The following morning, the team gathered at the docks. The boat was a modest craft, its hull reinforced with iron bands and equipped with heavy-duty metal fishing nets.
"The plan is simple," Eirene said, her Solaris spear strapped on her back "Kaelen, Theron, and I will go down. Mira, Lyra—you stay on the boat. You are our lifeline. Once you feel the ropes tighten or if you feel something is wrong, pull us up immediately. Don't wait for a signal."
As they drifted away from the dock, the water grew unnaturally still. The surface was like oil, reflecting nothing.
"The gaze," Lyra whispered, her hand gripping the railing. "It's... gone. I don't feel it watching us like yesterday. It's like there's nothing down at all."
"It might be dormant," Eirene said, though her heart hammered against her ribs. "Or it's distracted. Either way, it's our only chance."
Eirene, Kaelen, and Theron climbed into the cumbersome suits. The weight was immense, making every movement a struggle. As the helmets were bolted shut, the world became a claustrophobic hum of recycled air. Eirene produced three illuminating crystals, handing one to each man.
"Use these only when you're deep," she said, her voice muffled through the metal.
They went over the side one by one. The descent was agonizingly slow. The black water swallowed them instantly, the light from the surface vanishing within meters. The only connection to the living world was the thick rope trailing up into the gloom.
As they reached the seabed, they activated their crystals. The soft, white glow pushed back the darkness, revealing a graveyard of ships. But these weren't just wrecks. They were encased in translucent, shimmering bubbles that pulsed with a faint, sickly light.
Eirene moved closer to the nearest one. Her breath hitched. Inside the bubble, a human figure floated, their skin a translucent gray.
"One... two... three..." she counted in her head. Ten. Twenty. Forty. there were more than forty, suspended in rows, their hair swaying in the artificial current within the spheres.
Kaelen suddenly grabbed her arm, pointing toward a figure near the center.
The figure floated in a larger bubble, his armor shattered. Jagged shards of metal drifted like dead leaves in the amber fluid. It was Elian. His face was a mask of peaceful horror, his chest unmoving. Beneath his skin, faint flickers of essence pulsed—not his own, but a parasitic light that fed on his soul.
Time seemed to stall as Eirene stared. She could almost hear the faint, hollow thrumming of the bubbles, a collective heartbeat that wasn't human.
She looked toward the far end, where the bubbles thinned. The seabed dropped away into a jagged trench.
Eirene signaled for Kaelen and Theron to stay back. She drifted toward the edge of the abyss. The silence here was heavy, physical. The rhythmic pulsing of the bubbles behind her slowed, then stopped. The water grew cold—a biting, unnatural chill that seeped through the iron of her suit.
In the depths of that trench, something Shifted.
It wasn't a movement of flesh. It was a movement of light. A hundred pinpricks of pale, milky white snapped open simultaneously. They weren't eyes; they were vents of pure, malevolent essence. The pressure in the water spiked, the metal of Eirene's suit groaning as if a giant hand had suddenly tightened around it.
Then, the bubbles reacted.
The spheres behind them began to vibrate, the souls inside drifting toward the trench as if drawn by a magnet. The very ocean seemed to inhale.
On the surface, Mira and Lyra paced the small deck.
"They've been down too long," Mira said, her hand hovering over her bow. "Do you think they're okay?"
Lyra didn't answer immediately. She was rubbing her temples, a sharp, pulsing headache starting to bloom behind her eyes—the tell-tale sign of high-class corruption. "They'll be fine" she said, her voice strained. "I still don't feel the creature's direct gaze. They will be back soon"
Suddenly, Lyra's eyes went wide as she clutched her head, a sharp cry escaping her. "Mira! Move the boat! It's back! I can feel it... it's here!"
Mira reached for the controls, pushed the boat at full speed towards the shore.
Lyra started pulling the ropes attached to the suit as fast she could.
They hauled with everything they had, the crystal motor roaring. They were just meters from the shore when the sea behind them simply... opened. The water didn't splash; it peeled back in perfect, concentric circles, revealing a mass of writhing, black tentacles that were woven into the very currents.
The vessel was tossed into the air like a toy, crashing onto the sandy shore.
Mira and Lyra were thrown into the shallows. They scrambled to their feet, dragging the three heavy suits out of the wreckage.
A voice, low and ancient, rose from the depths. It wasn't a sound, but a vibration that rattled their teeth, a psychic echo of a thousand stolen memories.
Theron, stumbling out of his helmet, looked back at the sea, his face white with terror. "What the hell is that?"