Jake kept fighting the ravagespawn, killing one monster after another and gaining hefty chunks of experience from every group he slew. Monsters poured endlessly from the nest, and he couldn’t help but wonder where it was getting so much energy to spawn them without ever stopping.

  He figured deep inside the nest, there might be some kind of energy generator, maybe something akin to the Mana Cores that kept his irs running, which constantly absorbed mana from the surrounding air. If he wanted answers, he’d have to fight his way inside. But until he had the means to do that, all he could do was keep wading through the waves of ravagers.

  Just as he finished dealing with a fresh bunch of monsters, over a dozen more creatures had already formed and were now advancing toward him from several directions at once. It felt as though now that he was actively fighting the ravagespawn, the nest had ramped up its production pace to match the speed at which he was eliminating them.

  He quickly scanned his surroundings, noticing that most of the newcomers were allseers. Their numerous, emotionless eyes stared at him with unwavering intensity. Among them, however, he spotted a new type of ravagespawn he had never encountered before.

  Crossmaw (Ravagespawn) – Level 175

  This monster had a humanoid figure and was simir in build to an allseer. Its hands ended in long, curved cws like those of an allseer. However, its head was vastly different, elongated into a grotesque, cone-like snout. With a sudden burst of speed, it lunged at Jake, arms reaching for him. A tail whipped behind it, simir to an ironsh’s but ending in a tapering spear-point rather than a brutal spiked ball.

  As the crossmaw drew closer, its snout opened, splitting into four separate jaws lined with rows upon rows of jagged teeth, each at least an inch long. Those razor-sharp teeth were built to shred anything that came near. The jaws stretched wide, creating an X-shaped form.

  But that wasn’t all this monster had to offer. As it barreled toward Jake, its tongue shot from its maw. It was several feet long and looked less like a tongue and more like a thick tentacle, lined with rows of suction cups.

  Jake dashed aside, simultaneously extending a bde from his right wrist and swinging it downward. The sword sliced cleanly through the tongue-tentacle, cutting it in half. He then darted toward the monster, thrusting the sword into its gaping maw. The tip of the bde plunged into the back of its throat before emerging from the rear of its head.

  Surprisingly, the crossmaw was still alive. Its four jaws snapped shut, cmping down on his arm. Almost his entire limb, from hand to shoulder, was now trapped within the monster’s snout. He could feel the jagged teeth scraping against his armored flesh, attempting to penetrate it, but all in vain. While the teeth weren’t able to pierce through his armor, he couldn’t seem to free his arm.

  The crossmaw jerked its head to the side, as if trying to throw Jake off bance. He managed to keep his footing, however. In his peripheral vision, he saw several allseers closing in from multiple directions. With his arm trapped within the crossmaw’s snout, his maneuverability was greatly reduced.

  So he employed another weapon from his vast arsenal. He sprouted multiple bded tentacles and long tendrils from his back, grabbing at the monsters with the tter while sshing and stabbing at them with the former. Several of his strikes skimmed harmlessly across the monsters’ tough exteriors, failing to pierce their defenses. Some of the others, however, managed to stab them through their eyes and ssh at the soft flesh between the armored ptes on their bodies.

  A flicker of movement at the edge of his wide vision revealed a new breed of ravagespawn entering the fray.

  Bdecrawler (Ravagespawn) – Level 195

  This monster looked vastly different from all the other ravagespawn he had encountered so far. Its upper body, which was humanoid and corded with thick muscle, was connected to an elongated lower half resembling a giant centipede, complete with dozens of segmented legs. The creature towered over seven feet tall and stretched about fifteen feet in length. Instead of hands, its forearms tapered into vicious, scythe-like bdes. Its snout was lined with sharp teeth, designed to rip through flesh.

  Just like any other ravagespawn he had encountered so far, it was a regur specimen, not an elite one, and therefore, it didn’t possess any special abilities. However, it looked much tougher than any of the ravagespawn he had dealt with before.

  He also had to admit that this type of ravagespawn actually looked cool and terrifying. While he couldn’t harvest resources from ravagespawn, some of them, like the bdecrawler, at least looked impressive. This one, he decided, could serve as an inspiring blueprint for the creation of new types of his own monsters.

  Now wasn’t the right time to think about that, however. The bdecrawler lunged in, closing the gap with unsettling speed, but with his right arm still trapped within the crossmaw’s snout, his freedom of movement was greatly reduced. One arm-bde swept toward him in a vicious arc, but he twisted aside just in time. The weapon’s tip smmed into the earth with a dull, resonant thud.

  The crossmaw lunged at him once more, its arm-bde sweeping in a deadly horizontal arc. He ducked low, the weapon hissing through the space where his head had been moments before. The insectoid beast pressed its attack relentlessly, forcing him into a purely defensive stance, as the creature remained beyond his reach. Its arm-bdes, long and lethally sharp, gave it a decisive edge in distance and power.

  But his bded tentacles were long enough to strike the bdecrawler, so he made use of those not locked in combat with the allseers, whipping them toward the insectoid foe. A few sshes deflected harmlessly off the armored ptes of its carapace, while others managed to inflict shallow cuts on its body. The damage was superficial, and the creature barely seemed to notice the injuries.

  As Jake shed his bded tentacles at the insectoid once more, it swung one of its massive arm-bdes downward, carving through his tentacles and severing them in half.

  But Jake had another ace up his sleeve. He brought up his free arm and deployed his Rotary Bde Launcher. A disk of jagged, razor-sharp metal materialized atop his wrist almost instantly, and Jake wasted no time unching the deadly projectile at the monster. The spinning saw bde shrieked through the air before smming into the monster’s chest with a sickening crunch, embedding itself deep in its flesh.

  The creature recoiled, but before it could do anything, Jake was already at work again, creating and firing off another circur saw bde at the monster. It sliced into its body and lodged firmly in its flesh alongside its predecessor. That’s when the insectoid suddenly erupted into a berserk frenzy, unching a relentless barrage of attacks at him.

  Jake managed to duck under one blow and dodge another, but the monster kept shing out at him with its arm-bdes. All he could do for now was focus on dodging, but with one of his arms trapped inside the crossmaw’s snout, his movement was greatly reduced. He dodged the next few strikes, but his luck was bound to run out.

  One of the next blows the monster unched managed to connect with devastating force. The colossal, razor-sharp appendage sliced through the air with a terrifying hiss, smming into Jake’s left shoulder, tearing through his armor as if it were paper. The bde didn’t stop there, though. It continued its brutal trajectory, cutting through him almost to the very center of his chest before finally stopping.

  This was bad. This was not how he had envisioned this battle going. Between one of his arms trapped inside the crossmaw’s snout and the insectoid’s rge arm-bde still embedded deep within his body, Jake was in deep trouble now.