Temp dove beneath the beam, missing it by a hair. Jakob and Croc took cover behind the ice barricades I’d thrown up, while Harper shot skyward, wings snapping as the blast sliced harmlessly under her feet. My Horrors weren’t so lucky. One of the Kannibal Kids took the hit dead center, and the raw power of the beam simply obliterated him from reality—unmaking him as though he’d been scrubbed from existence by a giant eraser.

  The distorted black and white beam grew weaker every second it burned, but it was still an unstoppable force of nature. It effortlessly sheared through one of my Kevins and both of his legs vanished below the knees, erased just as completely as the Kannibal Kid.

  The Horror flopped to the ground like a fish out of water, his mangled stumps leaving a trail of gore across the tiles.

  Harper reacted instantly, zipping around the throne room, planting her boundary flags while simultaneously casting heals on my affected Horrors. The Kevin—gravely maimed just moments before—stabilized, his Health Regen kicking into overdrive thanks to a helping hand from Field Surgeon. But his legs were still gone, unmade by the monochromatic beam, and all he could do now was pull himself across the floor, hand over hand, like a zombie from a bad made-for-TV movie.

  Temperance darted forward in a blur, her sword carving upward, the blade punching through the vulnerable scales running along the dragon’s belly.

  The tip of her cleaver opened a deep gash, nearly a foot in length, but the dragon’s Health bar didn’t even flicker. Clearly, we could physically wound the dragon, but it had no meaningful effect. I had to assume the phylacteries were absorbing the actual damage the same way my Dopplebanger clones did. Until those were gone, we couldn’t kill ol’ Willie—though, clearly, we could hurt him.

  Assuming I was right about the way the phylacteries worked, then this son of a bitch could still feel pain. And I knew from personal experience exactly how hard it was to fight when you were on fire.

  “Temperance, get back!” I yelled.

  She bounded away a split second before I hurled a flurry of spell cards.

  Hurt Locker slammed into the dragon first—slowing his movement speed and making him more vulnerable to elemental spell damage—followed by a swarm of Balloon Menagerie spell cards, which exploded on impact. A billowing column of fire rolled upward, tattooing a hazy purple afterimage across my retinas. The dwarven pillars groaned from the explosion, hairline cracks spreading across the surface of each as the domed ceiling trembled, raining down dust.

  For the first time, Steamboat Willie retreated a step, though he still had more than a few tricks left up his metaphorical sleeves.

  The gash in his underbelly was leaking inky black ichor, which spread across the floor like an oil slick. Curling tendrils emerged from the dark pool, hooking at knees and ankles, wrapping tight and pinning my Horrors in place.

  It didn’t deal any direct damage, but I knew a crowd control spell when I saw one.

  Sunnysiders fought against the grasping limbs with unbridled rage, shredding their own bodies in a desperate bid to escape. War Dogs bayed, mechanical jaws gnashing at the grasping tendrils, but the creeping ooze just kept coming.

  Living ink with hands, ink with teeth, ink whispering slogans as it glued bodies to the floor.

  Steamboat Willie brought a massive foot down, pulping one of my Kathys on the spot and turning her into a red smear as ribbons of gore splattered in every direction. Without missing a beat, he snagged a trapped Kevin, tore his head clean off, then hurled his decapitated corpse across the battlefield toward Meemaw the Snowmaw Hag.

  Uncle Sam flashed across the battlefield, streams of flame bursting from his hands while his shoulder-mounted Plasma Cannon roared to life, igniting the creeping pool of rancid black sludge. The ink went up in a blaze, a chorus of half-heard voices crying out as my Horrors finally struggled free.

  Several reanimated Yetis retaliated with pissed-soaked snowballs, while others scampered across the dragon’s forelegs as they attempted to bury the fucker in bodies. Sunnysiders launched Wind Blades and Feral Hairballs that smashed harmlessly into the monster’s scaly form. Steamboat Willie lowered his head like a charging bull and a spectral chain erupted from the top of his hat.

  One end of the chain wrapped around a Yeti, while the other end connected to a nearby Kathy. With a thunderous crack the links cinched tight, yanking them together. The instant their bodies collided, they began to melt, fur and flesh bubbling and stretching until they fused into an unholy Cronenberg nightmare with too many arms, too many legs, and eyes sprouting in places they had no business being.

  Your Horrors have been Afflicted by Corporate Merger! While merged they share a combined Health Pool but are slowed by 50% and are 50% more susceptible to all splash damage effects! Duration 10 minutes!

  Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

  That was definitely something I could’ve gone my whole life without seeing.

  Croc bounded forward, unleashing a jet of fire from its mouth, tracing a bright line across the dragon’s neck, while suppressive fire tore through the air as miniguns erupted in earnest.

  Mana burned hot through my veins as I unleashed StainSlayer Maelstrom, calling down a raging storm of blue super bleach that pelted scales and burned through the remainder of the dark ichor, all while passively restoring HP to my teammates on the ground below. But even though the spell was centered on Steamboat Willie, the dragon’s Health bar still didn’t appear.

  I hadn’t expected anything else.

  We needed to find the phylacteries and we needed to do it fast, or this would all be wasted effort.

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  But before I could come up with any sort of game plan, the dragon raised a talon-tipped hand and let loose with a trio of blazing red orbs in rapid succession. I dodged one with a barrel roll and blocked the second with an ice wall, but the third clipped my thigh and a prompt flashed across my vision.

  You have been Afflicted with Cease and Desist! You are unable to cast StainSlayer Maelstrom for the next five minutes and cannot swap the Relic from your Spatial Core until the Affliction lapses!

  Perfect. Not only did this corporate shit weasel have physical attacks, sentient blood, and a powerful breath weapon, but it could lock down abilities as well.

  I rocketed upward, gaining altitude, and activated Unerring Arrow as I focused on the phylacteries powering Oz and protecting the dragon. Blue light streaked outward from my chest, splitting into four distinct strands, which each angled toward the stained-glass windows above. Each pane showed a different sponsor—the Burger Baron, the Starbies Harpy, a masked superhero with a swatch of jet-black hair and a banner that read Captain Marvelous, and a porcelain white beauty with a bright red apple, who could only be Snow White.

  “The windows!” I bellowed over the chaos. “We need to target the windows!”

  “On it,” Harper called out, wings flickering as she streaked toward the stained-glass depiction of the Burger Baron.

  Temp, still on the ground, triggered Ghost Leash and locked onto Rudolpho the Grippledip as he thundered past on platforms of hardened air. The tether snapped taut, yanking her skyward.

  Steamboat Willie swiped at her with a clawed hand, attempting to bat her from the air, but Rudolpho juked at the last second while I reached out with telekinetic threads, deflecting the blow and buying Temp just enough time to swing onto the nightmare reindeer’s back. Together, the pair of them galloped toward the domed ceiling, Rudolpho’s hooves pounding like a war drum as his new rider targeted the windowpane.

  But Oz wasn’t about to let us smash his phylacteries without a fight.

  The giant mechanical mouth stretched wide and disgorged a horde of screeching black monkeys that took flight on glossy raven’s wings. Though not as large as the Yetis, they were damned close. And they were dangerous. Each wielded a heavy-duty machete perfect for close quarters combat, and they had ranged attacks as well—something we quickly realized when the first monkey flung a flaming gob of actual ape shit at one of my War Dogs that exploded on impact.

  Below, Jakob triggered Broken Car Alarm, the sound blaring out and echoing across the walls, drawing the undivided attention of the dragon. Steamboat Willie shot forward with fangs bared, but Jakob hit him right in the face with Bash to the Future, stunning the dragon just long enough for my Horrors to launch a counterassault.

  Drumbo had somehow managed to mount the nightmare and was pummeling it with his Gauntlet of Fist-Shaped Problems while Krampus hacked at one of the dragon’s oversized legs with his double-headed battle-axe.

  The conjured monkeys wheeled overhead in a screeching vortex of feathers and flaming shit, pelting my troops with a steady rain of improvised napalm. Half of the apes broke away from the swarm and headed toward us with murder burning in their oddly human eyes. I met them head-on with a storm of flying tools—screwdrivers punching through hairy chests, wrenches clipping wings, my oversized hammer smashing bone and cracking skulls.

  Three of the apes peeled off and came at me in a screeching triangle, wings beating so hard that it was impossible to miss the rancid stink wafting off them. I fired off thin streams of pressurized water, but they dodged and banked, slipping my attacks as they closed the distance and attempted to flank me on three sides.

  I recalled my hammer with a thought, and pumped Mana into the tool as it floated into my grasp. The hammer swelled, transforming into a weapon meant for war instead of one purpose built to drive home nails.

  The first monkey swung at me with his pitted machete, and I met it with a diagonal strike. Sparks fountained as steel met steel, the shock wave nearly knocking me from the air. But the machete was no match for my Mana-reinforced hammer, and the blade snapped, spinning away then clattering to the floor below. Undeterred, the monkey launched himself at me, digging his claws into my forearm.

  The attack was feral but sloppy, and I rewarded the ape by driving the blunt tool sideways into its ribs. Cartilage popped like bubble wrap. It screamed and lost lift, and I coated its wings with a layer of heavy frost. Sheets of jagged blue locked feathers together, and the monster spun down like a broken kite.

  The other two closed in fast, teeth gnashing.

  One went low, slashing for my gut, while the other dropped down from above, machete whistling. I banked to the right, the machete whiffing through the space I’d occupied a second before, then whipped the hammer upward like a bat, catching him under the chin with a crunch that felt final. Teeth sprayed in a glittering arc as the monkey backflipped into freefall.

  The last one wrapped its dirty claws around my ankle and started chomping at my leg like a rawhide bone. A lance of pain shot through the limb—though between my Arcane Exoskeleton and my Dopplebangers, my Health bar didn’t even budge.

  I aimed my free hand at the ape and activated Hydro Fracking Blast at point-blank range, drilling a hole through the top of its head. The monkey squealed, its grip loosening just enough for me to kick it free. The ape finally let my ankle go and plummeted to the ground, leaving behind a mess of shredded denim liberally coated in blood.

  Two more monkeys streaked past me, gunning for Harper while she busily bashed away at the stained-glass portrait of the leering Burger Baron with her red-and-white-striped staff. The pane looked fragile—like porcelain ready to shatter—but it was tougher than it seemed. An HP bar had appeared above the window as though it were a living thing, and was slowly dropping with each hit.

  I blasted the pair of winged monkeys from the air with dual jets of Hydro Fracking Blast before casting Drone Zone in short order.

  With the spell now at max level, fifteen mechanical orbs materialized in a flash, zipping into the chaos like a squadron of trained fighter pilots.

  They careened through the air, bobbing and weaving as they unloaded a concussive barrage of aerial laser fire. Bolts of bright red blasted through wings and knocked monkeys from the air, sending them tumbling toward the ground where Croc waited. The mimic snatched the wounded apes up in writhing tentacles, jamming them into its stomach maw while a squad of Flesh Maw slugs devoured the stragglers that managed to avoid the mimic.

  Temperance was having better luck against the window featuring Snow White.

  Between her Stamina-fueled attacks and Rudolpho’s razor-sharp hooves, the pane was below fifteen percent. With a resounding war cry, she drove her sword through the window, and it shattered in a spray of colored glass and blinding light.

  Temp’s eyes glinted as she grinned in mad delight.

  “That wasn’t so hard,” she said, plucking a shard of blue glass from her forearm. “One down, three more to go. We’ll have this festering muck-sniveler dead in no time at all.”

  “Really wish you hadn’t said that,” I muttered.

  No sooner had the words left her mouth than Croc called out from below.

  “Hate to be a bother,” the dog yelled, “but something strange is happening down here!”

  I spun in midair, eyes snapping to the dragon below.

  Right beside Steamboat Willie’s neck, a new stump bulged outward, swelling at an alarming rate as it stretched into a second neck. I hung there, mute and horrified, while a slick skull forced its way up, warping into a monstrous parody of Snow White. Her porcelain skin gleamed flawlessly, lips forming a perfect bloodred smile.

  She let out a soft giggle then her jaw unhinged like an enormous serpent and she vomited a stream of rabid woodland creatures—bunnies and birds, squirrels and feral raccoons—right at an oncoming Kathy.