The other players looked at me with rage. I think I heard some yelling, but I just ignored it as I Raised the pot with my two remaining tokens. And soon the others realised I was ignoring them and played as well, Krath and Urg putting one token in while the yellow side folded.

  And I won by a landslide with my 33, then all the cards were taken and shuffled, a damning silence surrounding me as everything was distributed. And I looked at my hand, but my thoughts were interrupted by someone speaking.

  Krath saying, “I think it's time to change the game.”

  Finally, I didn’t betray you for nothing, so don’t screw this up this time, Fifth.

  Then the wasp said, “No, I don’t think so.”

  “You were just talking about doing it a few minutes ago,” Krath scoffed.

  “I misspoke, sorry. What I meant to say was that we should end the third phase and go on to the fourth.”

  Eh! No, no, no!

  Urg spoke up, “Can we even do that?”

  “We could end a game early, why not the entire phase?” Fifth of the Mist said, “Look, System, can we vote to end the third phase early?”

  “Voting enabled.”

  “End the Third Phase. Yes or No?”

  “Hmmf,” Krath huffed, “That’s rich coming from the only one here who hasn’t had their Core Skills revealed.”

  I saw Fifth of the Mist bite back a response, saying instead, “Then do you want to continue this game with someone who can bend it into their favour unfairly? I judge that the best outcome would be to end this early.”

  Why couldn't you have been this good at talking when I need you to be!

  “Don’t try to justify jumping out of the cart when the tunnels are collapsing on everyone else.”

  “I will admit that is fair, but I won’t be the only one in the line of Jacob Davidson's fire. Do you really want to risk that?”

  Krath Nixm rolled it over in their head for a minute, then nodded and said, “I see,” voting yes to leave the third phase along with Fifth of the Mist.

  But it still seemed like Urg Floaw and Second of the Snow were deciding, so I cast my vote no.

  Saying to them, “Do you really want to lose all that information?”

  Then Urg Floaw said in a quiet voice, ignoring my prodding, “Do we really need to do this at all; Question?”

  “What; Question?” Krath asked.

  “I mean, well… The fourth phase is about who’s the last standing. Couldn’t we just wait it out till we die of old age, or some other natural cause; Question?”

  “I hope,” Second of the Snow says

  “Hope,” Fifth of the Mist interjects, “But there is no way that the gods are going to allow that; they want us to fight, and if we do that, they’re just going to intervene, so we have to kill each other.”

  “Can’t there be any other way?” Snow says.

  I snort at them, “Yeah, right.”

  They looked at me, then at my vote, and a familiar look passing over them. And I see it on Krath as well.

  Then Krath says, “You're right, I suppose. You damn bug.”

  Wait, no! This isn’t reverse psychology this time, no, bad lizard and ape, bad!

  But I could do nothing as they voted yes to leave the game, the majority coming to an agreement. And a the gruelingly familiar teleportation taking me and plopping me somewhere else.

  The lingering effects keeping me out of sorts for a while. But I got better soon enough, so I looked around the place I had been teleported. It was the exact same battleground that I fought the Ant Queen at.

  Then I investigated further and realised that not even time had moved on, the murder of Rain Ravens, despite not even being in my control, were still here. And the chunks and stains that were First of the Sea still looked as fresh as when I left.

  Ok, weird, but I can work with this. Better than a lot of other hands that’ve been dealt to me recently, literal and metaphorical.

  Then my mind goes over what could’ve been better, I stop it, because it was just self flagellation. But I tentatively let it keep going, combing over my mistakes so I don’t repeat them. The First thing my mind landing on was the betrayal.

  Yeah, I shouldn’t have done that… I just painted a target on my back.

  I look over my minions, my tired mind trying to come up with a plan, eventually it churned out the memory of one of the last things I remembered happening before the third phase. My Evolution Level having reached the maximum, meaning it was finally time for another power up.

  But that would leave me stationary and vulnerable for a day; thankfully, I had a giant underground network of tunnels protected by an army of ants at my disposal. So I escorted my minions down into the tunnels. It was annoying to fit most of them in, especially the Colossal Anteater.

  But I had a lot of ants capable of digging out chambers for them and me, half a mile underground. Which was another thing I found weird, when I reached the edge of the world, it was only a few feet thick. Nowhere near enough to do this, and I didn’t notice the bottom of the world expanding farther inland. It was just a straight line that I could clearly see the other side of the plate I was on.

  But this place's general attitude towards physics, being a shrug, was not my main concern. Since when all of my minions had been situated in their tunnels, I didn’t have any more time to devote to that line of thought. Pulling up my available evolutions list

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “Congratulations on reaching Max Evolution Level. One Evolution has been unlocked.”

  Elder Queen Lunar Scale Moth: This moth has been shown to be exceptional and granted even more power by Lunaris. This species has been rumoured to have taken over entire empires in a single day. And so most of the time, Lunar Scale Moths are hunted down, except by the priests of Lunaris. Who worship them as a sacred animal of their god, especially the Queens, believing them to be a direct extension of Lunaris’s will.

  Requirements: Gain all Mutations, Reach Max Level in three Core Skills

  Ah, only one choice, guess I got locked into this evolutionary branch. And who’s Lunaris? Oh, my God! Are they the god my whole species was made by! Finally, some damn good info from you, System.

  I tried reading into it a bit more, but I couldn’t find things of much import or interest. The priest of Lunaris did rouse my curiosity, but not much. And pretty much everything else was what I expected from a species specialising in mass enslavement.

  So, without theatrics, I pressed the Elder Queen Lunar Scale Moth evolution. My vision dimming in a familiar fashion as I fell unconscious.

  OOO

  The next moment, I was awake, and this time, I didn’t panic at my new body. It wasn’t changed much from the previous evolution, it felt more solid and real when I moved. Not heavier though, it was more like previously I was high on laughing gas without realising, and now I wasn’t.

  Then I decided to look at my new status page.

  Species: Elder Queen Lunar Scale Moth

  Level 0/70 till Evolution

  Antenna: Imperial

  Wings: Imperial

  Tarsus: Imperial

  Abdomen: Imperial

  HP: Green

  Lv: 10

  MP: Green

  Lv: 21

  EP: Green

  Lv: 15

  Core Skills: 4/5

  Lunar Scale Dust

  LV 5/10

  13/300

  Moon Silk

  LV 5/10

  Royal Will

  LV 5/10

  Slip Away

  LV 0/10

  0/10

  Locked

  Gained Skills: 3/5

  Stealth

  LV 5/10

  Appraisal

  LV 5/10

  Split Mind

  LV 0/3

  I mentally whistled at my new max number of minions; it just kept increasing and wouldn’t stop. But I was more interested in my new core skill, ‘Slip Away’, so I used appraisal on it.

  Slip Away: Allows those marked by the user to slip into a dimensional pocket as long as they’re within the user's perception.

  Hoooollllyyyy hell, that’s going to be so useful! And I guess that counter underneath it is the maximum amount I can store.

  My mind races with all the applications, movement, surprise attacks, reallocation of troops, the list just went on and on. The only downside was how many I could carry, but that was probably based on Level, and there was only one thing I could do about that.

  I got out of my little hole the ants made for me, following a pheromone trail outside of the nest, finding to my surprise that the hill I had destroyed yesterday was completely repaired. Then I called on my minions, pulling them out of their slumbers, crawling out of holes made for them by the ants.

  All except the queen, since I didn’t want to deal with having to clean up the giant hole she’d leave. And when all the Rain Ravens, Rhinos, Butterflies, Anteaters, and singular Dragon came out, I immediately set them to work. No time to waste in a war, and no underestimating. I knew most of the capabilities of my opponents, but they were probably close to evolving before the third phase, like I was. So I had no idea what they were capable of now. Also, I still didn’t know a single thing that Fifth of the Mist could do, so I’d just have to hope they didn’t come for me.

  I sent my minions around slaughtering the surrounding fauna to test my own new capabilities. The first thing I noticed was how wide my range was now. Before this evolution, I could only control my minions for a few hundred feet. Now it spanned an entire third of my square, at least 50 miles long.

  The second thing I noticed was something the system mentioned the first time one of my minions killed something.

  “Applying Phase Four's XP Boost.”

  And within half an hour, I had gained three entire levels from just killing a couple dozen low level creatures. Which would be insanely helpful at chipping away at my new 70 level evolution cap, but I suspected that I wouldn’t have the time to grind towards that. Another annoying thing I noticed was that the Xp boost only applied to me; my minions still growing as slow as a snail.

  So after I was done testing, I decided to corral as many creatures as I could, having my minions form a circular wall around them. Allowing me to easily subjugate them from above, I took the strong ones, then killed the weak ones. Leveling up multiple times, but the only one that caught my interest was Lunar Scale Dust.

  So I checked to see its new level cap, and it went from 300 to 600, and I only had around 200 minions before I Leveled. So I had a lot longer to go to fill up my minion slots, and that’s what I spent the second day of the fourth Phase doing, satisfied with 600.

  When the third day rolled around, I sent my minions to the edges of the square that connected to the others. I originally thought of putting up a wall around the edge to slow down my opponents, then I remembered that two of the players could fly. Another was the size of a house, and could step over or destroy any wall I could reasonably make, and the square was 120 miles wide. So it was just impractical in every sense.

  Instead, what I did was knock over any foliage blocking sight for a hundred feet on the other squares. The colony of thousands of Giant Cutter Ants speeding up the process with their energy blades so that the task was completed just before nightfall. Creating an area that nothing could sneak past without me noticing, as long as they weren’t that Jaguar

  And on the third day, I figured out a way to monitor both sides as best I could. First, I'd keep my strongest minions in the Slip Away, except for the Nimbus Ravens (whom I’ve named Hugin V3) and the Storm Raven (Munnin V3, and don’t you dare insult my naming scheme; they were genius, so there’s no reason to get rid of them). And I would ride them around in an oval to either side, spending half an hour going up and down the cleared forest before switching. Sending the weak minions monitoring the sides into hibernation.

  I would constantly go back and forth, with only a five minute gap between me getting to each side with Munnin. The Storm Raven so fast I could barely hold on, but the five minute long still blind spot clawed at me, and even when I was at one side, I was worrying about the other.

  The constant worrying wearing me down, so by the time the sun set on the first day of surveillance, I felt like a stomped out cigarette. And at the end of the second, I felt the heel digging into me even further, on the third, I was just a pile of ashes barely being held together.

  But on the third day, I saw a giant lizard the size of a mansion with wings folded on their back that could rival a lake in width. The ground beneath their feet turning to molten rock and vaporised ash, and I used appraisal on them.

  Furnace Dragon: Krath Nixm

  HP: Green

  Lv: 105

  MP: Green

  Lv: 91

  EP: Green

  Lv: 120

  But despite the looming threat of the creature, I felt a weird relief as the wait finally ended.