As soon as that Malstein was yelling, already quelling a brewing panic.

“Everyone starts cutting blindfolds now!” he roared. “I want them ready and able to be donned at a moment’s notice!”

I cocked my ear as another roar echoed across the walls. It wasn’t that close.

“We should barricade the entrances,” I yelled to the captain. “It’s not close, and when we’ve blindfolded ourselves the sound of it smashing through can tell us where it is.”

Malstein paused, then nodded. While he sent instructions I looked around for Tagashin and Doctor Dawes. Doctor Dawes was by Kalasyp, helping restrain the visibly panicking alchemist as he tried to run for an exit.

I couldn’t see Tagashin. Brilliant. Well, hopefully, she hadn’t decided now was the perfect time to leave us all to our deaths.

Watch members were moving furniture from around the room to the two entrances. More of them rushed inside just ahead of the impromptu barricade. The hydrologist was calling some of the blood back in as well, giving her something to use.

The sound mage just looked helpless. Anything that would damage our hearing was not going to be helpful.

Speaking of hearing another roar, my enhanced hearing could pick up on something else as well. The scraping of claw against stone, coming from the entrance my group had come inside.

“That side!” I yelled while pointing. Watch squads didn’t question me, just moving with pistols drawn, most of them scrambling at improvised blindfolds made of cloth.

Mistakes, don’t hurry with them. Tie them tightly and take your time. Even the slightest mistake could mean instant petrification. Malstein was already yelling as much as I limped over to him.

“Put me in the middle,” I said. “With plenty of space on either side.”

The next set of barked orders halted as he turned to look at me.

“You want to take the vanguard?” he asked.

“In a matter of speaking,” I said. “I’ve got the most destructive capabilities of those here, and they might be able to harm it?”

Basilisk scales could turn away swords and bullets with ease. The real question is if they could turn away hellfire?

It is the fires of the hells themselves girl, they will burn through all.

The Imp’s boasting aside, we would find out. They were resistant to magic, but resistance was not immunity.

“I’ll need a wide field of fire,” I said hurriedly. “Corruption, corruption is an issue but if we end it fast enough we can handle it?”

Malstein considered it for a second then nodded. “Better to be alive and dealing with that than dead. Everyone, a wide v-shaped formation with Miss Harrow at the center. Two squads on each side!”

People hurried into place while I eyed the barricade. Jumbled together tables and chairs, the arcane stove in the middle. That would go up if I hit it, but without it having been on and going for a while it shouldn’t be too explosive.

Not enough time to think, the scrambling was close and its roar was thunderous.

Someone discharged a pistol and I cursed. Malstein yelled for fire to cease till they could hear it breaking down the wood.

Close now. We had one chance to take it down quickly before everything devolved fully into chaos. Once it was past the doorway, blindness would lead to no organization at all.

Another pistol discharged nearby and Malstein yelled for fire to be held again. The sound of talons scraping on stone was right nearby and with a snarl the sounds of crashing wood.

No orders could hold back the pistols now. My ears were overwhelmed by the sound of gunshots and I couldn’t hear any basilisk sounds. I pointed forward, pulling on my power and hellfire flowed out, a stream aimed at the entrance inside.

The roar of the basilisk grew in volume as wood was smashed, the ground shaking underneath my feet. The entire chamber shattered, the sound of bricks being pushed against it. Was it too large for the entrance? A massive clattering sound answered that, probably a wall breaking, bricks falling apart. The sound of pistols faded away as revolvers emptied their chambers, but the roar of the basilisk continued.

The arcane stove exploded, sending bits of wood flying. Screams to either side of me as flying splinters struck, but hellfire must have eaten all that flew at me.

The creature scrambled, claws on stone as it moved towards the left. More gunshots and the sounds of screams as I kept the hellfire going. Tearing flesh, cut-off yells turned to gurgling death rattles as I cut the flames off before they hit where I thought the line was.

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The ground rattled with each step. Something launched into me, wet and heavy and forcing me to the ground. It was only as I lay on the ground shoving it off that I realized it was someone's lower torso and legs, intestine spilling out onto me.

I got up, kicking the half a corpse to the side as the screams continued, along with the gunfire. Whatever line we’d had must have broken down by now. How many were killing each other in this chaos?

Where the hell was the basilisk? I could hear claws scrambling on the ground next to me, and a hiss from further up.

“On the ground!” I yelled and then a second later hellfire sprayed from my hands.

A shriek then a sequel and then something rammed into my stomach. I gasped as the wind got knocked out of me, whatever it was sending me to the ground.

Tail? Tail as it slammed into me again, rock-hard scales smashing into my stomach. My hands scrambled, one touch its smooth surface and immediately I sent rot into it.

Another shriek, as scales turned loose in my hand, coming off its skin as I ran my hand down its tail. I tried to get to my hooves, only for the tail to whip out of my grasp.

More shrieks and screams. Some screams cut off, petrification or death I couldn’t tell as I got my hands on the floor, getting me back upright.

My leg was a pounding, agonizing mess as I turned towards where the sounds of death came.

“On the ground!”

More flames sprayed out, and I could only help people got out of the way as I kept them directed upwards. The basilisk couldn’t get that low! More roaring, but I couldn’t tell if the flame had any effect. The rot did.

The room shook and suddenly I was swept off my feet. Water! The beast had broken the cistern’s floor!

I cut off the flame immediately as I was pushed away, the water sweeping away my feet. I scrambled, fingers trying to find a purchase on the stone floor.

More water kept pouring, and then something rammed into me, shrieking as its bulk ripped me off of the floor.

The basilisk snarled as the water swept us both across the room. A talon sliced at my leg in a panic, cutting right above my hoof, a line of fiery pain. Teeth bit down into my shoulder and my scream was muffled by the water as it poured into my mouth.

I grasped at it, hands slipping on scales but it was enough of a grip. If hellfire couldn’t burn it, let it rot.

Scales came loose and my hands reached deeper, into decaying flesh, into melting bone, and further. Talons ripped and cut and tore as my own hands pulled disintegrating organs apart. It bit my shoulder again and in response, I yanked teeth out of rotting gums.

It screamed, cut, and sliced, and I reached inside, pulling it apart in response. The flood of water stopped, leaving the two of us within four feet of it, that height already rapidly shrinking. The Hydrologist reversed the flooding.

I needed to act fast before it regained its footing. Flesh and skin disintegrated as I tore in, pouring more energy in as I ripped and tore. Pieces flew about, splattering across as the basilisk writhed and then went still.

I didn’t stop, not till my hands tore through the chest cavity and what must be its heart melted into mush. Then, hands coated with liquified organs, I undid my blindfold.

stretching in front of me was a vast lizard, fifteen feet long and a third as broad, its chest cavity open and liquified muck sprayed across the floor. I was knee deep in this black and brown goop, the remnants of flesh and organs. I felt bile rising as I got up, narrowly avoiding a long toothy maw with half its teeth ripped out, the others jutting out at weird angles from its misshapen mouth. Beady little eyes remain fixed on where I’d torn the basilisk’s heart apart.

The only reason it hadn’t killed me was that three of its legs were just gone, stumps trailing strips of flesh. The side of its torso was caved in, gone buttery and soft. It had barely been able to move.

I got up, wading through a puddle of half-melted intestine.

I forced my attention away from the disintegrating monstrosity.

Dr. Dawes and Kalasyp were near the back of the room, huddled among a few other Watch. Malstein with a cluster of others. Others were moving, some wounded screaming as they tried to hold their wounds shut. In the center the Hydrologist stood, hands outstretched as she kept the cistern from flooding down onto us. A hole had opened, water swirling a foot past as she held it at bay.

Twelve? Maybe a few more but twelve seemed the grand number of survivors. Nearly four-fifths of our number had died with me barely being aware.

Blood and bits of bodies lay scattered about, most of them torn to shreds. They weren’t the only things littering the floor.

Scattered bits of stone lay around. A room littered with blood was now littered with rubble. You could make out what had once been what part of other people. Limbs and clothing all turned. That wasn't the only cause of death though.

At least a dozen charred corpses. Hells. I glanced at Malstein as he looked across the floor.

His gaze stayed focused on them and then suddenly he turned. I tensed, flame gathering in my hands as he whirled, hatred filling his eyes.

Malstein shot his pistol into the beast’s eye, once, twice, then thrice.

It was already dead, but I held my tongue. Even after killing the basilisk, some things were more dangerous. Instinct told me getting on the wrong side of the furious Watch captain with the wrong kind of comments would be more harmful than fighting the basilisk again.

“Captain?” Doctor Dawes asked cautiously. “We need to leave. Your hydrologist-”

“Givens, how long can you hold that?” Malstein snapped, ignoring Dawes and turning to glare at the Watch Mage.

She didn’t seem intimidated. “Ten minutes Captain, maybe a little bit longer? It’s a lot of water and the damage to the brickwork is spreading as more tries to breach through. It’s contained, but the longer it’s there the more it’s going to erode the stability.”

Malstein took a shuddering breath. “Is Kalasyp alive?”

He was, over by Dawes, and Malstein stomped over there. I remained by the dead basilisk, eyeing it. Something glinted where Malstein had stopped, glowing where the bullet had punched through eyeball.

“Corruption?” I whispered to the Imp as I leaned down. The glowing was red, a pustulent growth that seemed to be reaching tendrils inside the dead creature's flesh as it beat.

Yes, the Imp replied. A new devil waiting to be born out of this creature’s corpse.

“Lucky,” I remarked, straightening up as my leg protested every little movement. I wiped my hands off on my clothes, just adding more rotted flesh and liquidized organ to the heavy coating present. My clothes were ruined once again.

Indeed, the Imp said. It’ll be truly powerful, having been born out of this tough of a foe.

“Not what I meant. Captain, you’ll want to shoot this before we leave!”

The Imp was silent, then in a petulant whine, You are no fun at all.

No, I thought as I looked at all the dead around us. I’m really not. Let’s see how many others we can teach that little lesson to.