… But it wasn't their blood.
The red haze floating through the air did not come from the Awakeners themselves; it sprayed from the severed tentacles that Lucius had cut through a second earlier.
His hand cut a smooth arc through the sky, space distorting around his fingers as another cluster of tentacles ruptured mid-air, scattering chunks that splashed violently into the blood sea below.
The air cracked as he spun, drifting through the battleground like someone taking a casual stroll rather than fighting an abomination the size of a building.
"Fight!" someone shouted, and the entire raid exploded into motion.
Vanessa inhaled slowly as a tentacle whipped toward her.
It was large enough to crush a building, covered in strange suction marks that pulsed with bioluminescence, and yet the moment it touched her, the barrier of space Lucius had placed around her flickered and sent it skidding backward.
She didn't waste the moment.
