Ann’s heart pounded like a taiko drum as a squadron of low-stage beetles darted through the curtain of falling petals to attack her position.

  She thought Blue would fall back, but after evaluating the threat with an experienced eye, Violet ordered them to stand their ground instead.

  Keep it together, Ann. You’ve fought beasts before. Not nearly this many, or bugs that can blow themselves up, but this is what it means to be a hunter of Ord. You’ll never catch up to Lilly and start pulling your own weight if you can’t endure the pressure with a level head.

  She took a deep breath, firing her bow at the grunts that were headed her way. She forced herself not to glance at the beasts that had circled around to hit her team from behind, which might warn them something was amiss.

  From their perspective, the beetles were taking advantage of a hole in the crew’s defense. From hers, they had taken the bait and fallen for Ann’s very first trap.

  One second, a dozen amethyst-shelled creatures were closing the distance in a flash. The next, they crossed onto the metallic mesh she’d placed a few minutes earlier, which was covered by a layer of pink petals. Half a heartbeat later, Lightning Web kicked in, sending a potent surge of electricity jolting across the lattice.

  Even at rank one, the Rare skill was potent. While it cost a significant portion of her energetic reserves, the result was more than worth it.

  The stage-zero grunts were fried to a crisp in the blink of an eye—eliminated before the matriarch could turn them into bombs. The stage-one soldiers had suffered some serious damage. The bugs were out of the fight until the stun wore off and they regained control over their limbs.

  At Violet’s command, Ann fired at the immobile creatures, dipping each arrowhead into the vial of earth oil attached to her belt to increase their penetrative power. Violet and Riller wiped out the zeros coming in from the front. That left Blue to handle the handful of soldiers that had circled around her Web.

  The dino couldn’t Charge while carrying two riders, but she could still stomp, Thrust, and Gore. With her attributes boosted by Warlord’s Mantle and Enhance Beast, the triceratops wreaked havoc, slaughtering bug after bug with her horns and squishing them to paste beneath her broad feet.

  A pair of grunts darted under her belly and detonated. The dino cried out in pain, but with two auras shielding her from the blasts, the damage was reduced to bruises and burns that would heal quickly.

  Just when it looked like the skirmish was over, one of the stage-two beetles left the matriarch’s side and came charging their way.

  Violet ordered Blue to fall back while Riller provided covering fire, but the dino only took two steps before stopping again.

  When Ann looked down, a pool of sticky fluid was binding Blue’s limbs. It must be one of the centurion’s spells.

  “Shit.” Violet downed a potion, and Ann followed suit, wincing at the bitter taste as the beast closed the distance. “Blue can’t fight like this, and we can’t abandon her. We need to hold the bug back until one of our heavy hitters has time to reposition.”

  By this point, Ann was drawing deeply from her remaining reserves, leaving just enough magicytes in her reservoir to maintain Storm’s Blessing and cast Static Shield a single time.

  She took aim and cast her spell, knowing that she was only going to get one shot at this. She waited until the beetle dodged a Wind Shot and then flung Lightning Web into its path.

  Relief flooded through her when the mesh caught the insect, impeding its limbs while delivering a potent jolt of electricity. Ann conjured a crackling shield to guard Blue’s flank, firing her bow while the beetle bit through her Web and resumed its advance.

  The stage-two beast smoked and staggered about, but it was still in the fight. It picked up speed as it closed the final stretch of grass—eager to exact its revenge on the woman who had slaughtered its kin.

  Before it arrived, Lilly deactivated Vanish and wavered into existence. The business end of her boltcaster swiveled to face the beetle as Riller drew an arrow and ignited his core.

  Side by side, they let loose with Wind Shot and Scattershot, cracking the creature’s shell and penetrating the soft tissue below. Ichor fell like rain as they continued their barrage—not letting up until the insect was a weeping heap of broken limbs.

  Lilly helped free Blue’s feet and then raced to rejoin the melee with the matriarch. Ann let out a shuddering sigh of relief as her sister engaged the swarm. Her part in this fight was over, but the climax had yet to come.

  ***

  The dynamics of the battle shifted when the matriarch entered the fray.

  Edge traded blows with the legion beetles’ leader. It took every trick in his playbook to keep the beast from trapping him between its mandibles or pushing past his position.

  Holding back a stage-three opponent was a tall order, even for a few minutes. If he misjudged the timing or fucked up in a hundred other ways, he would take a bite that would bisect him at the waist. When fighting an enemy above his stage, there was a good chance that its attacks could penetrate Harden and deal enough damage that Rejuvenation couldn’t save him.

  It was a tricky situation that would have been untenable without his recent gains.

  His new shield was remarkably durable, just as Ander had promised. It could block the matriarch’s aura-boosted mandibles, even with an offensive skill added to the mix. The heavy hits still sent him reeling—he didn’t have the mass to absorb that much momentum—but he was deeply impressed by the quality of the armor and knew it would serve him well in the days ahead.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Despite some unexpected developments, the fight was going relatively well. On the other hand, the crew was running low on mana, and the matriarch still hadn’t shown its true strength.

  While it didn’t mind losing the zeros, the death of a second centurion had enraged the big beetle. His instincts were screaming that it was getting ready to unleash a devastating attack that could end the fight in a flash.

  When he glanced over his shoulder, he could tell that Trapper was thinking along similar lines. She hadn’t given the order to use Overdrive, which meant she was waiting for something.

  Edge didn’t have enough experience to guess what the woman was planning, but he trusted the veteran hunter and focused on his role—holding the matriarch back while the crew slaughtered the swarm.

  ***

  Jumo skewered a soldier with his spear, sending a spew of ichor flying.

  He turned to engage the remaining centurion when it tried to push past his position to attack Lilly, Thrusting to keep its mandibles from plunging into his chest.

  Thanks to Second Wind and Travelers’ Boon, he had enough stamina to fight for hours, letting him alternate combat roles with a versatility only Edge could match.

  Jumo didn’t have any area-of-effect attacks, so it was his job to distract the centurions and eliminate the soldiers with Piercing Javelin.

  After using the skill during the expedition, the war with the Claws, and while battling the first stampede, he’d taken Javelin to rank three. In addition to flaring his shots to increase their power, he could conjure three weapons at once, firing them independently while fighting with the spear in his hands.

  The spell packed a real punch. Even a glancing blow could crack shells and shatter limbs. He conjured another Javelin every few seconds. They kept the soldiers from swarming him and limited the centurion’s options, forcing the beetle to abort its attack whenever he was in over his head.

  Only the matriarch could shrug them off completely. But since the bug was doing its best to dodge the stone weapons, Jumo assumed that blocking his skill was draining its mana, which was better than nothing.

  He winced as a pair of mandibles sliced into his arm—glad for the protection Warlord’s Mantle provided—then drove his spear into a soldier’s eyes as the furious melee raged on.

  ***

  Three breathless minutes later, the beetles’ leader revealed its hand.

  While the hunters were tenacious prey, Edge could tell the big bug was confident it would win.

  The matriarch valued its swarm, but everything stage one and below was expendable. As long as the larval females hidden inside its body survived, the beast could replenish its forces within a matter of weeks by scouring the biome for prey and mana seeds.

  Most of them would perish anyway if it retreated, and the experience it stood to gain from slaughtering the crew was worth sacrificing a portion of its army to fuel its strongest attack.

  “Look out!” Trapper yelled while skewering a nearby insect. “The matriarch is trying something new.”

  Sure enough, dense flows of mana were emanating from its core. They reached out to infuse the nearest soldier, who happened to be standing in front of Edge. At first, he thought it was another aura, but when the magic only engulfed a single bug at a time, he knew that wasn’t the case.

  Skill-Eater awoke and cried out a wordless warning… just as he Hardened his entire body and flared the skill as hard as he could.

  The soldier was shining with an ominous purple glow. It exploded a heartbeat later, throwing him back hard enough to send his scale-covered form sliding across the dirt before coming to a stop.

  When he realized what had happened, Edge knew the crew was in trouble.

  While detonating stage-zero males was a common tactic for a legion beetle matriarch, the species tended to choose upgrades for the skill that made the explosions more powerful by adding secondary effects like fire, acid, or poison.

  Picking a path that turned soldiers into bombs wasn’t on the list Dialla had provided, which meant this skill variant was far less common.

  By his rough estimate, the soldier had exploded with ten times the force as its stage-zero siblings. Getting hit by a single blast could kill Riller, Violet, or Ann, and being caught by several would be threaten the life of anyone besides Edge.

  Everyone must have come to the same conclusion after the bomb went off. Riller stepped into Blue’s saddle-strap, and the dino took off, carrying the crew’s stage-one members to safety.

  However, the rest of the team was surrounded, and the beasts that had been headed toward Blue were coming back to hit them from behind.

  He rose to his feet and Leapt, turning into shadows in the process. His malleable body was so light that he cleared the beetles in a single bound and landed beside Jumo. Several soldiers had exploded while he was away, and it took everything the crew had to stay out of harm’s way.

  It was a deadly, touch-and-go situation, and the swarm was just getting started.

  A skittering ring of grunts and soldiers pressed the attack, surging in from all sides. The matriarch’s mana had already infused them. The hunters had no way to predict which bug was going to blow until they started to shine.

  Edge reactivated Maelstrom, flinging insects back with gusts of air that were supplemented by sprays of Repel Water. However, the assault was just a diversion, distracting the crew from the swarm’s true threat.

  As it happened, the centurion they’d hit with their alpha strike had been mortally wounded, but it wasn’t dead yet. The amethyst insect came charging through the line, pushing past Sasha before stopping in the middle of the hunters’ formation.

  When the big bug began glowing, he knew he had two seconds at most until it blew.

  Judging by the difference between the soldiers and grunts, this blast would be powerful enough to take out the whole crew.

  Edge could have retreated, but he refused to run and leave his friends to their fate.

  He flared Mantle to boost his Speed while swinging his naginata, Double Slashing to land his blow as quickly as he could.

  Along the way, he visualized his central chamber and flipped the valve beside his reservoir, sending a flood of magicytes into his diffuser to create a Disruption surge.

  All of this took place in less than a second, and even then, he was almost too late.

  The dying insect was glowing like it had swallowed the sun—a fraction of an instant away from going out with a bang in the most literal sense possible. Just as the matriarch’s magic hit critical mass, Edge’s surge struck the stricken beetle, and his polearm bit deep.

  The pulse of antimagic delayed the spell’s completion—momentarily suppressing the flows of mana powering the matriarch’s magic.

  He pressed the button on the shaft of his polearm, activating the crafting Ander had installed. The Flame Ruby mounted behind the tip of the blade discharged its well of elemental mana, creating a fireball inside the beast’s body and killing it instantly.

  The centurion exploded anyway. But since the spell was designed to work on a living target, it only unleashed a fraction of the energy it would have otherwise.

  With Warlord’s Mantle and Storm’s Blessing, everyone took some cuts and bruises from shards of chitin shrapnel but managed to remain on their feet. Edge let out a sigh of relief when he saw that his friends had only suffered light wounds.

  While his quick thinking had bought a momentary reprieve, the danger was far from over.

  The blast had collapsed the hunters’ formation, and the swarm was poised to end the fight in an avalanche of bladed mandibles. Every insect on the field came charging in as one, including the matriarch and its remaining centurion.

  Trapper gave the order, but Edge had already arrived at the same conclusion. He gathered his will and issued a mental command. Overdrive.