KRAAAKKK! The sound echoed like the world's spine snapping in half. A three-meter thick layer of ice split apart as the conning tower of the submarine, The Ghost Ferry, breached the frozen surface of the Bay of Death. Giant shards of ice launched into the air, crashing back down onto the slick, black steel deck. HISSSS! The main hatch swung open. Hot steam from inside the vessel froze instantly into ice crystals upon contact with the outside air. Elios climbed out first. His boots landed heavily on the uneven, jagged ice. "Damn," he hissed. It wasn't because of the view. It was the cold. A temperature of minus 40 degrees Celsius slapped him across the face. A polar wind carrying sharp ice grains stabbed at his skin like thousands of micro-needles. Inside his nose, the fine hairs froze instantly. Every breath felt like inhaling powdered glass. Vera followed behind him, coughing as the frigid air shocked her lungs. She wore the thick parka provide

That wall should not exist in the real world. It rose fifty meters high, a vertical blade splitting the white Antarctic sky. It was made from a single, seamless block of perfectly polished black volcanic obsidian. No joints. No mortar. Only a mirror-smooth black surface reflecting the tiny figures of Elios and Vera standing before it. The wall was not inert. Embedded within it were thousands of microscopic magical runes, pulsing faint red like inflamed blood vessels beneath skin. A constant low hum filled the air, making Elios’s teeth ache. “Don’t touch it,” Vera warned sharply as Elios reached out, tempted to knock on the surface. Vera held her tablet with both hands, scanning the structure. Her face was tense. “This is a Class-X Barrier. The wall is directly linked to the Cathedral Heart in Rome,” Vera explained. “If you touch it with bare skin or try to blow it up, an alarm will trigger in the High Priest’s office within zero point zero two seconds. Then the automated defe

SCREEEEEECH!The shriek did not come from a single throat, but from hundreds. The Biological Archive corridor, once silent and cold, had transformed into a red, throbbing tunnel from hell. Alarm lights spun wildly, casting long shadows that danced along the metal walls.And those shadows were alive.The Rejected, failed experimental monstrosities, flooded the corridor like cockroaches flushed from a burning nest. They did not run. They flowed. Deformed bodies piled over one another, trampling each other forward, driven by one primal instinct. Hunger.“Fall back to the elevator door, at the end of the hall!” Elios shouted, his voice cutting through the chaos.He stood firm in the center of the corridor, a living dam against the monstrous tide. The Exorcist in his right hand, a Kukri in his left.“There are too many, Elios!” Vera shouted, retreating while firing her energy pistol. Blue beams pierced the skull of one Rejected, yet the creature kept advancing as if its brain no longer mat

ROAAARRR!The roar was not just heard, it was felt. The shockwave rattled Elios’s rib cage and shook frost from the dark walls of the pit.The Alpha Behemoth charged.Imagine an armored garbage truck with the legs of a gorilla and the fury of a rabid bull. That was what barreled toward Elios now. The floor of crushed bones shattered into chalky dust beneath its massive feet.“Damn, you’re huge!” Elios shouted.He could not run. His boots were buried in a heap of ribs and skulls. He threw himself sideways, rolling across the field of jagged bones.BRAAKK!The Behemoth’s massive fist slammed into the spot where Elios had stood a fraction of a second earlier. The impact blasted a small crater into the bone floor. Shards flew like shrapnel, slicing across Elios’s face.“Okay, discussion’s over,” Elios muttered as he scrambled up.The Behemoth turned, shockingly fast for something that large. It swung its le