The smell inside Jonah's Colony was enough to make even a demon throw up. A mix of rotten fish, boiling stomach acid, and the sweat of thousands of people who had never seen sunlight. This slum settlement was built from the wreckage of sunken ships, stacked together and tied with seaweed rope, clinging like parasites to the walls of the Leviathan's intestines. Beneath the rotting wooden bridges, neon green digestive fluid flowed sluggishly, releasing poisonous steam into the air. Oliver limped forward, dragging his severed right leg with the help of a fish-bone cane. His left arm, reduced to nothing but a shoulder stump, was hidden beneath a patchwork coat, while his right hand, forged from pure golden data, stayed buried inside his pocket so its glow would not attract too much attention. Ahead of him, Kael, the old priest with Architect tattoos carved across his bare chest, walked with his head lowered, muttering endless prayers under his breath while giving a tour of

This wasn't swimming. This was a coffin slowly sinking to the bottom of the sea. Oliver was inside the Abyssal Dive Suit Mark IV, an ancient diving suit that weighed nearly half a ton. It was made of rusted bronze and thick steel that smelled like dried blood. The glass dome enclosing his head was cloudy and scarred with scratches left behind by battles fought by mutants long ago. Inside, it was dark. The cold penetrated the metal layers and bit into Oliver's already pale skin. There were only two sounds around him: the constant creaking of steel plates being crushed by the pressure of the ocean, and the echo of his own breathing reverberating inside the helmet. "System," Oliver called. His voice came out hoarse, bouncing off the glass. "Depth report. How far down am I?" The Multiverse Hunter interface lit up in gold across his vision. [DEPTH: 7,500 METERS BELOW THE LEVIATHAN'S SURFACE.] [ENVIRONMENTAL PRESSURE: CRITICAL (750 ATMOSPHERES).]

If you want to know what it feels like to be tied to the tip of a rocket blasting into space, try riding on the back of a rampaging Leviathan as it rockets toward the ocean's surface. Its speed was absurd. The pitch-black seawater surrounding Oliver suddenly transformed into a wall of liquid concrete crashing down on him from above. The city-sized whale's vertical thrust generated an updraft so powerful it seemed capable of tearing space and time apart beneath the sea. Oliver could only squeeze his eyes shut. His lungs, already emptied of air, felt like they were about to burst. "System..." Oliver thought, his mental voice strained with panic and desperation. "How fast are we going?!" [ASCENT VELOCITY: 400 KNOTS. INCREASING.] [WARNING: EXTREME PRESSURE CHANGE DETECTED. DECOMPRESSION SICKNESS DETECTED.] [HOST BLOOD EXPERIENCING NITROGEN BOILING IN 4... 3...] "Override it, damn it! Override it!" Oliver cursed inside his head. His arm of pure golde

The escape felt more like dragging himself across broken glass. The moment the crowd of white-clad citizens wandered away, singing their cheerful hymns, Oliver immediately hauled himself out of the field of golden flowers. He couldn't afford to stay exposed. The black seawater he'd vomited up stood out far too clearly amid the pastel colors of this world. If another Angel Drone happened to patrol the area, he'd become an instant burn-in target. Oliver slipped into the forest bordering the field. But this was no ordinary forest. "Goddamn synthetic world," Oliver muttered under his breath, leaning his back against a tree trunk that felt hard and cold. The trees here were made of transparent crystal. Their leaves were thin sheets of glass reflecting the eternal sunlight, creating rainbow spectrums that made his eyes ache. There was no muddy earth beneath them, only spotless white marble pebbles. The forest had no dark shadows. Everything was brilliantly illuminate

The basement beneath the Glass Cathedral smelled like hypocrisy gone stale. There were no windows. The walls were made of thick obsidian stone, patched together by Oliver using the Glitch Blade to make them immune to the nanobot signals drifting through the air. Overhead, a dome of blue static from a Localized Glitch Zone flickered softly, preventing any data transmission from leaving the room. This was the only Blind Spot in all of Aurelia. The only place where you could breathe without God watching. Oliver sat on a rusted wooden crate he had found in the corner. His black suit was pulled tight around him. The fingers of his right hand, made entirely of golden data, tapped against his thigh. Tap. Tap. Tap. Five people sat across from him. They weren't ordinary citizens. They were members of the Civitas Solis elite. A Judge of Light, two Cherubim Generals, a nobleman's wife, and at the far end... Elara, the Saintess, the one who had brought