The insects launched another assault shortly after the crew left the glade, but this time, Edge was ready.

  He had kept Penetrate Foliage running and saw them perched within the branches ahead, waiting until the hunters drew near before activating Conceal. The mosquitoes vanished when they took to the air, and he called out to warn the others while getting ready to steal more skills.

  He repeated the same trick with the next monster he caught. Edge grabbed it by the wing, protected his forearm with Harden, then slammed it into the ground hard enough to rattle its brain and make it susceptible to Extraction. This mosquito’s core featured the same environment as the last, although there were subtle differences—like he was standing in two different parts of the same biome.

  He ordered the living links to capture Conceal. Although it was invisible, he could sense its presence through the bond he shared with the mysterious black chains that reached all the way from Skill-Eater to his body, then the world at large. They caught the stealthy skill and dragged it out of the monster’s core. Meanwhile, he slid back into his body and resumed fending off the flock of flying monsters.

  Like before, the bugs favored hit-and-run tactics. They fled after a few seconds, whether or not they had drained any blood. Now that he had Penetrate Foliage, Edge saw that the monsters were just as aggressive toward each other as they were toward the crew.

  The ones that were bloated with blood were sluggish. Although they tried to get away, the swollen mosquitoes were swarmed by the rest and devoured, precipitating a feeding frenzy that lasted until none of them had enough blood to slow them down. Then the insects spread out and flew further down the trail, repositioning to attack when the crew walked by.

  Fortunately, the hunters were getting better at fighting them off. The third and final time the bugs attacked, no one was bitten, and they killed six of the monsters before they fled. During the fight, Edge reached out and plucked one from the air, crushing it with his fist before activating his final charge of Extraction.

  He told the chains to steal another duplicate of Conceal and ate it as fast as he could. Fortunately, no one was looking his way, since he was bringing up the rear. As he had hoped, Absorbing two copies of Conceal was enough to advance his version to rank three.

  When Edge entered his skill garden, the transparent hunter that represented Conceal came out of hiding while it fused with the stolen copy, and it kept on shining when the merger was complete.

  The skill (Conceal) has advanced to Rank 3.

  Its mana efficiency has been enhanced.

  Upon reaching rank 3, you may control the amount of mana the skill consumes, adjusting its output at will.

  Acquiring the rank-three upgrade didn’t result in a dramatic change in appearance like the even-numbered ranks. But when the figure stopped glowing, its aura of concealment was more potent than before. The tiny hunter turned around and waved to Edge before fading out of existence.

  The friendly fellow was stealthier than ever. It was completely invisible to his eyes—only detectible through the link he shared with the skills slotted into his sockets. In addition to boosting its raw power, he had the sense that spending more mana when activating Conceal would extend the range that the skill erased his presence, obscuring his trail and pulling his scent out of the air.

  Merging a copy is way more efficient than Absorbing something random. He pondered the matter as he leapt back into his own skin. The return is at least three times better by my rough estimate. He was thrilled to have taken a skill from rank two to rank three with only two uses of Extraction. Edge would keep an eye out for more duplicates of his existing powers while he was in the dungeon, including taking Conceal to rank four if the opportunity presented itself.

  The crew crossed the maze quickly now that they weren’t under the constant threat of ambush. They ran into the members of Team Spear on the way out. After a brief scare where both sides made sure that the other hunters were human and not some manner of trick, they made their way to the exit together.

  Ten minutes later, they found themselves standing in the entrance glade, ready to bring their first shift of dungeon-clearing to a close. It had been a long, hard day. Even though this excursion had gone relatively well, Edge didn’t realize just how stressful exploring the Savage Garden had been until he stepped through the fog door and entered the expedition’s base camp.

  He let out an appreciative whistle as he took in the changes—the crews working outside had made some incredible progress while he was away. The clearing had been widened considerably, giving them more space to work with. Half the tents had been replaced with stone buildings, and a row of sharpened trunks was driven into the ground at an angle to form a perimeter wall. There were sturdy watchtowers set every few hundred feet, each manned by a Perception specialist.

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  He didn’t have the skillset to make out the details, but Edge could sense dozens of defensive powers suffusing the barricade. The next time something came charging out of the jungle and attacked, it would find a significant barrier barring its way to the camp.

  Several crews were patrolling the outskirts, ready to back up the scouts who were positioned further out to provide an early warning if anything nasty came calling. The changes to the base camp were just as impressive as the upgraded defenses. The campsites had been rearranged, and various stations were positioned between them.

  Edge ran his eyes across a barracks for people who didn’t want to sleep alone, and a mess hall where food was prepared and distributed. There was an infirmary where Doc’s apprentice was treating the wounded, and a tent where the quartermasters convened to organize the camp’s logistics. The barracks and infirmary had been placed beside the mess hall, so that Violet’s Traveler’s Boon could help people recuperate while she cooked meals and maintained the crew’s gear.

  In the middle of the camp stood a small stone fortification, where Gram could confer with the other senior members of the expedition and meet with various teams throughout the day. Further out, each faction had established its own campsite that was arranged to their individual preferences.

  When they saw the members of Teams Arrow and Spear appear, the other hunters let out a cheer. It turned out that they were the last crews to exit the dungeon, which meant that the expedition’s first day had concluded with no casualties, although several members had suffered minor wounds.

  Lilly stopped to share intel with the alternate teams, who were gearing up to head into the dungeon. While the clearing crews got some much-needed shuteye, the night teams would be hard at work, exterminating monsters lurking near the entrance, extracting valuable resources, and mapping the maze of groves. Their members weren’t as powerful as the clear-teams’ and had orders to retreat at the first sign of trouble.

  Gram was waiting near the fog door, listening to the latest findings from the scouts. He waved all four dungeon teams over to the command structure, then had them recount their experiences. When Lilly’s report reached their survey of the jungle, culminating with sighting the elite slime and receiving the quest, Gram had her wait while he sent for the other leaders of the expedition. After they arrived, Lillian went through the encounter a second time, answering a barrage of questions from the women and men seated in front of her.

  “Shit.” Gram sighed when she was done. “Those elite monsters sound like trouble. If the other two are as dangerous as that blob you ran into, we can’t afford to fight them without bringing all four clear teams together. Avoid the elites at all costs for now, while we work on developing countermeasures. I will issue each crew a couple of long-lasting flares to send up whenever they see one, which should hopefully let us avoid the big bads while we continue conquering the dungeon.”

  He sent a runner over to the alchemists, who would prepare medicine to help restore the hunters’ missing blood, before dismissing everyone for the night.

  Edge bid farewell to Snake, Fox, Tessa, and Mel, then went with Jumo to meet up with the rest of Trapper’s crew. When they made it to their campsite, they learned that the others had already finished their work for the day and were waiting for the men to arrive.

  Everyone swapped stories and offered words of encouragement. Then the hunters went to bed early, since they were all worn out from their arduous day.

  ***

  Tiburón crept through the jungle as the shadows lengthened in time with the setting sun.

  Behind him followed one hundred hardened killers—an elite strike force of the Crimson Claws composed of some of their strongest warriors and a small support staff who had sufficient attributes to navigate the rough terrain.

  He had known most of them for years, and they were some of the bloodthirstiest bastards he’d ever had the displeasure of serving beside.

  The colors were fading from the world with the onset of dusk, and the scouts had just located a clearing where the strike force could camp for the night. Tiburón grinned in anticipation, savoring the violence to come. Sometime late tomorrow afternoon, they would arrive at the coordinates Yussuf had provided—where Puppet Town’s best hunters were certain to have gathered while attempting to clear the Savage Garden.

  Although this battle should be a hell of a lot of fun, a part of Tiburón wished that he had been assigned to the other mission instead. There was a second unit of Claws heading toward Puppet Town, now that they had finally located the border of the Ivory Plains.

  They would lay low until everyone else was in position and the Dome protecting the town was destroyed, hopefully taking down the town’s turrets and breaching its wall in the process. That task had been assigned to a small group of infiltrators who would complete their work prior to the Claws’ invasion, but Tiburón wasn’t privy to the details.

  Their leader, Yussuf the Red, had to remain in the Gilded Heights until the final stage of the invasion was ready to commence, lest their enemies take advantage of his absence and raze the shithole of a settlement to the ground. With any luck, once we claim Puppet Town, we can leave the Heights behind for good.

  But none of that was Tiburón’s concern. He just needed to stop the tourists from completing the System’s quest, then claim the core manufactory for the Claws.

  He wasn’t too worried. His forces should be more than sufficient to annihilate the team that was trying to clear the dungeon, especially since as far as he knew, no one suspected the Claws were coming. After all, how tough could wiping out a bunch of puppets who had been living in a starter zone prior to the disaster be?

  Although conquering the Savage Garden will be a tougher nut to crack. With any luck, Puppet Town’s clearing crews will have already taken out the chaff and begun the laborious process of extracting the dungeon’s resources before he arrived. His team could sweep in, kill them all, and focus their efforts on taking down the dungeon’s boss before meeting up with Yussuf and the invaders waiting in the plains.

  Tiburón was looking forward to introducing some fresh blood into the gang after breaking their spirit and wiping out any trace of resistance. The most promising survivors would be recruited to join the Claws, and others would be deployed as expendable laborers. Regardless of the details, most of the tourists were going to die. It was just a question of when.

  First things first. Kill the people guarding their camp, then ambush the dungeon-clearing crews as they return from their shifts.

  One thing was certain, before the sun set tomorrow, the elite forces of Puppet Town were in for one hell of a surprise, and for many of them, it would be their last day on Ord.