The blood worked through him like fire through paper.
I watched the way it moved beneath his skin—slow at first, then surging. Veins thickened, bubbled. Skin stretched unnaturally, bulging and twitching in places it shouldn't. His limbs began to tremble. Then jerk. Then go limp.
The eyes were the last to go.
They didn't close. They just… emptied. Turned to glass. Whatever made him _him_ got swallowed by something deeper. Something older. The blood took him, not like a parasite, but like a rightful owner returning to claim its home.
He was done.
All four would be, soon. The blood didn't stop once it started. It chewed from the inside, patient but relentless. I didn't have to rush it. I just had to wait.
So I did.
I stepped over the twitching bodies and moved toward the fallen. Toward the debris of panic.
Rifles. Pistols.
They'd brought weapons like they still believed they lived in a world that followed rules. Like bullets meant something. Like gods could be shot down if you just aimed steady enough.
Idiots.
Still... they had their uses.
I crouched next to one of the corpses—still warm, still twitching from a severed nerve. His rifle lay beside him, long and battered but functional. Wood chipped near the barrel, iron rusting at the edges.
I picked it up.
The weight was good. Heavy, not clunky. A muzzle-loaded relic of desperation. Cranked the bolt, checked the chamber—empty. I stripped a powder horn from his belt and started the reload.
Pour.
Ram.
Prime.
Click.
The motion came back to me too easily. I had seen it many times now.
I slung it across my back and moved to the next.
A revolver this time. Compact. Greasy. Well-used. It smelled like old sweat and rust, but the chamber was full. I spun it once, then caught it mid-rotation and holstered it on my side.
Guns.
Not my preferred art. But they had a purpose.
Punches and slashes wouldn't work on the demon.
His flesh wasn't human. His bones weren't built to break the same way. He didn't bleed like they did—at least not until you ruptured him from within. You had to shatter something inside. You had to burn through what he called a soul.
Bullets were my chisels now.
I scavenged the corpses further, hands moving quick and quiet. Pouches of black powder, caps, crude bullets carved by hand. A bandolier here. A leather satchel there. I packed them all. The dead had no need for it now. I did.
I tested each weapon's weight, got familiar with how they swung, how they fit against my spine, against my hip. I wasn't looking for beauty. I was looking for tools. Hammers to break bones heaven forgot how to name.
I glanced back at the four bodies.
They were quiet now. No more twitching. Just the steady, almost rhythmic pulse of something crawling beneath their skin. The blood was nearly done.
Good.
That meant soon I'd have what I needed.
I scanned the deck.
Not to admire the wreckage—no, that part of me had long gone quiet. I scanned because I needed a number. I needed to know how many were still standing. Still breathing. Still capable of lifting a weapon against me.
One.
Two.
Three.
I counted them in silence as I moved, slow and deliberate.
Four.
Five.
Their backs were pressed against crates, mast, corpses—wherever there was shade, cover, or the illusion of safety.
Six.
Seven.
Eight.
They avoided my eyes. But not out of shame. It was fear. The kind that makes men freeze. The kind that wears the skin of silence.
Nine.
Ten.
Eleven.
Twelve.
Twelve left.
More than I wanted. Way more than I liked.
If they rushed me, if they worked together—even in that panic-driven, disorganized way—I'd be overwhelmed. The blood could heal wounds. It couldn't rewrite numbers. It couldn't stop blades from all directions. It couldn't block twelve at once, especially not if the demon took the lead.
And I knew he would.
He'd send them first. Let them soften me.
Then he'd come.
And he'd finish what they started.
I couldn't let that happen.
I clenched the rifle tighter, feeling the wood creak under my grip.
They weren't charging yet. But that wasn't mercy—it was caution. Desperation. They'd watched me butcher their friends. Watch me eat bullets and spit steel. They knew what I was.
But desperation… that's a different beast.
Desperation makes men do stupid things. Brave things, if you squint hard enough. I could see it brewing behind their stares. The same way a storm brews behind still skies. Quiet, but not calm. Tense, not frozen.
If I looked at them too long—if I pointed again—they'd attack. All of them. Survival was clawing through their skin, pushing them toward me, even if their bodies hadn't moved yet.
I needed to strike before that moment came.
But I couldn't—not yet.
The ritual wasn't done.
The skulls—the last of them—still needed to be claimed. They were close. The blood would finish soon. And I couldn't waste that.
So I waited.
Watched.
Held the rifle across my chest and stood. As if my limbs weren't heavy from strain. As if the floor around me wasn't soaked in blood, bone, and memory.
Twelve of them.
Too many.