The blood was doing its job.
Slowly, deliberately, it moved through my veins like molten iron, stitching up what had been torn apart. I could feel bones cracking back into place, nerves reknitting, organs sealing. My heart pulsed again, strong and stubborn. But the warmth was fading. Duller. Thinner. Like the fire was burning low and the fuel was nearly gone.
Four more times, maybe. That was all I had left.
I could feel it. The blood told me nothing but I could feel it.
The girl stared at me, slack-jawed, like she had just witnessed God sit up from a crucifixion.
To her, maybe, I had.
Someone impaled by a splinter the size of a javelin shouldn’t get up. Someone with a hole in their chest shouldn’t be talking, breathing, pointing, laughing. But here I was, bleeding light and sarcasm, holding onto life like it was something I borrowed and hadn’t finished using yet.
I let out a breathless laugh.
She looked at me like I was the most terrifying and fascinating thing she’d ever seen. And I didn’t blame her. In this rotted ocean full of monsters, pirates, fish-men, and skin-walkers, sanity had become an endangered species. She still had it. She still had her. She still felt the weight of impossible things and reacted like a human being.
That made her rare.
I flicked her forehead gently.
She blinked, surprised.
"No time to gawk," I muttered. "We’ve got more important things to deal with than your existential crisis."
I pointed behind her—at the cannon, half-loaded, ready to scream fire.
Then at the powder barrels stacked nearby.
She followed my hand. Saw what I meant. Understood what I couldn’t explain with words. She didn’t ask questions. She didn’t need to. She was smart like that.
She muttered a few words—low, fast. Foreign. But familiar. I didn’t have time to figure out why they sparked something in my memory. A face. A place. Long buried.
Didn’t matter.
I gave her a small push toward the cannon and turned my eyes back to the fight.
The deck was soaked in blood—black and red.
The merman was slowing.
His movements had lost the wild precision they had at the start. His scales weren’t glowing anymore. He was bleeding from fresh wounds that didn’t close as fast as before. The tail he’d once used like a whip now dragged behind him, limp. His mouth still bared fangs, but there was exhaustion behind the rage.
He wasn’t healing.
Not without food.
And that bastard demon—he _was_. Every time he bled, he drank it back in. The blood on his skin crawled into him, sewing his body up with every second. The stump where his arm had been ripped off was swelling, bubbling. Flesh regrowing. Bones sprouting like roots.
If he got that arm back...
We were done.
The merman was struggling with a one-armed monster. A fully healed demon would make him a corpse.
I tightened my grip on the brick. It felt warm again. As if it knew it would be needed.
I stepped forward, slow but certain, and made sure the demon saw me.
His hollow eyes locked onto mine.
There was no malice there. No rage. Just hunger. Purpose. Like a starving dog drawn to meat.
I smiled.
"Come on then," I whispered. "Let’s dance."
He rushed at me, black blood trailing like smoke behind him.
The merman moved.
He wasn’t fast enough to stop the charge—but he didn’t have to be. He just had to clip it.
And he did.
His foot slammed into the demon’s ribs, knocking him sideways mid-run. The impact cracked like thunder. The demon flew, slammed into the mast, and staggered—but didn’t fall.
I looked at the merman, his chest heaving. He glanced back at me, blood dripping from his lips. No words were exchanged.
We didn’t need any.
I would be the bait.
He would be the shield.
She would be the killer.
I ran again, dragging the demon’s attention with me. Every move I made, the demon followed. Every step, every shift of weight, it tracked me like a predator.
And the merman struck from the shadows. Slamming, biting, clawing. Landing blows that shook the deck. Buying seconds. Buying breath.
Each time I moved closer to the cannon.
The girl had reached it. She was pouring powder into the chamber, hands steady now, moving with methodical urgency. She wasn’t afraid anymore. She had locked that part of herself away. Now she was something else entirely. A weapon.
The demon lunged again.
I dodged—barely—and felt its claws slice my arm open. Blood spattered the deck.
I stumbled, nearly fell, but kept going. Kept it focused on me.
"Almost there," I whispered through gritted teeth.
Another blow.
The merman intercepted again, this time taking the hit full-on. He collapsed, groaning, but managed to sweep the demon’s leg out from under it. Both of them tumbled to the ground.
I saw the demon rise again—arm still half-formed, face cracked open from the fall, healing even as I watched.
But now he was facing his back towards the cannon.
Exactly where I needed him.
The girl met my eyes. Nodded.
She lit the fuse.
The hum of death began.
I turned and ran. The brick in my hand thrummed like it knew what came next.
The demon stood tall again, sniffed the air like it smelled the gunpowder, and turned its head toward the cannon too late—
BOOM.
The world split open in flame.