The stake jerked up as if it weighed nothing. The Preta's arms were thin, no thicker than Radeon's, yet the wood rose in its grip with ungodly ease.

It planted one heel, tilted forward, and then it was gone.

An afterimage. A gust that stank of grave damp.

It was suddenly right in front of them, eyes bulging, tongue whipping the air.

"Run," Radeon roared.

Fay turned and sprinted for the exit. Stone scraped under her soles. Cold air tore at her lungs.

A swarm of infant shaped Tiyanak surged after her, giggling and panting, but she did not look back. She did not care. She only ran.

Behind her, Radeon grabbed the stake the Preta held and drove his qi hard. His sole and the ground below linked as if he were a tree.

A Hundred Ton Sutra. He anchored himself, shoulders set. For one breath he became immovable.

The Preta yanked, veins standing out under its ghastly pale skin. The ground shook and Radeon was uprooted.

It swung him and flung him across the cavern.

Radeon released his hold on the land, then turned back to the stake, his fingers weaving fast, threads flashing in the dim.

A net snapped out. The Preta lurched, and the threads cinched around it, pulling it back to its own stake.

"Fay, use your flame," Radeon commanded.

She skidded to a stop, four dozen meters, and ignited herself. Teal flames crawled up her arms.

The familiar burn of her own power. She fed it into her whip until it glowed, then cracked it forward.

Fire hissed through the air.

The Preta recoiled. Even bound, it sensed the threat. It thrashed hard enough that the strings bit into its flesh.

Cuts opened across its limbs. But Fay's first strike tore past its shoulder and burned stone instead.

She cursed under her breath and threw another lash of flame.

Too late. The Preta had already freed itself the only way it could. It cut its own body apart on the threads.

Pieces slapped wetly onto the floor. A hand. A chunk of rib and tongue. A leg, not fully there.

Radeon moved, kicking the gore apart. He drove each piece as far from the others as he could.

The Tiyanak joined in, delighted. They grabbed bits and scuttled away with them, giggling as if this was a child's game.

Fay's stomach tightened. The head proved her right.

It was already forming, swelling, knitting, floating upward like a bloated lantern. It opened its mouth and began to gulp. It swallowed pieces of itself whole.

When the Tiyanak ran, it chased them, tongue snapping out to reel them in, and the Tiyanak shrieked with laughter as they dodged.

Some even paused to sculpt organ-like soil from the nearby dirt, then let themselves be chased around, laughing until their eyes watered.

"Fay," Radeon called, and she heard doubt under his calm. "Are you able to hit it?"

"I can, Master," she shouted back. "My aim was only a little astray."

Radeon's threads snapped forward again. He chased the half-formed Preta, not giving it time to breathe.

The ghost barely spared him a look. It was missing its two legs, rebuilding itself in ugly increments.

"Fay, charge your fire now," Radeon said.

"Understood, Master. Please don't worry."

Fay drew breath and packed heat into her core until her skin prickled. Her whip trembled in her grip.

Radeon struck first. A needle of thread shot into the Preta's head. He pulled himself in along that line, body cutting through the air, and slammed down with the weight of his sutra.

The Preta ate dirt. Fay snapped her whip. Flame tore forward.

Radeon turned into it. For a heartbeat his eyes widen. He dropped his weight and flung himself aside, barely escaping the edge of her fire as it crashed down where he had been.

The Preta shrieked, not out of pain but out of laughter and schadenfreude.

Then, impossibly, it lifted its half formed hand and raised a thumb toward Fay, as if praising her.

Radeon's mind spun in calculations. That was not the mind of a mindless devouring ghost. It watched. It learned. It mocked.

Radeon saw it the moment Fay hesitated again. Her fire was strong. Her aim was not.

If he kept waiting on her, the ghost would eat them both.

He changed tactics. He stopped thinking of the Preta as a whole. He hunted it in parts.

Joints. Tendons. Points where the body needed to agree with itself.

A Tiyanak had one of those pieces. It hugged the scrap to its infant chest, wide eyed, pretending it held nothing at all.

Radeon did not waste a breath on threats. He dashed for it, qi spinning up hard, and ran his devouring art as ruthlessly as he dared.

The joint piece dried in his grasp like meat left in salt. It shriveled, cracking, as ghastly energy surged through him.

His skin paled. For an instant the imbalance made his veins feel like ice.

The Preta paused, unsure what he had just done. Confusion flickered across its bulging eyes.

Then it reacted with brute certainty. It shoved Radeon aside and flung him, again, as if distance could undo damage.

Radeon spun in midair.,He was already looking, already measuring the field like a board.

There. A heel. Another piece not yet fully claimed. He hit the ground, drove forward, and devoured again.

The heel went dry and brittle, shriveling under his fingers. This time the Preta understood.

It lunged for its own limb, trying to pull the piece back into itself, and found that it could not move like it used to.

The leg that should have snapped it into a dash dragged instead. Pain rippled through the ghost's posture.

The hungry ghost raised its head and stared at Radeon. Radeon answered with a smirk. He beckoned it with two fingers, slow and insulting.

The Preta charged. It planted its stance and began to punch, arms whipping out in long pale arcs.

Blow cut the air, tens of them released within a breath. Radeon moved with extreme precision, twisting and folding himself through narrow gaps.

A shoulder dipped. A foot slid. His spine bent at angles that would have broken a lesser man.

He knew the math of it. He could take maybe a couple dozen blows before his bones started turning to powder.

He could not take one clean hit.

Fay stood back with her whip trembling in her hands. She tried to find the line. The clear shot.

But the group of Tiyanak kept scuttling across her sight, giggling, darting in and out like distractions made of flesh.

Each time she aimed, one of them popped up, and her fear jerked her wrist aside.

She guarded against one that crept too close, shoulders tight, breath shallow.

Then she forced a deep inhale.

If she could not land a big flame, then she did not need a big flame.

An idea struck her, simple and mean. Sand in the eyes.

Not one lash that had to be perfect. Many small burns. A scatter that would find its way.

She closed her eyes for a heartbeat and started to visualize it.

Smaller flames. Split. Broken. Thrown. Not a whip crack, but a handful cast.

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