As we followed Chimelet who buzzed and hummed merrily from Vexa’s shoulder, having abandoned me for more favorable pastures, I noticed something flashing at the edge of my vision.

  “What is that—”

  As if summoned by the thought, a box appeared:

  Congratulations

  Changer Class Level Up: 1 → 2

  Then an intricate web of choices splintered out before me.

  I stopped dead, completely blinded by it.

  The world vanished behind an intricate net of glowing lines and branching paths. Symbols pulsed in little nodules at the ends of each thread: some beastlike, some humanoid, and some too abstract to understand. It looked like a spiderweb made of silken thread and System text, stretching out in all directions from the center… me.

  “Ah, you leveled up,” Finn said knowingly, somewhere beyond the haze. “It can be overwhelming the first time.”

  “And you should take your time,” Vexa suggested. “Think about what you want and move in that direction.”

  I heard their words, but I couldn’t see either of them. Just their silhouettes.

  I saw an icon of myself right in the center of that intricate pattern. Lines splintered away from me, each one leading to another node filled with strange symbols. I reached out and clicked one.

  Predator’s Memory I

  Description: Your body remembers remnants of its previous forms. With each level, you can hold an additional 1.

  Effect: The last used Changer skill will provide a passive benefit to the Changer, even when out of form. If one is already applied, it is overwritten by the last used Echo. May alter appearance in some cases.

  I slowly looked over a few more: Chimera Adept, Skinthief, and Beastwright; to name only a handful.

  Some sounded stronger. Some darker. And some were just plain wrong.

  But I kept circling back to that first one.

  A permanent passive benefit seemed strong. Very strong. Quiet strength. The kind that saved your life before anyone even realized you were in danger.

  I clicked it again.

  Predator’s Memory I

  Do you wish to place a skill point?

  A confirmation box flashed. Yes or No.

  I shrugged and chose Yes.

  The web vanished all at once, and the world came rushing back, blinding me with the brightness of the sun.

  I blinked hard.

  I wondered, suddenly, if I’d been in the middle of battle, would it have blocked my vision like that too?

  Best be careful in the future.

  “What did you choose?” Finn asked excitedly. “I chose Blood Pact for my first, and it—”

  “Let the man breathe,” Vexa said. Then a curious grin tugged at her mouth. “But I want to know too.”

  I explained the basics of the ability, and they both nodded.

  “Seems decent,” Finn said. “But it’s sorta… meh. Why not choose something exciting? Something with… pizzazz.”

  “Do you even know what pizzazz means?” Vexa asked.

  Finn shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know. Heard the captain say it before. You know him and his books. Comics, he calls ’em. Manga too.”

  “Comics?” I asked. “Manga?”

  “Ask the captain,” Vexa said, rolling her eyes. “If you ask me, it’s just an excuse to gawk at overly gifted women under the guise of learning.”

  I had no idea what they were talking about, so I put it out of my mind.

  We kept walking with Chimelet leading the way.

  As beautiful as the island had been, it was overstaying its welcome. Everything was crystal growth upon crystal growth. Every tree was glass, every ridge polished into something glittering and unnatural. The place was all beauty and no comfort. All false splendor. It felt starved. As if the island had spent so much effort becoming lovely that it had forgotten how to live.

  What good was beauty if it didn’t allow growth?

  Vexa seemed to pick up on what I was feeling. “Not all islands are like this,” she said as we crossed a ridge of white stone shot through with pale-blue veins. “With a singular biome, I mean. Some are vast open places full of interesting creatures and life. Others are devoid of anything that could be considered living. True monstrosities.” She glanced my way. “I wouldn’t worry too much about the scenery. We’ll be back on the ship soon.”

  “Soon-soon,” Chimelet echoed. He zipped over the ridge ahead of us, and the hard rock under our boots gave way to sand. “We are here.”

  I stepped over the rise and stopped. Water stretched out as far as the eye could see, bright and harsh beneath the sun. It was broken only by the eight immense windblown glass pillars rising from the shallows in a broad curve. They twisted into pointed spires, elegant and terrible, stabbing upward toward the sky like the ribs of something buried beneath the sea. Waves lapped against them in long, slow beats. The beach beneath us was pale and scattered with shell-like crystal fragments. Smoothed stones that looked almost carved littered the space.

  The air smelled different here than I had ever experienced before. Saltier. Wetter.

  A text box appeared:

  The Hollow Maw

  “Ring-ring,” Chimelet said simply.

  I pulled out the bell on the silk cord and held the blue knife in my other hand.

  “Are we ready?” I asked.

  “Here,” Finn said, handing me a small glass vial filled with red liquid. Another healing potion. “Just in case.”

  I nodded.

  “Be careful,” Vexa warned. “It has a cooldown. If you drink and get hurt again too soon, we may not be able to save you.”

  I focused, eyes forward.

  I stared at the eight glassblown pillars.

  I knew it had something to do with those.

  I stepped forward, held the bell out… and struck it with the tip of the knife.

  Ring……

  Ring…

  Ring.

  The pillars began to shake.

  The earth rattled beneath my feet. The sand shivered and shifted around my boots. A salty stink rose stronger from the shallows, and something deep below the surface groaned. Then came a cracking sound. Sharp. Violent. Then another. And another.

  Soon, all eight windblown spires were singing a tune of ruin, their crystalline bodies ringing in different notes while glittering shards fell from them like rain.

  And then they moved.

  Sinking beneath the water, the “spires” bent, not like stone collapsing, but like limbs flexing. Slowly, something else emerged. Large and bulbous, slick with seawater and streaked with clinging sand, a creature rose from the depths. First, the beak-like mouth. Then the swollen head. Then more and more of it as the water cascaded off its glassy flesh.

  It kept rising.

  And rising.

  And rising.

  Soon the creature towered over us, and the spires that had once been rocks were revealed for what they truly were:

  Arms.

  Eight of them.

  Each one as tall as a mast, lined with translucent crystal growths and wet suckers that hissed softly.

  It slammed one arm into the water, sending a violent spray into the air.

  Chimelet buzzed in fear as the chat box appeared:

  Name: Gloomtide Devourer (Boss)

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  Species: Octopus

  Threat Level: Yellow

  Level: 5

  Description: Master of the Windglass Spires, legends say that the spires themselves were once just one of the many arms of this legendary creature. It is a silent killer, despite its size. Already nearly see-through, this monster has no need to camouflage itself.

  That was all I got before one of those eight arms swung forward.

  The base of it was massive, broad enough to crush me flat. The tip narrowed to a whip-like end, all slick glass and snapping force. If the base hit me, I’d be crushed. If the tip hit me, I’d be cut in half.

  I ducked.

  Nearby, the arm hit the sand and upended the beach itself, sending a spray of grit and wet earth into the air. I coughed as I inhaled the cloud, salt and dust scraping at my throat.

  Chimelet buzzed a warning, and when I looked up, I saw another tentacle crashing down right where the three of us had been standing.

  We scattered in all directions.

  As the arm hit the ground, the shockwave threw me into the air, but I managed to get my feet under me and the J1s saved me from the damage the fall should have done.

  I kept running.

  Claws of the Cockatrice activated, and my hands disappeared into glittering blue-green scales, reflecting the octopus’s own crystalline form.

  I ran forward and slashed at one of the tentacles.

  My claws clashed, sparking as they bounced off.

  I tried again.

  And again.

  Nothing.

  Just like the centipede, my level was too low. That or my strength. I couldn’t do a thing to harm it on my own.

  Then I saw Chimelet, buzzing worriedly nearby.

  This time, the creature had not run.

  “Chimelet!” I called out, but as I did, the octopus swung at the Breeblet.

  Vexa caught Chimelet in both hands and then, impossibly, caught the octopus’s downward slam with one arm.

  Slam!

  The beach shook. Water jumped from the shallows. Vexa screamed as her arm shattered under the weight, a wet crack even louder than the impact itself.

  Still she stood, holding the limb back with the broken thing.

  Finn appeared at the side, hammering the tentacle with a mallet of blood and knocking it off her. She fell to one knee, then flat.

  “Fuck!” I yelled, rushing toward her.

  The octopus struck again, and Finn threw up a barrier complete with spike tips. The tentacle hit and crushed the flimsy spikes instantly, leaving only a small remnant of the shield shaking between us and death.

  I grabbed Vexa and flipped her over. I had already uncapped the healing potion, and I forced it down her throat.

  She moaned in pain for just a moment as her arm began to knit itself back together. The bone reset with sickening little pops beneath the skin. It looked more set now, no longer utterly shattered, but I suspected it was still broken and likely useless.

  “Hold it back,” I said to Finn. “I’ll get her to safety.”

  Finn nodded wordlessly as the octopus focused on him, smashing down with killing intent again and again. Finn was surprisingly agile for someone without some sort of Agility Echo helping him. Maybe he just had enough stats for it. Or, more likely, he was too stubborn to die.

  I pushed the thought from my mind and picked Vexa up.

  Awake now, she beat lightly on my chest with her good arm. “What are you doing?” she asked. “Bring me back.”

  I said nothing and kept going, stumbling through wet sand and shell-crunch.

  Chimelet buzzed near me. “Big One strong. Use weakness. Kill-kill.”

  Far enough away, I set Vexa down and turned to Chimelet. “Weakness?” I asked. “That thing has a weakness? Now you tell me? What is it?”

  Chimelet chimed, buzzed, then shouted, “Fire!”

  I threw my hands up towards the sky. “Where are we going to get fire—”

  Vexa tugged on my pant leg. “Tell Finn,” she said through clenched teeth. “Tell Finn what Chimelet said, and I’ll be there… in a second.”

  “… Okay,” I replied.

  I turned and ran back toward the battle.

  On the beach, Finn was ducking and dodging the eight arms of the octopus creature, weaving through falling shadows and exploding spray. Crystal shattered against blood and vice versa, and the beach looked like the site of a massacre.

  “Fire!” I yelled, running toward him. “It’s weak to fire.”

  Finn turned, eyes lighting up.

  He smiled from ear to ear.

  With a flick of the wrist, blood sprayed out, but unlike anything I’d seen from him before. Using his own blood as fuel, a deep red fire burst alight, burning hot and strange, the flames almost black at their core. He hurled it at the tip of one tentacle.

  Instantly, the arm jerked back from the flame, and a blackened mark spread across its surface where it had been touched.

  It had worked.

  “That’s it!” I yelled. “Now hit the body.”

  The octopus paused, almost as if considering whether it should continue the fight. Its great eyes, dark and almost hidden beneath translucent flesh, fixed on us. For one precious heartbeat, it hesitated.

  “Why are you waiting?” I asked, reaching Finn. “Light it up.”

  Finn let the fire die and scratched at the back of his head. “I, uh… can’t.”

  I stared at him. “You… can’t?”

  “Nope,” he said cheerfully. “That’s all the range it’s got.”

  The Gloomtide Devourer slammed the water again, and I heard the soft hiss of seawater cooling the burned arm. It would attack again soon. I could see it in the way the limbs coiled.

  “What do we do?” I asked. “Do we run?”

  Then, like a lightning bolt, Finn’s eyes brightened.

  “Do you trust me?” he asked.

  “I…”

  “Don’t think. Yes or no?”

  “Yes!”

  Finn slit his wrist, and fire spewed from it in a continuous stream three feet tall.

  “Remember how Raela said she cut into you a second time?” he asked.

  “Yeah… why does that—”

  “You have a second Echo Core. One that I chose for you. I figured maybe we could team up. Do something cool with it. A combo of sorts.” He reached out and put his fist against my chest. “Now’s the time.”

  “A second Echo Core?” I asked.

  “Feel it. Reach for it. It’ll come.”

  I did as he said.

  I searched inward, feeling past the familiar wound and socket where Claws of the Cockatrice rested beneath my skin. Past the sharpened pulse of that power. There, deeper, I found something else.

  Another cut.

  Another orb.

  Another Echo.

  As if I had always known it, a name rose in my mind.

  Skull of the Wendigo

  Something slid across my face. No, not over. Around.

  A hardened mask.

  I reached up and touched it. Smooth. Impossibly smooth. Two horns curved upward from my forehead. The mask wrapped around my head and stopped just at my ears.

  I looked down into a puddle.

  Where my face had been, there was now pure white bone.

  A monstrous skull.

  A hollow-eyed thing.

  It wasn’t me.

  And yet it was.

  “What is this?” I asked, and my voice sounded wrong, hollow and echoing, as if I were speaking from the far end of a tunnel.

  Finn stared at me, slack-jawed, as if he couldn’t decide whether I was an ally or an enemy.

  “Say something,” I said.

  He shook himself free of the shock. “No time,” he said. “I need you… to blow.”

  “Blow?”

  “Toward that thing. Take a deep breath… and blow.”

  I had trusted Finn this far, and somehow, against all reason, it had worked out.

  The Gloomtide Devourer had recovered and was rearing up to begin its assault again.

  I drew in a breath larger than any I’d ever taken in my life.

  Then I felt something stir inside me, cold and precise.

  I exhaled.

  Pinpointed, my breath passed through Finn’s fire and caught alight. A ribbon of flame floated out, slowly at first, drifting toward the creature.

  I focused and forced more.

  The fire suddenly rocketed forward, hitting the creature square in the face.

  The flame stuck.

  It clung to the octopus like tar-fire, and the boss began batting at itself, trying to extinguish the blaze.

  I inhaled again, then blew.

  Another blast of fire screamed out and hit the body.

  The Devourer crashed onto the beach; the flames spreading down two of its limbs.

  “Now!” Finn shouted, but he didn’t need to.

  I ran.

  I could see the blackened burn marks on the creature’s arms, and when I slashed them with my claws—

  They cut.

  Slash.

  Slash.

  Slash.

  I carved one of the eight limbs to ribbons and ran straight through the gap.

  The octopus lashed out in retaliation. I turned at the last second, and something in me took over. I drew a breath and blew.

  The force of that breath slammed into the descending arm and held it in place just long enough.

  Finn came down with a flaming blood-blade and hacked the limb clean in half.

  Blue blood exploded from the wound, mixing with burning sand and saltwater.

  We ignored it.

  Finn raised the burning blade again, and without a word I blew toward it, carrying the flame and engulfing the boss once more.

  The Devourer thrashed wildly.

  One arm caught me and hurled me backward. The Wendigo mask shattered across my face, bone fragments flying like teeth into the sand. Finn was hit too, but seemed relatively fine. The flailing wasn’t a true attack anymore—just pain. And panic. The desperate, blind violence of a thing that knew it was dying.

  I tried to summon the mask back.

  A splitting headache slammed into me.

  A box appeared:

  No mana

  “No mana… what the hell—”

  The boss was beginning to recover.

  It slammed down again. I narrowly dodged as sand blasted into the air around me.

  “I’m out of mana!” I yelled at Finn.

  He grumbled and reached into that Pocket space, but had to abandon whatever he was doing when another tentacle tried to crush him. The boss was relentless, never giving him a full moment to breathe.

  Then Finn’s sword disappeared.

  “I’m spent,” he said. “Almost out of blood.”

  The boss hovered above the beach, huge and looming. One arm was gone. Its body was blackened and burned. Cracks streaked across the translucent flesh.

  But it could still fight.

  It raised multiple arms at once.

  Finn and I stood there, both of us too drained to properly dodge from all sides.

  “Don’t mind me,” Vexa said as she ran past.

  I turned.

  She had torn her shirt into strips and made a sling for her injured arm. Her face was pale, her hair wet with seawater and sweat, but she was running all the same.

  “Just gonna save your asses.”

  Just before the boss brought its limbs down on us, Vexa jumped from the tip of one arm to another, then launched herself upward and punched the creature right where the burns were worst.

  For a moment, nothing happened. Then cracks splintered from the point of impact.

  They spread outward in slow, branching lines, running through the creature’s body. Crackling. Sparking. Splitting wider with every second.

  One by one, each arm fell.

  Then the body itself collapsed.

  And as the final fracture burst out through its back, the whole creature shattered in a rain of crystal glory, as thousands upon thousands of glittering pieces sprayed into the sky and fell back across the beach.

  The sea hissed as the fragments struck the water.

  The sand glittered.

  And for one long, stunned moment, all any of us did was stand there and breathe.