Puppet Town had five days before the stampede arrived at their doorstep, and they didn’t intend to waste a second.

  When Edge walked past the public green, the peacekeepers and militia were undergoing a rigorous training regimen. These exercises were open to anyone, regardless of their affiliation. At Able’s request, he joined in for an hour or so each day. His participation was good for morale, and the drills taught him how to fight in formation during large-scale engagements.

  Most of the town’s hunters preferred to work with their individual crews. They were each getting ready in their own way, working with Dialla and Able to coordinate their roles during the attack.

  Some teams had set out to prepare the intervening terrain, building traps intended to whittle down the horde as it crossed the plains. Others were hard at work bulking up the settlement’s defenses. Engineering crews were repairing the north gate, installing devices along the perimeter of the wall, and constructing bulwarks that would let warriors fight the stampede from fortified positions.

  Other crews were hunting in the grasslands, cycling up their cores and ranking up their skills while collecting resources that would help Puppet Town bolster their weapons and armor. The manufactory was pumping out new cores at full capacity, and Sakura and Ander were in the process of figuring out how to upgrade the facility to meet the mayor’s goal of having every resident cored within a year’s time.

  On that note, the crafters and alchemists were hard at work, producing equipment, medicine, consumables, and anything else that could aid in the defense. And that was only the tip of the iceberg. Dialla was using the new Contribution Point system to incentivize a range of tasks and behaviors that touched on every aspect of the settlement’s industrial output and martial might. While the details were above Edge’s paygrade, the setup seemed to be working as far as he could tell.

  He was splitting his time between hunting with Trapper’s crew and working with the team of elites who had been tasked to eliminate the stage-three bear. They would be fighting on the ground a few miles away, since a creature that powerful could effortlessly bypass the wall and had to be engaged before it drew near the settlement.

  The kill team was comprised of the town’s stage-two warriors. It included hunters from each association, Able and the senior peacekeepers, and some miscellaneous individuals such as the head of the militia, Tessa the mayor’s guard, two of the alchemists’ bodyguards, and the like.

  Edge had only fought beside half of them before. While he wished it were under happier circumstances, it was a good chance to develop a working relationship with the settlement’s heavy hitters and learn from watching them in action.

  As far as individual goals went, he’d decided that his highest priority was to take Warlord’s Mantle to rank three. The aura would benefit his entire team, had incredible synergy with Overdrive, and would be his most useful skill when it came time to put the big bear down.

  He spent part of each day in the field with his crew, where they were joined by some of the town’s newly cored residents who needed more experience. Able and Lilly had accompanied them one afternoon so they could discuss the details of their plan and practice a few maneuvers. Ann tagged along, since she needed to cycle up and develop her combat skills in case the wall was breached.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  When Edge made it back from their latest excursion, he decided to take a walk along the ramparts and see how the settlement’s defenses were shaping up. Momo was stationed at the southern gate, and when she saw what he was up to, the perky guardswoman gave him a guided tour of the reconstruction effort.

  After the disaster that had disabled the Dome and destroyed the turrets guarding the northern gate, the settlement’s protections had been severely diminished. It was a situation they needed to rectify during the days ahead, but they had come up with a stopgap in the meantime that would help them fend off the undead horde.

  During the Claws’ invasion, Puppet Town’s crafters had begun building new weapons to defend the settlement. While they hadn’t been able to complete them in time for the decisive battle, they were ready now and would be a permanent fixture on the walls going forward, supplementing the weapons and skills wielded by the warriors. None of the devices were anywhere close to as powerful as the top-grade magitech turrets, but what they lacked in firepower, they made up for in versatility, coverage, and range.

  In addition to some oversized boltcasters on swivel mounts, there were aether-powered devices that launched fireballs, lightning bolts, and shards of ice, along with a range of countermeasures designed to tackle specific threats.

  Momo pointed out everything from glue launchers that could immobilize beasts that were trying to climb the wall to firebusters designed to remove oxygen from a given area, depriving the flames of the fuel they needed to spread.

  The town’s other organizations had made their own contributions. She introduced Edge to a group of newly cored deputies specializing in Perception and sensory skills, explaining that at least four of them would be posted in the watchtowers around the clock. Better still, two of the new recruits were mana-sensitive, which should make it borderline impossible for magical threats to approach the settlement unnoticed.

  Before he left, Momo took him around to the north gate to check out the portal’s renovation. The Claws’ attack had revealed the gateways were a critical weakness in the town’s defense. They had never truly been tested before the anomaly, since the wardens had kept jailbirds from drawing near the starter zones and the turrets had handled the rest.

  While a temporary barrier was already in place, it was going to take some time before they could replace both gates with materials that were comparable to the quality of the wall. For now, they intended to block both entrances with massive boulders during the stampede, since the biggest threat the horde posed was breaking through to threaten the town’s uncored residents.

  After bidding Momo farewell, Edge moved onto the next item on his list.

  When he stopped by the Forge to speak to Ander, he learned that his order wasn’t going to be ready before the stampede arrived, but that wasn’t a problem. He was planning to fight with his iceblade rather than his naginata, since it transmitted cold better and should be more effective in freezing the undead creatures.

  For the rest of his gear, he had borrowed armor from the peacekeepers and wound up walking out with the set Yussuf had worn. It was the best of the lot—comparable to what Edge already had. Although the armor wasn’t tailored to him, it was good enough for a few trips into the field and battling the stampede.

  He spent the last two days before the horde arrived working in and near the town. If the beasts unexpectedly sped up, he wanted to be close enough to make it back in time. The hours flew by in a flash, and before he knew it, the day before the reanimated bears entered the biome arrived.

  While he wasn’t able to rank up Mantle, he underwent intensive training with people who had far more combat experience than himself, learning some useful tricks when fighting beasts above his stage.

  Everyone pushed themselves hard during those final hours. The hunters in the field completed their preparations to thin the horde’s numbers, and the home team finished fortifying the wall. Meanwhile, the support teams positioned stockpiles of consumables and ammunition around its perimeter.

  The night before the big battle, Edge spent some time with each of his friends and then went to bed early—ready to end the threat and grant the town a much-needed reprieve.