The vibration didn’t stop. It got deeper. It wasn’t hitting the Spire anymore, it was hitting me. My chest felt like a speaker box about to burst. Every hum from the floor matched the violent throb of the Pearl."Osric! The glass is hair-lining!" Kael yelled. He was gripped onto a terminal, his face white. "The frequency is too high! It’s vibrating the molecular bonds!""It’s not the glass it wants," I said. I grabbed my chest. The heat was blinding. "It’s me.""What do you mean it wants you?" Sora demanded. She lunged for my arm, but her hand snapped back. A spark of gold energy bit her fingers. "Damn it! You’re burning up!""The Pearl," I gasped. "It’s... it’s answering.""Answering what?" Jax asked. He had his spear out, looking for something to kill. He looked frustrated. "There’s nothing out there but salt and fish!""Look at the sensors, you idiot!" I roared. I forced my eyes open. The Pearl wasn't just a battery. I could feel the layers of encryption peeling back in my brain.

The suction from the rift was pulling the ocean into the sky, and I knew if I stayed on the scale. I’d be watching my world get sucked dry through a straw. I looked back at the Spire one last time and saw Sora screaming something I couldn't hear over the roar of the vacuum. "System, seal every vent in the suit," I said, my voice vibrating against my own skull. "We’re going for a swim."[WARNING: TARGET ENVIRONMENT UNKNOWN. PRESSURE SENSORS INDICATE EXTREME DEPTHS.]"I don't care," I snapped. I kicked off the rotting hide of the scout dog and let the violet rift swallow me whole. The transition wasn't a crawl, it was a punch to the gut. One second I was in the warm, salt spray of Earth, and the next, I was slammed into a wall of liquid ice. The darkness was total. It wasn't just a lack of light; it was a heavy, physical weight that pressed against my eyeball."Where am I?" I gasped, but the water shoved its way into my throat.[LOCATION: EUROPA. SUBSURFACE OCEAN.][DEPTH: SIXTY MIL

The Europa King shrieked and the sound was a high-pitched vibration that made the water around my head boil instantly. He didn't stay to fight. He turned his long, broken body and lunged for a fissure in the ocean floor, disappearing into the darkness of the mantle."System, track him," I said, and I felt the weight of my compressed body as I kicked off the silt.[SIGNAL DETECTED. HE IS DESCENDING RAPIDLY. THE THERMAL READINGS ARE SPIKING, LORD LEVIATHAN. HE IS HEADING FOR THE CORE.]"He’s running," I said, and I drove my hands into the water, following the trail of his blue ichor. "And I’m not done with him."I tore through the fissure and the temperature jumped five hundred degrees in a second. The water was gone, replaced by a thick, pressurized slurry of liquid rock and minerals. I felt the heat trying to seep through my scales, but I kept my arms tucked and pushed harder."Where is he?" I asked, and I squinted against the orange glow that was starting to blind my sensors.[HE H

I stood on the frozen crust of Europa and watched the sky. Jupiter hung above me like a massive, bruised eye and the silence of the moon was absolute. I felt the cold sinking into my boots but it didn't bite anymore, I was the one who bit back now. The weight of the moon felt like a part of my own body and I could sense every fracture in the ice for miles."Osric, the readings are spiking and I can't keep the dampeners steady," Sora said and her voice was a thin wire of sound in my ear. "You’re putting out enough energy to light up a solar system. What are you doing out there?""I'm building a bridge," I said and I looked at my hands. The black scales were frosted with a pale light and the energy of the moon's core was humming under my skin. "We didn't come here just to kill a king and go home. We came here to move the border and make sure the Hierarchy knows we aren't hiding in a pond anymore.""Move the border?" Jax barked and I could hear the clatter of his gear and the heavy bre

The cold of Europa vanished and I was falling through a void of screaming white light. There was no wind and no sound, just a blinding brightness that felt like it was peeling my skin back. I tried to grab my blades and my hands found nothing but empty air. My body felt light and wrong, like I was made of nothing but math and bad memories. I hit a solid floor that didn't exist a second ago and the impact didn't hurt, it just vibrated through my teeth."System, where am I?" I asked, and my voice sounded like it was being played through a broken speaker.[LOCATION: VIRTUAL REALITY BUFFER.][SECTOR: AETHELGARD CORE.][YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS HAS BEEN FULLY DOWNLOADED, LORD LEVIATHAN.]"Welcome to the afterlife, Osric," Elowen’s voice echoed from every direction at once. I stood up and looked around the endless white room. There were no walls and no ceiling, just a grid of glowing lines that stretched into infinity."This isn't the afterlife," I said, and I spit on the white floor. "It’s a c