As the Crimson Claws forced their way through the trap field and approached the wall, Sakura watched a team of engineers climb a staircase and crawl across the ramparts.

  Puppet Town had one final surprise for the invaders and needed to use it before they noticed what was hidden in the shadows beneath the northwestern watchtower. Earl had been hoping to kill one of the strike leaders with it, but that wasn’t what fate had in store.

  Yussuf, Blaze, and Tiburón were watching the opening act of their invasion play out from the periphery of the battlefield—beyond the range of the defenders’ devices. The strike leaders were flanked by their personal crews, the most powerful stage-two warriors after the elites themselves.

  Sakura cursed at their show of restraint, which had to be Yussuf’s influence. Earl had warned them this might happen, since he knew the man better than anyone in the settlement, but it was still frustrating to learn their most potent weapon couldn’t be brought to bear against their strongest enemies.

  The sheriff pointed to a crew of jailbirds who were in the middle of casting some manner of artillery magic and said, “Use it while we still have time.”

  After the skirmish at sunrise, the settlement’s crafters had worked tirelessly to restore the gaping holes in the town’s defenses Wraith’s crew had blown open.

  The broken gate had been plugged with debris and reinforced by various skills. It wouldn’t hold the Claws back for long, but it would stop them from running right into the settlement. It also caused their army to congregate in front of the slapdash barricade, which would maximize the effectiveness of what was about to happen.

  While Wraith’s subterfuge had destroyed two of the town’s turrets—top-grade magitech devices that were impossible to rebuild—it was possible, if extremely difficult, to move them. Although the engineers wouldn’t be able to install a new swivel mount without extensive renovations, they had managed to reposition one of the southern turrets onto the northern wall, then hide it beneath an illusion that made it look like a supply depot.

  Unfortunately, they hadn’t had time to repair the damaged generator—just modify a smaller model that provided limited power—but after running it all day, they had filled the turret’s power cell enough to fire four times in its cannon configuration. Since the device could only aim within a limited arc, they waited until the Claws moved into position a few hundred feet in front of the gate.

  The engineers gauged the distance to the group Earl had pointed out and sprang into motion.

  The woman in charge of the operation manually aimed the barrel, then switched the weapon on. There was an incredible surge of gold-class aether as energy left the power cell and entered the turret, which started shining like the sun as the firing mechanism hit critical mass.

  Yussuf realized something was wrong and ordered his army to pull back, but it was already too late. Accompanied by a blinding pulse of light, the first shot rang out, vaporizing a half-dozen convicts and wounding several more. The engineer adjusted the barrel and fired the last three shots in twice as many heartbeats, targeting the strongest warriors she could see.

  Another ten Claws met their end in a searing flash of plasma—bodies and blood raining across the scarred soil as smoke billowed into the air. The jailbirds panicked when they realized one of the turrets was operational, rushing to get out of range without realizing the device was already out of power. The strike leaders tried to restore order, but with all the yelling and bright lights, they couldn’t get their forces to listen for the next few, utterly critical, seconds.

  The prisoners near the northern gate scattered to the wind, desperate to escape the deadly magitech weapon. The defenders let loose with another barrage as the rest of the convicts reached the wall and started climbing, then got ready to face them in hand-to-hand combat.

  While the invaders were distracted and out of formation, Earl made his move. Accompanied by the settlement’s elite warriors, the Sheriff of Puppet Town ordered a counterattack. It would only be a minute or two before Yussuf restored order or Blaze and Tiburón arrived to deal with the problem, but during those chaos-saturated seconds, he intended to make the Claws bleed.

  His elite crew carved into the closest jailbirds with a vengeance, slaughtering them in a frenzy of flashing blades and streaking spells. Earl had been watching the battle play out from atop the ramparts and Leapt off the wall to join them, Fissuring one group of prisoners before Pounding the next and turning to Shockwave a third.

  For the next sixty seconds, Puppet Town’s heavy hitters tore into the invading army like a starving man biting into a sandwich. Their advance prompted Yussuf, Blaze, and Tiburón to enter the fray, just as Earl had planned. His squad wasn’t big enough to handle all three elites and the Claws’ army, and they were ready to pull back before reinforcements arrived.

  The surprise attack inflicted heavy damage before one of the scouts in the tower fired a flare, ordering them to pull back before they were surrounded and overwhelmed. Accompanied by a round of cheers, Earl’s team rushed through a narrow gap in the plugged gate with a horde of angry enemies hot on their heels.

  Now that the battle had been joined, the Claws’ strike leaders couldn’t restrain their bloodlust any longer. Yussuf and his crew focused on restoring order, but Blaze and Tiburón came charging toward the gate. Sakura saw a flash of frustration on the gang leader’s face, followed by resignation.

  She knew he would make his move soon enough—once his lieutenants forced Earl’s crew back onto the battlefield. When his army destroys the barricaded gate, we’ll have no choice but to emerge and fight them in melee. That’s when Yussuf will strike.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  By now, the Claws had realized the turret was out of juice. They fell back into formation and started surging forward once more. One group was headed straight for the gate, and the rest were spreading out along the base of the wall to engage the defenders and prevent them from launching more ranged attacks.

  Some of the jailbirds were peppering the ramparts with short-range attacks, but most of them were melee specialists and focused on scaling the barrier. However, their efforts brought them into contact with a few tricks the town’s protectors had installed earlier in the day.

  The crafters had driven a series of metal spikes into the ground at an angle and filled in the gaps with caltrops made from twisted bits of metal. The convicts screamed as they stepped onto the razored fins, although they couldn’t deal critical damage to their durable bodies. While they were slowed by the spikes and caltrops, the warriors on the walls let loose with a selection of skills and consumables intended to delay and disorient the enemies below.

  Flashbangs and stink bombs rained down, along with some big rocks and offensive spells in every color of the rainbow. Sakura saw Lightning Bolts, Fireballs, and what appeared to be a little green cloud creating Acid Rain.

  Firing from this close, the defenders were able to claim some lives. However, this was an outcome Yussuf had anticipated, and most of the Claws were shielded by magitech barriers and protective skills. Some of them had grappling hooks and others carried crude siege ladders, but many could reach the ramparts simply by using their skills and superhuman attributes.

  A score of jailbirds had already climbed up and engaged the wall-guard. It wouldn’t be long before enough of them arrived that ranged attacks could no longer be used for fear of friendly fire. While the situation was marginally manageable for now, a critical conflict was taking place at the wreckage of the northern gate.

  One squad of Claws was hitting the barricade with ranged attacks, and the strike leaders would arrive in another thirty seconds. The peacekeepers were protecting the area with skills and Disruption surges, but there was no way the blockade would remain standing once the elites let loose.

  Sakura ran her gaze across the battlefield while moving into position to help defend the gate. Smoke and screams filled the air, accompanied by the ringing chime of blade striking blade and an endless exchange of magic. She’d never seen so many skills used in such close proximity—the mana so thick she could taste it on her lips.

  “I know you care about these people. However, if their defeat seems certain, you need to find your friends and get out of here before it’s too late. We can come up with another way to survive, but only if you live through this battle.”

  As always, Sakura couldn’t tell if Lore-Weaver cared about her at all or was merely protecting its own self-interest. She shut out the spider’s running commentary, which was her core’s way of channeling its nervous energy and not anything that was important for winning the fight.

  Other than a handful of veteran hunters acting as snipers, the ranged units couldn’t fire into the melee that was ensuing across the ramparts. They pulled back to the nearby rooftops—in position to deal with any isolated Claws that made it into the settlement. Only a few of the wall-guards had fallen so far, but more jailbirds were engaging them with every second that passed, turning the walkway into a killing field as blood dripped off the side to splatter against the ring road below.

  Sakura didn’t get to watch the next part of their battle, because that was when Tiburón and Blaze arrived at the northern gate, along with their personal crews. The snipers focused their fire on the elites, but most of their attacks were consumed by Blaze’s flames, and the rest were countered by one defensive skill or another.

  Tiburón was struck by a stray arrow, but he pulled the missile out of his forearm like it was nothing more than a splinter and continued his advance. When the wound healed within a matter of seconds, Sakura realized the shark had Regeneration or something similar, which would make killing him even more difficult than she had anticipated.

  That means Nerve Blade won’t work either. I’ll have to focus on Blaze if he gets past the gate, although one wrong move and he’ll fry me to a crisp.

  Once the strike leaders were in position, Yussuf fired a flare in their direction, ordering the Claws near the gate to run for their lives. Meanwhile, Blaze ignited his core and got ready to let loose. Judging by the incredible volume of refined mana flowing out from his reactor and into the air in front of his face, the man was activating a powerful skill combo.

  A roiling ball of fire flickered to life, shifting from orange to yellow to blinding white within a handful of heartbeats as the man’s magic hit critical mass. At that point, Blaze unleashed the fiercest torrent of flame Sakura had ever seen. It tore straight through several barriers and hit the piled debris like a dragon’s breath, incinerating the wood within a matter of seconds.

  The metal held out a bit longer before it began to melt, flowing to form a pool of molten steel as smoke billowed into the air. The defenders let out a groan of despair when the final piece collapsed in a fountain of embers. In a few minutes at most, the ground would be cool enough for the Claws to run through the gateway and enter the settlement.

  Earl’s crew was taking pot shots while using the wall as cover, but they couldn’t emerge with Tiburón protecting Blaze and Yussuf waiting to strike the moment they were exposed. Meanwhile, more and more jailbirds gained the top of the wall, battling the settlement’s warriors in hand-to-hand combat while the ranged specialists watched from the rooftops.

  Right now, the narrow walkway was an asset to the defenders, since it kept the convicts from surrounding them. But as the Claws consolidated their position, more warriors would jump down and enter the settlement. The snipers, militia, and guardian beasts had managed to pick off the few who had tried it so far, but it was touch and go at best.

  Earl’s crew was blocking the gate, but with Yussuf, Tiburón, and Blaze on the field, the sheriff couldn’t help clear the convicts who were congregating across the ramparts. In that moment, the battle was balanced on the edge of a blade. One wrong move, and the Claws would enter Puppet Town en masse and the situation would spiral out of control.

  The defenders had fought hard to hold out this long, but the disparity between their forces was too great to overcome with the resources at their disposal.

  That was when Sakura saw the siege tower. The convicts had hidden it with magic, wheeling it up to the wall while everyone was focused on the ramparts and the gate. It was just a simple wooden framework with an embedded staircase, but it let the Claws climb the wall in a matter of seconds.

  Twenty convicts came rushing out, with more arriving with every beat of her heart. Instead of joining the battle atop the ramparts, they leapt down immediately, forcing Earl’s crew to deal with them before the settlement was overwhelmed.

  Sakura swore as the gang took advantage of the distraction to charge the ruined gate, watching as the situation went from bad to worse in the blink of an eye.