The cold morning mist curled around the whirlpool’s dock like a restless ghost, and Maria stood at the edge of Lighthouse Seven’s dock, her expression unreadable, her hands buried in her coat pockets. It was snowy. Visibility across the surface of the whirlpool was nigh zero. Marisol could only tell she was waving at them because the Archive pointed it out—and if she hadn’t known Maria was trying to communicate with them, she wouldn’t even be trying to read the hastily scribbled words on the giant wooden board Maria was lifting overhead.

  Leaning against the ship’s railings next to Marisol, Reina’s lips twitched in what might’ve been a worried smile, what might’ve been an angry frown. Maria supposed to be up in Lighthouse Five monitoring all of them, after all, not standing down in the docks where her eyelashes were about to be frozen off, but Marisol felt slightly warmed by the fact that the Second Lighthouse Imperator even thought to see them off personally in this cold weather.

  They couldn’t mess this up now.

  “... Lass,” Victor called out, beckoning the two of them still on the deck of the ship to climb inside the diving bell with him. “You’ll see the surface again. I promised you that much, didn’t I?”

  So Marisol closed her eyes, sucked in a deep, chilly breath, and whirled around with Reina to climb into the largest diving bell she’d seen thus far. It was nearly five times as spacious as Maria’s private one—it was practically an entire house shaped like one of those spiky pufferfish—and it was self-locking, self-raising, self-descending. There was no need for a crane operator outside on the ship. The moment the two of them threw themselves through, Victor pulled a lever on the inside and the latch slammed itself shut, half a dozen bolts sliding in place to make the bell completely airtight.

  The latch sealing was the signal for the bell to drop into the whirlpool, and at the exact same time, thirty-two other diving bells across the surface of the whirlpool dropped with them.

  Reluctantly, Marisol sat on the far end of a metal bench, her hands gripping the edge tightly. She wasn’t alone in the bell, and maybe that contributed to her anxiousness. Andres leaned against the wall across from her, his arms folded over his chest. The First Lighthouse Imperator sat beside him, slouched and unbothered, his head resting against the wall as if he were napping. Victor, seated next to Hugo, had a faint smile tugging at his bandages, but his usual lackadaisical lint was dulled. On Marisol’s left, Claudia meticulously arranged vials and tools in her medical kit, while Reina sat on the right, eyes closed, her body unnaturally still as she meditated with her tail curled beneath her crossed legs.

  Maybe there was something to be said about putting the city’s strongest people in the same diving bell—and Marisol certainly was worried the diving bell would collapse abruptly and kill all of them in one fell swoop—but the old man would probably say that people who couldn’t dodge out of a collapsing bell wouldn’t be here in the first place. In that sense, she was and worried.

  She wished the Lighthouse Imperatorsmore worried, though, because the silence was suffocating and she wanted something to think about. The only sounds were the faint creaks of the bell’s steel frame and the rhythmic thrum of the chains vibrating through the ceiling. Nobody seemed like they wanted to talk.

  And just as Marisol started fidgeting in herself, wanting anything but being left alone with her anxious thoughts, Hugo tossed something at her from the other side of the bell.

  She blinked and whipped her head up, catching the small capelet out of the air.

  “... I heard you’ve been killing a lot of Giant-Classes the past few months,” Hugo said idly, miming throwing the capelet over his right shoulder. “Thought it’s about time you got something like this.”

  Everyone else looked at her expectantly, and she furrowed her brows as she flipped the capelet twice over just to see what was engraved onto the high-quality piece of garment… but the moment she realised what it was, she looked up again and tried to meet anyone's eyes.

  Quite humorously, none of the Imperators were looking at her anymore. Reina returned to meditating, Claudia resumed arranging her medical kit, the First Lighthouse Imperator and Andres slept quietly, and Hugo stared blankly up at the ceiling with his arms crossed behind his back. Only Victor—and only him—dared to give her a small, mischievous smile before kicking back on his bench, twirling his cane around.

  For her part, Marisol immediately threw the flower-patterned capelet over her shoulder and clipped it onto her shirt, beaming widely as she watched it sway like the waves behind her.

  the Archive said, whistling as it crawled up and down the white, blue, and pinkish-purple streaks of fabric.

  Marisol couldn't stop grinning as she kept turning around, mesmerised by her own swaying capelet.

  She grumbled, but didn’t make a big deal out of it while Victor was still right across the bell. She could ask later—right now, as all of them jerked to a halt, she had to quickly buckle on her harness and pop a few skyball corals into her mouth.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  If this were like any other mission, the dive leader would’ve already kicked the latch open, but Andres broke the silence first, his voice low but firm.

  “Maria. Lighthouse Five,” he said, addressing the hexagonal slab embedded in the ceiling. A moment later, someone’s garbled voice crackled through the slab, brisk and professional.

  “Aura readings are steady. Two confirmed Insect Gods in Depth Five with a third signal deeper in Depth Seven. That one has to be Kalakos.”

  “Understood.” Andres glanced around the bell, his sharp gaze landing on each of them in turn. “And are all of you ready?”

  The question hung in the air, unanswered. Marisol’s heart pounded in her chest as she looked around. No one seemed eager to reply. The weight of the moment pressed against all of them, and as she wondered why they were still being quiet, the realization struck her.

  They weren’t quiet because they wanted to be—they were quiet because they were anxious, just like her.

  In an odd way, the realisation brought her comfort. She wasn’t alone in her fear.

  Finally, one by one, the Lighthouse Imperators nodded. Reina first, then Hugo, then Claudia. The First muttered something unintelligible that sounded like assent. Marisol clenched her fists and nodded as well, and when Andres’ gaze lingered on Victor for a moment, the old man just shrugged as though to say ‘I ain’t getting out of the bell anyways’.

  With that, Andres snorted and reached for the latch. The steel groaned as he pushed it open—and Marisol was sucked out once more into the unknown.

  The first thing she noticed wasn’t the weight of water. It was the smell, sharp and pungent, that clawed through her nose.

  Unlike the dark, towering cliffs of the Whispering Canyons, the terrain here offered little to no natural cover. The mostly flat expanse of rolling wave-like plains seemed to stretch on forever, broken only by scattered amber mineral mounds and pools of bubbling, sulfurous muck. It felt exposed. Vulnerable. A hundred of them landed on the walls of the whirlpool, and it almost felt like their touching down all at once made the ground crack and rumble—such was the brittleness of Depth Five.

  While Marisol flushed out the excess bubbles in her head, the First and Andres took the lead, making hand signals back at the supporting Imperators and Guards. She glanced around only briefly to see heavy artillery cannons being dropped from the suspended bells, construction work beginning on the defensive shelters and outposts by the edge of Depth Five. Visibility was no issue here even with the thick haze lingering in the water. The thirty-three diving bells were fitted with intense mist-piercing spotlights, and presumably, some of the bells mounted with smaller cannons would be following them deeper into Depth Five.

  So when Reina beckoned her to follow the vanguards with a stern look, she obliged immediately.

  There were no canyons, no winding passageways, no tunnels or forests they had to navigate through. If it weren’t for the haze, they’d probably be able to see straight to the end of Depth Five, so all they had to do was walk in a straight line until they were close enough to the end.

  the Archive said, filling the silence as she followed the vanguards, and about a hundred Imperators not assigned to building or constructing followed her in turn.

  Marisol frowned, trying not to look too jumpy as they marched down the first two-hundred-metre stretch of Depth Five.

  the Archive countered plainly

  Marisol’s unease deepened. Amplified bugs. Resilient. She didn’t like the way those words felt, but it true, with so many of them gathered here, that she didn’t detect a single bug around them.

  No doubt the Archive was running a thousand more complicated calculations in her head without her being aware of them, but her job wasn’t to plan or analyse what the Swarm’s plan could be. She was here to smash it apart, whatever it be, and everyone seemed to agree on that.

  So when the First Lighthouse Imperator paused at the head of the march, all hundred or so of them paused as well.

  Marisol tensed, clenching her jaw as they passed the eight hundred metre mark.

  Even if their diving bells’ spotlights could only cut through the haze a hundred metres in front of them, the sickening killing pressures coming from two hundred metres away didn’t bother hiding themselves.

  “... Barnacle,” the First rasped, raising a shaky arm as he pointed his sheathed iron blade straight forward. “Water scorpion.”

  As he breathed those words, the hazy outlines of two human-like figures came into view at the far end of Depth Five. The water grew heavier around Marisol as her pulse picked up. The two of them were motionless, yet their presence was suffocating. One was disjointed and monstrous, his form riddled with calcified barnacle growths. The other was tall, sleek, and predatory, with long, sharp limbs that swished idly around as though the water itself was sharpening her blades.

  Rhizocapala and Eurypteria.

  And behind them loomed something worse.

  Sitting on the border between Depth Six and Seven, a massive shape shifted in the underwater currents. It was too far and too big to make out fully even if Marisol craned her entire head back, but her eyes locked onto a glint of carapace and the faint silhouette of jagged crab claws the sizes of entire warships. Her imagination filled in the gaps.

  “Is that… the Greater Crab God?” she whispered, barely audible.

  But no one answered. All of them gritted their teeth as the two Insect Gods began to move. Rhizocapala stepped forward first, his grin widening as he tilted his head, regarding them with a mix of amusement and disdain.

  “We’ve been waitin’ for ye,” he said, his voice guttural and echoing, as if a thousand smaller voices whispered in unison. “What took ye so long?”

  His voice sent shivers down Marisol’s spine as usual. It wasn’t the deep, booming voice of a god, but insidious was its nature—and Eurypteria didn’t even bother speaking. She didn’t need to. Her presence alone was suffocating, her unblinking gaze fixed on all of them as if she were already dicing them apart in her mind.

  Then, there was that colossal, unmoving silhouette of a crab sitting right behind them, and—

  Victor’s laugh boomed from one of the diving bells above their heads, making everyone jump in place.

  “... Really, Rhizo?” he said, still laughing between breaths as Marisol heard paper rustling, like he was wiping tears from how hard he was laughing. “That’s the best strategy you’ve got to throw at us, you fucking bugs? You think putting one of Corpsetaker’s old shells in front of us will freak us out? Maybe even scare us back to Depth Four so you’d get more time preparing whatever surprise it is you have for us?”

  Marisol blinked.

  Everyone did as well.

  Then they turned to stare at the colossal crab, and they started thinking. They started paying attention. They stopped letting fear grip their hearts, and even Marisol came to the exact same conclusion—there may be a lingering aura and killing pressure coming from the crab, but it was old. Diminishing.

  the Archive said, sighing as it shook its head in disappointment.

  The First Lighthouse Imperator mumbled something under his breath, unsheathing his dull sword. Andres shrugged off his Imperatrix cape, pumping his giant mantis shrimp arms. Hugo began spinning spider webs in his arms, Claudia took a few steps back to ready her medical staff, Reina twirled her scorpion tail in anticipation, and every last Imperator and Guard in Depth Five began shouting at each other, forming a chain of information relays as the diving bells mounted with artillery cannons started whirring to life.

  The weight of Depth Five lifted almost instantaneously with one short sentence from Victor, and now, was ready to fight.

  “... Ye suck, Victor Morina,” Rhizocapala groaned aloud, giving them all a guilty grin as he thumbed back at the giant crab carcass. “‘Ah mean, yer right that this was just our filthy attempt to make ye piss yer pants and maybe consider backin’ off, but… damn. ‘Ah really, thought it’d work for, like, half a second—”

  Without a word, Andres and the First exploded towards Rhizocapala, and Victor roared a single word—“fire”—that reverberated across the entirety of Depth Five.

  [Objective #66: Slay the F-Rank Barnacle God, Rhizocapala, and the E-Rank Water Scorpion God, Eurypteria]

  [Time Limit: Undefined]

  [Reward: Death of the Sea Gods, peace in the Whirlpool City, and one vial of healing seawater]

  [Failure: Death]

  Next chapter on Saturday!

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