Edge didn’t get a chance to see what happened next.

  He was rolling along the grass—earth and sky changing positions at an alarming rate. He bounced across the clearing like a rock skipping across a pond until his back slammed into a boulder, sending a fresh jolt of pain rippling throughout his body. Regeneration was knitting his bones back together, but it was going to be a few minutes before he was back in fighting shape.

  The moment that his vision stopped swimming, Edge scanned the battlefield while waiting for his sundered tissue to mend. Relief swept through him when he saw that everyone was still alive, although the desperation on the shadowkillers’ faces filled him with a thick and rising dread.

  So far, the fight had been marginally manageable, but he had a sinking suspicion that the monster was toying with them. Savoring their fear before finishing them off.

  “It’s tough.” Lilly fired back-to-back rounds from her boltcaster. “Although not as bad as I was expecting for mid-stage three. The big bastard is smart though, and agile enough to evade most of my attacks. We need to bind the monkey’s limbs, reduce its mobility, and keep it from closing to melee while we figure out how to kill it.”

  As she fought, the hunter popped a sliver of mana seed into her mouth, which she must have retrieved while Edge was dazed. She tossed another one to him, and he snatched it out of the air, wolfing down the slice to deplete his missing reserves.

  “After that initial volley, it’s dodging all my poisoned shots, but not my unaugmented ones.” Snake flipped out of the way of a massive fist, then scrambled back to open some room. “Its battlefield awareness is on another level compared to the other monsters we’ve fought. We won’t be able to win unless we can weaken it enough to land some heavy hits. I’ll try to draw Death Mark, but I’m not sure that I can pull it off.”

  “I’ll keep it busy.” Jumo turned and Dashed toward the hulking brute. “Work fast. I’m no match for this fucker in melee.” Edge hadn’t fully recovered, but he conjured his iceblade and charged the ape too.

  By now, he was certain that they were dead if he didn’t reveal more of his powers. Survival first, deception later. He cast full-power Entangle several times as Jumo did his best to keep the monster from landing a direct hit.

  Dozens of vines burst free from the ground as the warrior engaged the elite. They wrapped around the gorilla’s legs, just as it raised two arms high and sent a pair of fists streaking for Jumo’s position. Thanks to the tendrils anchoring it in place, the blow fell short, cracking the earth but leaving the man unscathed. The ape growled in frustration, then began snapping the creepers, pulling them apart like taffy.

  Edge knew that the skill wouldn’t hold the creature for long. He raised his iceblade over one shoulder as he ran, getting ready to combine Elemental Blade with Double Slash while adding the weight of his body and the momentum of his charge to the power of the blow.

  As Byron advanced from the monster’s blind side, Tessa darted in to jab at its face with her silver sword, unleashing a flurry of thrusts that each targeted a vital point. Even a monster that powerful couldn’t survive being stabbed in its throat or brain, and it was forced on the defensive for a crucial moment.

  Thanks to Tessa’s assault, the gorilla was slow to see Edge’s attack coming. It raised a forearm to block the blow just in time to protect its head. This time, his weapon bit deep, infusing the wound with a surge of subzero mana.

  The monster howled in fury as it broke the last vine, then lashed out with a sweeping kick that knocked Edge off his feet. Before it could follow up, Byron was there. His lance darted out fast as thought, carving into the creature’s back.

  Snake drew the first three lines Death Mark before the monkey knew what was happening. The moment it started turning toward him, Mel closed the distance and activated Force Cleave. The six-limbed ape leaned out of the way, but the move gave everyone a chance to reposition and fall into formation.

  This marked the beginning of a brutal exchange. The hunters surrounded the monster in a ring of blades. Each time it shifted to face one of them, its target pulled back while the other hunters pressed the attack. The hits weren’t doing much damage, but the monkey was bleeding, and so far, no one but Edge had taken more than a glancing blow.

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  Fox fired another Vortex Shot, but the monster rolled to one side before it landed. She looked down at her belt, trying to decide which device to use next as the crew let loose with everything they had.

  While this was a desperate situation, the battle was going better than Edge had expected. Snake was up to four lines of Death Mark, and his silver pillar had risen from the center of the battlefield—red rope reaching out grab one of the monkey’s limbs.

  Tessa darted in and stabbed it in the foot, just as Fox raised her boltcaster and activated Scattershot, releasing a hail of bolts that forced the monster back. It blocked the barrage by raising two hands in front of its face. However, it had moved into range of Snake’s rope, which closed around its left leg and then drew taut.

  Byron was ready to finish his mark the instant that the monkey broke the line and got hit by the shockwave. Everyone else was lining up their strongest skills. In that moment, it looked like their efforts were going to be sufficient to take the big bad down.

  The monster pulled to one side and snapped the red rope, which sent a surge of mana heading toward its leg. “Get ready,” Lilly yelled. “This is our chance!” The moment those words left her lips, matters took a dramatic turn for the worse.

  It turned out that Edge’s instincts had been right on the money. The gorilla had been toying with them all along. It gripped the rope with one hand and let out a concentrated pulse of Disruption, canceling the skill half a heartbeat before it reached the creature’s body.

  Snake had already closed the distance, planning to use the distraction to draw the final line of Death Mark. Before he could complete the sigil, the monster reached toward its chest with a spike protruding from its knuckles and carved a gash into its own torso, ruining the mark before it was finished.

  “Shit.” Byron ducked beneath a backhanded blow that would have cleaved his head from his shoulders. “It knew exactly what we were planning. I’ve never heard of a monster that’s this intelligent.”

  “No time to be impressed.” Lilly took aim and lined up a Vortex Shot. She pulled the trigger of her magitech weapon, and a rapidly-rotating bolt went streaking for the oversized primate.

  For a second, Edge thought that it was going to be a direct hit. The angle was perfect and there wasn’t time for the monster to get out of the way. He had seen how much damage the skill could do and was hoping that it could turn the tide. But he had underestimated the Reflex and Control of his stage-three opponent.

  The monkey’s fist lashed out in a blur and swatted the projectile away, using its boney knuckle plate to keep the missile’s centrifugal force from transferring into its tissue. Deflecting the powerful skill knocked the ape off balance, letting a few regular bolts land on target, but they didn’t do more than irritate the hulking creature.

  It set its sights on Lilly, planning to take the crew’s heavy hitter out of the fight. She was reaching for a magitech device strapped to her vest, but she wasn’t going to make it in time.

  Edge overruled his instincts and Leapt straight for the monster, channeling Elemental Blade into his naginata along the way. He managed to score a glancing wound, leaving a trail of frozen blood behind. The monster screamed as frostbite blossomed in the polearm’s wake, then it lashed out with all four fists at once.

  It growled at Edge and threw a seamless combination of punches and kicks—even faster than before. That was when Lilly flung a net that caught on fire as it expanded, covering the ape with a searing skein of molten threads.

  The monster screamed, fur burning as it tore through the net with its bare hands. Before anyone could follow up, it jumped back, landing on the far side of the clearing with a thud that sent leaves raining from the trees.

  The monkey beat out the remaining flames, ducked to dodge a round of missiles, then did something that made Edge’s blood run cold. The brutish creature looked at the hunters, cracked its jaws, and fucking smiled. The monster began to laugh, cackling like it knew the funniest joke in the world and was about to share the punchline with the crew.

  That can’t be good. He had never seen a monster display an emotion other than bloodlust, rage, or fear. He was about to activate Overdrive, but before he could gather his will, the monstrous monkey beat its chest and flung its arms akimbo. At the same time, it ignited its core and used its first skill of the fight.

  Skill-Eater roused itself long enough to impart a message, warning Edge not to use his ultimate. If he did, he wouldn’t survive whatever was about to happen.

  As mana came surging out of its reactor in a cracking rush, the monster threw back its head and let loose a billowing roar that reverberated across the Savage Garden—a hate-filled shriek that was loud enough to warp the mist and must have carried for miles. While that was intimidating enough, what happened next made the hair on his neck rise and stand on end.

  “Oh fuck.” Tessa put the pieces together faster than the others. “That wasn’t an offensive skill, it was a summons. That thing can control other monsters, and it just rang the dinner bell.”

  It was at this point that Edge learned a valuable fact. While the theme of the Savage Garden was every creature for itself, the elite ape’s powers took advantage of so many monsters living in proximity. Rather than developing a skillset geared toward single combat, it had chosen to follow a path of domination, bending entities weaker than itself into instruments to its will.

  That monkey isn’t a combat specialist at all. It’s a gods damned gorilla general.