Edge looked up in time to watch the pull squad fire a round of projectiles, downing several undead while drawing another thirty or so toward their position.

  The hunters ran for their lives, knowing that if they took a bad step and fell, they would never get up again. Once they were far enough away from the river of beasts flowing across the Rust Patch, the kill teams would divide the creatures between them and start culling the horde.

  The process took less than thirty seconds from start to finish, but with a gallon of adrenaline flowing through his veins and his Perception boosted like never before, it felt like hours. While he waited for the chaos of combat to carry him away, he used this fleeting moment of calm to take it all in.

  Warm sunlight spilled from a cloudless azure sky, highlighting the brave women and men fighting by his side. The kill team had spread out in a long line—each squad standing far enough apart they wouldn’t get caught in the crossfire. Fear and resolve were clear on their faces, and they radiated might like the heat from a bonfire.

  As the pull squad crossed the Patch, Edge raised his gaze to the cephaloid kaiju looming large against the horizon. It felt like the titan was right on top of him even though it was miles away. Now that he could make out the details with his own eyes, he realized the towering creature only bore a superficial resemblance to an Earth squid.

  It did have those gigantic tentacles attached to its face, with a cruel yellow beak jutting out from between them. But with its bright-green scales, razor-lined suction cups, and the angular cast to its bottomless black eyes, the kaiju looked more like an eldritch god than a flesh-and-blood creature. Unlike the beasts crossing the biome, this was something ancient, unyielding, and other, and the prospect of fighting it chilled him to the marrow of his bones.

  He could sense the magic emanating from its core from here. Whatever skills the stage-four kaiju was packing, there was no question that they would be potent, deadly, and indescribably delicious. Thank the gods Sakura is here and can reveal its powers with her ultimate ability. Going in blind would be suicidal.

  He lowered his eyes to focus on the stampede, studying the Reanimated beasts that were headed his way. The horde felt like a force of nature, trampling the tall grass flat as it crossed the core biome of the Ivory Plains before passing though the Rust Patch. Edge could only see the crest of the tsunami that would follow, but even that took his breath away.

  It would have been majestic and frightening in equal measures if these were living beasts. But when you added their unblinking stares and the overpowering reek of death, it felt like he was trapped in the throes of a fever dream.

  Some of the undead bore horrific burns from standing close enough to Trapper’s handiwork to take damage without being consumed by the blaze. Others were impaled by wooden spikes and skewered by stone spears—souvenirs from the trap fields they had passed through before reaching this point.

  It meant the first wave would be easier to eliminate than the rest of the horde. The battle would grow progressively more difficult after the first pull, especially when the stage-three elites arrived on the battlefield. Fortunately, that shouldn’t happen for a little while yet, granting the kill teams time to thin the stampede and find their stride.

  Since their recon specialists had revealed the horde’s composition, the defenders could use the kaiju’s location to get a rough estimate of how quickly the creatures were advancing and when each boss would appear.

  “Thirty-two incoming!” Earl roared as Sakura used her powers to transmit the information to the squads that were too far away to hear his voice over the thunder of hooves and paws. “Twenty stage-ones, and twelve stage-twos. Reel them in, split them up, and take them out!”

  With that, time resumed its full course, and Edge’s battle began.

  Earl, Jumo, and Able stepped forward, with Edge and Lilly forming the second row. Sakura was in reserve a bit further back—ready to Dart in if someone needed help or an opening to land a killing blow appeared. Foebinder rose into the air as the beasts began their final approach, weaving back and forth with Yussuf’s frost-rimed sword clasped between its coils.

  He grounded the butt of his polearm and lowered the blade, guarding one flank of the formation while Jumo took the other. During the early stages of the conflict, his job was to conserve mana and watch the warriors’ backs. That would change the moment the stage-three arrived or this position was in danger of being overrun by the press of unliving bodies. But until that happened, he would focus on the task at hand.

  The undead had been running in one big clump, but when the pull squad abruptly split up, the beasts divided themselves to continue the chase. “So far, so good,” Earl said. “A lone stage one is headed for the support squad, but they can handle it on their own.”

  A hunter being chased by six stage-one jackals and a pair of hulking stage-two pumas was headed Edge’s way. The woman ran between the sheriff and his deputy, racing to rejoin her squad in preparation for the next pull. Edge and Jumo were ten feet back, leaving the hammer-wielding earth specialists standing front row center.

  The duo was facing down a throng of beasts that outmassed them twenty to one, but you would never know it from the expressions on their faces. The men simply took their stances, raised their weapons, and got ready to brawl.

  They were prioritizing saving mana too, which meant they wouldn’t be using any fancy combos or flashy spells just yet. But even Pummel and Pound were deadly tools in their hands.

  The undead spread out as they began their assault, but Able and Earl were ready.

  The earth experts took aim and unleashed the first blows of the brawl, taking the initiative in a blinding surge of speed. Earl’s hammer collided with a puma’s shoulder, breaking its arm in a dozen places while destroying the joint and shattering its clavicle. The massive creature went flying back and landed hard—crippled but not down for the count.

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  Meanwhile, Able ignited his core, raised his hammer high, and brought the weapon crashing down in a two-handed slam. Pound’s shockwave erupted from his position, rending tissue and cracking bones.

  Two of the jackals were hit so hard that their skulls caved in, liquefying their brains and killing them instantly. Several more were caught in the periphery, but the uninjured puma leapt to one side at the last possible second, circling around before resuming its advance.

  The rest of the creatures hit the squad half a heartbeat later, marking the start of a fierce melee.

  For the moment, the duo was holding the throng back all by themselves, preventing the undead from wrapping around to attack the warriors behind. It gave Edge a front row seat to witness the elite peacekeepers in action—who wielded the heaviest weapons in the settlement.

  Watching Earl and Able coordinate their attacks in perfect harmony was an eye-opening experience, revealing that he still had a long way to go if he wanted to master the art of fighting as a team. He memorized every move the men made, planning to fine-tune his role in Trapper’s crew when he had time to reflect on the matter.

  By this point, the keepers had killed another jackal, leaving three on the field along with the pair of gigantic pumas—who came charging in and let loose with a brutal barrage of combos.

  One of the jackals was caught in the crossfire and landed in a heap near his position. Edge darted forward and Double Slashed with his naginata, momentarily deactivating Elemental Blade so he didn’t have to pay for a combo. His swipe claimed the canine’s head as Foebinder swerved around to fend off an attack from the crippled puma that was headed his way.

  When he glanced over his shoulder, Jumo was holding the final jackal back with his spear. Lilly was offering supportive fire with her boltcaster, targeting the cats’ eyes and joints to conserve her energetic reserves.

  Sakura Darted in and perforated the canine’s brain with her sword, letting the four of them converge on the wounded puma while the peacekeepers dealt with the other ferocious feline.

  By this point, Edge could tell that his Mantles were making a big difference, synergizing with the auras provided by the support squad and a handful of other defenders. The extra Power kept the warriors from being overwhelmed by the undeads’ sheer strength and added extra damage every time they landed a blow.

  Even more critically, the bonus Speed, Reflex, and Control let the defenders avoid attacks that would have connected otherwise, minimizing the punishment they received as the battle wore on.

  Even still, they took an occasional hit. But with Mantle sapping some momentum from every attack combined with their upgraded armor, their injuries were only skin deep. His reservoir was draining at a steady rate, but the cost was lower than he’d expected thus far, which he took to be a promising sign.

  Edge did his best to keep the puma’s attention on him, stepping forward and Slashing whenever it tried to switch targets. That let Jumo and Lilly circle around and flank the feline, carving its tissue away one blow at a time.

  So far, the only skills the undead critter had revealed were Bite and Rend—a fraction of the powers that had been at its command before being Reanimated. It made the battle far easier than it would otherwise have been, although he had to ignore the instincts he’d developed from fighting living creatures, since these moldering predators knew neither pain nor fear.

  Now that they weren’t being hit by multiple beasts at the same time, Able and Earl spread out to attack their target from two sides at once. Whoever it turned toward focused on defense while the other keeper struck from behind. The tactic gave them the upper hand, but this was a powerful beast that could withstand considerable punishment, and it wasn’t going down without a fight.

  However, being raised from the dead had dulled the creature’s wits, and it wasn’t watching for attacks from above.

  The moment Edge switched Elemental Blade back on after his latest Slash, Foebinder arced high before plunging straight down, striking like the sting of a scorpion to bury its blade between the great cat’s shoulders. The subzero sword infused the beast’s body with arctic mana, slowing its movements as Earl and Ander stepped forward to perform a maneuver unlike anything he’d seen before.

  Instead of using a skill, they swung their hammers in sync—powerful roundhouse attacks coming in from opposite sides. The brutal blows struck both sides of the puma’s skull at the exact same moment, crushing its head like a grape.

  The other cat turned to strike them down when their backs were exposed, but Edge stepped forward and pierced the beast’s neck while Jumo impaled its flank. The instant the feline was immobilized, Lillian took it out with a bolt between its eyes.

  Everyone stopped to catch their breath except Edge and Jumo, who were still raring to go thanks to Second Wind. When he scanned the battlefield, the other teams were in the final stages of completing their own melees. A few of the toughest opponents were still standing, but they fell when the squads came together and caught the beasts in a pincer attack

  The next pull went almost as smoothly as the first. One squad misjudged their opponent and was hit by a set of wrist-thick quills. But thanks to Warlord’s Mantle and the other supportive auras, they only received minor wounds.

  The third attempt was when the real trouble began.

  By now, the stampede was crossing the Rust Patch in an endless river of unliving bodies. Several hundred had passed through and were headed toward the town, but so far, everything was proceeding according to plan.

  However, when the pull squad fired their next round of attacks, sixty beasts came charging their way.

  “Burn hard!” Earl yelled. “Saving mana won’t help if we’re dead.”

  With that, the sheriff and his apprentice turned and unleashed a pair of Fissures side by side. Mana erupted from the ends of their hammers when the weapons struck the soil, splitting the earth to create a pair of ravines.

  When they passed beneath the thickest press of undead, the Fissures widened, and a dozen creatures fell into the yawning crevices. The men gestured, and the slits sealed shut in the blink of an eye, taking a bite out of the beasts before engaging them hammer to claw.

  The defenders let loose with heavy attacks, burning mana so they weren’t overwhelmed in a tsunami of tooth and claw. Each squad was squaring off against at least ten undead—mostly stage-two critters that were tough for their size.

  That was when matters took a turn for the worse.

  While the battle with the big beasts was underway, a new threat appeared, emerging from the tall grass and onto the Patch. A hundred stage-one lizards turned away from the horde and came streaking for the kill team, attacking from further away than any undead so far.

  The dark yellow reptiles ran low to the ground—small enough that they hadn’t been spotted by Sakura’s reconnaissance. They wouldn’t have posed much of a threat under ordinary circumstances, but as matters stood, the unexpected development threatened to throw the defenders’ formation into chaos.

  They were too busy dealing with the army of beasts in front of them to respond to the lizards that were circling around to hit them from behind.

  It looks like it’s time to earn my keep. Edge quaffed a Perception potion, visualized the contents of his vault, and spent a sliver of mana to stow his polearm and make a withdrawal.

  He had a perfect way of dealing with the swarming reptiles that wouldn’t cost him any mana at all.