Breath check: no issues there. He still had a good half-hour, maybe more.

Qi check: good, and fast recovering. Merely swimming these waters gave him a pleasant boost to his qi recovery; he felt the energies of the universe seeping through his skin.

He was ready.

His mission had changed. Where once he’d come as a treasure hunter, come to clear out some Beasts and perhaps snag some stray Blood, now he felt like a spy. As he swam deeper, he cast his senses out as widely as he could; he soaked in the smells and sounds and tastes drifting about him. Slowly a crude map of his surroundings took shape in his mind’s eye.

Down and to the left: a domed, hard shape, scaly tail sticking out, drifting amid the kelps. Its neck and head were a drake’s. It was a Dragon-turtle, or Xuanwu. Two lumps stuck by it, tiny clones of its shape: children, maybe? Whatever the case, Dorian steered clear of it.

He was lucky he’d inherited his serpent’s senses. He noticed a flurry of swirling water raring up from ahead, closing in fast; he pedaled out the way just as a school of water-wyrms, gilled, webbed bastards of their land-bound cousins, raced on by. Nearly all were deep in the Earth Realm.

Phew! He kept swimming.

To his right, nestled into the wall, a hive of drakes. He gave it a wide berth. Another school of water-wyrms, Earth-Realm one and all. He swam around them. Deeper and deeper he went, a hundred spans deep, then two hundred…

The resonances were only growing stronger. He felt them like heatwaves sinking into his flesh, warming the core of his being. They only grew hotter as he drew near. And they grew more distinct, too, each flush with its own life-signature. They sung to him sweetly, ferociously, shivering his soul, boiling his blood. The closer he got, the more alive he felt.

He was only a hundred-odd handspans away—he could feel it! By now there was no light, and neither was there much kelp—or anything at all, for that matter. The walls had gone from hard-packed sandstone to a moldy craggy stone. This was no place for the living. The Beasts that swam these depths were huge, nameless things: fishlike, eyeless beasts with skin the consistency of rock and gaping, toothless maws.

Still Dorian was as a moth to a flame, drawn in almost irresistibly…

He felt it before he sensed it. He sensed it before he saw it.

Right above him—piercing down, a sudden and colossal presence—

Blindly he wrenched to the left, and a huge tongue of flesh speared by.

HUMAN SCUM!

A deep, warbling voice echoed in his mind. Telepathy?!

The thing spun around, and Dorian saw it in full. It might’ve been the ugliest beast Dorian had seen this run: every inch of skin was marred with a sore or a scar, its cyclops face squashed flat on one side. It was like a Gunk Eel—but more. Bigger, uglier, gunkier—and, most pressingly, most powerful.

From it emanated the furious aura of a Sky Realm Beast.

FUCK!

Dorian tensed, calling his Javelin to his side. This could get ugly.

HOW DARE YOU TRESPASS UPON MY TERRITORY!? HOW DARE YOU SLAUGHTER MY CHILDREN?! The Beast spun around, bearing down upon him again. I, EEL KING WO, SHALL MELT YOUR FLESH OFF YOUR BONES!

The thing opened its mouth—

This time Dorian didn’t even have time to react, it happened so fast. Part of it was his fault, really. He’d been so focused on this new threat that he’d lost sight of what was below.

One moment the Eel King was there. The next, he simply vanished. A Sky-Realm Beast, gone. Just like that. In his place was a wall of scales, shooting upward in a torrid blur.

Dorian blinked, squinting, struggling to pierce the darkness. What?!

It took a heartbeat for the rest of his senses to catch up. Then he registered it: a raving heat of sheer resonance blasting out from this wall, a thump-thump-thump-ing of some great and powerful heart. And then the wall began to curve in on itself. For it was never a wall at all, and as Dorian took it in—the whole of its breadth—it began to dawn on him.

Was that... a throat?! A throat studded with scales, upon scales, upon scales…

Scales that looked a lot like the scales he’d swallowed…

He froze.

His vision was limited to a black-and-white sketch, and its range left much to be desired. So he only made out the nature of this new thing as its mind-boggling heft curled around to greet him.

Basilisk!

Its head was like two gargantuan slabs of polished obsidian bolted unevenly together, opening into a mouth frothing with inky spray. And what a mouth it was! So big it went beyond his field of view—like the mouth of a cavern filled to the brim with rows upon rows of wicked teeth. Teeth that looked an awful lot like his own Javelin. To either side of this mouth were two slitted eyes wide as a man was tall. Now it trained its gaze on him.

It felt like he was standing before a furnace of sheer Resonance; he was certain his skin was about to melt off his body!

Hold on. Dorian’s eyes went wide. I know this thing!

They knew it as the Evernight Basilisk…

But he knew it by another name.

Is this thing a fucking Torchdragon?!

He was astounded. Here?!

He knew these things. He’d fought these things! These were Godbeasts native to the upper layers of Hell. It was said that they were born at the center of volcanoes, and there they dwelled their entire lives, feeding off the toxic ash and molten brimstone following explosions. They fed off of the qi at the core of the plane itself!

Among the serpentine Bloodlines, Torchdragons were top-tier—no less venerable than such great lineages as Raindragons or Azure dragons, the births of which could shake a Realm by itself. Dorian had only seen a handful across all his lifetimes. As Salas Godhunter, tasked with hunting one down for its heart, it’d taken Dorian centuries just to find one. And the ensuing fight was hellishly tough—even as a Godking facing down an Empyrean!

And now, in a middle-of-nowhere backwater Lower Realm, he’d found one. An infant, judging by its cultivation; in adolescence it’d already be a god. Not merely one Torchdragon, either—judging by the Resonances below, several.

It was mind-boggling. It was absurd!

These things all ran through Dorian’s mind in a flash as he and the Torchdragon eyed each other. And one thought, above all, rang in his head.

If this thing decides it wants to eat me…

I am so utterly fucked.

Dorian almost didn’t dare to so much as let his heart beat. It seemed only curious for now—Dorian sensed its emotions through the resonance, a swamp of confusion. It must’ve been wondering how it could feel kin to this tiny thing. How its blood ran hot in such teensy veins.

Dorian hoped against all hope that this shared bond would be enough.

A long, horribly slow beat passed.

And then a resolve seemed to settle in the Torchdragon’s mind. Dorian’s heart dropped. Oh, FUCK—

Dorian bolted.

The Fang materialized in his hand. He grabbed on with all his strength, and willed it to get the fuck out of here! It shot up—

Not fast enough.

It defied all logic how something so massive could move so fast. He’d seen it rear up—almost teleport—to snap up the Eel King. But in the back of his mind its speed seemed unbelievable, somehow impossible.

Until it happened to him.

He’d gotten not five handspans before a lance of white-hot pain tore up his thigh at the joint. He gasped, glancing down; precious air bubbles fled his lips. It’d sunk its teeth clean through his leg! But not fully through. This was by intent. He saw it in his eyes, then, its horrid, cruel, huge eyes. It didn’t want a piece of him.

It wanted the whole thing.

Then it tugged, and Dorian knew that he could not resist. Not even a hundred Dorians could resist the heft of this force, it was so vast, so undeniable; it’d be like trying to pull back against gravity. He’d be helpless as the beast dragged him back in, perhaps to the Sinkhole floor—dragged him down, and ended him.

His heart sank like a stone in his chest.

He knew then what he had to do, and he did it without a moment’s pause. The Javelin fell, sheared through flesh and bone.

He screamed. It felt a hot nail had been hammered into the center of his skull; the pain was so piercing he almost blacked out. But he was free, free as the Torchdragon twisted downward, its fleshy prize in maw, thinking it’d won.

By the time it realized it’d been tricked its prey was already fleeing to the surface.

As he went up, clutching onto his streaking Javelin for dear life, Dorian had another hope. A prayer, really, to any god who might be listening.

For Saint’s sake, do NOT let that thing follow me!

His prayer was not answered.

At the far edge of his senses the waters were thrust aside with astonishing speed. It was all Dorian could do to invoke [Serpent’s Senses]—but even still, pushing the Technique to its limits, the thing moved so fast it was like he hadn’t slowed time at all! His only reprieve was that it was no longer teleporting. He could at least see it move. Which meant he could react, and that made all the difference.

In a blink he’d halved the distance to the surface.

In a blink it’d more than halved the distance to him.

Holy—

One last desperate thought shot to mind. One final trick.

He could see the sunlight now through the kelp-forests! But it wouldn’t matter. It was too late. He’d barely breach the surface before its jaws closed around him. As though on cue its maw opened wide, bristling, and Dorian felt through the resonance a blast of ravenous hunger. Dorian had but a fraction of a second. Here goes nothing!

[Blacken the Sky!]

There was no time for any huge shifts. That didn’t matter—all he needed was two slight adjustments. The kelp forests cast flickering shadows all above him. He willed them to detach, to pool into a space just large enough for his Javelin to enter.

Then he willed the shadows made by himself—those shadows he cast on the massive snout of the Beast—to pool, too, hanging there in the water. An exit point.

Then he let his Javelin go.

It slipped into the space of shadow above, and vanished.

And then it was only him, free-floating, defenseless as those ridiculously huge jaws hinged wide open. But all Dorian was focused on was that second space of shadow. The one he’d made on the Torchdragon, and held still as it opened its mouth, as it kept coming up. The one that now sat squarely at the center of its open jaw as it made to swallow him whole.

Just when they were on the verge of clamping shut, when they neared their peak extension, when Dorian could see the fleshy innards of its throat puckering up, the Javelin emerged again.

The Jaws came down. And so the fatal race between the two began. It finished an instant later.

The Torchdragon's Jaws almost clamped faster than Dorian could think!

But Dorian had one crucial advantage—momentum. Each tiny fragment of a second meant the Torchdragon came farther up. Meant the distance between its fleshy throat and that shadowy pool was cut that much shorter.

A Torchdragon’s Fang gored flesh.

But this time, not his own.