The boat and its occupants reappeared some distance away in a flash of black fire.

Hei Lian turned to the spot they had just been. The head and neck of a massive serpent peeked out of the water, most of its coiling body submerged below the surface. Its scales were a pristine white, marked only by mysterious silver sigils that glowed dimly even under direct sunlight. It was staring at them, its blood red eyes filled with ice cold murderous intent. Its forked tongue flickered out intermittently, tasting the air, taking in their scent.

‘So that’s the Kaiju,’ she thought.

“Take the liabilities to the shore, I’ll hold it off till you do,” she transmitted to Ceres, before stepping off the side of the boat and onto her own shadow on the surface of the water.

“My lady, you surely don’t mean to face that thing alone,” protested the prince, moving over to the edge of the boat. “I hired you to assist me, not bring death. If we must face it, we’ll face it together.”

Hei Lian shot Ceres a pointed look before ignoring him and moving towards the serpent.

Ceres smiled wryly and tugged at the edge of her straw hat, making it glow softly.

“Prince,” she said, her voice echoing oddly. “My wife is very good at dodging. She’ll keep the snake’s attention till we can make to the shore, then she’ll lure it onto the beach where we can collaborate to kill it. It’s the best course of action.”

The prince’s eyes glazed over for a moment before returning to normal. Spinning around, he snatched up a spare set of oars and began rowing towards the shore for all he was worth. “Hurry!” he urged the boatman, who was still frozen in a state of shock from the close brush with death. The sharp command snapped him out of it and he scrambled to action; both men putting their backs into it.

Ceres sighed internally as she released her now near transparent hat. Hei Lian wasn’t wrong when she had called them liabilities. The boatman was a civilian, unused to combat and prone to freezing at the most inopportune of moments. The prince, on the other hand, was too chivalrous for his own good. Getting him to stay out of harm’s way was one of the toughest challenges of the mission. He had an uncontrollable tendency to charge to the forefront and put himself between the foe and his allies.

While it was a refreshing change of pace from all the selfish, manipulative kitsune she had met, in this particular circumstance it was annoying as hell. As she turned back to watch the fight between the Kaiju and Hei Lian, she idly wondered whether the prince had managed to retain his attitude over the years. Was the Kitsune Daimyo still such a straightforward man? Somehow, she doubted it.

Hei Lian walked on the water towards the giant serpent as its eyes followed her. Its vertical pupils flickered briefly to the fleeing boat before locking back onto her. Suddenly, they blazed a bright red.

Hei Lian felt like she’d been punched in the gut as she was blasted backward by two beams of condensed red light. Her limp form drew an arc in the air before splashing down into the water a few feet back. She floated back up, facing upwards. She coughed up a mouthful of blood and seawater.

~Tier 3 light magic: Beamforming~

Raising her head with some difficulty, she looked down and found two gaping holes in her torso. They didn’t bleed. The heat of the beams had cauterized them shut. One of the beams had punctured a lung while the other had punched right through the middle of her stomach, cutting off her spine in the process. She could no longer feel her legs.

She flopped back into the water and stared up at the sky. ‘Damn light mages,’ she grumbled. ‘That’s virtually impossible to guard against.’

A giant triangular head blocked out her view of the sky as the serpent towered over her, its scarlet eyes glittering in its shadowed face as it stared down at her. Its tongue flickered out, once, twice. Tasting the air for her scent to confirm her authenticity.

Then, bending down, it opened its great jaws and swallowed her whole.

Hei Lian lunged out of the shadow cast by its head clad in her black crystal armour and wielding a large sabre made of condensed black fire with a serrated edge that wept liquid yellow flames. She plunged the blade deep into the beast’s eye just as her clone burst into black fire within its mouth.

The serpent reared back, hissing in pain.

Hei Lian let go of the blade and leapt away as a coruscating beam of red light from its remaining eye strafed across where she had just been, boiling the water into a wall of steam.

Landing lightly on her feet, she charged forward again. Dark fire flowed out of her palm, forming into a circular shield that she held in front of her as she punched through the steam. It was fortunate she had thought to do so as another beam of red light slammed into the shield, stopping her charge cold and making her slide back several feet.

The centre of the shield glowed a bright red where the beam had hit it, with scarlet fissures spidering outwards from it across the surface. Hei Lian pushed more mana into it and black fire washed across it, restoring it completely. Serrated blades grew out from its edges like a ring of claws; yellow flames dripping from their edges.

Spinning on her heel, she flung the shield at the snake.

It whirled through the air in utter silence towards the serpent's head; a black disc ringed by yellow.

The shield slowed drastically as a set of silver sigils glowed brightly on the surface of the snake, giving it enough time to dodge. At the same time, its tail whipped out of the water, blurring before slamming into Hei Lian from the side.

The clone of Hei Lian blasted apart as the original rose out of the flying shield. Kicking off from it, she somersaulted through the air. Forming another fiery blade, she gripped the hilt with both her hands and drove it down deep into the snake’s final eye.

Agonized and blinded, the serpent let out an ear-splitting hiss and dove into the water, forcing Hei Lian to leap off to avoid a dunking.

Landing in a crouch on the surface of the water, she rose to her feet and flipped her hair back with one hand, the other resting on her hip. Lit up by its glowing silver sigils, she could see the snake writhing beneath the surface of the water as her fire ate away at it from the inside.

“Hmph,” she snorted. “Silly worm. As if water would be enough to douse my flames.”

Be that as it may, as a Tier 3 light elemental Beast it was sure to have some sort of healing talent.

Under the water, the snake stopped thrashing and circled around to bite its own tail. Another set of silver sigils lit up on its body, turning it into a shining ring of silver when seen through the water.

‘Sure enough,’ thought Hei Lian. And seeing the extremely characteristic posture she knew exactly what beast she was up against. An infinity serpent. An ouroboros.

The way they reproduced was by biting half their body off; both parts going on to regenerate the missing part. As asexual reproducers, they were one of the few Beasts that weren’t insects that had survived the Apocalypse. Known for being nearly impossible to kill, these legendary serpents were thought to be extinct in the Continent. Apparently, they hadn’t completely died out around the Shogunate. At least, as of around half a century ago.

Their incredible resilience was a result of their innate talent: Resurrection, a combination of the Aspects of Healing and Time that allowed them to reset any wounds they had received within the span of a minute. The only caveat of this near immortality being that they needed to bite their own tail during the few seconds it took them to invoke the ability.

‘Ceres would have told me if she knew. It seems she hadn’t managed to injure it enough to force it to invoke its talent during her trial runs.’

Turning to the island, she saw that the boat had already been moored and secured properly. The rest of the team was waiting for her in full battle readiness.

Looking back down, she saw a baleful pair of glowing red eyes staring back at her through the water.

Smirking, she made a dash for the island, jets of dark flame erupting from the back of her armour to accelerate her forward.

From the burst of steam that erupted just behind her, she knew that the Kaiju was in hot pursuit.