As the landshark’s grotesque profile passed overhead, Edge ignited his core and hit the strike leader with a fully flared Repel.

  The skill shoved Tiburón’s flying form a few feet to one side… directly into the path of Blaze’s Flamethrower. The transformed warrior screamed as his skin sizzled, but the damage didn’t even slow him down. He dipped into the dirt while glaring at Edge with the promise of murder shining in his eyes, then vanished without a trace.

  Tiburón surprised him by lunging for Trapper next, but she evaded the attack like it was child’s play. She’s using Sense Vibration to feel him coming. She won’t be caught off guard by one of his ambushes.

  While his lucky counter had been immensely satisfying, Edge didn’t have any skills that could reach the shark while he was underground. The rest of his team had some moves that might work, but they couldn’t focus their efforts on the foe lurking below while Blaze was letting loose with an endless torrent of flame.

  He needed to take the firebug out first, so he turned into shadows, circling around to come at the elite from behind. The strike leader’s magic could hurt Edge while he was incorporeal, but Shadow Play made him hard to spot with the battle raging all around them.

  In that moment, he thought it was going to work. He gathered his will as he closed the distance—poised to land a killing blow. But the elite must have been actively tracking his position all along. Before he could cross the final few feet, a Wall of Flame erupted into existence in front of his face. The spell was followed by three more, trapping him inside a burning box as smoke billowed into the air.

  He flared Regulate Temperature, doused himself with Repel Water, and then Leapt over one side, assuming the wall in front of him would be backed up by other skills. Sure enough, there was a solid sheet of fire raging behind it, which would have fried him to a crisp if he had pressed his assault.

  However, the entire setup was a diversion. A trick to take Edge out of the fight long enough for Blaze to eliminate the rest of his team.

  By this point, the elite had conjured an immense ball of golden flame in the air above his head—heartbeats away from unleashing the lethal magic on the hunters scrambling for cover. Able was raising rocks, and Trapper was manifesting vacuums to block the spell, but Edge’s instincts were screaming that their efforts were too little too late.

  He knew with complete and utter certainty that Blaze’s attack was going to reduce his friends to charcoal and ruin, leaving behind nothing but motes of ash on the breeze. Not on my watch.

  Edge had one idea that might counter the combo and deal some damage along the way. Given how close he was standing, he was going to hit himself too, but with his friends in danger, he didn’t hesitate.

  He shut out his fear and focused, knowing that he was only going to get one shot at this before it was too late.

  Repel Water sent a heavy spray flying into the roiling flames, the avatar in his village helping him create more fluid than he ever had before. Blaze was only a fraction of a second away from completing his combo when the opposing elements collided. Edge Hardened his body while flaring Regulate Temperature a bare instant before water met fire and his world turned white.

  In the blink of an eye, an enormous eruption of steam ensued. He’d been expecting it but had underestimated the amount of energy that would be released when the superheated water turned to vapor and expanded with the force of a bomb.

  The blast sent him soaring over the grasslands—pain erupting across his body as his flesh ran like wax and his blood boiled. He’d managed to grow scales over his vitals at the last possible second, which limited the damage to those areas, but his hands were severely scalded, and the back of his legs had been burned so badly his flesh had literally cooked, rendering his muscles inoperative as his tissue fried.

  Blaze had been caught by the cloud of steam, but the man had a formed shell of golden flame to vaporize the water and mitigate the damage he received. He seemed to have an incredible resistance to heat, which wasn’t too surprising given how reckless he was with his magic.

  Even still, the pain was slowing the elite down. Since Edge could heal himself as long as he had enough mana, he considered it to be an even exchange under the circumstances.

  Trapper, Lilly, and Able took advantage of the opportunity to regroup, solidifying their defense while peppering the strike leader with projectiles—desperate to find something that could penetrate his flaming defenses. Able’s rocks and Lillian’s Scattershots were blasting in an unending barrage, but the firebug was surprisingly nimble and dodged most of the missiles before they arrived.

  Edge had landed in a path of white grass, pushing through the pain to maintain his awareness of the battlefield. He was critically vulnerable but not completely defenseless. He couldn’t concentrate enough to visualize the complex fields required use Repel Water as a ranged attack, but he could fire simple pulses to send any enemies who came close flying. I hope Tiburón doesn’t find me. Even if I turn into shadows, I won’t be able to get away.

  Regeneration was hard at work healing his burns, but even flaring the skill at full power, it was going to be a few seconds before he could rise to his feet and rejoin the fight. He checked on his friends while waiting for his muscles to knit themselves back together and his sundered skin to seal shut.

  By this point, both strike leaders’ crews had arrived at the area where the expedition’s early stage-two warriors were tearing into the Claws’ rear ranks. Sasha’s group was forced to let them withdraw while her team turned to fight the powerful jailbirds. No one could afford to help them right now, which meant her squad had to hold out until the rest of the expedition arrived.

  Sasha considered her options, then turned to face off against Tiburón’s crew. Since Blaze’s team had to deal with fire on a regular basis, it was the best choice for her skills and elemental core. Jumo went with her, since he had ample experience fighting by Sasha’s side. The hunter conjured a Piercing Javelin and sent the stone spear streaking toward the nearest jailbird, who saw it coming and threw his body out of the way.

  However, that was exactly what Jumo had been counting on.

  The spear-wielding warrior was using the convict’s body to hide his spell from its true target—a prisoner who was trying to impale Sasha on the end of a pike that was buzzing with a potent lightning skill. Before he could drive the crackling weapon into her body, Jumo’s Javelin caught him between the shoulder blades, piercing his heart and killing him instantly.

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  Even with his assistance, Sasha was in danger of being swarmed by three warriors at once. However, even though she had only reached stage two a few days ago, with synergy between her skills, specialty core, and runic gear, the hunter could punch above her weight class. And by this point in the war, the woman had ample experience killing Claws.

  Sasha used Fire Breathing to force the trio back, swearing as the napalmlike mana clung to their armor and blistered their skin. While they were distracted, she charged the closest convict and empowered her spear with Flame Imbuement. The man managed to block her thrust at the last possible moment, but the move was just a feint to set up a killing blow with Hidden Strike.

  The warrior’s eyes widened when a second spearpoint stabbed him in the back… right before the flaming mana transferred to his body and set him ablaze. Sasha couldn’t use many combos without running out of magicytes, but her attack had taken one enemy off the field and bought her team time to press their attack.

  Meanwhile, Mel and a handful of stage-two peacekeepers had engaged Blaze’s crew in a battle of Power versus Durability.

  The redheaded warrior had only evolved a few weeks ago, but in that time, she had defeated scores of mycanoids, the gatekeeper, and Roth’s strike force—aggressively training and cycling up during the trip back to Puppet Town.

  She was only a quarter of the way through her stage, but she wasn’t too far behind the jailbirds she was fighting, especially with the skills and core rune she’d found in the grottos. On top of that, the deputies had superior discipline and teamwork, and it seemed like they could hold their own.

  Mel had grown considerably more adept at using Swap during her trek to the plains. By now, she was so good as switching places with her stone that she barely had to Block, teleporting out of the way of attacks before reappearing to lay her enemies low, occasionally Force Cleaving when she needed additional reach.

  She must have hit rank two with Swap midbattle, because Edge saw her pull out a second rock and switch places with it instead of the one that was already down. While he had more skills than anyone else his stage and was already highly mobile, he had to admit that he was a little bit jealous.

  Being able to freely teleport between three points made the guardswoman incredibly difficult to pin down. Since the jailbirds hadn’t figured out how her power worked, they couldn’t predict where she would appear. Mel used Swap to pull them out of position and create openings for her team to exploit, reappearing behind their backs to mow them down before they knew what hit them.

  However, Yussuf’s crew had been watching the battle play out, assisting the gang while covering their leader. One of them must have deduced the pattern to her tactic. The man activated a skill that made a baseball-sized rock fly out of his hand like it was fired from a cannon, crossing the battlefield with unerring precision.

  She saw it coming and threw herself out of the way, but she didn’t make it in time.

  Edge’s heart clawed its way into his throat when Melenia took a blow to her helmet and crumpled like a wet paper bag. For a terrifying moment, he thought she was dead or unconscious in the middle of a raging battle.

  But then she rose unsteadily to her feet and limped back into formation. It was clear from her movements that she had suffered a concussion—destroying her equilibrium and depriving her of the concentration required to use more skills.

  While he was worried that his friend had received a severe injury, at least Mel was still breathing, which is more than he could say for the man who’d hit her. Jumo had watched her go down and tracked the missile back to its source.

  He fired two Javelins at once—one arced high, and another curving around from the side. The Claw who had rocked Mel saw the low attack coming and dove out of the way… which put him directly into the path of the spell plummeting from above. It shattered his skull like an egg, ending his life in a plume of gore.

  Not long after, Jumo took a heavy hit from a wrist-thick pole made of solid iron, shattering his right arm and leaving him unable to wield his spear. Luckily, he still had some mana in reserve, gritting his teeth while firing Javelins at any Claw that came close.

  Puppet Town’s early stage-twos had put up one hell of a fight. Their efforts had devastated the jailbirds’ support squads and slain several members of their strike leaders’ crews. It was a remarkable achievement, but they were wounded, outnumbered, and only moments away from being overrun as more enemies reached their position with every breath he took.

  Edge’s friends had done well to hold out this long, but the stage-two jailbirds had fanned out to surround them. If that wasn’t enough to deal with, the survivors from the Claws’ support squads and long-range specialists had repositioned after being driven back by the surprise attack—ready to assist the gang’s elites. More prisoners were returning from the base of the wall, and if the situation continued to deteriorate, Sasha’s team didn’t stand a chance.

  Edge had healed enough to rise to his feet, but he couldn’t lend them a hand. If he didn’t rejoin the fight in front of the gate, Tiburón and Blaze would hit Earl from behind, enter the settlement, and surround the crews fighting on the wall, at which point the battle would end in catastrophic failure.

  Shit. He Leapt out of the way of a Fireball, then caught Tiburón with a blast of water as the shark pounced for Able’s back, causing the elite’s bite to miss by the breadth of his palm. We’re hanging by a thread. If something doesn’t give, we’re all going to die, but none of us can reposition right now.

  The only bright spot in all of this was the sheriff and the Claws’ warlord were evenly matched, reforming the landscape as their battle dragged on. Anyone who was foolish enough to enter their killing field was obliterated by one powerful attack or another.

  Edge wanted to save Overdrive for Yussuf, since he had grave reservations about defeating the man without his ultimate, but he didn’t have a choice. He was in the process of focusing his will to activate the ability when he heard a trumpeting battle cry and the sound of heavy feet slamming into the soil.

  He flung a rock at Blaze’s back and then glanced over his shoulder, pumping his fist when he spotted Violet, Blue, and the expedition’s most powerful beasts rounding the wall.

  Riller was up in a guard tower, directing them with flag code to where the Claws using supportive auras, disabling magic, and precision attacks were positioned. Violet nodded and ignited her core—mana streaming out of her hands to engulf the charging creatures as Enhance Beast took their immense attributes to deadly new heights.

  The jailbirds were so focused on the dueling elites, Sasha’s team, and the melee atop the wall that they didn’t notice reinforcements arriving from the other direction. A few of the snipers saw the solid wall of muscle and horns barreling toward them like the end of days and made a break for it, but the bulk of their forces were slow to respond to the emerging threat.

  Most of these prisoners specialized in energetic attributes and were low on Perception. By the time they realized they were in danger, they didn’t have time to get out of the way of the wave of beasts barreling across the grasslands like mobile engines of carnage.

  Edge cackled as he shifted into shadows to dodge Tiburón’s lunge, catching a glimpse of the action out of the corner of his eyes.

  Mana congealed along the length of Blue’s horns as she activated a skill combo, using Thrust and Charge to transform herself into a bolt of azure lightning while Violet lowered her body as far as it would go.

  And that was only half the story.

  On the way back from the jungle, the triceratops had learned a new skill—a passive that multiplied her momentum when she was running at full speed. As a result, the first jailbird Blue hit didn’t just die; he fucking exploded like a meat pinata, creating a cloud of blood mist that Yussuf would have been proud of and snuffing the life of the aura-caster like a candle in a monsoon.

  She tramped an archer before perforating a skirmisher with her horns, just as the other beasts arrived and began their assault. Screams and cheers filled the air as Jumo’s team took advantage of the distraction to hit the Claws from two sides at once.

  Edge breathed a sigh of relief as that section of the battlefield went from endangered to victorious in a gore-splattered handful of heartbeats.

  He didn’t get a chance to watch the rest of their brawl, but Violet and Blue had turned the tide in the nick of time, letting him focus on finishing off the elite jailbirds who had been stripped of a fair portion of their supportive magic.

  Edge turned to face the firebug and the shark while igniting his core—ready and eager to settle the score.