While grinding in the farmlands I was at 8 rivals, to spawn the reaper you need no more then 7 so I killed a rival. Rival count remained at 8 killed another still at 8
I can’t spawn the reaper
Before you kill a rival, look at it’s stats page to see which region it belongs to.
Currently many rivals from other regions are in the Farmlands.
There weren’t even 8 rivalsin the farmlands
Region borders are only for the area where Rivals spawn, then they are free to roam anywhere on the map. So there can be 8+ countable Rivals in any region of the map, if the Rivals have migrated to different zone.