Edge awoke with the rising sun.

  He spent a few minutes running his fingers through Rue’s fur—who had been sleeping in a perfect circle on top of his chest—then picked up the pup and peeled back his blankets. He stopped to admire the gorgeous furniture he had brought back from the temple and then walked into the common room of the lodge, bid good morning to the members of Trapper’s crew, and filled the fox’s food bowl to the brim.

  While his friends kept an eye on his Companion, Edge jumped into the shower. He dried himself off with Repel Water and put on some clean clothes before helping himself to a heaping plate of something Violet was calling a “breakfast pie.”

  The flaky golden pastry was stuffed with chunks of grilled meat and vegetables, along with some kind of white sauce that was savory and thoroughly delicious. In between bites, the hunters brought each other up to speed about what they had been up to over the last two days.

  When he took his turn, Edge filled his friends in on everything he’d discovered within the subterranean ruins, including the engravings depicting the planet’s history and the mysterious book he had found inside the priest’s dwelling.

  “By the Trickster’s prickly taint,” Violet swore—astonishment coaxing her to utter one of the colorful curses from her homeworld that she normally managed to repress. Everyone was too surprised to tease the purple-eyed quartermaster about it, emphasizing just how shocking his revelation was.

  “I knew the wardens were keeping secrets,” Trapper said, “but I never imagined they were perpetuating a deception on a galactic scale. If Ord was inhabited before the System arrived, that makes the Prison World broadcasts even more morally dubious than they already are. Puppet tourism is one thing, and the federation needs a place to contain its most dangerous criminals, but I’d hate to think that we’re alien invaders on top of everything else.”

  “There’s a chance they all died long before we arrived.” Jumo ran his fingertips across his scalp, tracing the outlines of his tribal tattoos. “It sounds like their civilization collapsed centuries, if not eons, ago, based on what Edge discovered.”

  “Either way,” Riller chimed in while running a towel across his curly back hair. “There isn’t anything we can do about it now. I’m more concerned about what happened to the twenty-one lords of Ord—how they became Unique cores and how it ties into the arrival of monsters. Given the timing, the events must be related in some way.”

  “If the planet the Ancients came from is dying,” Sasha added, concern wrinkling the corners of her piercing green eyes. “I’d expect a mass migration of monsters the moment the dimensions overlap and more portals open.”

  “I didn’t get a good sense of when that might happen.” Edge sighed. “The Gardener seemed to think it would be soon, but she had been trapped in the Savage Garden for hundreds of years. Soon to her could be days, years, or even decades. I hope there is some kind of warning when the merger draws near, but none of that will matter if we can’t kill the kaiju.”

  Before the crew moved on to their plans for the twelve days remaining before the horde arrived, he outlined the rest of his trip, including the reaver he’d killed and the skills he had upgraded. It had taken him a full day to return from the underground temple—mostly because he stopped to hunt every stage-two beast he encountered along the way, along with a pair of monsters.

  He put the experience he’d obtained into Elemental Blade, and while he hadn’t picked up another cycle, he was sure he was close. They were coming slower after entering late stage-two, although it wasn’t too bad now that he was strong enough to solo peak stage-two opponents—a feat that would have been unthinkable to Edge just a few short weeks ago.

  Everyone else had made considerable progress too—especially Riller and Violet—who were advancing through stage one at a remarkable rate. When they were done, Trapper brought them up to speed on what the settlement’s leaders had decided during their conference the night before.

  Dialla was coordinating Puppet Town’s efforts to devise a strategy for defeating the kaiju, and the mayor planned to schedule another general meeting soon. Most of the town had been granted assignments already. However, its senior hunting crews had been left to their own devices, with the understanding that their members would grow stronger as fast as they could while collecting resources the town needed to deal with the emerging threat.

  This time around, they didn’t have the luxury of farming the undead beasts for cycles and parts, though there would be plenty of both if they won. Instead, the settlement’s efforts were focused on destroying as many creatures as possible before the horde reached the center of the Ivory Plains. While Dialla and Able were confident that eliminating the stampede was feasible, they were still scrambling to come up with a way to kill the kaiju itself.

  The crafters and alchemists were hard at work on the problem, and some mixed crews of hunters and engineers were already in the field, laying down devices and modifying terrain. Trapper wasn’t privy to the details, but the gray-eyed hunter said that she would know more soon.

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  That brought the conversation around to their plans for the next few days.

  The crew agreed to hunt as much as possible, but unless someone spotted a creature that required the full team to bring down, they would operate in smaller squads that were more efficient for cycling up. Everyone had some gear that was in the process of being crafted, using the resources they had collected inside the dungeon and during the war with the Claws.

  Trapper expected Dialla to assign the crew some high-priority tasks soon. Until then, they would meet up in the mornings to coordinate their efforts and spend the rest of their time however they saw fit. Edge was prioritizing advancing his skills, although picking up a few more cycles before the decisive battle would be more than welcome.

  While both women were here, he asked Trapper and Violet for advice on Rue’s training going forward. The hunters agreed to set some time aside tomorrow to provide an in-depth explanation that summarized their extensive beast-handling experience.

  With that, the crew concluded their meeting, and everyone went their separate ways. Since they were both heading in the same direction, Edge walked beside Trapper as they crossed the hunters’ district, taking comfort in the calm competence the athletic woman radiated like a campfire on a chilly morning.

  When he asked where she was going, Trapper told him she had an appointment in the commercial district. She was getting her burned hair restored at the best stylist in town—a man with a skill that could grow a person’s hair to any length they wanted and change its texture and color too.

  “It might seem like a weird skill,” she explained, “but Robert has made a fortune with it. His salon has been booked solid since long before the anomaly reshuffled the surface of Ord. Dialla pulled some strings to get me a special session. I guess dating the mayor comes with a few perks after all. I’ve been thinking about trying out a new look, and this is the best opportunity I’m going to get.”

  Edge was excited to find out what hairstyle she came back with, although part of him would miss the iconic dirty-blond ponytail the veteran hunter had sported throughout the years he’d been watching her on the feed. He considered changing his look too, but his spiky black hair had grown on him, and he decided to keep it for the time being.

  After bidding Trapper farewell, he made his way over to Izzio’s Delicatessen and unloaded all the meat and parts he’d harvested over the last few days—which Elemental Blade had been kind enough to keep on ice in his vault. He felt a warm glow when the butcher complimented him for taking his kills apart just the way the man had taught him.

  While they chatted, Edge learned that Izzio had decided to take his advice. The butcher was offering applied combat anatomy lessons once a day for the foreseeable future, helping the town’s protectors acquire a valuable technique that had nothing to do with the skills slotted into their cores.

  The next goal on his list took him into the crafters’ district, where the clamor of industry and innovation filled the air. When he popped by the Forge to check on his order, he learned that his gear would be ready relatively soon—well before the kaiju arrived. Ander was too busy to catch up right now, so he continued on his way.

  His next stop was the peacekeepers’ headquarters. When he informed Able that he needed to hold onto Yussuf’s gear for a little while longer, the hammer-wielding warrior told Edge to keep it instead and refused to take his Contribution Points.

  “You’ve earned it a dozen times over, and you never know when some extra equipment will come in handy. Even if you don’t need it right away, someone else is bound to. Hell, it could even serve as a disguise if you want to look like a jailbird for some reason.” He thanked Able and then walked into Mel’s office to say hello.

  The fiery-haired guardsman was buried in paperwork and looked a little wild around the eyes. She smiled when she saw him and rose from her desk to pull Edge in for a fierce embrace, laughing when he blushed after she kissed him on the lips. They hadn’t spoken about their intimate hot springs encounter, but it was clear they had feelings for one another in addition to the intense physical attraction they shared.

  Mel knew he occasionally hooked up with Sasha, which didn’t seem to bother her at all. He planned to address the issue eventually, but not until they got to know each other better and seemed to be heading toward something more serious than friends with benefits. For now, he was happy to go with the flow and enjoy the fleeting moments of joy in his life, no matter where he found them.

  On that note, Edge talked the muscular deputy into a date a little later in the week, though she couldn’t afford to spare more than an hour or two under the circumstances. After that, she filled him in on what the peacekeepers and militia were up to, outlining various training exercises, trips into the field, and brainstorming sessions for thinning out the horde.

  There were some promising ideas for dealing with the beasts, but the keepers hadn’t figured out any realistic way to kill the stage-four kaiju either. “We don’t have the firepower to take down something so massive,” she explained.

  “The turrets should do some damage, but by the time the big bastard comes into range, it will be only minutes away from reaching the town. One swipe of those tentacles could wipe out every defender on the wall, and I doubt the turrets are sufficient to stop the squid before that happens. We need to figure out a way to dish out some damage while it’s crossing the plains, and I’ll keep you appraised on our progress.”

  After one last kiss, he left the guardswoman to her work. On his way out of town, Edge ran by City Hall to see if there was anything promising on the list of beasts the scouts had spotted recently. He grinned when he noticed that someone had sighted a peak stage-two diamondback thirty miles to the west.

  He signed his name to let people know he was hunting the snake and then took off in that direction—eager to get the most out of Extraction by stealing the best skills he could find.

  He wanted to take Elemental Blade to rank four soon and then decide on his next goal. He was leaning toward advancing Warlord’s Mantle to rank four too, since the aura would be invaluable during the battle with the horde, but he’d give the matter some thought before committing to a course of action.

  He ran into Sasha on his way to the gate. She didn’t have another target in mind, so she decided to tag along. Edge was happy to have a friend at his side as he stepped into the Ivory Plains. He just prayed he had to grow strong enough to weather the storm that was brewing along the horizon before the deluge broke over their heads.