Edge darted in and engaged the demon, meeting its attacks head-on for the first time in the fight. With the potion enhancing his attributes, he could block its blows without breaking his bones, and was strong enough to knock it off balance.

  He stabbed and thrust and swung like mad, occasionally tossing a Double Slash into the mix to fuck with the monster’s timing. With his body boosted and the demon’s diminished, some of his attacks made it past the creature’s guard. His electricity-infused weapon cut into its flesh, transferring a torrent of voltage into the tissue below.

  The monster screamed as its body smoked, sparked, and spasmed, giving the crew a chance to follow up.

  Snake had been standing behind Edge and Jumo, waiting to make his move. While the creature was distracted, the man lashed out, wielding his lance with expert precision. One. Two. Three. When the fifth stroke was complete, Death Mark triggered. The skull-shaped wound started shading in, until it looked like a detailed tattoo.

  “Thank the gods, the mark is working,” Snake said. “Our attacks will be more effective now. If you can hold it in place for a few more seconds, I’ll try to land another skill, but don’t take any unnecessary risks.”

  Edge used his glove to retrieve his chakram, infused the weapon with subzero mana, and then flung it as hard as he could. With electric magic still coursing through its body, the monster didn’t notice the attack coming in time to get out of the way. Thanks to Death Mark, the bladed ring bit deep into its inner thigh, freezing a large patch of muscle within a matter of seconds.

  He swung his Elemental-Blade-bolstered naginata, trying to stiffen the demon’s limbs and hamper its mobility. He sensed the potion’s effect starting to wane, and unleashed a final barrage before it wore off, culminating with a Double Slash/Elemental Blade combo that caught the demon’s knee.

  The arctic mana encased its joint in a block of frozen blood, locking its limb in place. Edge pulled back just as the potion cut out, leaving him lightheaded and nauseous. While these side effects were distracting, they were nothing compared to Overdrive, and didn’t take him out of the fight.

  He thought that the battle was almost over, but matters weren’t fated to be resolved so simply. “Look out,” Tessa warned. “It’s flaring its passive skill again, even harder than before.” The monster’s Durability skyrocketed in that moment, burning through its energetic reserves to regain control of its body.

  The demon sprang into motion—so fast that its profile was reduced to a streaking skinless blur. It lunged for Jumo, caught his spear with its horns, then twisted its neck to disarm him. It reached for the weaponless hunter, ready to tear him to shreds with its Sharpened claws.

  Before its arms came down, Tessa was there. She lashed out with her silver sword and drove the tip into the monster’s uninjured knee, shearing through several tendons in a single motion. Its leg buckled when she pulled the blade back, sending the creature crashing to the ground while Jumo retrieved his spear.

  He stood in front of Tessa as the demon rolled onto all fours, taking some weight off its injured joints. It flicked its tail over its head in a bladed flash, intending to return favor in kind. A heartbeat before the red barb reached Tessa’s throat, Jumo Lunged. He impaled the tail on the point of his spear, carving a deep gash and fouling its aim.

  The warriors looked at each other, then adjusted their formation. Tessa stood directly behind Jumo—a few steps back so the monster couldn’t reach her. Whenever it came for him, she stepped out and launched a precision attack to its vitals. Whenever the demon tried to push past and take Tessa out of the fight, Jumo forced it back with a Lunge or Rapid Strike. They work beautifully together, especially for the first time.

  Edge had been circling around to come at the creature from behind. But he aborted the move when Lilly yelled, “Fall back and clear my line of fire!” As Tessa and Jumo darted out of the way, Fox stepped forward and assumed the offensive.

  She was in the middle of activating a powerful skill, judging by the thick bands of mana congealing along the barrel of her boltcaster. “Scattershot,” Snake said as she took aim. It wasn’t a power that Edge was familiar with, and he watched on with interest as the shadowkiller let loose.

  Instead of firing a single bolt when she pulled the trigger, the boltcaster fired one hundred. 99 were mirror images—only 10% the size of the original—and each traveled in a different direction, granting the skill a spread like a shotgun. He suspected that the power had a relatively short range, but fired from point-blank, Scattershot’s raw damage was incredible to behold.

  The barrage of bolts shredded the creature’s chest, carving through layers of muscle and fat before the mana-forged missiles wavered out of existence, leaving the original planted between its ribs. While the attack had dealt the demon a grievous wound, it hadn’t penetrated the organs below.

  Lilly fired a spray of unaugmented bolts to push the monster back, while the crew fell into formation around her. They were ready to take the ugly fucker down, but before the hunters made their move, they learned that it had one last card to play.

  In between the drawing of one breath and the next, a torrent of mana erupted from the demon’s core and gathered around its horns. At the same time, it activated the skill that let it spin like a dervish. The move scattered the crew across the glade, aggravating the damage to its frozen limbs in the process.

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  The monster turned to face Mel, just as the energy encasing its head reached critical mass.

  At that same moment, Skill-Eater awoke. The ravenous lord forced one eye open long enough to let Edge know that demon was about to activate a devastating ranged attack. If Melenia got hit by its skill, it was going to blow a pair of holes straight through her—armor and all.

  With no time to spare, Edge Stepped and Leapt, flying across the clearing in a shadowy flash. He rematerialized and shoved Mel to one side as the demon’s horns detached and rocketed forth with incredible force.

  He twisted his torso in a desperate attempt to dodge, but it was already too late. He managed to get his buckler up fast enough to block one horn. His shield caught the attack and deflected it to one side, destroying the buckler with a tortured screech as the material was stressed beyond its limits.

  The other projectile caught him in the hollow of his shoulder. Edge had manifested Harden in the nick of time, but the demon’s horns were coated with a portion of its Disruption field. To his dismay, the diamond scales vanished when the crimson ivory touched them.

  Just as Skill-Eater had warned, the attack punched though his armor and entered his shoulder. The serrated horn erupted out the other side, shredding his muscles, tendons, and bones along the way.

  He fell to the ground, spasming as blood poured from his wound to splatter against the soil. There must be an anticoagulant poison on those horns, a detached corner of his mind observed. I’m going to bleed out if I’m not careful.

  Mel screamed and charged the demon, which was about to stomp Edge into oblivion with its cloven hoofs. She let loose a half dozen Force Cleaves within a matter of seconds, driving it back long enough for Jumo to grab him by the arms and drag him toward the border of the clearing.

  By now, Edge was starting to recover. He’d lost a fair amount of blood, but Regeneration had already sealed the wound. He wasn’t going to die from blood loss after all, although repairing the damage to his shoulder was going to take a while longer.

  Pushing past the pain, he reached into his belt pouch and removed a crimson blood-restoration pill. He popped it into his mouth and swallowed. He wasn’t sure if the pill had the flavor of blood or if he was tasting his own, before realizing that the shock to his system had muddled his thoughts.

  A few seconds later, he began feeling better. The lightheadedness and weakness receded as he sat up, watching the climax of the battle as he waited for his legs to grow steady enough to bear his weight.

  His injury hurt like hell, but it would heal before long. All that mattered was that he had saved Mel and removed the demon’s most powerful skill from the board, leaving it vulnerable to the crew’s assault.

  “Edge,” Snake called out. “Use that vine skill again. Make it obvious that it’s coming.” He cast Entangle, manifesting the vines where they were in clear view of the monster. Even in its diminished state, the demon reacted fast.

  As the grasping tendrils burst free from the soil, it swung its Sharpened claws, severing them before they had a chance to grab hold. But the skill had served its purpose, and Snake made his move the moment the monster was distracted.

  The shadowkiller ignited his core and drew deeply from his reactor. A dense flow of magic surged out from his feet and traveled into the ground. While the crew kept the demon busy, a silver pillar rose from the soil behind it.

  “This skill has two functions,” Snake explained while moving into position to guard Edge. “The first is a simple tether, which restricts my target’s movement and keeps them from repositioning. With any luck, it will assume that its similar to the vines you’ve been using.”

  While the man spoke, a bright-red rope materialized as the hunter’s mana assumed physical form. One end was tied to the silver pillar, and the other wrapped itself around the monster’s leg. It didn’t even notice as it charged straight for Snake, roaring as it reached out to end his life.

  Before it could take two steps, the rope drew taut. The line held firm, even as the demon strained against it. The shadowkiller kept on narrating, showing no sign that a peak stage-two monster was doing its best to eviscerate him.

  “This skill only lasts for a few seconds, but in exchange, it has a powerful conditional component. If my prey breaks the rope before it dissolves on its own, the mana forming the line detonates, creating a powerful shockwave.”

  Sure enough, the next time the creature pulled, the rope snapped. It surged for Snake as the monster hunter brandished his lance, grounded the butt, and lowered the tip.

  The demon pounced a heartbeat later—jaws spread wide and claws poised to rend. Before its feet left the ground, the crimson cable attached to the monster’s leg discharged. The skill consumed the mana-manifestation like a string of fireworks as it traveled toward the demon’s body, setting off a chain reaction that grew stronger with every inch, until it reached the loop around its leg.

  In that moment, all the kinetic energy was transferred into its tissue. The intense shockwave reverberated throughout its body, battering every organ, including its brain. A fraction of a second later, the skill-shaken monster landed on Snake’s lance. The weapon plunged deep into its body before jutting out through its back in a tremendous spray of blood.

  Incredibly, being perforated by the heavy weapon wasn’t enough to kill the creature outright. It Extended its claws and reached out, trying to maul the man who had dared to wound it. But the veteran shadowkiller had already darted to safety, pulling back the moment that his lance landed on target.

  The demon screamed, lashing out with all four limbs and its tail, trying to pull itself free from the shaft that Snake had anchored to the ground with a skill that Edge wasn’t familiar with.

  While the monster was reeling from the surprise attack, Lilly moved into its blind spot. She raised her boltcaster and fired a Vortex Shot combined with Transparency, and this time, the demon couldn’t get out of the way. Her rapidly-rotating bolt sank into its torso, fused with the tissue below, then transferred all the momentum into its muscles.

  Its chest was distorted by the twisting punishment, tearing tissue and shredding tendons to leave a whirlpool-shaped wound behind. It wasn’t enough to finish the fight, but combined with Death Mark, Snake’s poison, Edge’s elemental attacks, and the lingering effects of the shockwave, it lost control of its body, flailing in the dirt while screaming in pain.

  “Its defensive skill is down,” Tessa cried out as she rushed forward with her blade at the ready. “Hit it with everything you have!”

  With that, the crew went in for the kill, skills and blades flashing through the air. Edge wasn’t in any shape to wield his naginata, but he managed a left-handed throw with his chakram that cut into the side of its neck.

  Even a peak-stage-two monster couldn’t withstand that much punishment without a skill to shield it. It spasmed and then breathed its last—every organ in its body punctured by one weapon or another.