To Edge’s astonishment, a pair of arms and legs sprouted from the mycelium, allowing the oversized mushroom to rise from the floor and start walking toward him—predatory intent clear in every move it made.

  He Leapt back and conjured a fresh Warlord’s Mantle, yelping as he recovered from one hell of a jump scare.

  After landing lightly on his feet, he assumed a fighting stance, trying to get a better sense of what was happening before committing to a course of action. That was when he realized that another pair of giant shrooms was growing nearby—far too close for comfort.

  Edge scrambled back to open some room—eyes wide with horror as both mushrooms came to life and joined the humanoid fungus that was already headed his way. He could sense their cores ignite as they prepared to activate some manner of skill, which meant they had to be beasts despite their strange physiology.

  On the bright side, the bipedal shrooms were relatively slow. If he were in an open area, he could have run circles around them with ease. On a less promising note, he wasn’t in an open area right now. In fact, there was only a narrow lane of clear ground leading back to the cavern he’d started in—past which point he had another ten feet before he would be fighting with his back against the wall.

  He could move deeper into the forest of mushrooms, but Edge had a sinking suspicion that there were more of the fungal beasts lurking in there, and the biome was certain to be home to other deadly critters and hazardous terrain as well. So, he decided to stand his ground and use the strip of open floor behind him as strategically as he could.

  While this was a frightening situation, the ponderous nature of his opponents gave him a chance to size them up and come up with a plan of engagement before the battle began. The trio of mushroom men ranged from five feet tall to seven and a half. They had creamy white stalks that were wider than his shoulders and limbs that were shorter and thicker than his own.

  Their blood-red caps formed rounded points and glistened in the damp air. Edge had heard of fungal creatures before, although he’d never expected to run into one in person. Just like nymphs were made of living wood, some beasts were formed from substances other than flesh and blood, including plants and fungi—even algae, slime, and moss.

  That being said, he had never heard of ambulatory mushrooms before, especially ones with arms and legs that were emitting enough mana they had to be stage-two beasts. I don’t know the name of this species, so I’ll call them mycanoids for now.

  As the stray thought passed through his head, he tried to get a sense of the creatures’ attributes and predict the nature of the powers they were packing. However, the mycanoids’ physiology was so alien that he was having a hard time evaluating them. Instead, he began analyzing the environment where they lived to supplement the clues he had gleaned from their appearance.

  They don’t have any obvious natural weapons, which means they hunt using their skills. They haven’t started firing off any ranged attacks, so these shrooms are probably melee specialists, although there’s a chance that they will emit poison or something equally nasty. They are slow and don’t seem particularly agile, so they are probably high on Power, Durability, and Amplification.

  By now, a plan of engagement was forming in his mind, but Edge was out of time. He had a bad feeling about this encounter and hoped the beasts weren’t as hostile as they seemed.

  Any chance that the mycanoids were approaching out of curiosity vanished when their arms elongated and the ends began to flatten. Curved protrusions formed along the perimeter of each appendage and began rotating at an incredible rate. Holy shit. It’s a fucking mushroom chainsaw. Correction. Six mushroom chainsaws.

  That was when a colossal mouth emerged from the front of each stalk—tooth-lined openings emitting the stench of decaying meat. The sight was deeply unsettling, and the smell was worse. But after his stint in the Savage Garden, Edge was no stranger to getting up close and personal with nightmarish creatures, and as bad as they smelled, it was nothing compared to the stench of monsters riding the breeze.

  After looking over his shoulder to make sure nothing was sneaking up on him from behind, he detached his chakram from his pack, infused the bone-and-brass ring with subzero mana, and flung it at the nearest mycanoid.

  The weapon flew true and hit the beast in its bloodred cap. However, the blade deflected instead of biting deep, leaving only a light scratch and a patch of frost behind. Shit. Their bodies are tough. I’ll have to land some heavy hits to break through their defense.

  He hoped that their protection was magical in nature, since Double Slash had gained a light Disruption field after the skill’s rank-two upgrade. I’m fucked if I let them surround me. I have to take one out before they get any closer. The nearest beast was about ten feet in front of the others, so Edge darted in and launched an attack while he still had room to maneuver.

  His Double-Slash-bolstered naginata hit the mycanoid with incredible force, penetrating its tough exterior and slicing into the soft tissue below. Two more swings and his polearm cut all the way through its stalk, leaving the beast dying on the floor. It has a malleable body, but there’s something vital inside. Good to know.

  By now, the other shrooms were almost on top of him—the buzzing of their chainsaw limbs reverberating across the cavern. He reached out and activated Repel Water, aiming for the smaller mycanoid on his right. He was relieved to discover the beasts contained enough fluid to be affected by the spell, and the mycanoid went staggering back while fighting to remain upright. Repel hadn’t shoved it as far as he’d hoped, but it gave him an opening to attack the big mushroom without having to worry about being hit from the flank.

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  He lined up another Double Slash, comboed it with Elemental Blade, then let loose with everything he had. With the Power bonus from his mantle, it was enough to penetrate the beast’s exterior. But unlike its smaller cousin, this shroom was Durable enough that it wasn’t a killing blow. I’ll have to land a few more… That was as far as he got before matters took a dramatic turn for the worse.

  After his last attack, the blade of his polearm remained lodged inside the mushroom’s stalk. Edge tried to work the blade free, but he didn’t have the leverage, and the smaller mycanoid was almost ready to rejoin the fight. Instead of staying in range of the beasts’ chainsaws, he Leapt back to open some room, then conjured his iceblade instead.

  The subzero mana he had injected into the bigger shroom was slowing it down, although not nearly as much as he’d hoped. Before he could line up his next attack, the beast launched a pair of its own.

  He ducked beneath one whirling chainsaw and sidestepped the next. By now, Edge was running out of room—already at the crack leading to the little grotto he’d emerged from. Rather than yielding any more space, he blocked the beast’s blows, catching both saws on the end of his iceblade.

  The mycanoid’s weapons were powerful enough to carve into the crystal manifestation, which made him glad he hadn’t tried the maneuver with his naginata. Since the iceblade was mana given physical form, it only cost him a portion of his energetic reserves to restore the magical weapon instead of damaging an irreplaceable piece of equipment.

  As chips of ice rained to the ground, billowing with frost as they froze the moisture in the air, Edge paid the cost for a skill combo and conjured a second iceblade in his free hand. The beast knew something was wrong and tried to pull away, but before it had a chance, he raised his unengaged blade and thrust the weapon deep into the center of its stalk.

  The creature let out a high-pitched wail, pulling back as its fibrous tissue started to freeze. He followed in its wake, using his other sword to parry swipes from its chainsaws along the way. He was worried that the little beast would hit him before he was ready, but to his relief, the big mycanoid finished freezing just as the last shroom drew near.

  He bent beneath a vicious swipe aimed for his neck, then darted back through the crack until he was standing in the enclosure he’d woken up in. There wasn’t a lot of room in here, which meant he needed to end the fight before the beast drove him into a corner.

  The final mycanoid wasn’t as bulky as its cousin, but judging from the mana welling up from its core, it was the most advanced of the lot—likely late stage-two. The silver lining was that with only one enemy to focus on, Edge was able to employ the full range of his skillset without having to worry about being blindsided.

  This will be a lot easier if I can immobilize my enemy before drawing near. First things first, I’ll use the black chain to restrict its movement. In time with his thought, he cast Manifest Chain and sent Foebinder surging for his opponent.

  The living links crossed the open air in the blink of an eye. They adroitly evaded the mushroom’s chainsaws, then wrapped themselves around the beast’s arms and legs, trapping all four limbs against the stalk and sending the creature crashing to the ground.

  Edge was getting ready to rush in and end the fight when something unexpected occurred. The beast’s pseudo appendages were absorbed by its stalk before reforming on the outside of the chain. The move caught him by surprise, although it wasn’t his first time facing an opponent with a malleable body. However, his foe freeing itself from his chain wasn’t the problem.

  The problem was that Foebinder was still wrapped around the mushroom’s stalk, and when he tried to retract it, the chain refused to budge. Before his disbelieving eyes, the black chain sank into the fungus’s flesh, pulling tight as the creature drew Foebinder into its body link by link.

  Edge tried to dispel the manifestation, but to his dismay, the skill refused to deactivate due to some manner of magical interference. Fighting down the urge to panic, he pulled hard while trying to free the chain. Unfortunately, the move wound up dragging him in the other direction instead, hastening the moment when they would meet head-to-head.

  A pair of whirling chainsaws met his gaze—poised to carve into him like a roast turkey. It was terrifying to watch, but he forced himself to keep a level head through sheer effort of will. He dispelled the sword in his left hand since he couldn’t swing it under the circumstances and couldn’t afford to waste any more magic regardless. He Hardened the front of his body as man and mushroom came together, driving the subzero sword into the center of the beast’s stalk, just as its weapons came down.

  Sparks flew as the magic saws tore through his armor and hit his diamond scales, while his iceblade injected frigid mana into the beast’s pale, spongey flesh. The vibrations shook his body as Edge waited to find out which of them would prevail in a contest of skill versus skill.

  From this close, he could tell that the beast specialized in Disruption, which would have been the end of him if he had encountered it before his final week in the Savage Garden. However, Harden was now fortified with the meta skill Counter Disruption, although his scales were gradually being ground down.

  On the other side of the equation, Elemental Blade was bolstered by his runic Frostfury Medallion. While the silver runes didn’t make his iceblade impervious to the beast’s Disruption, they offered the skill an innate resistance to the effect. Now that Elemental Blade was rank three, he could flare the mana flowing into it to intensify the chill, and he pushed as much energy into the blade as he could.

  Meanwhile, Foebinder was being pulled deeper into the beast’s body, and when the chain ran out of play, Edge’s arm would be next.

  It meant that he was locked in a race to see which of them succumbed first. His subzero sword was pumping icy mana into the mushroom’s body while his left hand was pulled closer to its stalk by the second.

  It was fucking intense to be standing so close to a predatory beast that was trying its best to tear him to ribbons—doubly so that he could feel the chainsaws chipping away at the exterior of his scales, cutting through the diamond armor one millimeter at a time.

  By now, the mushroom’s mouth was only inches from his face—held back by the iceblade suspended between them. Fortunately, the arctic sword had begun freezing the surrounding tissue, preventing the beast from drawing the weapon into its body.

  When he saw lime green motes dancing in front of his eyes, Edge realized spores had begun falling from the gills of its cap. They didn’t seem to be having an effect, which meant that with any luck, Regeneration’s ability to counter invasive magic was protecting him from whatever they were supposed to do.

  A grating screech filled the air as his subzero blade raced the rotating saws to determine which weapon would kill their prey first. That was when his first scale shattered, and warm blood began flowing down his arm. He was about to activate Overdrive… just as the mycanoid’s organs froze solid.

  The beast’s saws stopped spinning, and the notification from the System letting him know it was dead sounded in his ears. Edge stood there with his heart pounding as he fought to catch his breath. Then he deactivated Manifest Chain, retreated to the rear of the chamber, and sat down to recover from the alarming encounter.