As soon as that Malstein was yelling, already quelling a brewing panic.

  “Everyoarts cutting blindfolds now!” he roared. “I want them ready and able to be do a moment’s notice!”

  I cocked my ear as another roar echoed across the walls. It wasn’t that close.

  “We should barricade the entrances,” I yelled to the captain. “It’s not close, and when we’ve blindfolded ourselves the sound of it smashing through tell us where it is.”

  Malstein paused, then nodded. While he sent instrus I looked around fashin and Doctor Dawes. Doctor Dawes was by Kasyp, helpirain the visibly panig alchemist as he tried to run for a.

  I couldn’t see Tagashin. Brilliant. Well, hopefully, she hadn’t decided now was the perfect time to leave us all to our deaths.

  Watch members were moving furniture from around the room to the two entrances. More of them rushed inside just ahead of the impromptu barricade. The hydrologist was calling some of the blood ba as well, giving her something to use.

  The sound mage just looked helpless. Anything that would damage our hearing was not going to be helpful.

  Speaking of hearing another roar, my enhanced hearing could pick up on something else as well. The scraping of cw against stone, ing from the entrance my group had e inside.

  “That side!” I yelled while pointing. Watch squads didn’t question me, just moving with pistols drawn, most of them scrambling at improvised blindfolds made of cloth.

  Mistakes, don’t hurry with them. Tie them tightly and take your time. Even the slightest mistake could mean instarifialstein was already yelling as much as I limped over to him.

  “Put me in the middle,” I said. “With plenty of spa either side.”

  The set of barked orders halted as he turo look at me.

  “You want to take the vanguard?” he asked.

  “In a matter of speaking,” I said. “I’ve got the most destructive capabilities of those here, and they might be able to harm it?”

  Basilisk scales could turn away swords and bullets with ease. The real question is if they could turn away hellfire?

  It is the fires of the hells themselves girl, they will burn through all.

  The Imp’s boasting aside, we would find out. They were resistant to magic, but resistance was not immunity.

  “I’ll need a wide field of fire,” I said hurriedly. “Corruption, corruption is an issue but if we end it fast enough we ha?”

  Malstein sidered it for a sed then nodded. “Better to be alive and dealing with that than dead. Everyone, a wide v-shaped formation with Miss Harrow at the ter. Two squads on each side!”

  People hurried into pce while I eyed the barricade. Jumbled together tables and chairs, the are stove in the middle. That would go up if I hit it, but without it having been on and going for a while it shouldn’t be too explosive.

  Not enough time to think, the scrambling was close and its roar was thunderous.

  Someone discharged a pistol and I cursed. Malstein yelled for fire to cease till they could hear it breaking down the wood.

  Close now. We had one ce to take it down quickly before everything devolved fully into chaos. O ast the doorway, blindness would lead to nanization at all.

  Another pistol discharged nearby and Malstein yelled for fire to be held again. The sound of talons scraping on stone was right nearby and with a snarl the sounds of crashing wood.

  No orders could hold back the pistols now. My ears were overwhelmed by the sound of gunshots and I couldn’t hear any basilisk sounds. I pointed forward, pulling on my power and hellfire flowed out, a stream aimed at the entranside.

  The roar of the basilisk grew in volume as wood was smashed, the ground shaking underh my feet. The entire chamber shattered, the sound of bricks being pushed against it. Was it te for the entrance? A massive cttering sound answered that, probably a wall breaking, bricks falling apart. The sound of pistols faded away as revolvers emptied their chambers, but the roar of the basilisk tinued.

  The are stove exploded, sending bits of wood flying. Screams to either side of me as flying splinters struck, but hellfire must have eaten all that flew at me.

  The creature scrambled, cws on stone as it moved towards the left. Munshots and the sounds of screams as I kept the hellfire going. Tearing flesh, cut-off yells turlih rattles as I cut the fmes off before they hit where I thought the line was.

  The ground rattled with each step. Something unched into me, wet and heavy and f me to the ground. It was only as I y on the ground shoving it off that I realized it was someone's lower torso and legs, iine spilling out onto me.

  I got up, kig the half a corpse to the side as the screams tinued, along with the gunfire. Whatever line we’d had must have broken down by now. How many were killing each other in this chaos?

  Where the hell was the basilisk? I could hear cws scrambling on the grouo me, and a hiss from further up.

  “On the ground!” I yelled and then a sed ter hellfire sprayed from my hands.

  A shriek then a sequel and then something rammed into my stomach. I gasped as the wind got knocked out of me, whatever it was sendio the ground.

  Tail? Tail as it smmed into me again, rock-hard scales smashing into my stomach. My hands scrambled, oouch its smooth surfad immediately I sent rot into it.

  Another shriek, as scales turned loose in my head, ing off its skin as I ran my hand down its tail. I tried to get to my hooves, only for the tail to whip out of my grasp.

  More shrieks and screams. Some screams cut off, petrification or death I couldn’t tell as I got my hands on the fletting me back upright.

  My leg ounding, agonizing mess as I turowards where the sounds of death came.

  “On the ground!”

  More fmes sprayed out, and I could only help people got out of the way as I kept them directed upwards. The basilisk couldn’t get that low! More r, but I couldn’t tell if the fme had any effect. The rot did.

  The room shook and suddenly I was swept off my feet. Water! The beast had broken the cistern’s floor!

  I cut off the fme immediately as I ushed away, the water sweeping away my feet. I scrambled, firying to find a purchase oone floor.

  More water kept p, and then something rammed into me, shrieking as its bulk ripped me off of the floor.

  The basilisk snarled as the water swept us both across the room. A talon sliced at my leg in a panic, cutting right above my hoof, a line of fiery paih but down into my shoulder and my scream was muffled by the water as it poured into my mouth.

  I grasped at it, hands slipping on scales but it was enough of a grip. If hellfire couldn’t burn it, let it rot.

  Scales came loose and my hands reached deeper, into deg flesh, into melting bone, and further. Talons ripped and cut and tore as my own hands pulled disiing ans apart. It bit my shoulder again and in response, I yaeeth out of rotting gums.

  It screamed, cut, and sliced, and I reached inside, pulling it apart in respohe flood of water stopped, leaving the two of us within four feet of it, that height already rapidly shrinking. The Hydrologist reversed the flooding.

  I o act fast before it regais footing. Flesh and skin disied as I tore in, p more energy in as I ripped and tore. Pieces flew about, spttering across as the basilisk writhed and the still.

  I didn’t stop, not till my hands tore through the chest cavity and what must be its heart melted into mush. Then, hands coated with liquified ans, I undid my blindfold.

  stretg in front of me was a vast lizard, fiftee long and a third as broad, its chest cavity open and liquified muck sprayed across the floor. I was knee deep in this bd brown goop, the remnants of flesh and ans. I felt bile rising as I got up, narrowly avoiding a long toothy maw with half its teeth ripped out, the others hitting out at word angles from its misshapen mouth. Beady little eyes remain fixed on where I’d torn the basilisk’s heart apart.

  The only reason it hadn’t killed me was that three of its legs were just goumps trailing strips of flesh. The side of its torso was caved in, gotery and soft. It had barely been able to move.

  I got up, wading through a puddle of half-melted iine.

  I forced my attention away from the disiing monstrosity.

  Dr. Dawes and Kasyp were he back of the room, huddled among a few other Watch. Malstein with a cluster of others. Others were moving, some wounded screaming as they tried to hold their wounds shut. In the ter the Hydrologist stood, hands outstretched as she kept the cistern from flooding down onto us. A hole had opened, water swirling a foot past as she held it at bay.

  Twelve? Maybe a few more but twelve seemed the grand number of survivors. Nearly four-fifths of our number had died with me barely being aware.

  Blood and bits of bodies y scattered about, most of them torn to shreds. They weren’t the only things littering the floor.

  Scattered bits of stone y around. A room littered with blood was now littered with rubble. You could make out what had once been art of other people. Limbs and clothing all turned. Not just that done.

  At least a dozen charred corpses. Hells. I g Malstein as he looked across the floor.

  His gaze stayed focused on them and then suddenly he turned. I tensed, fme gathering in my hands as he whirled, hated filling his eyes.

  Malstein shot his pistol into the beast’s eye, owice, then thrice.

  It was already dead, but I held my tongue. Even after killing the basilisk, some things were more dangerous. Instine getting on the wrong side of the furious Watch captain with the wrong kind of ents would be more harmful than fighting the basilisk again.

  “Captain?” Doctor Dawes asked cautiously. “We o leave. Your hydrologist-”

  “Givens, how long you hold that?” Malstein snapped, ign Dawes and turning to gre at the Watch Mage.

  She didn’t seem intimidated. “Ten minutes Captain, maybe a little bit longer? It’s a lot of water and the damage to the brickwork is spreading as more tries to breach through. It’s tained, but the lo’s there the more it’s going to erode the stability.”

  Malstein took a shuddering breath. “Is Kasyp alive?”

  He was, over by Dawes, and Malstein stomped over there. I remained by the dead basilisk, eyeing it. Something glinted where Malstein had stopped, glowing where the bullet had puhrough eyeball.

  “Corruption?” I whispered to the Imp as I leaned down. The glowing was red, a pustulent growth that seemed to be reag tendrils ihe dead creature's flesh as it beat.

  Yes, the Imp replied. A new devil waiting to be born out of this creature’s corpse.

  “Lucky,” I remarked, straightening up as my leg protested every little movement. I wiped my hands off on my clothes, just adding more rotted flesh and liquidized an to the heavy coating present. My clothes were ruined once again.

  Ihe Imp said. It’ll be truly powerful, having been born out of this tough of a foe.

  “Not what I meant. Captain, you’ll want to shoot this before we leave!”

  The Imp was silent, then in a petunt whine, You are no fun at all.

  No, I thought as I looked at all the dead around us. I’m really not. Let’s see how many others we teach that little lesson to.

  Saithorthepyro