The ocean floor did not just shake. It convulsed.
When the safety valves blew, the pillar of magma that erupted was not merely hot rock. It was the pressurized fury of the planet itself. It slammed into the Leviathan with the force of a falling mountain.
The impact created a shockwave of steam so violent that it instantly vaporized thousands of gallons of water. The resulting bubble of superheated gas expanded outward, slamming Verdict against the far wall of the drilling chamber.
He hit the rusted steel with a sickening crunch.
Pain exploded in his chest. His ribs felt like broken glass grinding together. His vision swam, filling with black spots that danced in the angry red light of the chamber.
For a moment, there was only the roar. A sound so loud it ceased to be noise and became a physical vibration in his marrow.
Then, silence.
The steam cloud hung in the water, a thick, white nebula glowing from within.
"Did... did we get it." Lens's voice crackled in Verdict's ear. It was faint. Filled with static and terror.
Verdict coughed. A cloud of blood misted the water in front of his face. He tried to raise his rifle, but his arms felt heavy. Like lead.
"I don't...." He rasped, his voice strangled, air bubbling in his throat. "I don't see it."
"Thermal visibility....nothing. The heat... it blinds the sensors."
He pushed himself off the wall. He floated in the scalding currents, his eyes scanning the white void.
Something was wrong.
The water temperature wasn't dropping. It was rising.
"Lens," Verdict said. His voice was tight. "Why....why is the water getting hotter."
In the control room, Lens stared at his monitors.
The screens were flashing red. Every warning light on the console was screaming.
But Lens wasn't looking at the warnings. He was looking at the energy readings from the center of the chamber.
"Oh, Creator. No… no, no..." The words fell, broken, from his lips. He tapped the screen as if his trembling fingertip could undo reality.
"Lens?" Verdict growled, already dreading the answer.
"This can't....Verdict, we...this is impossible!" Lens stammered. "That heat should've slagged the hull...melted it. How....how is...."
And then, his voice cut to a primal scream: "Verdict! Get out now!"
The steam cloud in the center of the chamber began to swirl. It turned from white to a deep, angry orange. Then, it ignited.
A massive shape tore through the steam.
The Leviathan had changed. The black, corroded iron of its armor was gone. In its place, the metal glowed with a blinding, white-hot incandescence. The creature had absorbed the magma. Its internal coolant systems had reversed, sucking in the thermal energy to empower its core.
It wasn't a submarine anymore. It was a swimming sun.
The water around it boiled instantly on contact, creating a cavitation trail of pure steam. Its red eye was now a beam of concentrated light, sweeping the darkness like a lighthouse of death.
"Verdict, it adapted," Lens gasped over the comms. "The Syltharim...they built it for the magma. It's siphoning thermal energy like a battery. We gave it… we gave it a recharge."
Verdict hovered, leveling his glare at the blazing beast. Against all odds, he felt no fear.
Only exhaustion. The heavy, bone-deep irritation of someone too stubborn for despair.
"I swear," Verdict muttered, "one day, ancient tech will let me have a clean fight."
The Leviathan shrieked. The sound was different now. It wasn't metal grinding. It was the hiss of a thousand steam whistles.
It spotted Verdict.
The creature opened its maw. The grinders inside were spinning so fast they glowed yellow. A beam of concentrated thermal energy began to gather in its throat.
"Move!" Lens yelled.
Verdict didn't need to be told twice. He activated his Third Spirit Skill, Silent Glider. But the water was too turbulent. The heat destroyed the aerodynamics.
He barely managed to twist his body as the Leviathan fired.
A lance of red light pierced the water. It missed Verdict by a meter, but the heat alone seared his skin through his clothes. The beam struck the wall behind him, melting through three meters of reinforced steel in a blink.
Verdict tumbled through the water, frantically trying to regain his balance. He raised his rifle and fired three shots.
THWIP. THWIP. THWIP.
The blue soul-slugs struck the Leviathan's flank.
They melted before they even hit the armor.
"That heat shield's incinerating projectiles!" Verdict barked.
"No kidding!" Lens snapped. "I'm....just give me....Argh! This rig is dying!" His human hand tore at his already-disheveled hair while his mechanical limb jacked further into the console. Somewhere within, the machine-mind faltered, but still whispered the answer he sought.
"The beast!" Lens gasped. "It's overheating! Creator save us, it's overclocking its own systems! It's burning faster than its core can channel....Verdict, we have to vent it! Force it to discharge!"
Verdict ducked behind what little cover the chamber offered. The Leviathan, now frantic with scorching agony, shattered the surrounding monoliths like twigs.
"Vent it? HOW!?" Verdict growled. His ammo pouch felt too light.Two slugs left. Only two.. Finite. "WHAT'S THE TARGET?"
Lens's bloodshot eyes widened as he slammed his mechanical finger against blueprints on-screen. "The SPINE! Pressure vents along its spine....they release heat when it charges that abomination of a beam! They're unshielded for two seconds max!"
"The spine…" Verdict repeated. He peeked out, spotting the pulsating jets of blue flame that shimmered between sleek plates. "Great."
"And you have to be above it. And you have to hit the intake valve. It is the size of a dinner plate."
"Dinner plate," Verdict said, a grim chuckle rumbling past his cracked lips. "Might as well be a barn door."
"Verdict." Lens's voice cracked, his words tripping over themselves. "If you miss—you miss, Verdict—it'll cook you alive!"
"I don't miss."
He pushed off the pillar. He didn't swim away. He swam up. toward the ceiling of the drilling chamber.
The Leviathan sensed him. It raised its head, the blinding light of its maw charging again. It looked like a dragon preparing to breathe fire.
Verdict floated near the ceiling. The heat up here was unbearable. His skin was blistering. His vision was blurring.
He closed his eyes.
Vision was a liability in the blinding chaos. Precision, perfection, those didn't come from sight. They came from instinct, from honed skill, from the eerie calm of the void.
He didn't need to see.
He felt the water displacement. He felt the hum of the energy building in the beast's throat.
"Eighth Spirit Skill," Verdict whispered.
The massive railgun in his hands began to transform. The metal barrel split open, revealing a glowing blue core of pure, condensed Spirit Power. The water around the gun hissed and boiled.
This was his strongest attack. The Final Shot.
Unlike other weapons, it didn't rely on brute force or fiery destruction. No, this was different. It compressed every shred, every spark of his remaining soul power into a hyper-concentrated, needle-thin projectile.
They said it could punch through a mountain.
But it took time to charge.
Five seconds.
The Leviathan opened its mouth. The red light grew blinding.
A small crackle interrupted the silence. "Verdict, you're not taking your shot!" Lens barked over the comms, more desperation than reprimand. "If you wait too long, it'll—"
"Lens." Verdict's voice was calm enough to cut through the panic like ice. He didn't shout. He didn't explain. He simply... ordered.
"Distract it."
"Distract it?" Lens sounded like choking.
"With what? I'm in a steel closet with no weapons, no...Verdict, there's a divide between insanity and heroism, and you..."
"You'll think of something," Verdict interrupted, his focus unbroken. "Now
Lens scowled, his flesh hand running through his hair in aggressive, fruitless frustration.
"I swear, I'm going to kill you if we don't die here," Lens muttered. His gaze darted over the dying consoles, the convulsing readouts, and…
The gravity stabilizers. The turbine controls.
His mechanical hand twitched.
His mind raced.
"I hate you so much," Lens growled. Then his synthesized hand shot forward, gripping the rusted lever of the stabilizers. One warning light flashed across the screen in protest, but Lens didn't hesitate.
He slammed the stabilizer lever to 'Reverse'.
The entire Rig groaned. The gravity inside the drilling chamber shifted violently. For a split second, up became down. Debris from the floor flew toward the ceiling.
The Leviathan, caught in the sudden gravity shift, flinched. Its aim was thrown off. The thermal beam fired wild, carving a trench into the ceiling meters away from Verdict.
But the exertion forced its systems to vent.
Along its spine, the armored plates slid open with a metallic clank. Blue fire erupted from the vents.
There.
Amidst the blinding light and the blue fire, a small, dark circle opened. The intake valve.
Verdict opened his eyes.
His pupils were gone. His eyes were entirely black, focused on a single point in space and time.
The gravity shift ended. The debris began to fall. The Leviathan roared, correcting its orientation, bringing its maw back toward the tiny human floating above it.
It was too late.
"The Final Shot."
And he pulled the trigger.
There was no sound. The shot was faster than the concept of noise, faster than recognition. In an instant, all that was left was the aftermath.
A thin, blue line appeared in the water. It connected the barrel of the railgun to the spine of the Leviathan.
The beam passed through the steam. It passed through the heat shield. It threaded the needle between the erupting flames.
It struck the intake valve.
The shot didn't stop there. It drilled down, punching through the creature's internal piping, shattering the cooling rods, and piercing the supercharged core.
The Leviathan froze.
Its roar cut off abruptly.
The light in its eyes flickered. Then, it turned from red to a terrifying, unstable violet.
"Take cover now!" Lens screamed over the comms.
Verdict dropped his gun. He crossed his arms over his chest and curled into a ball, letting the current take him.
The Leviathan exploded.
It wasn't a fiery explosion. It was a thermal collapse. The creature imploded, dragging the water in, then detonated outward in a shockwave of boiling force.
The blast hit Verdict.
He didn't feel pain. He just felt the world turn white. He was thrown backward, tumbling through the darkness, smashing through walls and pipes until he hit something hard and didn't move again.
...
Silence returned to the Rig.
The water in the chamber was still. The red glow was gone, replaced by the dying sparks of the destroyed machine.
In the control room, Lens stared at the screen.
The signal for the Leviathan was gone.
"Verdict."
No answer.
"Verdict. Report.Talk to me, you cranky oaf.""
Only static.
Lens stood up. He grabbed a rebreather mask from the wall and jammed it over his face. He kicked open the door to the flooded corridor.
"You big, stupid brute," Lens growled. "I told you not to scratch the damn paint."
He dove into the water.
He swam through the wreckage, his mechanical arm lighting the way. He found Verdict embedded in a pile of crushed piping near the edge of the chamber.
The sniper was alive. Barely. His coat was shredded. His skin was burned. His rifle was gone.
But his chest was moving. Shallow, ragged breaths.
Lens grabbed him by the harness. The researcher, usually weak and complaining, engaged the servos in his mechanical arm to maximum power. He dragged the heavy man through the water, kicking with everything he had.
They surfaced in the airlock chamber. Lens hit the emergency drain.
As the water receded, Verdict coughed, spitting out a mouthful of bloody water. He opened one swollen eye.
"Did I... miss."
Lens slumped against the wall, panting. He looked at the sniper and let out a hysterical, shaky laugh.
"No. You didn't miss. You crazy bastard. You killed the sun."
Verdict nodded once. "Good."
"But we aren't done," Lens said, standing up. He pointed to the center of the drained drilling chamber.
Lying amidst the scattered scrap metal of the Leviathan was a pulsing, geometric object. It glowed with a deep, rhythmic magma-light.
The Abyssal Forge.
"We have to bag it," Lens said. "And then we have to leave before this entire station falls into the mantle."
Verdict groaned, trying to sit up. "You carry it."
"What?"
Verdict groaned and rolled onto his side with obvious effort. "I'm taking a nap."
Lens walked into the wreckage. He approached the Artifact. The heat coming off it was intense, but bearable now that the guardian was dead.
He reached out with his mechanical hand. The metal fingers closed around the artifact.
It was heavy. Denser than gold. It hummed against his palm, a vibration that traveled up his arm and into his teeth.
"Got you," Lens whispered.
He pulled a lead-lined box from his pack and dropped the artifact inside. He sealed the lid. The humming stopped.
He looked back at Verdict. The sniper was already unconscious.
Lens sighed. He activated his comms, sending a signal to the surface.
"Mission Accomplished. Requesting extraction. And... bring a medic. Gore is going to be hungry, and I don't want him eating Verdict."
To be continued...