Vin was in the middle of teaching Shia how to play cards when it finally happened. The tell-tale sound of the bell tower going off reached their ears, only this tempo was distinctly different from the one used in their frequent drills.

  The monsters were finally here.

  “Guess that means it’s a draw,” Shia grinned, tossing her terrible hand onto the table and grabbing her staff as they got to their feet. “Got your potions on you?”

  “Healing and mana potions at the ready,” he nodded, hesitating for just a moment before continuing. “And the gem, of course. Just in case.”

  “I doubt it will come to that,” Shia said, before a flash of purple interrupted them as Lumel warped into the common room. One look at them was all the confirmation she needed that they were ready, and Lumel grabbed their shoulders, casting Mass Dimensional Shift and warping them all to the outer wall. Just like the last time, Vin blinked as the dim apartment was replaced with the bright light of the setting sun, and he suddenly found himself facing hundreds of warriors as they flowed out of town and took up positions. Phil and Spur were already walking along the wall, shouting orders and encouraging the troops as everyone got ready. They had to scream rather loudly to be heard over the dozens of shrieking sqerrets, but they made it work.

  Lumel gave him a quick kiss for good luck before warping away with Shia to her personalized forest she’d created, and Vin realized there was a face he hadn’t seen before standing ramrod straight on the wall next to Golrim. She had long dark hair and features that were of Asian descent, and most noticeably, looked absolutely terrified. Golrim was rapidly talking at her, and she was nodding along, her worried eyes scanning over the warriors getting into position before her.

  Guess that’s the Strategist, Vin decided, giving her a reassuring wave as Golrim specifically pointed him out. Looking horribly lost, she waved back, before following Golrim’s finger as it moved to indicate the group of Slayers once more taking point against the impending monsters. Immediately, Vin understood what he was doing.

  Sure enough, Vin started as he felt a gentle, unseen hand seem to poke at his very core, almost timid in the way it was asking for access to his title. Golrim had already explained what they were planning to do, so Vin lowered his guard and allowed the Capstone to work on him. Within seconds, he spotted the first six of Alka’s Slayers all perk up and look around as they suddenly received the benefit of his Epic Monster Slayer title, and he gave Golrim a thumbs up from across the wall.

  Curiously, even Tiffany seemed to be able to access his title, as the merider herself flinched back at the unexpected sensation. She should have been completely cut off from the System, so that was interesting.

  Vin didn’t have time to think about that, however, as the bundles of concentrated mana surrounding the town were growing in number and intensity faster than he thought possible. The Goddess had warned him that their fragment was taking the brunt of each monster wave to give the other Earthers scattered around Edregon a fighting chance, but he was still shocked to sense just how much was being shoved into their corner.

  It was hard to judge what was coming before the monsters actually showed, but from the sheer concentration of magic condensing here and there, he was pretty certain something of this level would have been more than enough to wipe them clean off the face of Edregon only a few weeks ago.

  Vin watched as the last of the Bands managed to make their way into the safety of Terra’s walls, and he let out a sigh of relief. Other than Waltz and a few select others, the vast majority of them had given up their combat classes and were no match for the deadly swarm of monsters. They were too high a level to take refuge in the bunker Witherson had designed, but they would still be far safer within Terra’s walls than their own open settlement.

  “It’s been almost two minutes. Any more of this and I’m going to start worrying about my hearing,” Spur said, walking over to him and wincing as he was forced to move past a guard with a shrieking sqerret on his shoulders. “How much longer?”

  “It’s going to be soon, and it’s going to be bad,” Vin said, still staring out at the various zones of dense mana. “I know I say that every time, but I mean it. This one’s going to be rough.”

  “Not like we weren’t already expecting the worst,” Spur said, shrugging as if the news wasn’t a big deal. “We’ll just do what we always do and hope that all the preparations we made are enough.”

  Another minute passed, and the sqerrets finally stopped shrieking, their tiny lungs utterly exhausted despite their training. Three minutes ticked over to four, and by that point, everyone was ready and in position. Inspiring speeches had been made and weapons were drawn and at the ready, and yet still, everyone waited. Despite the thousand-plus Earthers surrounding the town and a few hundred manning the walls, the meadow was silent as a morgue as everyone held their breath, waiting for the dam to burst.

  As everyone waited on the balls of their feet, desperate for the monsters to appear and get it over with, Vin blinked as he felt that tell-tale sensation of Beyond the Veil trying to tell him something. He knew it was still dangerous, but with the fate of potentially all of Terra at stake, he couldn’t help himself from leaning into his ability, focusing on the distant clumps of mana as they swirled about. He could almost see the invisible mana gestating, transforming into horrific beasts that defied all rhyme and reason.

  But that wasn’t what worried him.

  As he watched, his breath caught as he realized what his passive was trying to show him. The hundreds upon hundreds of individual mana signatures weren’t finishing their transformations for a reason.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  They were congregating.

  Merging into one.

  Thin tendrils were stretching from one clump to the next, connecting them all into some sort of massive web that stretched around the entire perimeter of the town. He had no idea if this was just what happened when too many monsters all tried to spawn at the same time, or if this was something else, but the why didn’t matter.

  The fact that something big was coming did.

  Lesser Arcane Discovery! 5,000 exp gained.

  “Something big is coming!” he shouted, startling the people close to him as he screamed out a warning. For the first time, his Epic Monster Slayer title kicked in, and he got a powerful sense of dread as to what they were about to be facing. “I don’t know what it is, but all the monsters are merging together! It’s going to be strong!”

  “Everyone stay back and let us feel it out!” Alka immediately demanded, raising her sword and turning to ensure all eyes were on her. “Vin, where’s it going to appear?!”

  “Everywhere!” he shouted, his eyes going wide as the dense mana spots all finished connecting and the mana finally morphed into a monster before his very eyes. His heart sank as a literal ring of flesh suddenly appeared, encompassing the entirety of Terra and letting out a massive roar that seemed to shake the very foundation of their walls.

  New Epic Monster Discovered! 10,000 exp gained.

  Level up! Adventurer of the Arcane Level 44.

  +3 Attribute points to spend.

  +1 Skill point to spend.

  Vin didn’t even know what he was looking at, but whatever it was, it wasn’t pretty. It was as if a mile-long centipede had wrapped itself in a giant ring around town, with each of its countless legs ending in a bulbous, beast-shaped growth. The hundreds of growths let out their own screeches and cries as they tugged at the ends of their fleshy chains connecting them to the main body, as if desperate to be let off and attack the gathered Earthers. The main body didn’t seem to have anything like a head or any noticeable weak point that he could easily make out from his position atop the wall, and before Vin could even begin to wonder where they should attack, Spur made the decision for them.

  “Ballistae! Fire!” Spur ordered, slashing down with his sword. “Aim for the growths!”

  It was true that they stood no chance of making it to the monster’s main body so long as those countless growths were in the way, and the Earthers operating the ballistae seemed to agree. Heavy snapping sounds rang out around the wall as dozens of ballistae all fired within a few seconds of one another, delivering their explosive-tipped payloads across a few hundred feet of empty ground. Each fleshy-monster imitation that was struck exploded without issue, and cheers went up as a line of explosions reduced most of the monsters to a fine paste.

  “Commander!” the nearest ballista operator shouted, her face white as she pointed toward the monster. “I got a direct hit, but didn’t get any experience!”

  “Look!” Phil ordered, cutting the cheering shy. Following the tip of his sword, everyone’s eyes went wide as they spotted what the Challenger had seen.

  The first fleshy-monster that had been blown to smithereens was rapidly reforming at the base of the protrusion connecting it to the epic monster, and the rest were following right along beside it. It didn’t take Vin long to realize what that meant, and he wasn’t the only one who came to the conclusion either.

  “It’s not hundreds of weird monsters connected to one big one,” Myers called out, revealing her position halfway across the wall from them. “It’s all one monster! We need to find a way to kill the main body, or the protrusions will keep regenerating!”

  “Easier said than done,” Spur muttered, shielding his eyes from the setting sun as he frowned at the monster. Their one saving grace was that each of the fleshy, imitation monsters was linked to the giant ring and unable to move farther than about a hundred feet from the main body. Despite their snapping fangs and desperate attempts at pulling free, none of the monsters could actually attack until the ring closed tighter around town. “Vin, would Scule have any sort of poison capable of taking this thing down? If it’s all one fleshy abomination, poison might be the best way to defeat it.”

  “Uh… I don’t think there’s enough poison in the entire world to work on this thing,” Vin admitted, turning around and scanning the monster’s body a second time. There wasn’t so much as a single gap in the massive ring, it surrounded the entire perimeter of Terra. Seeing as they’d expanded their walls multiple times by now, that meant it was truly gigantic on a scale the other Earthers had never seen before.

  Naturally, it was about the size of a worm when compared to the World Eaters, but they were a special case.

  “Well I don’t see a head or a convenient opening with a sign that says, ‘stab here,’” Spur snapped, getting irate as he came across a problem he wasn’t sure how to solve. “Should we attack it?”

  “Hold!” a wavering, uncertain voice rang out as the Strategist spoke for the first time. The poor woman looked more terrified than ever, and Vin was pretty sure she was shaking, but she held up a hand as she made the order. “The monsters look like they’re stuck to the main body and can’t reach us. Let’s take advantage of this to try launching a few different ranged attacks at it and see what works best. Fire first, then acid! If we can figure out its weakness now, that will help us defeat it all the sooner!”

  With every word out of her mouth, she seemed to grow more sure of herself, until she was barking actual orders at the end. Turning toward the closest ballista operators, she clapped her hands together. “Now!”

  The surprised Earthers quickly began scrambling to get the proper ordinances loaded onto their ballistae, but a sudden shaking gave them pause. As what felt like a small earthquake shook the wall beneath their feet, everyone looked around in confusion as they tried to figure out what was going on. Though it didn’t take them long to spot the source.

  After all, it was surrounding the entire town.

  “The monster!” some random warrior shouted, pointing at the massive ring of flesh with his greathammer as his face went white as a sheet.

  “It’s coming!”

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