The Great River surged with a violent, deafening roar.
Seen from high above, the vessel was nothing more than an insignificant black speck lost in the middle of a boundless, churning expanse of water where no shoreline existed. But as one drew closer, the details emerged: a pale-skinned boy calmly paddling a makeshift raft constructed of woven shadows.
Tied firmly to the rear of the craft, his long black hair whipped wildly in the gale-force wind. At the opposite end sat a dense, shadowy cocoon that thudded rhythmically, beating with the deep, heavy resonance of a living heart.
The young man steering the craft wore a charming, effortless smile. Well-built yet slender, he looked every bit the pampered young lord of a high-ranking noble house—scarcely sixteen years old, entirely out of place in one of the most perilous waters known to the world. Yet, he kept paddling with steady, metronome-like rhythm, completely ignoring the fact that the froth around the raft was rapidly turning a violent shade of crimson.
The water beside them boiled with motion, restless and predatory.
*SKREEE!*
A massive sea serpent erupted from the depths, its azure scales ridged with jagged, ancient scars. But it was not alone. Following hot on its heels came an onyx-scaled reptile, possessing four burning fire-limbs and a heavy, bludgeoning tail.
Before the serpent could strike, the reptile whipped its tail forward, wrapping it tightly around the serpent's throat while driving its fangs and claws deep into the creature's thick hide. Blood geysed into the foaming water as the serpent's eyes violently dimmed in death. Without missing a beat, the onyx reptile tore away a massive chunk of flesh and swallowed it whole.
The reptile slipped back beneath the surface, swam toward the raft, and heaved its heavy frame onto the deck.
The charming boy gave the creature a look of mild, aristocratic distaste. "Eating raw, contaminated disaster-meat right out of a bloody river... That really isn't healthy for you."
The reptile glared at the boy with six burning eyes, hauled itself upright, and abruptly began to shift. Its scales rippled and melted, morphing into a human form resembling the charming boy—though distinctly less polished, carrying the raw, calloused edges and hardened stare of someone who had survived untold trials.
The charming boy winced, holding up a hand. "You know, you should probably not do that transformation again. It's jarring."
"Are you my personal therapist or something?" the less-than-charming one retorted, his voice raspy.
"What if I am?" The charming boy flashed an unbothered grin.
This had been their bizarre dynamic for the past six months. While one sailed the endless river, the other hunted the horrors lurking beneath to replenish their draining mana reserves.
The truth behind their division was complex. Bani had intentionally partitioned his psyche, leaving the unblemished, untempered fraction of his consciousness inside the body of this charming golem construct. The heavier, scarred part of his mind—the one that had suffered unimaginable torment and hardship—anchored his strongest golem form. That battle-hardened shell served as his primary active body while his biological flesh healed slowly within the beating shadow cocoon behind them.
There was an old sailors' legend claiming that fallen, forgotten nightmares slept eternally at the bottom of the Great River. Bani had always dismissed it as a fairy tale meant to frighten children. But after witnessing the absolute monstrosities prowling the depths, he believed it wholeheartedly.
It was nothing short of a miracle that a sixth-circle mage could survive in a place where high-mages would perish in seconds. While legendary masters going out to slay disaster-class beasts wasn't entirely unheard of, doing so while braving the lethal horrors of the Great River was completely unprecedented. Yet here Bani was, effectively enjoying a strange sort of vacation—or rather, letting his unblemished golem self leach off the grueling labor of his stronger half.
The hardened Bani leaned against the mast, staring out at the bloody water. "Hey," he called out, breaking the steady splash of the paddle. "What are we actually going to do now that she's gone?"
It was a question Bani's subconscious had spent weeks circling, desperately trying to avoid. He wasn't remotely ready to face a world without Azula, but the bitter, unrelenting truth clawed at his chest.
He had to.
The boy stopped paddling. The charming smile faded from his face, replaced by a cold, absolute resolve.
"It's obvious," Bani said, his voice dropping an octave, dead-firm and resolute as he rested his hands on his knees. "We'll become stronger. And we'll make those demons pay for what they did."
There was no turning back from that decision. He didn't care how impossible, how agonizing, or how long the task would take—he would drag his vengeance into reality. Vilthrax, Beelzebub, every single demon tied to that tragedy would pay in blood.
*Roar.*
Up ahead, a low, rumbling vibration shook the water, drowning out the wind.
The charming golem snapped out of his thoughts, turning sharply toward the horizon. His eyes widened. "You might want to take a look at this," he said, a sudden edge of tension spiking in his voice.
The hardened Bani stood up instantly, stepping to the edge of the raft.
Ahead of them, the river ended abruptly in a sheer, terrifying drop. The water was accelerating into a torrential slope, pulling them toward a massive, roaring abyss.
A waterfall. And the current was moving far too fast to pull back. There was no escape route.
"I have an idea," the hardened Bani stated coldly.
Without a second thought, he dove off the edge of the raft and straight into the churning, red-stained river.
In mid-fall, his form blurred and violently stretched, shifting back into the black-scaled serpentine beast he had slain hours earlier. He swam with explosive speed, cutting through the dense current toward the center of the cascade, intending to brace the impact of the fall himself.
He knew the sheer drop wouldn't kill his combat golem body. But the violent kinetic shockwave would ripple backward through their soul-link—and it just might shatter the fragile healing process of his real body locked inside the cocoon back on the raft.
Before he could hit the crest of the fall, a massive, chitinous pincer shot out from the frothing water below.
A colossal, crab-like caterpillar horror lunged from the depths, its barbed legs wrapping violently around Bani's serpentine form as both of them plummeted together into the dark abyss.