"Fall back! Fall back! It's evolving again! Damn it, the seventh stage is coming!"
On the battlefield in the core region of the Zero Hive, Happy Stick—already covered in wounds—shouted for the brothers around him to retreat from the combat zone.
In front of them, the hive had been battered into a cratered wasteland resembling an alien battlefield. There, the Scale Father of the sixth stage crouched like a four-legged lizard covered in black bone spines. It roared, firing dangerous biological disintegration beams from its half-blinded compound eyes.
The scene was perilous. The players could barely dodge amid a veritable hail of bullets, looking like a bunch of wheelchair-bound Soulslike players. But anyone who had survived six stages of fierce fighting was a fearsome combatant with astonishing skill, so this seemingly dangerous AOE attack couldn't hit them at all!
Especially the vampire players, bold enough to rely on their skill, who darted back and forth through the beam-filled battlefield, occasionally hurling spells or explosives at the Scale Father's massive body.
Honestly, the Scale Father was just ridiculous.
At first, it had been a giant dragon beetle. Its stats were dangerous, but aside from dragonfire, it had no special mechanics. The players had thought that was the extent of its abilities, but when its health dropped to 50%, its "glorious transformation" left everyone stunned.
Its shell split open as if it were shedding, and the newborn Scale Father crawled out of its original body. The second-stage Scale Father had a body better suited to combat. It still looked like a dragon-kind beetle, but its agility and tracking ability had rapidly improved.
It devoured its shed remains and grew quickly. Now, in addition to dragonfire and its breath attack, it could unleash blasts of biological heat-melting beams.
But the second stage was