Bani tried desperately to finish the brutal exchange before they crashed into the water, but the colossal crab-caterpillar had other ideas. Sinking its barbed pincers deep into the flesh of the shadow serpent, the crustacean let out a high-pitched, triumphant shriek.
Enraged by the blinding pain, Bani drove his fangs viciously into the crab's armored side. *Screw this.*
The monstrosity was a late disaster-class entity, bearing the jagged scars of countless victories against creatures far stronger than it. But it had made a fatal miscalculation facing Bani. Having absorbed the ruthless, calculating nature of the demons he hunted, Bani excelled at unfair fights—and right now, he was about to make this as merciless as possible.
His serpentine form violently dissolved, shifting back into a human silhouette to slip out of the tight constriction of the monster's hold. With a sharp flick of his wrists, two solid shadow daggers materialized, pulled directly from the fabric of his own garments—leaving him entirely bare against the crushing pressure. With no ambient shadows to exploit nearby, sacrificing his clothes was a small price to pay.
He drove both daggers deep into the creature's segmented torso and dragged them downward in a brutal, slicing arc of black energy.
The creature retaliated instantly, driving its pincers deeper. Every trade of blows was a horrific calculus of mutual devastation; every wound he inflicted was met with a harrowing counter-strike.
*Splash.*
They struck the water, instantly plummeting into the dark, crushing depths. The immense water pressure and accumulating injuries dragged their movements down into agonizing slow motion. Normally, Bani wouldn't give a passing thought to accumulating damage on a temporary combat golem, but with his real body currently offline and vulnerable inside the cocoon, every fracture and drop of mana loss mattered.
He needed to end this, and fast.
Up on the surface, the charming golem was frantically working to decelerate the shadow raft before it went over the precipice.
"No way," he muttered, darting a nervous glance back at the heavy, pulsing shadow cocoon. "I am *not* about to turn into some mindless monstrosity to survive a fall."
Something shifted heavily deep within the cocoon—or perhaps it was just his overactive imagination playing tricks on him.
"Fine, you dramatic bastard," Bani murmured.
With a wave of his hand, the shadow raft dissolved entirely. In a flash of light, Bani shifted into the form of a massive, heavy-shelled river turtle—the very beast his stronger half had slaughtered weeks ago. The added weight made them plummet down the waterfall even faster.
Just seconds before impact, he shifted forms again, taking the shape of a rare, high-altitude raptor native to the demon realm. Snapping his talons around the heavy cocoon, he flared his wings, completely canceling out the crushing inertia of the fall just above the surface. He reformed the shadow raft, dropped heavily onto the deck, and gasped for air.
"Never doing that again," he wheezed, jabbing a finger accusingly at the silent cocoon. "Now... where is that idiot who couldn't even finish a simple river crab?"
The charming golem leaned over the edge, peering down into the murky, swirling depths for any sign of his counterpart.
Far below, deep at the bottom of the lake, the hardened Bani had reverted back to his onyx serpentine form. With a violent twist of his body, he clamped his razor-sharp maw around the crab's head and snapped it clean off, tossing the lifeless shell away into the silt.
He was at the absolute bottom of the abyssal trench, and he needed to get out before the true, ancient nightmares of the river stirred awake.
As he turned to slither away, the tip of his heavy tail brushed against the ancient riverbed.
*Fwump.*
Intricate, forbidden runes buried deep in the stone suddenly flared with blinding violet light. Before he could process the trap, his entire body vanished into thin air.
Back on the surface, the charming golem blinked, watching the empty water before shifting his gaze to the pulsing cocoon.
"Well... that's not good," he said dryly. "How the hell does someone manage to literally vanish at the bottom of a river?"
Once again, the cocoon gave a subtle, ominous shift.
The charming golem's shoulders slumped, an exaggerated look of profound exhaustion crossing his features. "Of course. Now I have to be the one doing all the heavy lifting."
As it turned out, fortune favored the unassuming.
Far across the horizon, breaking through the perpetual gloom, Bani's charming golem caught sight of a jagged coastline. Land.
Finally, after years of exile, bloodshed, and wandering, he had returned home—or more accurately, he had returned to the desolate, ruined remains of his ancestral domain. Circling wide to avoid any potential patrols, he slipped ashore far away from the main port. You could never be too careful; there was no telling which demonic factions were still sniffing around the ruins.
He knew this stretch of wasteland like the back of his hand. Tucked away near the cliffs was a small, unassuming cavern. While the cave mouth looked open and exposed to the casual observer, anyone willing to press deeper would find a narrow, hidden fissure leading straight into the heart of the hill.
That was where Bani had stashed his true sanctuary.
"Carrying you around everywhere is basically advertising my greatest weakness," Bani muttered, carefully maneuvering the heavy, beating cocoon deep into the narrowest cleft of the cave. "Stay put until you heal up."
With a flick of his wrist, he commanded the surrounding shadows to surge upward, reinforcing the stone walls and weaving a dense, impassable barrier to seal the crack completely before stepping back out into the open air.
He drew in a deep breath of the warm, heavy atmosphere. "Home sweet home."
Except it wasn't sweet at all. Not with Azula gone.
"Now... time to go track down that rascal," he said, turning his back on the cave and walking down the trail.
Little did the territory know, even without housing his absolute peak strength at the moment, this specific golem of Bani was easily the most dangerous iteration of him compared to the other. There was an old saying among the chaos-born: *The closer one dances to total madness, the saner one acts.*
For Bani, that held terrifyingly true. With a casual, unbothered stride, he headed straight for the port.