was on the latter.

  Edge clutched his spear like a talisman as he made his way back to the temple. Because he had thoroughly examined the area just a few minutes ago, he knew the reaver wasn’t inside, and with only one entrance to watch, he wouldn’t have to worry about being ambushed from behind or above.

  His heart was pounding like a drum and Foebinder was weaving through the air like a viper poised to strike. Adrenaline sang in his veins, and his skin was covered in a sheen of cold sweat. Being hunted by the shadowreaver dredged up memories of his first encounter with the nightmares made flesh known as monsters, which still haunted his dreams from time to time.

  While he couldn’t forget that traumatic experience, Edge wasn’t the same person he’d been back then. He was no longer easy meat, and his might had multiplied over the course of his ordeals. This was a fight he should be able to handle, although being stalked by an ambush predator was inherently terrifying.

  He entered the temple with cortisol pumping through his bloodstream, letting out a soft sigh of relief when nothing attacked him en route. He came to a stop after stepping past the threshold, taking a deep breath as he steadied his stance and centered his awareness on the ruins ahead.

  He couldn’t sense anything out of the ordinary beyond that hint of foulness in the air, but he was dead certain that he was being watched. He took a few minutes to steady his nerves and collect his thoughts while deciding how to proceed.

  Armed with a plan, he did something that seemed insane at face value. He turned around and dismissed Foebinder, picking up Yussuf’s sword and storing his spear inside his vault. He knew the reaver would wait until he was vulnerable before making its move, and this was a prime opportunity from its perspective.

  The monster had no way of knowing that Edge was watching the doorway with the combined mode of All-Seeing Gaze. Information flooded his brain as motes of mana flew free from his core, bounced around the environment, and then made their way back to his eyes, creating a three-dimensional image.

  He could see the air moving through the cave—sense the magicytes flowing around his boots in crisp detail. He could perceive everything within the space his spell encompassed from every angle at once, including tiny discrepancies in the temperatures of the objects nearby.

  By focusing on all these elements at once, he was able to perceive the shadowreaver when it crept into the room.

  At the moment, the monster didn’t look like a towering bipedal bird with a serrated yellow beak reminiscent of the reaper’s scythe, soulless black eyes, and wicked scissor-claws. In its present form, the creature was merely a pool of ink gliding across the floor—a shadow that was somehow blacker than black.

  It’s using a variant of Shadow Step that’s focused entirely on stealth. It won’t assume solid form until it’s a heartbeat away from running me through.

  Edge made a show of inspecting the stonework in front of him, since the monster had moved into the far corner of the room instead of launching an attack. Apparently, his behavior was odd enough that it wanted to observe him a little longer before making its move, but that wasn’t a problem. He knew where it was, and that was all that mattered.

  The monster didn’t seem surprised that he could see in the dark, which made sense, as he was navigating the ruins without any light. But it was shocked by what happened next.

  He took a few stabs at the air like he was practicing his swordplay and then let the weapon fall from his fingers with a clang that reverberated across the ruins.

  The moment Edge bent down to retrieve the blade, the predator went in for the kill.

  The reaver was utterly silent as it Shadow Stepped across the chamber—poised to materialize behind his back and gut him like a fish. It hadn’t realized he had sensed its presence and was slow to react when he ignited his core, picked up his sword, and activated Shadow Play.

  Now they were both incorporeal, which made them appear perfectly solid to each other. He spun around while letting loose with a Double Slash which the reaver barely blocked in time. The ring of blade against claw echoed across the subterranean city as he drove the creature back in a ceaseless procession of skill-bolstered strikes.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  The reaver was caught off-guard by this dramatic turn of events. Astonished that its would-be prey had ambushed it instead, using a skill that was remarkably similar to its own. This monster was significantly stronger than the first shadowreaver he’d fought—on the verge of evolving to stage three.

  Even still, it wasn’t prepared to meet such fierce resistance, scrambling to open some room as it struggled to regain the initiative. After another exchange of blows, they both shifted back into solid form, since using active skills while incorporeal counted as combos and came at a hefty cost. He switched Gaze’s combined mode back to Darkvision, letting him focus on the fight without sensory overload competing for his attention.

  Edge had noticed the reaver was using Swipe—occasionally comboing it with something that covered its claws in hooklike protrusions. That looks like Rend or another power that tears into flesh to make its opponent bleed out.

  The last pack of reavers he’d fought had Lunged with their beaks, so he would have to watch out for that one too. He suspected the predator had at least one perceptual skill to help it hunt and another that masked its scent, since the stench hadn’t increased after shifting out of shadow form.

  He counted the monster’s powers as he pressed the attack, building a model of its skillset on the fly. Swipe, Shadow Step, plus another attack skill makes three. Five, if I’m right about the others. That leaves three skills I haven’t seen yet.

  Edge ducked beneath one Swipe of the reaver’s scissor claws and deflected the next with his blade. He Leapt back in time to prevent the monster’s Lunge from perforating his torso and followed up with a relentless barrage of Double Slashes.

  Even though the shadowreaver had superior attributes, he’d caught it flat-footed and pressed it hard ever since, keeping his opponent off balance all the while. As matters stood, the battle was playing out better than he had expected, and he had a decent chance of winning without switching up his tactics.

  That being said, he didn’t lower his guard for a microsecond.

  Before the disaster, shadowreavers had ended the careers of more hunters than any other monster he knew of, making them infamous on the feed. Beyond the obvious threat posed by a walking arsenal that could shift into shadows, reavers were some of the craftiest monsters on Ord.

  They were patient enough to stalk prey for hours—clever enough to lure them into traps and employ various forms of deception in battle. Edge was dead certain the creature was holding something in reserve, waiting for an opening to surprise him and land a killing blow.

  Little did it know he had some surprises of his own, and not just one or two.

  The next time he Slashed, he deliberately pulled his swing short, making the sword easy to evade by leaning out of the way. The instant the monster took the bait, Edge flared the skill, increasing its drain to bolster its output.

  Every rank-three power worked a bit differently. Flaring Double Slash made the field of mana coating his physical blade and the conjured copy extend, growing three feet in the blink of an eye.

  The greatly lengthened dual blades carved twin gouges into the shadowreaver’s shoulder, sending a fountain of inky blood spurting across the stonework. The creature screamed but didn’t retreat. It lashed out with one set of claws, closing them around his sword and then twisting violently.

  The move tore the weapon free from his grasp and sent it skittering along the paving stones. He reflexively darted back, but the monster wasn’t headed his way. Instead, it ran toward his sword and then kicked it away, launching it onto the roof of a distant building.

  The reaver understood what a weapon was, and it knew most warriors would be far less dangerous when deprived of their killing tool. Unfortunately for the monster, Edge wasn’t most warriors.

  He took advantage of the opening to demonstrate that truth in a chillingly visceral manner.

  He had realized a while back that while his iceblade had lengthened considerably during the early days of his adventures, it hadn’t grown larger in quite a while. He’d eventually figured out this effect was a product of his own expectations. After reaching an ideal length in his mind, the sword had assumed a fixed shape, regardless of how much Amplification he had at his disposal.

  Thus, it was reasonable to assume that if he wanted the blade to be bigger, the skill could make it happen. It wasn’t a good idea to theory craft in the middle of a life-and-death battle, but he could cut out the guesswork by conferring directly with Blade’s avatar.

  While the monster was looking the other way, he sent his consciousness into his core, where time passed at a fraction of the speed of the outside world. Edge didn’t want to stay here for longer than an objective second under the circumstances, so he asked Chibime, Sea, and Elemental Blade to join him and hastily outlined his proposal.

  Elemental Blade’s avatar was a floating crystalline sword, and he had a harder time communicating with it than some of his more expressive powers. But with his Epics there to translate, they quickly reached an accord.

  Going forward, he would be able to manifest his iceblade whatever size he wanted—even conjure a dagger if he needed a shorter weapon for some reason. He thanked the avatars for their assistance, stepped back into his body, and scanned the battlefield, where only half a second had flown by while he was away.

  Even still, the monster had noticed the change in his behavior. It was already headed his way, eager to take advantage of his momentary lapse in concentration. But Edge had assumed that was going to happen and sprang into motion before it arrived.

  He Leapt back to open some room while igniting his core and sending mana streaming into his hands. A subzero sword sprang into existence from the center of his right palm, extending to three feet in length. Then, just as he’d asked, the blade kept on growing.

  The arctic blue weapon went from three feet to five, thickening all the while. The handle doubled in length and formed a pommel stone, balancing the extra weight while making room for both hands. By the time the iceblade came to a stop at six feet, it was twice as heavy as before and so cold that it froze the moisture in the air, leaving a trail of fog in its wake like the tail of a comet.

  Edge was packing enough Power that the extra heft wasn’t a problem. The monster was coming in hot—poised to combine Swipe with Rend—but he didn’t fall back. Instead, he widened his stance, adjusted his grip, and took his first Slash with the subzero greatsword, flaring Harden to perform a triple combo of his own.

  Rend was a skill that coated a creature’s natural weapons with jagged hooks of mana—designed to savage flesh and make it bleed profusely. While the attack would have been devastating to most targets, his skin was now covered in a layer of interlocking diamond scales in addition to his armor.

  The shadowreaver’s strike was powerful enough to leave some scratches behind, but the carnage Edge wrought in exchange was worth the price of admission.