BOOOOM!The sonic shockwave slammed into Elios’s chest like an invisible sledgehammer.He was hurled backward, his spine crashing into the hood of a rusted sedan parked at the edge of the field. The windshield shattered into a thousand fragments. Elios coughed violently, the salty taste of blood flooding his mouth.“Bastard… fast as hell…” Elios cursed, forcing himself to rise on trembling arms.At the center of the field, the dust slowly thinned. Kael hovered there, ten centimeters above the ground. His golden armor, Paladin Armor MK-V Seraphim, hummed softly, surrounded by a transparent hexagonal energy field. The mechanical wings on his back beat lazily, shedding particles of light that made his eyes look like those of an angel sent to reap souls.“You look pathetic, Elios,” Kael said calmly, his arrogant voice amplified by external speakers. “You were once the finest soldier of my generation. And now? A vagrant with a rusted handgun.”“And you’re still an action figure with a serm

The giant screen at the intersection of District 9 flickered back to life. Black and white static vanished, replaced by the rotating golden emblem of Sanctum Veritatis, majestic against an artificial blue sky. Calming orchestral music, music engineered to psychologically lower heart rates, flowed softly from the city speakers.Elios and Vera crouched behind a pile of wet garbage in a narrow alley, staring at the screen while holding their breath.The face of the High Priest appeared. Not Bishop Valdos, but the supreme leader of the Church itself. An elderly man in white silk robes, crowned with a double tiara. His face was carved with wrinkles of manufactured virtue, polished by makeup.“My beloved children,” the High Priest said gently, his paternal tone clashing with the chaos that had just unfolded. “Tonight, our faith is tested. A blasphemous video has been spread by agents of darkness.”On the screen, clips of Elios’s footage replayed, now stamped with a massive red label: DEEPFA

The streets of Sector 9 felt longer than usual that night. Every step Elios took left a faint trail of blood on the wet asphalt, a trail that was quickly washed away by the merciless acid rain.Vera supported Elios on his left side. His body, usually upright and commanding, now hung heavily against her shoulder. His breathing was short and ragged, rattling like an old engine running out of oil. The fingers of his right hand, their nails torn out by Vargo, still dripped blood, staining the hem of Vera’s jacket red.“Hold on, Elios. Just a little farther,” Vera whispered, her voice trembling from physical exhaustion. She herself was battered, her neck bruised purple from strangulation, but the adrenaline from killing her first human earlier kept her upright.“I’m… heavy, huh?” Elios muttered, his eyes half-closed. “Just dump me in a trash bin. I’ll catch up later.”“Shut up. Don’t talk. You’re wasting oxygen,” Vera snapped, dragging him into a narrow alley behind a closed electronics fl

The storm lashed Elios’s face like shards of ice. Thirty meters above the submarine’s deck, the wind howled so violently that the ancient crane groaned and swayed as if it might collapse at any second.“You sure this cable can hold?” Vera shouted, her voice nearly swallowed by thunder. She stared at the thick steel line stretched diagonally from the crane’s arm down to a stack of cargo near the submarine’s open hatch.“The cable’s solid,” Elios yelled back as he looped his leather belt around the steel cable to use as a makeshift slider. “My hands are what I don’t trust. But it’s this or we become fish food.”Below them, the Marine Paladin frogmen were growing more aggressive. They slammed rifle stocks into the submarine crew, forcing them face-down on the deck. One Paladin technician knelt beside an exterior panel, attaching a hacking device to the hull, trying to seize control of the navigation system.“They’re locking the systems!” Vera said, watching through her scope. “If that th

The world flipped upside down as the colossal jaws snapped shut.KRAAAKKK!The sound of metal grinding against diamond-sharp teeth was horrific, muffled by thousands of tons of seawater. Elios felt like an ant trapped inside a soda can being crushed by a giant hand.Total darkness.The only light came from the emergency indicators inside his exosuit helmet, blinking in frantic red, and the dim blue glow of bioluminescence lining the ceiling of the creature’s mouth.“WARNING: STRUCTURAL DAMAGE TO LEFT ARM. PRESSURE LEAK IN LEG SECTOR. HULL INTEGRITY: 65%.”The dive suit’s AI spoke calmly, delivering news of impending death.Elios was slammed violently from side to side as the Leviathan shook its head in a frenzy, trying to swallow the “iron pill” lodged in its throat.“Ugh… smells like a fish market dumpster left out in the sun for a week,” Elios muttered, fighting nausea. The monster’s breath pierced his air filters. Stomach acid, rotting flesh, pure methane.He was not in the stomach