In Ouro a person raised his Shard count by fighting things that could kill him, and every step up bought finer control over mana along with the raw power.
Monsters climbed the same ladder, though their bodies rewrote themselves on the way up, so a beast might keep its old shape or finish the process wearing new limbs and armor.
The thing in the clearing had picked the middle of a fight to do it.
A dead two-Shard boar was turning into a three-Shard monster, its new forelimbs forcing a heavy animal body halfway into a shape that had no name yet.
Letting the change finish would make everything after it considerably worse.
He worked that out from the cracks closing across its hide while the third Shard picked up speed around the tusks.
"It was evolving before we got here," he said, circling wide with the sword up, "which is why it kept moving after Juna took its face apart."
'Terrible timing,' he thought, kicking off the ground while the boar lowered its head, 'out of every fight I could have picked, this one decides to evolve.'
He went up and brought the sword down at the skull with both hands, everything he had behind the drop.
The boar raised a forearm into the path of it, so the blade landed with a clang that stopped dead without opening the skin.
"Figures," he said, shoving off the arm before it could close on him.
He twisted past the follow-up swipe with the wind of it tearing along his shoulder, then slid back across the ground on one heel until there was enough room between them to think.
His eyes went to the stream panel for half a second, where the comment column was moving faster than he had ever seen it move.
'People on Earth give up information the moment somebody dares them,' he thought, 'which makes them the cheapest tool I have ever been handed.'
"Chat," he said between breaths, keeping the boar squarely in front of him, "best donation decides how this thing dies."
[CringeSlayer91 donated: 20 credits]
Gold flashed across the corner of his vision.
[ CringeSlayer91: ] break its tusks first
The boar lowered its tusks while the first message lingered.
[ShadowMage44 donated: 50 credits]
A sharper alert covered the boar while Hajin kept his blade raised.
[ ShadowMage44: ] cut both legs then execute it
He gave ground while he read, letting the boar walk him backward toward the treeline where Juna had not moved since she went down.
"You are missing a good stream," he said toward her without turning his head, "so wake up whenever it suits you."
[JunaFanClub donated: 100 credits]
The larger total made Hajin blink once.
[ JunaFanClub: ] I don't care how you kill it, just make it suffer for hurting Juna
"A hundred credits from the fan club," he said, wiping the blade down his sleeve, "which buys suffering, apparently."
"I would like it on the record that suffering is a strange thing to purchase," he said, watching the tusks while he gave up another step of ground.
More notices stacked on top of one another, the numbers climbing while the comments turned feral.
[NewViewer_02 donated: 30 credits]
The new alert crossed his sight as the boar scraped forward again.
[ NewViewer_02: ] payback for Juna
Hajin edged sideways while the newest demand lingered across his vision briefly.
[LurkerNoMore donated: 75 credits]
Another chime cut through the boar's harsh breath.
[ LurkerNoMore: ] go for the eyes, if it can't see, you can beat it easily
The wounded foreleg buckled before the creature corrected its stance.
[DarkBlade donated: 500 credits]
The largest total pinned itself above the other bids in Hajin's sight.
[ DarkBlade: ] no notes on the method, just do not let this turn into a two parter
Hajin tightened his grip as the largest bid stayed visible.
[JunaFanClub donated: 25 credits]
Her final bid joined the first one.
[ JunaFanClub: ] adding to mine, still no mercy
'They are donating like idiots,' he thought while the boar dragged a forelimb back through the ground, 'and I am not about to talk any of them out of it.'
He bounced once on his feet and rolled his shoulders, testing the weight of the sword in his grip.
'This is a clean chance to see what my base stats do without a Ring,' he thought, feeling the lightness sitting in his legs.
Days ago a two-Shard deer had chased him through the forest until his ribs came apart, though he stood in front of an evolving monster now with his weight up on his toes.
"Come on," he said, tapping the flat of the blade against his shoulder while he watched its face, "show me what you have."
The boar dug in and came forward like a thrown stone, the ground jumping under every step while the tusks lined up on his chest.
He ran straight into the charge, vaulted the tusks at the last stride, then turned in the air and came down on its back.
The monster bucked and spun to throw him clear, so he locked his legs around the neck while one hand went into the bristles.
The forelimbs had finished setting while he was in the air, the claws on them longer than his hand, though the hindquarters stayed low and heavy in the shape the animal had been born with.
'Durability on this thing is unreasonable,' he thought while it slammed itself into a tree to scrape him off, 'my sword barely marked it, so try this instead.'
He let the bristles go and drew his arm back while mana ran down into his fist, the knuckles taking on a hard white edge.
"Let's see how tough your head is," he said, then drove the fist down into the back of its skull.
The hit landed like a hammer, the whole body going rigid for a second before the legs folded under it.
It went face-first into the ground, which broke outward from the point of impact in a spiderweb of cracks that threw grit into the air.
He came off its back before it could recover, landing clear while the dust settled into the crater where the face had been.
The legs twitched, then the head came up out of the shallow crater with blood running off the tusks.
It got back on its feet despite the ruined foreleg.
Three Shards were still turning around the tusks, unhurried, at the same speed they had kept since the change started.
'No,' he thought while it set its feet with nothing at all in its eyes, 'I put everything into that hit and it stood back up.'
'Eyes it is,' he thought, shifting his grip while he tracked the ruined face, 'if it cannot see me, I can take my time about the rest.'
"The eyes have it at seventy-five," he said, moving his weight onto the front foot, "so outbid that in the next ten seconds or it happens."
The boar moved before Hajin could react, opening its jaw while dark mana collected at the back of its throat and bent the air before its mouth as the pressure built.
"That is new," he said, with his heels already going back through the ground.
[ ShadowMage44: ] he is winding up something big, get out of the firing line
The ground started shaking under him, the vibration climbing his legs while the mana in its mouth pulled itself into a tight sphere.
'What kind of evolution comes with artillery,' he thought, his grip going tight while his pulse jumped, 'because no three-Shard I have heard about does this.'
He kicked off the ground and went straight at it while the sphere kept swelling, on the theory that a fired beam was worse than an interrupted one.
He was two strides from range when the boar dropped its aim to the ground.
The blast went into the ground in front of it, so a wall of grit came up off the floor of the clearing and swallowed the whole of it inside a single breath.
'Shit,' he thought as his own momentum carried him into the cloud, 'I cannot see anything in here.'
Nothing inside the dense dust cloud made any sound at all.
He planted his feet to stop, though the ground was still moving under him while the grit took the rest of his vision.
Something large came through the haze on his left with speed and no sound at all.
A claw went into his ribs before he could turn, and the impact took him off his feet backward through the air.
He hit on his back with the breath tearing out of him in one gasp, then slid across the ground and coughed blood down his chest.
"This might be bad," he said to nobody in particular, spitting a red mouthful into the grass, "I think my ribs are broken."
The panel had gone on scrolling through all of it, since nobody watching could see far enough into the dust to know how it had gone.
[ CringeSlayer91: ] where did he go
He wiped his mouth on the back of one wrist, so the grit stuck there turned into a red smear along his jaw.
[ JunaFanClub: ] is that blood on the lens
"Voting stays open," he said, getting an elbow under himself while something heavy moved out in the dust, "so somebody outbid the eyes."