I didn't think. I swapped to Reaper's Edge in the time it took my heart to beat, and the death mana poured cold into my right hand. The kama bloomed out of black smoke and settled into my palm, eighteen inches of crystallized dark that ate the gold light around it. Reaping Dash threw me five meters sideways in a smear of shadow. I landed beside Belle and brought the blade down across the tentacle a hand's width above her boot.
It went through the rubbery flesh without any resistance. The cut edges went black instantly, and rot spread outward from the wound in branching lines that turned the pale skin grey and then brittle. The tentacle spasmed and let go. Something under the water shrieked loud enough to vibrate the rock under my knees, and the severed length flopped across Belle's legs and kept twitching.
Belle kicked it off her with both feet and then kept kicking it, long after it had stopped mattering.
"Is it dead? Tell me it's dead, Jace."
