Yussuf’s body went still half a heartbeat before Tiburón breathed his last.

  When he was sure both men were dead, Edge turned his gaze to the top of the wall. Earl had refused to leave before the fight was over despite his grievous wounds. While he was pale as morning mist and each breath came in ragged gasps, the sheriff was still conscious.

  Their eyes met from across the battlefield. They nodded, then Earl let himself be carried to Doc’s clinic for surgery. When they realized the gang’s leaders were dead, the defenders of Puppet Town began to cheer as groans of dismay arose from the scattered clumps of jailbirds who were still standing.

  The demoralized Claws turned and fled, but Able wasn’t about to let them get away.

  He gave the order, and the defenders let loose, slaying the convicts as they ran. The peacekeeper wore a grim expression as he hunted down the final prisoners, aided by everyone who still had enough strength to fight.

  When Edge peered into Able’s eyes, he saw determination instead of a thirst for revenge—the acceptance that this was a necessary act no matter how unpalatable. While he understood the man’s distaste for striking down people who had lost the will to fight, Edge knew it was the right call.

  The Crimson Claws were core-wielding murderers—enemies who would slaughter everyone in the settlement if given half a chance. Letting them live would have inevitably led to more innocents dying by their hands.

  As the final convicts were cut down, it seemed the crisis had blown past at last. Puppet Town had weathered the storm and everyone in the settlement would live to see the sunrise. When he stopped to finish off a wounded jailbird, Edge used his final charge of Extraction to steal a high-rank Uncommon and added its experience to Warlord’s Mantle.

  The moment he returned to his body, one of the hunters in the watchtowers sounded the alarm. “Enemy reinforcements spotted!” she reported using a skill that projected her voice. Able let loose a heavy sigh, spat out a wad of blood, and picked up his war hammer once more.

  “Estimated numbers?” He yelled loud enough to be heard from the ground.

  “Ten. No… twenty. Holy shit. They just keep coming. Able, you need to order our people to get behind the walls. There are hundreds of jailbirds walking toward the settlement. The funny thing is they seem to have already fought a war themselves. They are wounded and carrying what looks like clothing and supplies rather than military hardware.”

  That was when Sakura activated a skill and said, “Those aren’t members of Claws’ strike force. Only a quarter of them are cored, and their only stage-two member is a hunter wearing an eyepatch. He’s headed our way, but he’s unarmed, and everyone else is hanging back.”

  By now, Edge could discern the details himself. “It’s One-Eye, the man who helped me defeat the Gardener and claim the core manufactory for Puppet Town. That must be the group he was hoping to rescue. The conscripts Yussuf had imprisoned within the Gilded Heights and the Claws who opposed his rule. There’s more of them than I expected, but I don’t think they’re here to cause trouble. Hold your fire. I gave One-Eye my word that we would help his people, and I intend to keep it.”

  Able’s squad fell into formation—ready to defend the settlement in case this was some kind of trick. Meanwhile, the injured were carried into town to receive medical treatment. Dialla and Tessa walked through the gate to join Edge and Able, along with several of Puppet Town’s elites.

  A few minutes later, One-Eye drew near, with the rest of his people waiting a quarter mile behind. “Stay here until I’m sure it’s safe.” Able took off at a dead sprint to meet the approaching hunter, heedless of the pain of his wounds. The men came to a stop halfway between both groups, and an animated discussion ensued.

  Able came running back a few minutes later, then turned to face Dialla. “They’re not here to fight—they’re here to surrender. Or technically, since they’ve already renounced the Claws, they’re refugees beseeching us for aid. Regardless of what you want to call them, you need to listen to their story. Something bad is brewing in the biome they came from—some manner of beast stampede—and it sounds like it headed our way.”

  Dialla and Able weren’t sure what to make of the situation, but based on Edge’s recommendation, they agreed to let One-Eye’s people camp along the base of the wall. Doc and his apprentices would provide medical treatment once they were done patching up the defenders, while the militia distributed food, water, tents, and blankets.

  As Puppet Town’s leadership dealt with the developing situation, a group of non-combatant volunteers began the messy work of salvaging all the usable equipment and burying the bodies. Sakura headed off to get her wounds patched up, after which she would use her skills to search for the horde One-Eye had reported.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Able promised to give Edge fair compensation for his role in the battle, acting as sheriff while Earl was wounded. Edge hadn’t seen anything he wanted to claim, so he took the man at his word and left the battlefield—ready to check in on his friends and then sleep for a week.

  He wanted to learn more about what was going on, but he was exhausted and still coming to grips with the vision he’d experienced, along with the troubling insight it had provided into Skill-Eater’s true nature. I’ll deal with it when I wake up, he decided while limping toward the shattered gate.

  It felt fucking weird to be missing an arm, although the wound didn’t hurt anymore thanks to Regeneration. He wondered how long it would take to recover from his most severe injury to date, then shrugged, which also felt strange since he only had one shoulder.

  While Earl had to undergo emergency surgery and would likely be crippled for life, Edge could walk into Puppet Town under his own power. It made him realize how lucky he was to have found Skill-Eater—how resilient he’d become over the course of his adventures, even compared to other core-wielders.

  The problem was that he could no longer trust the bound giant living inside him. He had begun to see the ravenous lord as an ally, but now he knew it had been using him all along. That he was just a convenient host in his core’s quest to regain its lost power, and it had never viewed him as a partner at all.

  If I reach stage three and Skill-Eater finally wakes up, will it try to take control? If resisting its influence is this hard now, what chance will I have when it grows even stronger?

  Each answer he’d gleaned about the ravenous lord had left two new questions in its wake. Hell, he didn’t even know what Skill-Eater and the other Unique cores were. How they tied into the secret history of the planet, the arrival of monsters, the System, and all the rest.

  Regardless of the details, he now knew beyond the shadow of a doubt the bound giant had been keeping a great deal from him. He had thought their fates were linked together, but now he understood that if an opportunity to further its agenda arose, his core would sacrifice him without hesitation—that their alliance had been one of mere convenience, rather than built on shared values and goals.

  While some of that was mere speculation, and he hadn’t begun to parse the meaning of the strange duality he’d sensed through their bond, one thing was abundantly clear. The ravenous lord was well named. The mind he had touched was too intense, too sinister, to think of his core as anything other than an alien predator. One whose nature, ambitions, and past were shrouded in secrecy.

  He supposed he didn’t have a choice other than to uncover the truth as fast as he could and hope he found a way to ensure his own survival and protect his friends in the process. While he might be expendable to the ravenous lord, the reverse didn’t hold true. Their contract was for life, epitomized by the fact that Skill-Eater’s heart now beat in place of Edge’s own.

  These grim ruminations were driven from his mind when his friends appeared by his side.

  Mel, Trapper, Jumo, Lilly, and Sasha came running up to meet him, along with Able and the rest of the expedition. Together, they strode through the gate and entered Puppet Town—followed by everyone except the refugees and cleanup crews.

  The moment they stepped past the threshold, the cheering began. Edge came to a stop as the roar of nearly four thousand voices reached his ears. Everywhere he looked, the settlement’s residents were coming out of hiding and pouring onto the streets, crying out their joy that their home was safe and they were still alive.

  Soon, the whole town was cheering the defenders on, watching from the sidewalks, alleyways, rooftops, and balconies as the expedition walked toward the public green—where they planned to debrief and then go their sperate ways.

  The resources they had collected and the gear from the Claws they had defeated would be distributed once everyone had a chance to get some rest and recover from the prolonged ordeal, and Dialla assured them she would be issuing a reward for their service.

  Edge was too tired to think about any of that now. With Mel holding his hand and Sasha’s arm around his waist, he let his mind go blank and savored the fact that the people he loved had lived to fight another day.

  ***

  When Dialla spoke to Setna and Byron and received confirmation of One-Eye’s account, she knew she had a decision to make.

  It was something she had been considering for some time, but recent events had driven home the reality of their circumstances in stark detail. The town was in desperate needed of additional manpower to help rebuild, fortify, and protect their settlement. In short, they needed the jailbirds’ help if they wanted to survive the trying days ahead.

  Many of them had skillsets that were completely different from Puppet Town’s hunters and deputies, which would add versatility to their efforts going forward. And if she was being honest with herself, she didn’t have it within her to abandon people in need unless they were a threat to her home.

  However, if this was going to work, Dialla had to bring an end to the division between puppets and prisoners—the ones who weren’t sadistic, murderous bastards at any rate. They were all trapped on Ord for the foreseeable future and no longer lived under the wardens’ thumbs, which made them all settlers in her eyes.

  Before she could move forward with what she was planning, she needed to interview One-Eye’s refugees—determine if she could trust them to live side by side with the rest of her people.

  I need to have a quiet word with Edge, Sakura, and this One-Eye fellow. If everything works out the way I hope, I’ll arrange a public event and set the wheels in motion. But first, everyone needs a chance to decompress while I learn more about the threat his group was fleeing from.

  While they had won the war, there was a great deal she needed to accomplish if Puppet Town was going to become a true city on the most dangerous planet in inhabited space. They had achieved a great deal in a short span of time, but Dialla’s job was far from over.