“That’s the situation, our plan, and the resources at our disposal.” Edge looked at each of his avatars in turn as he reached the end of the briefing he had conducted inside his core.

  “This battle will be unlike any we’ve fought before, and I can’t do this without you. Help me out however you can and keep Rue company while I’m gone. I’ll be back later with the awesome new skills I’ve stolen from the kaiju, and then it will be time for a victory celebration.”

  The representations of his powers let out a cheer, offered applause, or bobbed in the air encouragingly depending on how expressive they were, and Rue let out a resounding yip. Edge hugged his Companion, waved goodbye, and then stepped into his own skin, where the fight of his life would momentarily ensue.

  He ran his gaze across terrain that would soon be soaked in blood as he waited for the stampede to appear. The kill team had decided to engage the horde in a spacious sub-biome known as the Rust Patch—named for the ruddy scrub grass that dominated the region.

  The stalks only came up to the top of Edge’s boots, which made the Patch an ideal place to engage the army of the dead, as the tall growth covering the main biome would limit both maneuverability and visibility.

  The soil formed a gentle slope, granting the defenders a high-ground advantage and increasing their field of view. The surface provided adequate traction to stabilize the powerful attacks Puppet Town’s heavy hitters would unleash and featured few obstructions for enemies to hide behind.

  While their strategy called for mobility, they had created some defensive positions—palisades surrounding sections of elevated earth. They would help the defenders hold the line if they fucked up and pulled too many undead at once, though they were hoping to control the flow and avoid taking bigger bites than they could chew.

  A concrete bunker protecting the crafters’ masterpiece loomed in the distance, housing the aether flare along with the pair of technicians inside. The kill team needed to guard it until the kaiju arrived, but with any luck, the remote location and concealment devices the engineers had installed would keep the structure out of harm’s way.

  Edge had been smelling the smoke from Trapper’s fire for several minutes now, which meant it wouldn’t be long before the stampede appeared. After passing through the pair of trap fields on either side of the burn zone, the horde would enter the Rust Patch on its way to the settlement.

  Thanks to the losses they had suffered from the blaze, the undead were down to 750 stage-one-and-two beasts, ten elite stage-threes, and the cephaloid kaiju pulling their strings.

  With the Perception bonus from Big Game Hunter, he could see the titanic squid in crisp, clear detail. It was horrifying to contemplate meeting that mountain of muscle and ill will in mortal combat, but that wasn’t going to happen just yet. Rather than focusing on the seeming impossibility of the task, he switched on Enhance Hearing and listened for the horde’s arrival.

  While he waited, Edge turned his attention to the courageous women and men standing beside him, contemplating the job they had come here to do. For this mission, a handful of Puppet Town’s elites were guarding the wall—ready to tackle anything nasty that slipped past this line of defense.

  The rest of their heavy hitters had been tasked to eliminate as much of the stampede as possible before taking on the kaiju itself. They were prioritizing the stage-three bosses—four of which were moving in formation with the squid, and six that were distributed throughout its army. The kill team would let the weaker beasts through after thinning their numbers, softening them up for the wall guard.

  Since the horde was approaching the settlement in waves with smaller groups of undead running between them, the first phase of the operation should last somewhere between sixty and ninety minutes, at which point the climatic showdown would begin.

  The kill team’s efforts would determine the casualties the settlement suffered, but they couldn’t afford to take too many injuries or burn through their reserves this early in the fight.

  When the stage-four kaiju and its guardians entered the fray, Puppet Town’s elites would leave the remaining beasts to the wall team and focus their fire on the superior threat. No matter how dangerous the stampede was, it was nothing compared to the devastation the cephaloid puppet master would wreak if it reached the settlement.

  After detonating the aether flare, Edge’s team would devote every second at their disposal to taking the kaiju down before it arrived at Puppet Town—no matter how many defenders fell along the way.

  Fortunately, the device Ander’s people designed had been completed in time, and it was ready to blow the second the titan came into range. With any luck, the blast would wipe out the squids’ elite guards and injure the tentacled bastard, Then the kill team would use every trick up their sleeves to bring the big bad down.

  By now, he could hear the pounding of hooves and paws reverberating across the grasslands. Judging by their expressions, the other elites assembled along the Rust Patch could sense the beasts too.

  It won’t be long now. Another two or three minutes at most. To distract himself from the impending melee, Edge turned his attention to his friends and allies. He felt a fierce surge of pride at the determination on their faces.

  The kill team was comprised of nearly every warrior in the settlement who was middle stage-two or above. It included the leaders of its most prominent hunting crews, the most powerful peacekeepers, and a handful of unaffiliated fighters who generally preferred to work alone.

  Since there were so many enemies on the field, they had divided themselves into squads of four to six. That way, the defenders could engage multiple bosses at once but were close enough to assist each other as needed.

  They couldn’t stand square in the stampede’s path, or they would be overwhelmed by the ravenous tide. Instead, the pull squad would advance and engage a group of enemies. Once they had the undeads’ attention, they would lead them to where the other squads were waiting, wipe them out, and then grab another group once the battlefield was clear.

  Edge’s squad was in the center of the formation, where everyone could benefit from Warlord’s Mantle. He was fighting beside Earl and Able—his first time watching the sheriff and his apprentice working as a team.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Jumo was with him, and Trapper was on her way. He was glad to have Lillian watching his back, a hunter whose power rivaled his own. Lilly could dish out incredible damage at medium range while offering support from the impressive collection of magitech devices strapped to her harness and belt.

  The squad’s sixth member was Sakura, who would focus on disabling enemies while gathering information. While their roles would be plenty dangerous, Edge was glad that Sasha, Mel, Violet, and Riller would be out of the worst of it, along with Ann and the rest of his friends.

  He could see Tessa talking to Byron and One-Eye on the far side of the formation. Each elite hunter was leading their own squad, as was the leader of the militia. “This is intense.” Lilly leaned against his shoulder, looking more nervous than he’d ever seen her before.

  “No kidding.” Jumo held his spear in a white-knuckled grip. “I wish my family could see me now. My brother would go nuts.”

  “If the feed was still running,” Earl added, “countless billions would be watching us, and win or lose, we would become legends. I suppose I’ll settle for a piece of the kaiju to make a new hammer out of. This little beauty has served me well, but it’s time to move on to bigger and better things—mostly bigger.”

  They continued to banter, dealing with the intense stress with humor, bravado, and camaraderie. As he ran his eyes across the warriors gathered beside him, Edge honestly felt like they had a chance of pulling this off, despite the might of their foe and the size of its army.

  During the large-scale conflicts he had participated in during the war with the Crimson Claws, he had arrived when the battles were underway. On both occasions, Puppet Town’s forces had been divided and were on the verge of being overwhelmed, running on the dregs of their energetic reserves and supplies.

  In the fight with the last stampede, the settlement’s heavy hitters and strongest supports had been spread across multiple fronts, and many of its elites were still recovering from the battle with Yussuf the Red.

  This situation was something else entirely.

  Today, the most powerful people in Puppet Town were concentrated in the same place. They were working as a synergistic unit to battle an enemy they had extensively planned for and been observing for weeks. They had used their time wisely—cycling up their cores, ranking up their skills, and acquiring new powers that were ideal for the battle to come.

  Along with every elite he had fought beside in the past, there were dozens of hunters and peacekeepers Edge had never met before—warriors who had stayed behind to protect the town when the expedition set out to conquer the Savage Garden.

  There was a handful of fighters who worked for other factions, including Tessa, the leader of alchemists’ guards; some private security from the richest organizations in town; and a dozen shadowkillers and manslayers who usually operated solo.

  In addition to being armed with a plan devised by the smartest people in town, their gear was considerably better than what they’d been equipped with during the war with the Claws.

  The resources the expedition had brought back from the Savage Garden, Sweltering Green, and Deep-Gill Grottos—plus the materials they’d harvested from the last stampede—had granted Puppet Town’s elites weapons and armor to match their newfound strength, and everyone was armed to the teeth with potent instruments of war.

  High-grade magitech was everywhere, bolstering the kill team’s lethality, mobility, and defense in a hundred different ways. Their bags were brimming with consumables, medicinals, and ammunition, and their bandoliers were filled with potent potions, poisons, and weapon oils.

  Dialla had given the bulk of Puppet Town’s mana seeds to the kill team, which meant they could fight at full strength for far longer than would otherwise be possible. While this threat was greater than anything they’d faced before, the defenders had brought their A-game to the table— ready to push past their limits and bring the pain.

  In short, the kill team was cocked, locked, and ready to rock… which was a good thing, because at that very moment, the first wave of beasts came surging out of the tall grass and onto the Rust Patch.

  “Combat formation!” Earl yelled. “Switch on your passive skills, hit us with your auras, and stick to plan. Keep your cool, don’t draw too much trouble at once, and get ready to kick some ass. Once the battle begins, spend your attribute points as soon as you cycle up, and by the time the big bastard arrives, we’ll be nice and warmed up.”

  With that, Edge ignited his core and conjured a Warlord’s Mantle for everyone on the kill team. Mana went streaming out of his reactor, across the skill’s slot, and through his hands before engulfing every ally within a thousand feet of his position, including the support squad and the beasts they rode.

  Resplendent ruby cloaks materialized across dozens of shoulders at one, bolstering the elites’ Speed and Power while boosting their Reflex, Control, and combat awareness to a lesser extent. His aura was more striking than ever after its rank-four upgrade, and when he flared the skill as hard as he could, the Mantles became more imposing still.

  The ghostly material lengthened and thickened, wrapping each warrior in a dense blanket of protective energy. Meanwhile, the neon orange highlights grew more intricate, and the crimson glow intensified. He switched Counter Disruption from Elemental Blade to Warlord’s Mantle when the skill finished forming, preventing his aura from being neutralized with antimagic.

  Mantle’s drain was significant but manageable, though the cost would increase when the battle began and his people started taking hits. Hopefully, the mana seeds Dialla had given him plus the pair Edge already had would last until the conflict came to a close and the kaiju was lying dead in the dirt.

  While Warlord’s Mantle was the linchpin of this operation, the support squad was furnishing a dozen additional auras. Several members in each squad had one too, although most of them didn’t have enough range to overlap.

  The combined effect was incredible.

  Power roiled within Edge’s body as more magic than anything he’d experienced outside of Overdrive surged through every muscle and sinew, boosting every attribute at once while enhancing his organs. The magic saturated his inner world too, turbocharging every aspect of his core.

  He was still adjusting to the changes when the squad that had been assigned to pull the beasts to his position advanced. They would come running back sometime within the next sixty seconds with enemies in their wake, giving him just enough time to complete his preparations.

  Edge switched on Fear the Season’s passive component, dialing his insane Speed up another notch. He manifested Foebinder, reached into his vault to withdraw Yussuf’s sword, and handed it to the chain, which was quivering with anticipation.

  He activated Elemental Blade to saturate the sword in subzero mana, pulled out his naginata, and applied penetrating earth oil to the polearm, which would enhance its sharpness for a few dozen Slashes before needing to be reapplied.

  By this point, the stampede had drawn close enough to initiate Raid Wiper. Edge felt it when the trait’s damage bonus kicked in. The effect was subtle compared to the traits that boosted his attributes, but he could sense the System’s magic gathering around his body, enhancing the lethality of his attacks until the battle was over.

  Some of the beasts were massive enough to trigger Big Game Hunter’s bonus too, although it would only kick in when engaging them directly. He was glad he’d picked up such powerful traits, since he needed all the help he could get. Even the boost to his Perception would make a big difference over the course of the fight.

  On that note, he had thirty potions slotted into his bandolier and sitting in his vault. While he waited for the first group of undead to arrive, he quaffed a low-grade Power potion, since he would be focusing on weapon attacks early on to conserve mana.

  He winced at the bitter flavor, nodding in satisfaction as a jolt of might flooded his limbs. Each potion would only last a few minutes, be he had enough to use them freely, prioritizing whichever attribute would help him most at any given moment.

  He could drink two at once without making himself sick but wanted to pace himself during the early stage of the engagement. Ten of the potions were mid-grade brews, which he was saving for the elite bosses and the kaiju bringing up the rear.

  Edge took his stance and got ready to brawl—ready to take center stage in the carnival of carnage that was about to begin.