The Almighty Garbage Collector: Reclaiming My Throne

The Fall into the Abyss

The freezing water hit my face like a wall of solid ice. The bridge had melted beneath our feet, and the dark river below swallowed us whole. The current was fast and rough, pulling me down into the deep black water while my lungs burned for air.

I kicked my legs hard, pushing upward against the heavy pressure. My hands brushed against concrete pillars and twisted metal beams until my head finally broke the surface. I coughed out dirty water, wiping my eyes to look around the dark river.

The bridge above was broken in half, dangling wires sparking orange light into the night. On the shore, sirens began to wail in the distance as police cars rushed toward the scene. But I did not care about the police. My eyes searched the dark water for Ife.

"Tunde!"

The voice came from a small concrete ledge near one of the broken bridge supports. I turned my head and swam through the strong current as fast as I could. I pulled myself up onto the wet concrete, gasping for breath.

Ms. Alabi was already standing there, her expensive suit completely soaked, holding a small waterproof tablet. Next to her, Commander Okoro and two of his guards were pulling themselves out of the water.

"Are you okay?" Ms. Alabi asked, her face tight with worry.

"I am fine," I said, wiping water from my forehead. "Where is the clone? Where is my sister?"

"They went down with the center section," Ms. Alabi said, tapping the screen on her tablet. "My underwater drones tracked their signal heading toward an old drainage tunnel beneath the city. The Black Sun Faction has a secret base down there. But Tunde, look at this."

She turned the tablet toward me. A thermal map of the underground tunnels showed a massive concentration of red dots moving deeper into the old drainage system. And right in the middle of those dots was Ife’s biometric signal, pulsing very slowly.

[System Alert: Water pressure drop detected. Dragon Bloodline stability recovering.]

[New Quest Available: Enter the Subterranean Labyrinth and rescue the bloodline vessel.]

[Reward: Unlock Second Seal and permanent physical defense boost.]

I looked at the dark, open mouth of the drainage tunnel thirty feet away. The water rushing out of it smelled like old iron and chemicals. It was completely dark inside, a place where no normal person would ever dare to set foot.

"We are going in," I said.

"You cannot just walk into their home base," Okoro said, shaking water from his heavy jacket like a dog. "That tunnel leads straight to the old industrial sector. It is packed with armed guards, automated traps, and chemical hazards. My men have guns, but we don't know the layout of their underground maze."

"I don't need a map," I said, my voice cold. "I can feel where she is."

Ms. Alabi looked at me, her sharp eyes studying my face. She knew that trying to stop me was useless. Instead of arguing, she opened a compartment in her wet designer bag and pulled out several high-tech tactical flashlights, encrypted radios, and a heavy military-grade pistol, handing them to Okoro.

"If we are going underground, we do it my way," Ms. Alabi said, her tone businesslike. "I have already rerouted the city's power grid to cut off electricity to that sector. Their security cameras inside the tunnel will be completely blind for the next twenty minutes. That is our only window to get past the outer gates."

"Lead the way," I said.

We moved quickly along the concrete bank and slipped into the mouth of the drainage tunnel. The air inside was thick and damp. The only sound was the steady echo of dripping water and our boots splashing against the shallow puddles on the ground.

We walked in silence for ten minutes, turning through dark, winding concrete corridors. The walls were covered in old graffiti and rusted pipes that stretched on forever like giant metal snakes.

Suddenly, my Dragon Sense tingled. I raised my hand to stop the group.

"Wait," I whispered.

Commander Okoro raised his rifle, and Ms. Alabi stepped back into the shadow of a concrete pillar.

Up ahead, the tunnel opened into a wide circular chamber. In the center of the room stood three men wearing black tactical gear with the symbol of the Black Sun painted in red on their shoulders. They were holding heavy assault rifles, guarding a massive steel door that had a glowing digital keypad.

"That is the outer gate of their main lab," Ms. Alabi whispered quietly into my ear. "If we trigger an alarm, they will lock the blast doors, and we will never get inside."

"I will handle them," I said.

Before Okoro could speak, I stepped out from the shadows and walked straight toward the guards.

One of the guards turned around, his flashlight cutting through the dark. "Halt! Who goes—"

He did not finish his sentence. I closed the distance between us in less than a second. My body moved with the raw speed of the Level 2 Dragon Bloodline. I grabbed the barrel of his rifle with my bare hand and twisted it upward with a sharp crack of metal.

The guard gasped in shock, but before he could shout, I struck him in the chest with an open palm. The force of the blow threw him backward across the concrete floor, where he crashed into the control panel and went motionless.

The other two guards raised their weapons, but they were too slow.

I swept my leg across the floor, catching the second guard behind the knees and sending him crashing down. The third guard tried to pull the trigger, but Okoro fired a single shot from the darkness, hitting the guard's weapon and knocking it out of his hands. I closed in and struck him on the shoulder, dropping him instantly.

In less than twenty seconds, all three guards were unconscious on the floor.

"Remind me never to get on your bad side, Young Master," Okoro said, walking up with a respectful nod.

"Open that door," I told him, pointing at the digital keypad.

Ms. Alabi stepped forward, pulling a small hacking device from her pocket and plugging it into the emergency port below the keypad. The screen flickered green, and with a heavy mechanical groan, the massive steel doors began to slide open.

Inside the room was not a laboratory. It was a massive underground amphitheater filled with rows of glowing computer screens and hundreds of glass tubes containing swirling violet liquid.

In the center of the room stood the clone who looked like me. He was standing next to a high-tech metallic chair where Ife was tied down, her eyes still closed.

"You really are persistent, Tunde," the clone said, turning around with a slow, mocking smile. He raised his hand, and dozens of armed men stepped out from the upper balconies, pointing their guns directly down at us.

"Let her go," I said, stepping into the center of the room.

"I don't think so," the clone replied, pressing a red button on his wrist controller.

A loud alarm began to wail throughout the room. The glass tubes around us cracked open, and a swarm of dark, shadowy figures stepped out from the liquid, their eyes glowing with a terrifying green light.