“Left!” I screamed in Samsara’s mind.

  Samsara didn’t hesitate. We threw our weight to the left. The Kaiju barely missed us. The snap of its teeth closing was loud enough to be felt in my chest, missing us by mere centimeters.

  We rolled, crushing a cluster of small trees that splintered like toothpicks against our skin. I scrambled up, mud slicking my legs. My black ink quickly repelled it. For whatever reason, my ink was really good at repelling dirty stuff except for blood.

  I gritted my teeth. “It’s fast for something that looks like a bloated corpse.”

  “We should blind it,” Samsara thought. I sent her a mental nudge, agreeing with her.

  I [Focused] on my 20 finger tip tentacles. Mana surged through my veins, pooling at the tips. I grunted from the pain of losing my blood. Sharp blue [Blood Spikes] materialized instantly, coated in my corrosive red ink.

  As soon as they reached one meter in length, I [Focused] on making the [Blood Spike Launch] [Incantation] on each finger tip tentacle. The Kaiju turned around toward us.

  The projectiles whizzed through the air. They struck the Kaiju’s massive, bulbous yellow eyes dead on.

  Each spike shattered into tiny fragments upon contact.

  What?

  There was no penetration. The Kaiju growled as my corrosive red ink covered its eyes. She wiped her eyes of the red ink, causing it to sizzle out. The Kaiju didn’t even blink.

  “Seriously?” I gritted my teeth. “Cover it in spikes!”

  Samsara and I started forming [Blood Spikes] all over our bodies, turning ourselves into makeshift porcupines. We leaped out of the way as the Kaiju dashed towards us again. I grunted as my shoulder got scraped. It quickly turned around as I launched my spikes. Dozens of [Blood Spikes] hammered its face, chest, and the fleshy cord connecting the lure. Samsara joined in, her hair snakes hissing as her spikes launched. Wounds opened and closed in the span of a heartbeat. Its regeneration was insane.

  “My turn,” I growled.

  I leaped forward, using my hair tentacles to vault over a sweeping claw that would have eviscerated my stomach. I landed next to her and activated [Serrated Tentacles]. My hair tentacles dug into the mottled gray and scaly flesh.

  Blue blood sprayed, smelling of heavy sulfur, but the moment my tentacles left the flesh, the meat knit itself back together. It was like cutting water. Absolutely useless.

  Samsara slashed with her claws, tearing long furrows into its side. The wounds vanished before the blood could even hit the ground.

  “It heals too fast!” Samsara cried, panicking as the Kaiju swiveled with terrifying speed. Samsara leaped back as the Kaiju tried to grab her.

  “Invisibility?” Samsara asked in my mind. She was talking about [Color Camouflage II].

  “Useless,” I snapped, watching the Kaiju turn its massive head toward us. Its nostrils flared. “[Color Camouflage II] won’t stop it from sniffing us out.”

  The Kaiju roared, a sound that vibrated in my teeth, and charged again.

  I leaped, ducked, and weaved, my stamina holding up thanks to our large amounts of mana, but we couldn't hurt it. The Kaiju took turns pursuing Samsara and me. Both of us managed to barely dodge her. Thankfully, we were slightly more agile than she was. Unfortunately, we were at a stalemate, and eventually, one of us would slip up.

  “Can you bite her with one of your hair snakes?” I asked Samsara. We could buy ourselves some time with the [Venomous Snake Girl] mutation. I made her hair snakes invisible with [Color Camouflage II].

  “You suck!” I yelled out. I should come up with better insults. But this would do for now against this feral Kaiju.

  The Kaiju turned its attention from Samsara and charged towards me. Samsara’s hair snakes slithered through the air towards the Kaiju, clamping down on its skin. Venom was quickly injected. As I leaped in behind the Kaiju, it began to slow down. The snakes let go, so Samsara wasn’t dragged.

  “Again!” I told Samsara as the Kaiju faced us.

  Its run was sluggish, as if she were drunk. Could we even get drunk with our regeneration? Samsara’s invisible hair snakes pounced on the Kaiju again. She froze up, falling to the ground.

  “Good job!” I told Samsara as I went around to the side of the Kaiju. Now, how do we kill it?

  “Maybe my venom stopped its regeneration?” Samsara asked.

  Only one way to find out. I sent out my [Serrated Tentacles] to each grab a meat chunk. I tossed one in my mouth. The Kaiju regenerated as fast as it had before. But if we kept attacking it, then it should run out of mana and be unable to regenerate.

  The meat chunk tasted like the garlic bread Mom used to bake. I went to plop another meat chunk in my mouth.

  Then, the lure moved.

  The glowing fish girl, which had been limply hanging back, suddenly blinded our eyes with a giant blue flash.

  What the fuck?

  My heart dropped as I heard a deep growl.

  It latched onto my right shoulder—no, onto Samsara’s right shoulder. Its needle-filled mouth clamped down on her pink scales.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Ahhh!” Samsara screamed aloud, the sound tearing through my mind. “It burns! It burns!”

  I clenched my teeth as the pain was shared with me. The Kaiju may as well have bitten my shoulder.

  I looked back. Thick, viscous saliva was drooling from the Kaiju’s mouth, bubbling as it ate through Samsara’s [Hardened Scales] and into her flesh.

  “Get off her!” I roared.

  My rage boiled over, white-hot and blinding. How dare this thing hurt her? I slashed at the Kaiju with my hair tentacles, but it held fast, grinding its teeth deeper. Samsara was writhing, her pain flooding our shared nervous system.

  Ugh. Our standard attacks weren't working. Magic wasn't sticking. We needed something that caused damage faster than it could heal. Massive damage. Instant obliteration.

  I racked my brain for options.

  Then I remembered the monster girl blob. Devotio had offered a solution then. A costly one.

  “Devotio!” I shouted mentally. “The [Sacrificial Limb Bomb]! How long does it take until it explodes?”

  A red flash superimposed itself over my vision for a split second, leaving Devotio behind.

  [One second,] Devotio’s voice echoed flatly. [I will update the description to be clearer.]

  [Sacrificial Limb Bomb]: Detach one of your limbs and turn it into a powerful bomb. This ritual must be applied to a limb and costs 1,000 mana. The explosion will occur one second after the detachment.

  “One second is all I need.”

  Samsara writhed in pain, her right arm gnawed on by the Kaiju fish girl.

  “Hold on, Samsara!”

  I whipped my hair tentacles around, ignoring the main body of the Kaiju for a moment to focus entirely on the lure. I activated [Serrated Tentacles] and jammed them directly into the glowing fish girl's eyes. The tentacles didn’t do any damage to the eyes, but I made sure to cut out the surrounding skin. The Kaiju roared and let go of Samsara.

  I wrapped three tentacles around its waist and yanked.

  It began turning around as I pulled it off of Samsara. We slithered backward, gaining ten meters of space.

  “Ramona, what are you doing?” Samsara asked, clutching her burning shoulder.

  “Ending this,” I said coldly.

  I lifted my right arm. My beautiful arm that was made of tentacles. I [Focused] my mana on making the [Sacrificial Limb Bomb] [Incantation].

  Agony.

  It felt like I had shoved my arm into a blast furnace. My arm throbbed, glowing with a sinister, unstable red light beneath the black rubbery skin. The connection at my shoulder deadened, the nerves severed by the magic before I even physically detached it.

  With a grunt of exertion, I grabbed my own right arm with my left hand and threw.

  The Angler Kaiju recovered, roaring as it charged towards me. It saw my own severed limb. It didn't understand. It just saw meat.

  It opened its cavernous maw, rows of translucent teeth glistening in the gloom.

  “Eat this, you ugly fuck,” I snarled.

  The Kaiju caught it instinctively with one massive hand, shoving the twitching limb directly into its mouth. It clamped its jaws shut.

  Boom.

  The sound was muffled, wet, and utterly devastating.

  The Kaiju’s mouth expanded violently. Smoke poured out of its nostrils and ears. Then, a massive chunk of its mouth simply vaporized, blowing outward in a shower of blue gore and black smoke. The blast knocked the Kaiju backward, crashing her into the trees.

  “Whoa,” I breathed, clutching my bleeding stump. It quickly regenerated. “That’s… cool.”

  “You blew off your arm!” Samsara screamed in horror.

  “It grows back!” I yelled. “Hit it! Don’t let it heal!”

  We surged forward. The Kaiju was thrashing, a hole the size of a bus in its mouth. But already, I could see the flesh knitting together.

  I lashed out with my left arm and my hair tentacles. [Serrated Tentacles] spun up, slicing through the regenerating tissue. Samsara launched [Blood Spikes] directly into the open wound, the blue spikes embedding themselves in the exposed organs.

  She coughed up black smoke. It was still regenerating. The hole was closing.

  “It’s not enough,” I realized.

  I looked at my left arm.

  “Do it,” Samsara said, her voice hard. She understood.

  I didn't hesitate this time. The pain could be dealt with later.

  I made the spell for [Sacrificial Limb Bomb].

  My left arm flared with that same unstable red glow. Blue blood spurted as it detached, and Samsara and I groaned in pain.

  The Kaiju was trying to stand, its regeneration accelerating.

  I whipped my hair tentacles forward, grabbing the glowing, detached arm and flinging it like a trebuchet shot. It sailed through the air, right towards the Kaiju’s chest.

  The explosion sent a burst of flames and smoke, blinding us to what happened.

  When the smoke cleared, the Kaiju had fallen onto its back. Its chest was a crater.

  And there, pulsing faintly amidst the ruin of blue blood and shattered ribs, was an orange glow.

  “Found you,” I said.

  The regeneration was trying to start again, creeping from the edges of the blast zone, but the damage was massive. The Core was exposed.

  I stumbled forward. I didn't have arms to grab it. All of my hair tentacles went towards the chest cavity. Seven of them sliced skin, trying to keep the wound open.

  The last tentacle snaked into the gore, wrapping around the warm, pulsating sphere. It was small. I yanked it free with a squelch.

  The Kaiju let out one final, gurgling exhale, and then went still. The regeneration stopped instantly.

  I stood there, panting, my shoulder stumps slowly regenerating.

  “Well,” I giggled, the adrenaline making me lightheaded. “Look at me. No arms. Again. First, I lost my arms against the Kaiju cat girl. And now the Kaiju fish girl. I’m starting a habit.”

  “It’s not a funny habit,” Samsara said, though relief washed over her. She slithered around to face the corpse, eyeing the Core held in my tentacle.

  I brought the Core closer to my face. It smelled of pure mana. My mouth watered. If I ate this… we could evolve.

  “Ramona,” Samsara warned. Samsara reached out with her own hands and pried my tentacle open. She took the Core, holding it protectively against her chest.

  “This is for Aisling,” she stated firmly. “We promised. We are going to fix her.”

  I watched the Core leave my grasp with a pang of longing.

  “Fine,” I sighed, looking at the massive carcass of the Angler Kaiju. “But I get the meat. I need to grow my arms back before we run into anything else.”

  “Deal,” Samsara nodded. “Eat up. I don’t like you armless.”

  I grinned, baring my teeth at the mountain of dead flesh.

  “Don’t mind if I do.”

  My hair tentacles began digging out flesh. The meat tasted like garlic bread. The blood tasted like lemons. I chewed and swallowed. My arms reformed as I kept eating. At last, I had my hands back, each with five finger tentacles. Each red finger tentacle split into two finger tip tentacles. Red ink coated my fingers. I wiped my lips as I swallowed the last bit of the Kaiju fish girl.

  We had survived the trap. Now, all we had to do was return to Lateo.

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