Able’s joke dispelled the tension in the air, and Edge chuckled as he sprang into motion.

  Accompanied by the cacophony of large-scale combat, the kill team activated an assortment of skills and magitech devices to hide themselves from the horde. Then they rappelled from the wall… or just leapt straight to the ground in the case of Able, Tessa, and Edge.

  Once everyone made it down, the warriors waited for a clear lane to appear and then took their leave of the battlefield, sprinting upstream of the incoming undead. While they ran, he reviewed their plan—glad to be armed with a strategy for a change instead of being ambushed or forced to act without adequate preparation.

  The kill team intended to lure the elite bear onto favorable terrain before the battle began. The tricky part was that while the reanimated beasts were happy to devour any cored creature they came across, they wouldn’t deviate more than half a mile or so from the direct route to Puppet Town.

  For reasons Edge couldn’t even begin to understand, the stampede was compelled to attack the settlement. While that was disturbing on any number of levels, it made it easy to predict the course the horde would follow.

  After discussing the matter in depth, Puppet Town had prepared a stretch of prairie along the stampede’s path, then walled it off with a ring of stone. Since there weren’t any beasts in there, the unliving bears hadn’t bothered to force their way inside.

  That would change the moment his team drew the elite’s attention and entered the walled-off area.

  Since the big bear was bringing up the rear, they shouldn’t have to worry about too many creatures following their assigned target, and several members of the team had been tasked to deal with any undead that decided to tag along.

  Twenty minutes of running through the grass later, the partitioned area came into view. Behind the stone wall was a series of traps Edge’s team would use to take the giant bear down while minimizing the risk to themselves.

  Sakura, Edge, Able, Sasha, Trapper, Lilly, Byron, Tessa, One-Eye, and a handful of stage-two hunters and deputies leapt over the ring of rock and spread out—each warrior moving into their assigned area.

  It was Sakura’s job to lure the elite into the killing field. Thanks to Dart, she was the fastest person on the team. Using the teleport so many times in a row would burn through a decent chunk of mana, but that wasn’t an issue today.

  She flitted away to reel the bear in while everyone else got ready to rumble. Edge popped into his core to calm Rue down and let his avatars know what was going on, then stepped back into his skin and took a last look around.

  In this part of the plains, the grass only came up to his knees. It offered excellent visibility, but the ground cover made it easy to conceal traps and devices. On that note, Trapper had planted a series of flags across the walled-off area—color-coded to remind people where each trap had been placed and where it was safe to walk.

  Sakura came streaking back five minutes later, flickering in and out of existence before stopping by Edge’s side. “Get ready! It’s right behind me, and three stage-two bears came with it.”

  He conjured a Warlord’s Mantle for everyone on the team, then switched on his passives while his allies activated their own auras and support skills. The hunters who had been assigned to deal with the extra beasts headed out to intercept them—hopefully without altering the elite’s course in the process.

  They must have managed to pull it off, because thirty seconds later, the biggest bear he’d ever seen made a dramatic appearance.

  It didn’t bother to climb the wall—it burst through the stonework like a gods-damned wrecking ball. After breaching the barrier, the bulky beast came to a skidding stop, searching for the prey that had come running this way. It seemed confused that the only creatures in sight were standing still and showing no sign of fear, but Edge knew it would attack within seconds.

  Everyone got ready to spring into action, but he stopped them with a hand signal while stepping in front of the line.

  “Hold up,” he said. “Before we proceed with the plan, there’s something I need to do first. I’ve been wanting to try this out all week, and now is a perfect time.” Everyone watched on with interest, trusting his judgment after everything they’d been through together.

  While he spoke, he gathered his will and visualized the item he wanted to retrieve from his vault. As the bear issued a bone-shaking roar and got ready to charge, a fifty-pound weapon materialized in his hands. It was a thing of beauty—a lethal amalgamation of sleek lines, heavy metal, and whirling gears.

  Edge had been dreaming of the moment when he could fire his gatling boltcaster, and now it had finally arrived.

  He pointed the gleaming chrome barrel at the hulking beast, snapped an aether-infused clip into one side, and pulled the trigger. A whirring filled the air as the barrel began to spin, along with a faint hiss as aether discharged into the rune-covered converter.

  Then, to Edge’s delight, the weapon began to fire.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Fifteen-inch missiles materialized one after the next, taking flight in an unending procession of bolts. Two rounds per second became five, then ten, then twenty, until a solid stream of projectiles was erupting from the end of the rapidly rotating weapon.

  A normal person couldn’t have fired the device in full auto. It had a kick like a mule and fought him every inch of the way. But Edge wasn’t even close to ordinary anymore, and in his hands, the boltcaster let loose with unerring precision.

  His barrage plowed into the stage-three bear, filling its hide with so many bolts that it was forced on the defensive. It activated a skill that stiffened its fur to bolster its Durability, so the missiles didn’t sink deep, but Edge kept right on firing.

  The first clip ran dry after 500 bolts had materialized, so he swapped it out and resumed his assault. He tried to aim for the creature’s joints since it had lowered its head to protect its eyes, doing his best to reduce the beast’s mobility. When he sank enough rounds into its shoulders, the bear came to a stop, shaking like a dog and clawing at its body to dislodge what had become a solid coat of missiles.

  A few seconds later, his third and final clip ran dry, by which point, nearly 1,500 bolts were perforating his foe. That was when Edge realized everyone on his team was staring at him—possibly because they were jealous… but more likely because he’d been cackling like a maniac all the while.

  “Are you done?” Able asked while raising an eyebrow. “All out of your system?”

  Edge smacked the clip, coaxing one last wisp of aether to turn into a bolt. He fired it, then put the boltcaster away while grinning from ear to ear. “It is now.”

  While the barrage hadn’t dealt serious damage—mostly because the bear was undead—firing the gatling boltcaster had been one of the most satisfying moments of his life. Besides, now that I can purchase aether refills with Contribution Points, there isn’t a reason to hold back.

  His reverie came to an end when the bear used a skill that made its muscles bulge, shattering most of the bolts and restoring its mobility. It turned, looked straight at Edge, and ignited its core—ready to return his greeting in kind.

  “Oh look,” Trapper said, “you made a new friend. Since you wanted to play, you get to pull it into my traps.”

  “Fair enough,” he replied and got ready to run.

  Although he had made a small deviation, Edge would never have done anything that would ruin their plan. Everyone had been prepared to take the lead at this point, depending on which warrior the beast decided to attack.

  He visualized his path as the creature came charging at him, waiting for the right moment to run to pull it into position. It gave him an opportunity to get a good look at the undead elite. The bear was twenty feet tall—just a bit smaller than a stage-two buffalo. The beast had bright blue eyes and long purple claws that looked sharp enough to serve as swords. It was covered in shaggy gray fur and had densely corded muscles that made it seem squat for its size.

  The weird part was the gaping wounds covering its body, including several places where something enormous had taken a bite out of its torso. It made Edge wonder what had killed the bear, although he didn’t have time to worry about it now.

  He realized that while this was a dangerous opponent, he didn’t feel nearly as intimidated by it as he had by the garax, the gatekeeper, or any of the Claws’ elites for that matter. Even the stage-two monsters from the Savage Garden had frightened him more.

  It wasn’t something he could put into words, but the instincts he’d been developing from battling with his life on the line were convinced this opponent was lacking something essential—that the bear’s Reanimation had diminished it. Not its raw attributes or the power of its skills, but the drive to survive all living beings share. It isn’t scanning the terrain or watching its back. All it cares about is tearing me apart.

  Part of his confidence was due to his team, since hunting powerful predators was Puppet Town’s specialty. They weren’t taking their victory for granted and had devoted long hours to coming up with a plan to win this fight as safely as possible.

  The moment the bear was in position, he took off in a flash, following the green flags Trapper had planted to indicate safe ground. He Leapt over a cluster of red flags, came to a skidding stop, and raised his iceblade, taunting the big bastard for good measure.

  This ploy would never have worked on a regular beast—who were keenly aware of anything unusual in their environment. But this creature wasn’t a beast anymore, just a set of instincts and muscle memory reawakened by magic.

  Fifteen feet before it reached him, the ground under the bear’s paws collapsed, dropping it into a deep pit lined with wrist-thick stone spikes.

  It screamed as a dozen razored points pushed through its body—impaled by its own incredible mass. Everyone took the opportunity to fire off some ranged attacks, and Edge flung his Elemental Blade–infused chakram.

  “Get ready,” Tessa yelled a few seconds later. “It’s coming back out!”

  Sure enough, as his team scrambled to open some room, the undead bear emerged—shards flying as it shattered the spikes pinning it to the earth. It roared, then looked right at him and resumed its attack.

  As Edge led the beast on a merry chase through the trap field, it quickly became apparent that despite its high stage, the creature only had three combat skills. There was a power that increased its strength for short bursts, another that bolstered its defense by manipulating its fur, and a third that protected it from elemental damage, which made their attempts to burn and freeze it far less effective than they’d hoped.

  The bear had just enough presence of mind not to run into the same trap twice, which meant they had to mix it up. There was an area Edge had soaked with Repel Water while waiting for Sakura to return. When he froze it with Elemental Blade, it became a pool of ice. The beast didn’t notice, and when he led it over the altered ground, its paws lost traction and began to slide.

  Meanwhile, Able cast Manifest Mineral to create a series of stone spines along the far end, which the bear slid into with incredible force. Since the creature was so heavy, the trap did some serious damage, even with its defensive power running.

  Half an hour later, they had sprung all the traps and employed the other tricks his team had come up with, wearing their opponent down with teamwork and strategy. A few people took hits along the way. Despite its diminishment, the bear boasted tremendous raw attributes. Fortunately, none of their wounds were serious.

  The fight had dragged on longer than Edge had expected, since the undead were harder to put down than living creatures. But in the end, their extensive planning and beast-hunting experience had been sufficient to win the battle before it even began.

  It gave him time to wonder what had happened to these creatures and why they had been compelled to attack the settlement. However, after fighting the Claws, Edge was mostly just grateful for an enemy that was predictable and easy to outmaneuver.

  “Let’s end this,” Trapper called out as everyone fell into formation. Now that they had broken half the bear’s bones and drained most of the mana from its core, it was time to go in for the kill.