The worms strained under his command, but they obeyed as he forced them to make the whale turn sharply again, cutting off three sharks as he drove deathly energy into the beast’s crackling spheres, and beams burst out across the sky—disintegrating the sharks.

Up until now, Abe hadn’t had much reason to think about his deathly energy reserves as he didn’t have any means of tapping into the raw energy. But charging the whale’s beams was quickly draining him.

Several of the flying beasts still circled the hilltop, and he needed to dig deep. Delving into the core of his deathly energy, Abe focused his will to draw more of his power out. It was enough to charge himself up again, but if he continued to force the whale’s beams to fire, it would quickly run out.

Blasts rocked the whale again as sharks swept through the sky, but as he focused his senses, he realized Viara was chasing them and, a moment later, landed several of her own fiery spells across the back of one of them, sending it crashing to the ground.

As weak as they were getting, there were only a few sharks left now, few enough that Xer might even be able to deal with them.

He took a moment to turn his senses toward the ground, spotting Targa’s energy and noting his rampage through the weaker creatures that had entered through the forests.

“Lucky bastard,” Abe muttered.

The remaining golems and zombies had also retreated back to the hilltop for a final stand, but barely a dozen of them were remaining.

Abe’s eyes widened as two sharks sped toward him. He had let his guard down.

Red flashed forward, blasting into the whale’s head and eating bone and flesh away in seconds.

He raised an arm over his face as the entire top of the beast’s head was blown away, revealing Abe to the rushing sky around him.

Two more sharks were charging from his right, and Abe tried to turn to meet them, but their beams cut across his now exposed body. He held his arm up to defend himself and crouched a moment later to save himself. But it only took the beams a second to burn away his flesh.

“Fuck!” Abe groaned as he looked down at his blackened and burned arms.

Viara had trailed them and taken one of the sharks down a moment later, but he wasn’t sure he was surviving another attack like that.

The scent of whale brains inches from him came stronger. His bind blanked for a second, and he lunged forward, his teeth delving into brain matter and instinctively munching the sweet meat down.

The familiar waves of energy flooded into his body, and he could feel his wounds that had been patched by the worms closing up and the tissue healing.

Abe looked down at his blackened hands, and within seconds, his gray skin returned.

Not only that but the energy he had pushed into the beams was returned with interest. And he felt himself growing stronger, a sensation awakening within, as if he were only a step or two at most from breaking through.

The flying corpse shook and weakened. Bone was fracturing, flesh was tearing away, and the deep rot within finally showed its age as the curse of undeath was lifted.

But he felt something else, the worms had taken full control. It wasn’t the same creature as before, he couldn’t fire the beams of energy and he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep it in the sky for long, but it was his for now.

Channeling his will through the worms, he had them snake around bone and flesh to tear away at unneed meat. Bones, flesh, and any structures that still hung to the whale corpse fell away as the worms made it malt through the air.

Guiding the now truly dead whale through the air, he turned to the sharks and raised his magnum.

The sharks opened their mouths, and the dwarves atop them aimed their rifles at one another as they sped toward one another.

“Bye, bye, fucker,” Abe growled as he blasted the magnum in near point-blank range as he rushed past one of the sharks. The bullet landed, and the blessing blew the entire beast apart, showing debris.

The second shark passed by, blasting a new hole through the deteriorating shale corpse, but Abe paid little attention to it since it wasn’t going to last much longer anyway.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

Turning to follow another shark, the two of them flew past the hilltop as green flames streaked past from Xer’s orb.

Another shark swooped down to chase Abe from behind, but Xer’s flames managed to land an attack that sent it spiraling out of control, and when he landed a second, it burst into green flames and fell from the sky.

Abe closed one eye and stared down his barrel as he lined himself up with the swerving shark, firing when he was within meters from it.

The bullet was off target, but it managed to hit a fin, blowing a hole through it and sending it tumbling to the ground, where it burst into a cloud of rotting flesh.

Another shark attempted to trail him, but Viara came skirting down and blasted a hole through its head.

The air around him was quiet, and Abe turned to his senses to find the remaining attackers. Only two sharks remained in the distance. But as he turned to chase them, a shadow was cast over the land.

Abe’s jaw slackened as the giant whale descended upon the shardworld. It was several times the size the others had been, and he only had a single blessed bullet left.

“How the fuck,” he shook his head in disbelief as the whale’s mouth widened.

Scaffolding lined the huge creature, with pillboxes built into it and zigzagging stairs that lined the creature.

Abe pulled the barely flying whale up to face it, and Viara flew beside him, panting heavily.

“A shardbeast.”

“The fuck is that?” Abe said.

“Big bloody creatures that Vale vagrants live on out here. That’s their home.”

“There’s an undead dwarven city in there?”

“Something like that,” Viara nodded.

“Fuck me,” Abe groaned. “What now? I don’t think we have the firepower to take that out.”

“We get the hell out of here, that’s what. It really is over now.”

“No, it can’t be,” Abe shook his head, searching for ideas.

Think, damn it. There has to be a way to deal with this thing. Come on, Abe. Anything…

He scanned the land beneath them, employing all their senses. The tower throbbed with more and more energy, and he knew it wouldn’t be long for the tethering rod to be completed. Once it was, the errant energy that the acolytes channeled would be locked into the tether, and it would be useless to the invaders.

Maybe we can hold them off. They should leave once the deathly energy they came for is locked away. But how the fuck are we supposed to do that?

He kept searching for answers, eyeing everything in sight.

That’s it, that’s fucking it.

Abe turned his head to Viara,” Tell Xer to collect all his remaining golems in one place.”

“What?”

“Just fucking do it, I’ve got a plan.”

Viara huffed and turned down toward the hilltop.

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to survive this but fuck giving up now. If I’m going to reach the top, a few dead dwarves aren’t going to stop me.”

Turning the whale toward the hilltop, Abe gritted his teeth. He could see the eight golems collected on a small patch of open grass at one end of the hill.

“Here goes nothing,” diving down, he made the whale’s mouth open and swerved up just as he reached the ground, scooping the zombies up and ascending back into the air.

The massive, sky-spanning whale slowly flew toward the hilltop, and Abe leveled with it on approach.

There was really only one way to do this, and he exhaled as he glanced down toward the ground.

That’s a long fucking way down, isn’t it?

He swallowed as the giant whale’s shadow was cast over them.

Spheres of crackling energy had formed across it, but they didn’t seem to be aiming at him. The moment they were charged, the beams would crash into the hilltop and vaporize the shield and the acolytes, freeing the channeled deathly energy for the dwarves to collect. A testament to how valuable the substance could be.

“They don’t seem too worried about me; that’s a plus,” Abe grinned as he aimed the revolver at the whale’s teeth.

When they were within fifty meters, he fired. As before, it didn’t appear to do much at first, but a moment later, a hole was blown through the teeth.

“There you go,” Abe loosened himself from the brain, some of the worms still in control, and walked to the edge of the whale. He glanced back one more time when impact was within a couple of meters and jumped.

The blissful wind rushed past for a moment before the deafening explosion filled the air like a rising sun on his back, followed by a rushing worth that felt like he had been thrown in an incinerator.

Abe gritted his teeth, not because it hurt but because he hoped to survive. Below him, the forest’s canopy of green approached fast.

Shaking his head, Abe squeezed his eyes shut and brought his arms up in hopeless defense.

“Now that’s an explosion,” Targa said as he watched fire stretch across the sky between smacking down the last couple of fish skeletons that managed to reach the hilltop.

“Impressive, isn’t it,” Xer nodded.

“Where are the others?” Targa asked, turning to the necromancer.

“I think the banshee is around here somewhere.” Xer sneered. “But I haven’t sensed the ghoul’s energy since the big one blew up.”

“Weakling.”

“More loot for us, I guess,” Xer snickered, his eyes sparkling at the sight of the giant, flaming debris still falling from the shardbeast.

“This job might actually end up paying well,” Targa nodded. “An entire shardbeast to loot.”

“Like you did anything to deserve loot,” Xer hissed.

“Don’t you test me,” Targa growled, his claws extended.

“What are you two bickering about,” Viara said, still struggling to carry herself as she walked over from where she had taken a breather.

“Our loot,” Targa snapped.

“Ours? If anyone deserves the loot, it's me and the ghoul,” Viara said.

“The ghoul is dead, and you don’t look far off. I’d watch my tongue if I were you.”

Viara wrinkled her nose, and her lip twitched, but she held her words back. He was right; she could barely stand in her current state.

“Let's just be professional, okay?” Xer said. “We split the loot three ways, but it's still an amazing bounty for a job at this level.”

Silence followed for an awkwardly long moment, finally broken when Viara nodded, and Targa followed a few seconds later.

“Good,” Xer smiled.