The cord inside me snapped.

  A large, spiked bone shot out from the stump of my severed arm, piercing through the roof of the basilisk’s mouth, spreading like roots burrowing deep into its brain. I could feel the monster's dying thrashes, its body bucking as we crashed into the seafloor, a massive cloud of sand billowing around us. My mangled tail was nearly useless, but I managed to push myself forward, dragging my body closer to the basilisk. It was still alive, its body twitching with fading strength, but I wasn’t done with it yet.

  I yanked on the bone spike that had now replaced my arm, pulling myself deeper into the beast’s maw. The inside of its mouth was warm, the flesh soft beneath my grip, but all I could think about was Hoka. This thing had killed him, and now, I was going to make it pay.

  I threaded the bones through the basilisk’s body, rending them like eels weaving through a corpse. I tore at it from the inside, driving the spikes deeper and deeper, feeling them twist and rip through its organs. When the creature finally died, it wasn’t satisfying. The life drained from its eyes, and all I felt was disappointment.

  Above me, Lomu Malu descended on his Mamaoloa, regal and composed. I looked up at him, rage still coursing through my veins.

  “You tried to kill me,” I said flatly. It wasn’t a question.

  “The beast had swallowed my Alaka?i. I was trying to save him. You were merely in the way. My apologies, Katari,” he replied, his voice smooth, practiced, oozing charm. The kind of charm that made you want to punch him in the face.

  “Fuck off,” I spat, but my words didn’t even faze him. His pleasant smile remained intact as his soldiers moved into formation around me, spears raised and ready.

  I wanted to wipe that smug grin off his face. I was sick of it, sick of him, sick of all of this. Without thinking, I reached into the basilisk’s mouth and tore a chunk of flesh from the roof. It wasn’t difficult the beast was dead, and its insides were soft. I held the piece up, letting Lomu see it.

  His eyes widened as I brought the bloody flesh to my mouth and bit down.

  The taste was awful bitter and rancid, but I forced it down, chewing slowly, deliberately, Eating the flesh of a creature that had consumed a Raroren for a lesser Ausawen like myself. this was the ultimate taboo.

  Lomu’s smile faltered for the briefest of moments, and that was all the satisfaction I needed.

  “Stop her, now!” His voice rang out, calm but commanding. His soldiers lunged at me, spears aimed at my chest,

  The first spear pierced through me, but I barely felt it. It wasn’t like I only had one heart, after all. I locked eyes with Lomu, a cold fury burning behind my gaze, and snapped my jaw shut. A moment later, the basilisk’s puppeted corpse mimicked my motion, its massive jaws clamping down, crushing the soldiers closest to it into mulch.

  The force of the basilisk’s attack ripped off what remained of my lower tail, but I was too far gone to care. The pain was distant now, a dull throb overshadowed by the rush of power coursing through me.

  My arm, what was left of it was still embedded in the roof of the basilisk’s mouth. I could feel the soft, pliant flesh yielding beneath around my bones as I twisted my arm deeper into the creature’s skull. My gaze shifted to a severed Raroren limb lying nearby, sacred and forbidden. I bit into it, tearing the flesh from the bone. It tasted like death, but I couldn’t stop laughing. The absurdity of it all was too much.

  “Well, there’s one more way I can help them,” I muttered to myself, a twisted grin spreading across my face. “Let’s make a few less mouths to feed.”

  Karson’s eyeless stare locked onto me, and I could feel a surge of approval from the spirit. His presence was like a dark shadow wrapping around me, pushing me forward.

  The basilisk’s corpse surged toward the makeshift army, its movements mimicking my own, synchronized in a deadly dance. Large gaps in the soldiers' shell armor were filled with fleshy tendrils that shot out from the basilisk’s body, wrapping around man after man, crushing them into crumpled heaps of meat.

  The soldiers were closing in on me, tightening their formation, the Orb growing smaller, but the basilisk’s corpse tore through the gap I had created in their defenses, rending everything in its path.

  the Large Alaka?i blocked my way. He was massive, his strength almost enough to stop the basilisk’s charge. I watched as his gauntleted hands gripped either side of the basilisk’s mouth, prying it open with sheer brute force. The muscles in his arms bulged, and for a moment, I thought he might actually succeed.

  But then, with a flick of my remaining wrist, I impaled him through the throat with one of the many spears littered across the basilisk maw, a gift from his fallen soldiers. His eyes widened in shock, the reality of his fate sinking in just as the light of the sea broke through the chaos.

  With a final, thunderous snap, I slammed the basilisk’s jaws shut, crushing him and his armor into a mangled, bloody mess.

  Lomu watched from a distance, his face unreadable, but I could feel the tension radiating from him. I had pushed him, and I wasn’t done yet.

  Lomu shifted into a combat stance, but his eyes widened as the basilisk meat puppet swam right past him. I grinned despite the situation. Heh, I’m not stupid enough to fight him head-on, not after what he did to the basilisk.

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  As I passed him, Lomu plunged his blade into one of the craters he'd previously gouged into the basilisk’s hide, gripping the hilt tightly as he was pulled along with the creature’s momentum.

  "Hey, no fair copying me!" I shouted, though I doubted he heard. Still, it felt good to say.

  I twisted my control over the basilisk's corpse, my grin widening as I formed a grotesque, massive eye in the crater where his blade had struck. It blinked once, locking onto Lomu, who looked down at it with narrowed eyes. He was ready to push off the basilisk, prepared for whatever counter I had in mind, but I wasn’t finished yet.

  The flesh around the crater began to swell, bulging as I summoned the sharpest, deadliest fangs I could imagine. They sprouted from the crater's edges, long and jagged, snapping down in a blur of motion. I was fast, but not fast enough to catch him.

  Lomu darted away, his speed far beyond anything I could react to. He avoided the crushing bite, but his sword wasn’t so lucky. The fangs closed around the blade, and I felt the resistance as it ground between them. I had hoped to snap it in two, but the sword was far too strong for that.

  If I couldn’t break it, though, I could still take it.

  I sent tendrils of flesh coiling around the blade, pulling it deeper into the basilisk’s body. The sword sank into the creature’s flesh, swallowed whole by the mass of bone and muscle I was controlling. It vanished from sight, disappearing into the writhing mass of the basilisk puppet.

  Lomu’s expression didn’t change, but I could feel the shift in the air. His weapon was gone, and he wasn’t happy about it.

  “You took my sword,” he said evenly, his voice carrying over the water with an eerie calm.

  “Yeah,” I called back, my voice dripping with mockery. “And it tasted like shit.”

  I really hoped he could hear me. Truth be told, the sword didn’t actually taste bad I couldn’t taste it at all through the basilisk puppet.

  I glanced around, my original plan falling apart in front of me. I had wanted to take out more of the soldiers, to crush their defenses and weaken their numbers. But the truth was starting to sink in my body was at its limit. Every inch of me ached, my tail mangled beyond use, and the strain of controlling the basilisk corpse was taking its toll. I needed time. Time to heal, to regroup, to figure out my next move. But time wasn’t on my side.

  Then I saw it the second massive ray, hovering like a shadowy beast above the battlefield. If I could just take that out, it would cause enough chaos, enough distraction, for me to escape.

  Just one more push...

  The soldiers were beginning to surround me again, their spears glinting like the teeth of predators closing in for the kill. My control over the basilisk puppet was slipping, the movements growing sluggish, its massive body responding to my commands slower with each second. I could feel Karson’s presence nearby, an unsettling calm radiating from him, but I had no time for his riddles or guidance.

  I reached out with my remaining strength, threading the bone spikes from my severed arm deeper into the basilisk’s body, forcing it to lurch toward the ray. Each motion sent a jolt of pain through me, but I gritted my teeth and pushed forward. The basilisk’s gaping mouth opened, the remnants of its jaw hanging loose as I aimed its massive head at the ray above.

  With a final effort, I hurled the basilisk's body upward, its enormous weight dragging through the water. The soldiers below scrambled to get out of the way, some of them unlucky enough to be caught in its wake and crushed beneath its bulk. The ray tried to dodge, but it was too slow.

  The basilisk slammed into it, the force of the impact reverberating through the water like a shockwave. The ray’s massive wings flapped wildly, its tail thrashing as it struggled to break free, but I was already pulling it down. I forced the basilisk’s teeth into the ray’s soft underbelly, tearing into its flesh, and the water darkened with blood.

  Chaos erupted above as the ray’s handlers lost control, the creature thrashing in agony as it was dragged into the depths. The soldiers panicked, some abandoning their formation to try and save the beast, others shouting orders that were drowned out by the growing frenzy.

  This was my chance.

  With the ray down and the soldiers in disarray, I shifted my focus.

  But when my focus shifted, Lomu Malu made his move. The stolen sword—still embedded in the basilisk’s corpse ripped through the creature’s innards. I tried to react, but the blade was moving too fast. Before I knew it, it slammed into my stomach, ripping straight through me. I looked down, stunned.

  There was a hole in my stomach, bigger than my head, and the world felt wrong. It twisted and blurred around me, everything warping in a way that was disturbingly familiar. Cyan and azure lights flickered outside the basilisk's maw, glowing softly in the deep water. I felt as if I was falling, though I knew I was still submerged. Blood filled my throat, and I coughed, watching the lights flicker out as quickly as they appeared.

  I was sinking fast, deeper into the ocean. Holohonu, loomed below me, its lights shimmering in the distance like stars scattered across a dark sky. But something was wrong. The sensation of falling returned, and the world shifted again. My blood didn’t flow like it was underwater instead, it dripped down, as if I was in the open air.

  "Karson, what's going on?" I gasped, struggling to make sense of the strange sensations.

  "You're shifting between life and death. This is the spirit world, the realm of the dead," Karson’s voice echoed, calm yet distant.

  I clenched my jaw, the weight of his words sinking in. "I'm dying?"

  "Yes, Katari."

  "I refuse." there was no other option.

  I bit down hard enough to crack my teeth, the metallic taste of blood filling my mouth. The shimmering lights the aurora that marked the boundary between life and death began to fade. I wasn’t ready to give in. With what strength I had left, I forced the basilisk’s massive body to coil around me like a protective shield. Every time the world threatened to shift, every time I felt myself being pulled toward death, I willed myself to stay, each motion sending me hurtling through the depths.

  The city of Holohonu grew larger in my sight, its radiant lights a beacon in the darkness. I wanted to reach it, to offer the basilisk as a gift to the city, to feed the people But my body was failing me. The hole in my stomach burned with searing pain, and my vision began to blur.

  I could feel the great current over the city, powerful and unyielding, like the hand of a god pushing me away. It was casting me out, rejecting me, pushing me back into the open sea. I struggled to fight against it, but my body was too weak, too broken.

  My eyes fluttered closed, and the last thing I saw was the distant glow of the city, fading as I drifted further into the great current over the city Pushing me away casting me away into the sea I felt the pull of sleep