Sous staggered back one step, blood pouring from every torn seam of flesh, and pressed two fingers to the black seal hidden beneath her collarbone.
The mark ignited blue-white and black, hotter than forge-fire. Skin split along her forearms as bone erupted outward, reshaping into curved claws longer than daggers. Veins bulged black beneath the surface while her fingers fused, elongated, and sharpened into claws that dripped molten particles.
Her jaw cracked wide, bones grinding as her face pushed forward into a broad, amphibian horror: mouth stretching ear to ear, lips bloating, tongue unfurling like a crimson whip lined with barbs.
Zhiliary answered the challenge with a shriek that shattered the remaining stained-glass far above. The seals on her torso detonated in crimson fire. Flesh sloughed off in wet sheets, revealing raw muscle that immediately swelled larger.
Her spine exploded upward in a column of vertebrae, each segment sprouting hooked spines. Arms lengthened grotesquely, elbows reversing with wet snaps, claws bursting through knuckles like bursting pustules.
Her chest cavity split vertically, ribs peeling open into a cage of serrated bone that framed a pulsing second heart the size of a war shield. The half-severed head reattached fully, then split again down the middle, blooming into a four-part maw lined with rotating fangs.
Black tentacles erupted from the gaping chest wound, each tipped with a lamprey mouth that screamed.
They collided.
Sous' tongue lashed out thirty feet, barbs hooking into Zhiliary's exposed second heart and ripping backward. The organ tore free in a geyout of boiling blood that melted stone where it landed.
Zhiliary's tentacles whipped around Sous' torso, lamprey mouths clamping onto flesh and sucking with wet pops. Skin tore away in spirals.
Sous roared, a guttural toad croak, and drove both claw-arms straight through the rib-cage blossom. Talons punched into the raw cavity, seized the pulsing heart-stump, and wrenched sideways. Bone spears shattered; black blood jetted twenty feet high.
Zhiliary's four-part jaws snapped shut around Sous' shoulder, fangs meeting through muscle and bone. She lifted Sous' body and slammed her down, marble exploding into dust.
BAM!
Sous' tongue coiled around one of the tentacles, yanked, and tore the entire limb free at the root in a fountain of tar-like ichor. The severed tentacle thrashed on the ground, still biting.
Sous rolled clear as Zhiliary's remaining claws raked the spot where she had lain, carving trenches deep enough to expose foundation stone.
She leapt, claws sinking into Zhiliary's bloated throat, and climbed the monster like a cliff face, ripping handholds through rotting meat. Zhiliary bucked, tentacles slapping, but Sous reached the split skull and jammed both arms inside the four-way maw. Claws met in the center of the brain, twisted, and pulled.
The head came apart in four dripping quadrants. Grey matter and black fluid rained down.
Zhiliary's body convulsed, spine arching until vertebrae burst through the back in a bloody crown.
Sous rode the seizure, claws buried to the shoulder in the skull cavity, ripping deeper. A fresh wave of tentacles erupted from the chest, wrapping her legs, dragging her down into the steaming ruin of the torso.
Sous opened her toad maw impossibly wide and bit. Fangs punched through the second heart that had already begun regrowing. She tore it free again, swallowed half in one gulp, and crushed the rest between her claws. The explosion of corrupted blood hurled both monsters apart.
SWOOOSH!
They landed twenty paces distant, stone cracked beneath them, bodies shredded almost beyond recognition, yet already knitting, already rising.
Dawn light glittered on rivers of blood and bile that covered the entire terrace. Sous crouched low, tongue tasting the air, claws flexing. Zhiliary's quartered head flopped together with wet sucking sounds, new eyes budding inside the ruined sockets.
They launched again, straight into the red sunrise, ready to tear the world apart until only one horror remained standing.
Sous hit first. Her tongue snapped out like a harpoon, barbs burying into Zhiliary's regenerating throat, and she yanked herself forward through the air, claws leading.
The impact drove both monsters backward across the terrace, carving twin furrows through marble already slick with gore.
Zhiliary's tentacles lashed upward, coiling around Sous's waist, squeezing until ribs snapped like dry kindling. Sous answered by plunging both claws into the tentacle mass, ripping outward in opposite directions.
Flesh parted with wet, sucking noises; three tentacles tore free at the root and flopped away, still writhing, still biting stone.
Zhiliary's quartered skull slammed downward, four separate jaws trying to close around Sous' head from every angle. Sous twisted, tongue whipping around one jaw segment, pulling it wide until ligaments tore and the entire quarter-head ripped away in a spray of black marrow.
She spat the chunk aside and drove her claws into the exposed brain cavity again, deeper this time, fingers closing around something hard and pulsing. She crushed it. Zhiliary shrieked, a sound that cracked the air itself, and backhanded Sous across the courtyard.
Sous flew, claws trailing blue fire, and crashed through the remains of a pixie statue. Marble arms and wings exploded around her. She landed on her feet inside the crater, coughing blood that steamed on the cold stone.
Zhiliary was already charging, tentacles dragging the massive body forward faster than anything that size should move, chest cavity gaping open like a bloody flower, new organs budding inside the ruin.
Sous met the charge head-on. She leapt high, tongue lashing out to anchor into Zhiliary's shoulder blade, then swung herself upward and landed on the monster's arched back.
Claws punched through spine ridges, anchoring her. Zhiliary bucked like a dying leviathan, tentacles slapping blindly, trying to dislodge the parasite tearing her apart from above.
Sous crawled forward, ripping handholds through muscle and bone, until she reached the base of the skull. She jammed both arms.
She wondered...she wondered what Kara was doing, what Tany was doing. Was Shadow burying Xeno? Did Faye help with assisting his spirit to the other side?
Then there was Pamoen...her youngest daughter having to deal with all of this. Sous' toad like head began to sweat.