'I'll have to conserve my energy, I don't want the blood monarch out again until I know how to deal with him'

He adjusted his strategy, relying more on technique than raw power. Let the spiders' own momentum work against them. Redirect attacks instead of dodging completely. Conserve energy.

A spider lunged at Seth. "What the fuck?!!" He jolted up in fear forgetting to protect himself.

Akhil was there in a blur, his blade intercepting the spider mid-leap. He carved through it lengthwise, green blood showering the cave floor. "Stay close to me!"

"Trying!" Seth gasped.

J's golden flames were starting to fade—the injury to his arm making it difficult to maintain the enhancement. But he kept fighting, kept thrusting his spear with desperate precision. Each strike found a vital spot. Each kill brought them closer to finishing this.

Nibo roared, his axe cleaving through three spiders in a wide arc. The massive warrior was covered in green ichor and his own blood from a dozen small cuts, but he didn't slow down. Couldn't slow down. The moment you stopped moving in a fight like this, you died.

"Last group!" Akhil shouted, pointing at five spiders clustered near the back of the cave. "All together!"

They converged as one. J's spear blazing golden. Nibo's axe raised high. Akhil's blade dripping with green and red. Even Seth grabbed a rock, prepared to throw it if needed.

The spiders realized too late they were cornered. They tried to scatter, to climb the walls, to escape.

But there was nowhere to go.

J's spear found one. Nibo's axe crushed two. Akhil's blade opened the throat of a fourth. The last tried to run, and Seth actually managed to hit it with his rock, stunning it long enough for Akhil to finish it.

Then silence. Heavy breathing. The soft glow of cores beginning to manifest from dissolving spider corpses.

"Thirty-two," Nibo counted, leaning heavily on his axe. "Thirty-two cores."

"And about a thousand nightmares," Seth added, staring at the carnage. "I'm never sleeping again."

J laughed despite his exhaustion. "Worth it though. These cores will make good weapons."

Akhil was already collecting them, moving quickly. "We need more. This is just the beginning."

"More spiders?" Seth's voice cracked slightly. "You want to fight MORE spiders?"

"Different monsters," Akhil assured him. "We'll find other dens. Other packs. We have three days to prepare, and we're going to need hundreds of cores."

He looked at his companions—battered, bloody, exhausted, but alive. They'd survived. Gotten stronger. Learned to work together better.

Three days.

They were going to make every second count.

---

**Back at the Forges**

The cores arrived in steady streams throughout the day. Adventurers returning from hunts, depositing their gains, receiving receipts for weapons to be crafted. The dwarven forges burned hot, hammers ringing against anvils in rhythmic percussion.

The hunt had begun.

And with each core collected, each weapon forged, each fighter strengthened—their chances of survival grew.

Not by much.

But enough to matter.

Enough to hope.

--------

The river's gentle murmur was almost peaceful after hours of constant combat. Akhil sat on a flat stone near the bank, methodically cleaning green ichor and blood from his blade. His shoulder still ached where the spider's leg had caught him, but the wound was already closing—one benefit of his enhanced physiology.

Seth sprawled on the grass nearby, staring up at the darkening sky. "How many was that? Fifty? Sixty cores?"

"Seventy-three," Akhil replied without looking up. "Between the spiders, the wolves we found after, and that pack of stone trolls."

"Seventy-three," Seth repeated, letting out a low whistle. "And we still need hundreds more."

Nibo sat with his back against a boulder, his war axe resting across his lap. The massive warrior was covered in dried blood and ichor, but he looked oddly content. "Good hunting today. Haven't had fights like that in... I don't even know how long."

"You sound almost happy about it," Seth observed.

"Better than sitting around waiting to die," Nibo rumbled. "At least this way, we're doing something."

Akhil finished cleaning his blade and sheathed it. The river really was peaceful here—clear water flowing over smooth stones, trees providing shade, the sounds of birds in the distance. It was easy to forget, in moments like this, that they were trapped in a game designed to kill them.

J had left about an hour ago, taking most of their collected cores back to the dwarven forges. He'd return by nightfall, hopefully with news about how the crafting was progressing and what other hunting parties had managed to gather.

Until then, they'd decided to rest. Recover their strength. Let their wounds heal.

"I'm getting some water," Nibo announced, pushing himself to his feet with a grunt. His massive frame moved toward the river's edge, each step heavy but purposeful.

"Don't fall in," Seth called out. "I'm not jumping in to save you."

"Wouldn't ask you to," Nibo shot back with a hint of amusement. "You'd probably drown trying."

He knelt at the water's edge, cupping his hands to drink. The water was cold, clear, refreshing after hours of fighting in dust and blood. He took several long drinks, feeling the cool liquid wash away some of the day's exhaustion.

Then the water exploded.

A massive form burst from the river in a spray of water and foam—serpentine, covered in scales that gleamed like polished obsidian, easily thirty feet long. Its head was draconic, with rows of teeth like daggers and eyes that burned with predatory intelligence.

A River Serpent. Advanced class. And from the size and the aura radiating from it—level 40 at minimum.

Nibo barely had time to register what was happening before the creature's maw opened, diving straight for him with frightening speed. His mind screamed at him to move, to dodge, to do something, but his body was still processing, still catching up to the reality of the threat.

He was going to die.

Then Akhil was there.

A blur of motion, impossibly fast, tackling Nibo sideways. They hit the ground hard, rolling away as massive jaws snapped shut on empty air where Nibo had been kneeling a fraction of a second before.

The Serpent's head whipped around, tracking them. Water streamed from its scales as it rose higher, revealing more of its massive body still submerged in the river. Its eyes fixed on Akhil with cold calculation.

"Move!" Akhil shouted, shoving Nibo further back. "Get clear!"

Seth scrambled to his feet, alarm written across his face. "What the hell is that thing?!"

"River Serpent," Akhil replied, his eyes never leaving the creature. His hand moved to his blade, though he didn't draw it yet. "Advanced beast. Ambush predator. Usually hunts alone."

"Level?" Nibo asked, having recovered enough to grip his war axe.

"Forty. Maybe higher."

The number hung in the air like a death sentence. They were strong—had gotten stronger through constant fighting—but level 40 was in a different category entirely. That was boss-tier. That was the kind of enemy you brought a full party to fight, with preparation and planning and backup.

Not three exhausted fighters catching their breath by a river.

But despite the danger, despite the very real possibility they were about to die, Akhil felt something else mixed with his apprehension.

Opportunity.

His eyes lit up slightly as pieces clicked together in his mind. 'A level 40 advanced beast. The core from something like this would be incredible. Powerful enough to forge weapons that could actually make a difference against the Centurions.'

The Serpent's core alone might be worth twenty regular beast cores. Maybe more. It was exactly the kind of prize they needed.

If they could kill it.

That was the question, wasn't it? Could they actually take down something this powerful with just the three of them? J was gone.

The Serpent moved, its body coiling as it prepared for another strike. Water dripped from scales that looked harder than steel. Its eyes never blinked, never wavered from tracking its prey.

"Akhil," Seth said carefully, taking slow steps backward. "Please tell me you have a plan."

"Working on it," Akhil muttered, his mind racing through everything he knew about River Serpents from the beta test. Fast. Incredibly fast in water, less so on land. Scales were resistant to slashing weapons but vulnerable to blunt force trauma. Weak point was the throat—softer scales to allow for swallowing large prey.

But getting close enough to exploit that weakness meant surviving its attacks first.

The Serpent lunged.

Akhil dove left, Nibo rolled right. The creature's jaws slammed into the ground where they'd been standing, leaving deep gouges in the earth. It didn't pause—immediately whipping its head toward Akhil, faster than something that size had any right to move.

Akhil barely got his blade up in time. The Serpent's fangs scraped against steel with a sound like grinding metal. The force of the impact drove Akhil backward, his feet sliding across the dirt.

'Strong,' he thought, arms shaking from the impact. 'Much stronger than the spiders or wolves.'

Nibo charged from the side, war axe raised high. He brought it down with all his considerable strength, aiming for the Serpent's neck.

The axe connected with scales and bounced off.

Nibo's eyes widened in shock. His weapon—which had cleaved through trolls and spiders like they were paper—had done nothing. Not even a scratch.

The Serpent's tail whipped around, catching Nibo in the chest. The massive warrior flew backward, crashing into a tree with enough force to crack the trunk.

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