All Chapters of The Evolution System of the Drowned: Chapter 1
- Chapter 10
10 chapters
Chapter 1: The Abyssal Awakening
The cold iron bit into my wrists, the salt spray stinging my eyes. I looked up at Elowen. She smelled like expensive jasmine and cold-blooded betrayal."Is the chain tight enough, Cuthbert?" she asked. Her voice was as smooth as silk and twice as sharp.Cuthbert grunted, giving the heavy iron links a kick. "He’s not going anywhere but the bottom, Elowen. I made sure of it.""You both are pathetic," I spat, the blood from my split lip mixing with the sea spray. "You think you can just erase me? My father built this company. This ship is mine."Elowen laughed. It was a light, tinkling sound that made my skin crawl. She stepped closer, her designer heels clicking on the mahogany deck of the Gilded Sovereign. She leaned down, her face inches from mine."Yours? No, Osric. It was always meant to be mine. You were just the boring bridge I had to walk across to get to the throne.""The board will never follow you," I hissed."The board follows money," Cuthbert said, stepping up beside her. He
Chapter 2: Trial of the Apex
The blood from my split lip billowed in the water like a crimson silk ribbon. It was a dinner invite for every nightmare in the Atlantic. I floated there, my lungs burning with the strange, cold fire of the seawater, watching the darkness. Then, the system’s voice vibrated through my teeth.[PREDATOR DETECTED: CARCHARODON CARCHARIAS. MAGNITUDE: APEX.]Suddenly, the black void wasn't black anymore. My vision shifted into a neon-grid of heat and light. I saw it—a massive, scarred Great White Shark. It was twenty feet of muscle and prehistoric hunger, circling me just outside the range of human sight. But I wasn't human anymore. I could see its neural pathways glowing like golden threads beneath its skin. I could see the pulse of its heart."You want a piece of me?" I growled. The bubbles that left my mouth carried the sound like a low-frequency hum. "Come and get it, you overgrown sardine."The shark didn't hesitate. It snapped its tail and charged. It was a blurred gray streak of death
Chapter 3: The Sunken Legacy
The green glow from the abyss wasn't a monster. It was a beacon.[NAVIGATIONAL PULSE DETECTED. DESCEND, HOST.]The system's voice hummed in my skull, pulling at my very DNA. I stopped fighting the current and let the weight of my new, obsidian-scale skin drag me down. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. I drifted past the thermal layers, deeper than any human should ever go, until the light of the sun was a forgotten dream.Then I saw it. Resting on a jagged shelf of rock in a lightless trench was a manor. It looked like it had been carved from the bones of the earth itself—a pre-deluge structure of white stone and black iron."Is that... a house?" I whispered, my voice rattling in the water.[THE THORNE ANCESTRAL VAULT. BIOMETRIC SCAN REQUIRED.]I swam toward the massive double doors. As soon as my hand touched the stone, a needle-thin spike of light shot out, pricking my thumb."Ouch! What the hell?"[BLOODLINE CONFIRMED. WELCOME, WARDEN-KING.]The doors groaned o
Chapter 4: The Ghost at the Gala
The storm outside was a monster, screaming against the cliffs of the Thorne Estate, but it was nothing compared to the storm in my blood. I moved through the shadows of the terrace, my footsteps silent on the stone. My skin felt tight—denser and more powerful than it had ever been. My eyes hummed with a faint, silver bioluminescence that made the pouring rain look like falling diamonds.Inside the grand ballroom, the "Passing Ceremony" was in full swing. It was supposed to be a wake for me, but through the glass, it looked more like a coronation."To the future!" I heard a familiar, grating voice shout over the music.I stepped toward the French doors. Through the gold-leafed glass, I saw Cuthbert standing on a raised platform. He was holding a glass of vintage scotch, his face flushed with triumph. Beside him stood Elowen. She looked stunning in a black silk dress that cost more than a lifeboat. She didn't look like a grieving widow. She looked like a queen who had finally gotten rid
Chapter 5: Predator’s Mercy
The ballroom was a tomb of silence, broken only by the rhythmic drip of saltwater from my shredded suit. Cuthbert's face was a map of raw, ugly panic. He scrambled backward on the marble floor, his polished shoes squeaking like a trapped rat."What are you waiting for?" Cuthbert shrieked, his voice cracking as he looked toward the perimeter of the room. "Kill him! He's an intruder! Marcus! Styles! Dispose of him now!"The house guards, men I had trained and paid for years, hesitated for a heartbeat. But Cuthbert was the one signing the checks now. Four of them stepped forward, their hands flying to their holsters."Osric, please! Don't make them do this!" Elowen cried out, though she stayed safely behind the heavy oak podium."You really want to play this game, Cuthbert?" I asked. My voice sounded like grinding stones.[COMBAT MODE ENGAGED. PREDICTIVE PATHING ACTIVE.]The world slowed. In my silver-tinted vision, the guards' movements became sluggish, like they were submerged in thick
Chapter 6: The Dockside Hunt
The fog over the Oakhaven docks was thick enough to swallow a man whole. I drifted just beneath the surface of the oily water, watching the Vane merchant fleet bobbing at anchor. They were loaded with the stolen wealth of the Thorne family. They wouldn't stay loaded for long."Did you see that?" a sailor hissed from the deck of the Vane Star. "A shadow. Just moved past the hull.""Shut up, Jenkins," another replied, though his voice was shaking. "The Sea-Wraith isn't real. It's just ghost stories to keep us from stealing the cargo.""Tell that to the crew of the Mercury," Jenkins whispered. "They found the ship drifting five miles out. Not a soul on board. Just wet footprints and the smell of the deep."I surged upward, my obsidian hand clamping onto the edge of the pier. I didn't make a sound. I was the myth they feared, and I was very real.[MISSION UPDATE: NEUTRALIZE VANE LOGISTICS. 0/3 SHIPS REMAINING.]I pulled myself onto the dock, my skin absorbing the moonlight. I found the fo
Chapter 7: Liquid Assets
I sat in the dark of a high-rise office I had bought with a handful of gold coins from the Sunken Vault. My skin still felt the itch of salt, but I was dressed in a suit that cost more than most people made in a year. On the screen in front of me, the Vane Estate’s stock ticker was a jagged line of red, bleeding out in real time."Sir, the buy-back orders are failing," my broker said through the intercom. He sounded terrified. He didn't know who I was, only that I called myself 'Lord Abyss' and that my bank account seemed to have no bottom."Double the pressure," I said. My voice was a calm, predatory rumble. "Short every share they have left. I want the Vane name to be a curse by morning.""But sir, their shipping routes—""Are currently being hammered by 'unusual weather,'" I interrupted. "Just do your job."I leaned back, watching the feed from the docks. In the distance, the *Vane Empress*, their flagship tanker, was currently sinking into the harbor. There was no storm in the sky
Chapter 8: The Sewer King
The stench of the city's underbelly was thick enough to gag a normal man, but my new lungs processed the rot without a flinch. I waded through the waist-deep filth of the primary filtration canal. Above me, the streets of Oakhaven hummed with life, unaware that a prehistoric nightmare was chewing through their foundation."System, give me a lock on that signal," I whispered. My voice echoed flatly against the moss-covered concrete.[LEVIATHAN-CLASS SIGNATURE DETECTED. 300 METERS AHEAD. TARGET IS EMITTING 50,000 VOLTS.]"Perfect. Just what I need to jumpstart my heart," I muttered.I shut my eyes. The darkness was total, but as I clicked my tongue, a pulse of silver light rippled out from my mind. [SONAR ACTIVE.] The world rebuilt itself in my head as a wireframe of echoes. I saw the rusted pipes, the crumbling brickwork, and the massive, pulsing coil of muscle waiting in the junction ahead."Osric? Do you hear me?"I tapped my earpiece. It was my broker, sounding like he was about to
Chapter 9: The Poisoned Dance
The Vane Manor was a fortress of gold and lies. Outside, the city was still reeling from the blackout I had triggered, but inside these walls, the elite drank vintage wine by candlelight. Every guest wore a mask. It was the perfect place for a monster like me.[MIMICRY SKIN ACTIVE. DURATION: 54 MINUTES.]My skin rippled, shifting from obsidian scales to the olive complexion of a Mediterranean count. I looked in the foyer mirror. The man staring back was handsome, refined, and entirely fake. Only my eyes remained cold—the silver glow hidden behind the dark lenses of a masquerade mask."Lord Alistair of the Adriatic," the herald announced as I stepped into the ballroom.I scanned the room. There she was. Elowen Vane. She wore a gown of silver lace, her face hidden behind a feathered mask. She looked radiant, but her hand was trembling as she held her glass. Cuthbert was nowhere to be seen—likely hiding in a panic room after I had turned his headquarters into a dark tomb."You look troub
Chapter 10: The First Surge
The harbor didn't smell like salt anymore. It smelled like a slaughterhouse. I stood on the edge of the pier, watching the water turn a thick, sickly crimson. It wasn't algae. It was a biological awakening.[SYSTEM ALERT: RED TIDE PROTOCOL DETECTED. ANCIENT BIOMASS REANIMATING.]"Osric! Look at the water!" Marcus's voice crackled through my neural link, sounding like he was screaming from the bottom of a well. "The sensors are going off the charts! Something is coming out of the silt!""I see it, Marcus," I said. My voice was a low vibration that seemed to calm the churning water at my feet. "Tell the police to evacuate the shoreline. Now.""They won't listen to me! They think it's a chemical spill!""Then tell them it's a goddamn apocalypse!" I roared.The first one breached the surface ten yards away. It looked like a cross between a lobster and a nightmare, six feet of jagged exoskeleton and pale, milky eyes. It crawled onto the wooden planks, its claws snapping with the force of a