Until now, Edge had used only Overdrive as a finishing move.

  It was generally the wisest course of action, given the ability’s considerable downside. But this was a fight that he couldn’t win using conventional tactics. Not with fifty monsters howling for his blood, along with a stage-three elite.

  At first, this battle had seemed like an impossible challenge, but after wracking his brain for hours, he had come up with a single idea that just might give him a chance. It was time for Intimidating Roar to make its debut performance, and given the threat Edge was facing, going in half-cocked wasn’t going to cut it. If he wanted the apes to stay down for the count, he needed to let loose with everything that he had.

  As the screaming wall of monsters closed the final few feet, a crystalline clarity came over him, and his perception of time slowed down. It gave him a chance to appreciate the chaotic series of events that followed. As he processed the fact that if this didn’t work, he was experiencing the final moments of his life, searing heat blossomed within his chest.

  Edge could see the monstrous monkeys in stark detail. Their twisted limbs and hideous faces—sanity shattered beneath the powerful magic dominating their wills. He could smell the stench of the filth—tainted magic swirling all around him.

  As the apes’ glowing arms reached out to tear him apart, a rhythmic pounding bellowed behind his ribcage, forming a frenetic backbeat to the racing of his heart.

  He watched in slow motion as the general’s savage grin slid off its face upon sensing a power that it didn’t understand. When his reactor flared to life of its own accord, the vast realm of flame that lay beyond its bulbous black grill began to roil and surge, filling his mind with the crackle of blaze. Meanwhile, immense pressure was building in the background, like a maelstrom brewing along the horizon.

  And that was just the prelude to the symphony of destruction that followed.

  Half a heartbeat later, his ultimate ability kicked in, and Edge’s soul ignited. While molten inferno coursed through his veins, a thunderous reverberation resounded across every fiber of his being. A titanic engine roared to life, screaming on and on. The compression grew as something vast approached his inner world, like Leviathan rising from the deep.

  Beside his core, an artifact erupted into being—the endless font of mana known as Overdrive. It reached out and snapped into place alongside Skill-Eater, like they were made for each other. Which, for all he knew, they were.

  The instant the connection was complete, Overdrive began pumping concentrated magicytes into Edge’s reactor, filling every inch of that strange space with incandescent might.

  He’d thought that his core was running hot already. But it turned out that he didn’t know the meaning of the word. Because at that moment, the volatile magic combusted, and a star was born inside him.

  An endless river of refined mana permeated every crevice of his central chamber. It went surging through his skills, magnifying their power and fueling them with limitless energy.

  By this point, his reactor was burning so bright that he could see it through his chest, shining through his armor to cast the clearing in an ominous crimson glow.

  The moment was so intense that it nearly swept him away.

  Stripped of thought and reaved of reason, he acted on instinct instead, calling upon the one power that could help him win the day.

  With Overdrive’s magic running through him, Edge could perceive his inner world while standing in his own skin. He watched on with a strange sense of detachment as all the energy rampaging inside him went flowing into the mouth of a miniature version of himself.

  As Chibime mirrored Edge’s movements, condensed mana gathered in his throat—power rising like a volcano about to blow.

  Two seconds before the horde of monsters hit him, he opened his mouth and Roared.

  The spell crossed the clearing at the speed of sound, breaking over the mountain of monkeys in the blink of an eye. The torrent of mana struck them so hard it was like a physical blow. The army of apes rocked back like willows in a typhoon, tumbling to the dirt as terror froze their limbs.

  The stage-one apes were paralyzed, frothing at the mouth as they fought to breathe. The stage-two creatures were still standing, but they were shaking violently—eyes wide as primal terror went to war with the skill overriding their wills.

  The gorilla’s jaw was slack with shock, but the elite seemed otherwise unaffected. For his part, Edge was pleased to discover that he was still alive. Two seconds into his ultimate ability, the scales were tipping his way. It was a promising development, and he was just getting started.

  Intimidating Roar was a mighty skill, epic in every sense of the word. The tradeoff for all that power was that it drained an incredible amount of mana—even more than most of the skill combos he’d tried. But here in this moment, when Overdrive was pumping boundless magic into his reactor, that limitation no longer applied.

  Surrounded by a legion of bloodthirsty monsters, with their six-limbed commander looming before him, Edge threw back his shoulders, opened his jaws, and kept right on Roaring. He Roared time and time again, until every ape but the general was lying motionless on the ground—paralyzed by panic as his mana ran rampant throughout their brains.

  The elite was shaken and sluggish, but it was clear by this point that this was the most Intimidating Roar could do against a creature that was two stages above him.

  Endless fire was still churning behind his sternum, but his ability to reason had returned. As his perception of time resumed its full course, he proceeded to the next phase of his plan. Drain its mana, and deal as much damage as I can.

  The gorilla general was still standing, but he’d scattered its army across the forest floor. All the mana it had burned through was wasted, and its troops had been taken off the board. It released its auras and howled in fury as Edge turned to shadows and came streaking toward it—the point of his naginata leading the way.

  He could see the elite reevaluate him in that instant, upgrading his status to predator from prey. There was a chance that the monkey would flee into the mist, but something told him that it would stay and fight to the end instead. Without its minions, it would be vulnerable to the other monsters roaming the jungle, and it was smart enough to realize that leaving them to die would seal its own fate as well.

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  Edge suspected that the gorilla had a skill or two that was geared toward combat. But with so many slots filled by powers that controlled, linked senses with, and buffed other monsters, this ape was far weaker than most stage-three opponents when it was forced to fight on its own. If he played the next 23 seconds left on Overdrive right, he just might be able to bring it down.

  Edge had, however, made one miscalculation. The elite’s auras weren’t only for its minions. He rematerialized in the ape’s blind spot, Double Slashing with an Elemental-Blade-infused naginata the moment that he assumed physical form.

  By this point, the general had already ignited its core. As his blade began a flashing arc, a ghostly silver breastplate wavered into existence around the monster’s body.

  Edge felt his strike slow down before pushing through, leaving a pair of frost-rimed gouges that weren’t nearly as deep as he was expecting. Before he could follow up, four neon-lined limbs lashed out at him as the monkey’s second aura sprang to life.

  The monster flared its Disruption field, expecting him to shift into shadows to counter its attack. But he’d had a hunch this might happen and gone with another plan instead. While concentrated Disruption could counter his diamond scales, a basic pulse wasn’t strong enough to do the trick, especially with the boost from Overdrive turbocharging the skill.

  He had just enough time to Harden every inch of his body before the monkey’s fists hit him like a quartet of wrecking balls.

  Edge went sailing across the clearing before slamming into a tree hard enough to snap its trunk off at the base. Thanks to his defensive power, he’d only taken some internal damage, which Regeneration patched up right away.

  The elite screamed in pain as it looked down at its fists. While its bone knuckle plates had mitigated the damage, some of its fingers were clearly broken. It vented its fury as it pulled them back into place, then got ready to continue the fight. He wasn’t surprised by this turn of events. The monster would never have climbed so high on the dungeon’s food chain if such minor wounds could stop it.

  The gorilla roared again, then bounded over to a nearby tree. To Edge’s astonishment, it proceeded to rip the trunk out by the roots. It held the massive plant in a four-handed grip, then took an experimental swing that set his hair fluttering from fifty feet away. The monster smiled wide, then came charging for his—so fast that the profile of its body blurred.

  The ape hefted the tree over its head, then brought the whole thing crashing down. He sidestepped a blow that would have shattered every bone in his body if he wasn’t Hardened, and would have driven him into the dirt like a nail if he were.

  The monkey used the rebound to whirl the trunk around its shoulders, then sent the oversized weapon screaming for his body in a horizontal swipe. He Leapt, passing over the powerful blow before darting out of reach.

  He turned into shadows a bare second later, when the monster threw the tree like a spear, passing through a network of branches that would have buried him if he wasn’t in shadow form.

  It came streaking toward him as he reappeared, poised to pummel him to paste with its fists. The moment that it was in range, the ape let loose a Disruption surge, which Edge had known was coming. He had already lengthened his naginata, brought it to bear, and coated its blade with subzero mana.

  When he Double Slashed, the monster aborted its attack and caught the weapon on a knuckle plate instead. But with Overdrive Amplifying Elemental Blade’s output, it was enough to freeze half the fingers on one hand before it pulled away.

  This marked the beginning of a fierce exchange of blows—both combatants landing heavy hits time and again. Edge had Regeneration and Harden to bolster his defense, while the monkey had its insane Durability and ghostly silver armor.

  He dished out as much damage as he could, trying to finish the fight in the handful of heartbeats left on Overdrive’s clock. But as the final seconds of his ultimate dwindled away, he knew that he wasn’t going to make it in time.

  He nodded to himself, then shifted tactics. I’m going to have to do this the hard way after all. While this was far from an ideal situation, it was a better outcome than he’d feared and was still in line with his plans.

  Edge had known there was a good chance that he couldn’t kill the elite before Overdrive timed out, since he’d used it at the start of the fight instead of waiting for an opening to appear. Thus, he’d come up with a plan for how to survive the exhaustion that followed its use, and end the fight after it wore off. First things first. I need to hold out until I recover.

  The instant he realized that the battle wasn’t over, he had tossed a pair of smoke bombs toward opposite sides of the clearing, filling it with billowing haze. He could tell from the monster’s furious cries that while it could see in the mist, smoke was another story.

  With two seconds left on Overdrive’s clock, he Leapt, Stepped, then zipped over to a shallow depression in the earth he’d found while preparing the field.

  Edge lay down and went perfectly still, turning on Conceal and deactivating Shadow Step.

  The moment that the stealth skill obscured his presence, the great engine called Overdrive faded away, and the exhaustion hit him like a lead tsunami.

  The onyx fugue was completely overwhelming. He couldn’t move and could barely think. He could hear the monkey stomping across the clearing, slamming a tree trunk into the ground at random. There was a chance that a blind strike would hit him, but it was a risk he had to take.

  In the end, Skill-Eater’s ultimate had taken out the army of apes, drained the elite’s mana, and racked up an impressive collection of wounds before its time was up.

  Better still, Edge’s energetic reserves were still brimming over, since his reservoir had been full when he’d activated Overdrive, which had paid the price for all the skills he had used. The moment that the exhaustion came to an end, he would be able to fight at full strength, while his opponent was greatly diminished.

  As his mind began to clear, the gorilla released its auras. Its movements abruptly slowed down, and it began limping due to the damage to its limbs. It must be almost out of mana. It still has the advantage in attributes, but I now have the edge with magic.

  He chuckled as he rose to his feet. Mel is bad influence. By now, the smoke was starting to dissipate, and both combatants could see each other clearly. The monster had dropped the trunk when its auras cut off, which must have been too heavy to lift with the boost from its skills.

  It looked at him with pure hatred burning in its gaze, then something inside it snapped. Its anger had been rising throughout the fight, and it that moment, rage overrode its last vestige of reason, and the elite monster went completely fucking berserk.

  Edge didn’t have any more tricks up his sleeve, but by this point, he had a good sense of what his enemy could do. Now that it was wounded, alone, and running on fumes, he just had to kill it the old-fashioned way.

  They traded an intense series of strikes over the final minute of the fight.

  Since the monster didn’t have enough mana to flare its Disruption, Edge Shadow Stepped between the pummeling barrage, dodging punches strong enough to tear his head off with a fraction of a second to spare. He scored a half dozen Double Slashes with his naginata in exchange—the chill from Elemental Blade leaving gouges bordered by bands of frozen blood.

  That was when an attack slipped through his guard, landing before he could counter with one of his skills. The gorilla punched him straight in the chest—bone spike penetrating deep enough to set off his Heart-Guard.

  Half his ribs shattered under the impact, and his boots went skidding back in the dirt. A red wave of agony threatened to drag him under, before Regeneration began mending his sundered tissue and pulling his bones back in place. That was way too close. He groaned, then let loose with everything he had.

  Man and monster came together one last time, and in the end, Edge prevailed. After their final exchange, the elite’s limbs were frozen solid, leaving it helpless to resist his advance.

  He darted forward and stabbed it in the neck with his iceblade, until its blood thickened enough to reduce the flow to its brain, rendering the massive monster unconscious.

  The monkey was hanging on the verge of death, and Edge didn’t waste a second. Now that the elite was vulnerable to Extraction, it was time for a victory feast.

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