Three Mecha-Leviathans breached the surface, their iron hulls gleaming under the strobe of the hurricane. I stood on the churning surface of the bay, my Abyssal Wings vibrating with a lethal hum."Osric, the harbor sensors are dead!" Marcus shouted through the link. "Those machines are charging their thermal cannons! If they fire, the entire waterfront evaporates!""Let them charge, Marcus," I said. "They are made of iron. I am made of lightning.""There are thousands of people on the rooftops watching this!" Marcus yelled. "You have to move the fight away from the docks!""I am not moving anywhere," I replied. "Kael! Tell the legion to dive! The surface belongs to me now!""We are already under, My King!" Kael’s voice rasped through the water. "But the pressure waves from those machines are crushing the lower sea walls! The city is falling into the bay!"I looked at the nearest Leviathan. Its massive mechanical eye turned red as it locked onto me."Target identified," a mechanical vo

The gold chamber was buckling under the weight of the trench. I lay on the floor, my silver scales shattered like glass. My chest was a hollow ruin. Every breath I took was a spray of dark blood. The system interface flickered in my vision, a dying red light in the darkness."Warning! Cellular integrity at 4%!" the mechanical voice droned. "Internal organs have been liquefied. Death is imminent.""Marcus? Can you hear me?" I gasped. My throat felt like it was full of rusted razor blades."I can barely get a signal through the rubble, Osric!" Marcus cried through the link. "The gravity well destroyed your biometrics! You are dying! I cannot do anything from here!""I am... a Thorne," I wheezed, clutching the gold floor. "I do not... die in the dirt.""Identity conflict detected," the System interrupted. "The Thorne ego is a parasite. It is preventing the Tier-4 reconstruction. You are trying to hold onto a human ghost.""What are you saying?" I barked, coughing up more gore."To surviv

The rain was a freezing wall as I breached the surface. I looked at the Aethelgard command ship. My new violet eyes locked onto a figure being dragged across the deck. It was Marcus. He was covered in blood, his glasses shattered. Elowen held a high-frequency blade to his throat."I found your little rat, Osric!" Elowen screamed over the speakers. "He was trying to kill the gravity well from the inside! Did you think I wouldn't notice a breach in my own system?""Osric! Don't... don't stop!" Marcus wheezed. His voice was raw. "The server! You have to hit the server!""Shut up!" Elowen barked. She kicked him in the ribs.I let out a low, vibrating hum. The water beneath the ship began to boil."I know you can't talk anymore, monster!" Elowen laughed. "But you can listen! If you take one more step toward the main server hub, I will slide this blade through his neck! Is your revenge worth his life?""Osric, listen to me!" Marcus yelled, coughing up red. "The server is right behind that b

I stood in the shattered ballroom where the Vanes had once toasted to my death. A massive shadow fell over the debris as the fog rolled in from the bay. Cuthbert stepped out of the darkness. He was not a man anymore. He was a mountain of grey, lumpy flesh and jagged bone plates. He looked like a nightmare carved from rotten meat."Look at you!" Cuthbert roared. His voice sounded like grinding stones in a blender."You look like a tumor, Cuthbert!" I hummed. The vibration made the floorboards rattle and snap. "Did Elowen run out of clean DNA? Or did she just decide you looked better as a freak?""I am the future!" He screamed. He swung a massive, mutated arm that was thick as a tree trunk. It smashed a marble pillar next to my head, sending white dust into the air. "I have the Thorne blood and the Aethelgard steel! You are just a ghost! A dead man walking in a dead house!""You have nothing but borrowed parts!" I lunged forward. I didn't trigger my bio-electricity. I didn't use my sona

The wind inside the World-Eater’s intake was a physical weight. It screamed past my obsidian scales like a thousand knives. I gripped a jagged metal strut as the massive internal gears ground together. Below me, a sea of blue light pulsed from the machine's core."Osric! Can you hear me?" Kael’s voice was a thin thread of sound. "The pressure inside that thing is lethal! You have to get out of there!""I’m not leaving, Kael!" I shouted. My voice echoed through the iron cavern. "If I don't stop this heart, the world goes dry!""You can't stop it!" She yelled. "The sensors say its armor is self-healing! Your claws won't even leave a scratch on the core casing!""Then I need more power!" I hummed. The vibration rattled my own skull."Warning!" The System chimed in my vision. "Current physical limits reached. Assault on the pre-deluge core will result in total cellular collapse.""Is there any way to bypass the limit?" I demanded."Only one," the System replied. "The Abyssal Pearl. Direct