Edge Leapt onto the rooftop of City Hall, which offered an unobstructed view of the town square below.

  Meanwhile, another piercing whistle echoed across the settlement—loud enough to be heard over the clamor of industrial machines. A few seconds later, four mustard-colored flares blossomed above the watchtowers, confirming the keepers’ sensory specialists had spotted the threat too.

  Dialla responded immediately. She used her authority as mayor to send direct messages to everyone in town, which would wake up even the deepest of sleepers unless they were suffering from medical complications.

  She let them know they had less than twenty minutes until the killer clouds reached the center of the biome. Everyone needed to gather in the town square or on the public green before the clock hit zero.

  Everywhere Edge looked, people were scrambling to respond. The deputies were running to transport the wounded from the infirmary, while the hunters raced to gather their beasts. He didn’t have a role to play, so he jumped down and headed for the area Dialla had designated. Along the way, he contemplated what he knew about the emerging natural disaster.

  Living storms, also known as seeker storms, produced a lethal magical phenomenon called living lightning—golden bolts of magicyte-infused electricity that would relentlessly pursue any creature that couldn’t find cover before the stormfront broke over their head. It was a fact Edge had learned the hard way while he was still stage zero, when a close encounter with a seeker storm nearly cost him his life.

  Most buildings weren’t sturdy enough to prevent the lightning from targeting the people inside, which is why everyone was heading for the center of the settlement—where a combination of magitech devices and protective spells were in the process of being deployed.

  These defenses would encompass the square, the green, and the adjacent complex containing the core manufactory and aether refinery, but that was the best they could do. If everyone didn’t make it in time, the odds were high the stragglers wouldn’t survive. The teams in the field would have to fend for themselves, but Puppet Town’s hunters had their own ways of weathering the storm.

  No one Edge knew was too injured to move, so he was free to watch the clouds roll in. There were a few structures inside the protected area, so he Leapt onto the roof of the tallest building, only to discover Lilly and Byron were already there.

  Sakura had told Edge about the “secret road of Puppet Town” the settlement’s senior hunters used when they were in a hurry and didn’t want to disturb the peace by streaking through the streets at superhuman speed, but this was his first time using it himself.

  He said hello to the veteran shadowkillers, then paused to deal with another matter before chatting with his friends.

  Rue had woken up and was whining to be let out of his den, since the pup could sense that something exciting was happening. He needs to get used to events like this, and I’ll whisk him away with Summon Companion at the first sign of trouble.

  “Fine, but only if you stay inside my pack,” he said when the fox materialized. “It’s too dangerous for you to be on your own.” When Edge was sure his Companion understood, he turned to face Byron and Lilly. They spoke of small matters while watching the nebulous host devour the heavens, shrouding the sky in silver clouds that glowed from within.

  Rue was staring at the storm in rapt fascination—ears twitching in time with the incessant rumble that was growing louder with every beat of his heart.

  Not long after, Trapper, Alice, and One-Eye appeared—all hunters with far more experience than himself. While Edge was closing the gap in raw attributes and skill ranks, and the rarity of his powers was second to none, it warmed his heart that they treated him as an equal.

  Being seen as a peer by Puppet Town’s elites was something he used to dream about back in his old life. He was wise enough to savor the moment—one of the few remaining ties between the person he had been and the man he’d become since arriving on Ord.

  While these thoughts drifted through his mind, the seeker storm descended upon the settlement with a vengeance.

  The otherworldly scene was beautiful and terrifying in equal measures. The roiling banks of luminescent clouds streaked across the sky at a mind-numbing rate, spreading across the plains with predatory intent. No rain fell beneath the surging swells of magic-infused vapor, but bolts of golden lightning erupted time and again—each targeting an unfortunate creature that had failed to find shelter in time.

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  Down in the square, a bank of magitech deflectors flickered to life. The devices were supplemented by dozens of concealment skills that would make the lightning less likely to target the cored creatures below. Each of the deflectors could take four or five hits before overheating, at which point the situation would become a great deal more dangerous.

  Unfortunately, no one stage two or below had skills that could shield them from the auric devastation erupting from the storm—conduits that channeled the immense weaves of magic contained within clouds overhead and the magicytes flowing across the biome below.

  Even with these protections in place, this situation would have resulted in a catastrophic loss of life if it wasn’t for the additional countermeasures Dialla had been preparing since the day after the Dome went down.

  Whenever they had enough mana to spare, people with a select group of skills had created a series of stone shelters along the border of the town square and the public green—the same powers the expedition had used to endure a seeker storm on their way to the jungle.

  They hadn’t had time to make enough shelters to shield everyone in the settlement, but with three thousand fewer targets to choose from, less lightning would fall when the storm was overhead.

  The hunters hopped off the rooftop and moved onto the public green—ready to start dodging lightning if the barrage proved sufficient to bypass the protective devices. Unlike natural lightning, these bolts took several seconds to form and made the ground glow golden just before they struck.

  Edge had barely been able to throw himself out of the way the last time he’d been caught by a living storm, but he had experienced incredible growth since then. While dancing between the lethal discharges was a terrifying proposition, he was confident he could manage if he had no other choice. Just to be safe, he conjured a Warlord’s Mantle for everyone to boost their Speed. With his current Generation, he could maintain the aura long enough for the threat to pass them by.

  “Thanks,” Alice said when the ruby cloak settled around her shoulders. “You picked up one hell of an aura, Edge. It will come in handy during the battle with the horde.”

  Although they couldn’t see it from here, the storm would arrive in another few minutes at most. By this point, tension hung heavy in the air, and all the chatter had died down. Everyone was peering up at the heavens, listening to the howling wind as they waited for Ord’s fury to pass overhead.

  When he turned his head to make sure Rue was doing all right, the pup met his gaze with wide eyes—fear warring with wonder on his furry face. I’ll put him back in his den the instant it looks like the devices will fail, but he seems okay for now.

  Thirty seconds later, the stormfront hit them. Gusts of wind went shrieking through the streets, blowing debris across the square. The gale wasn’t strong enough to be dangerous, but it could still push people around. The world darkened when the cloudbank devoured the sun, casting the settlement in a murky twilight beneath a surging silver sky.

  Without warning, the first bolt struck within the city limits as countless more bombarded the biome. People screamed as the energy was absorbed by a deflector—the world vanishing in an auric flash when the sonic boom broke over them.

  For the next breathless minutes, there was only Edge Vasher and the unbridled wrath of the tempest overhead.

  Another dozen bolts were redirected by the deflectors, but so far, the devices were holding. While they were going to have to put out a few fires when the storm rolled past, Dialla’s plan was keeping everyone safe and preventing the settlement from taking too much damage in the process.

  It was terrifying to be so exposed as a natural disaster engulfed his position. It was also exhilarating.

  Watching the seeker storm cross the sky was awe-inspiring. Hypnotic. Mesmerizing.

  Edge hadn’t been able to appreciate the effect during his prior encounters with the phenomenon, but there was so much energy packed into the squall that the world was encased in a living light show of epic proportion.

  The potency of the magic suffusing the air made his whole body tingle. He wondered if this was what it felt like to enter a maximum-threat biome, where the densest flows on the planet could be found.

  “This is the worst seeker storm I’ve ever seen,” Lilly said a few minutes later. “The extra magicytes saturating the biome are drawing more energy from the clouds above. If we didn’t have those shelters in place, a lot of people would have died today.”

  That was when the last concealment spell cut out. A dozen strikes later, the final deflector overheated, leaving everyone who was standing in the open exposed. He put Rue away a heartbeat before the wind hit him like a fist, blowing him back one step at a time.

  Edge was getting ready to start running for his life, scanning for the tattletale glow of a lethal strike headed his way. Instead, the sun reappeared as the disaster blew past as quickly as it had arrived. The rumble of thunder grew fainter over the next few minutes, and the wind died down as the extra energy in the air faded away.

  For another breathless moment, total silence reigned. Then someone began to cheer before the whole settlement let out a roar—voices ringing with the thrill of having survived another crisis.

  Everyone embraced their neighbor as people came streaming out of the shelters to join the spontaneous celebration, sharing a jubilant moment of solidarity before rolling up their sleeves and resuming their preparations to wipe out the horde.