CHAPTER 43: WORLD'S HIDDEN TEETH
Thousands of kilometers beneath the Atlantic, the city held its breath.A dome of black-red alloy crouched on the ocean floor like a sealed wound. Dim crimson veins pulsed across its surface .. slow, stubborn, refusing to die.
Inside, the command chamber hummed with the tension of people pretending not to be afraid.Screens floated in layered rings, each displaying something that should not exist .. gravitational scars, thermal anomalies, distortions where reality folded like paper under too much weight.
At the center stood an old woman with a cane.Grey hair streaked with dried crimson. Spine bent by years.Presence untouched by them.Crimson Six.!
"Final sweep," she said.No one asked questions. They simply moved.
One screen displayed the Pelagos Abyss ..a trench so deep sound itself surrendered. Something vast drifted through its darkness, etched with ancient bioluminescent sigils.
A whale the size of a mountain.Demigod aura.Continental extinction probability: 87%.Another screen shifted.
A frozen forest. A striped titan exhaled once, and the air crystallized into glittering death.Another.A volcanic crater. Something winged slept in magma, its heartbeat causing eruptions.
Another.A storm swallowed from within by something larger than the storm itself.Crimson Six watched like a woman reviewing inventory.
"The world remains contained," an officer said, voice carefully empty.She turned to leave.Then every screen spasmed.A spike tore through the system ..not a reading, not a signal.A heartbeat.
Location: unknown forest region.
Energy signature: unstable.
Classification: impossible.
"Enhance."
Static clawed at the image.For less than a second, something appeared:
A lone figure standing among corpses.Light bending inward toward him.Not darkness.Consumption.Then the feed died.Silence fell like a verdict.Crimson Six did not look surprised.rather she looked... curious
"So," she said softly,
"he woke up."No alarms sounded.No orders given.
Only a long, heavy stillness.Then she walked away, tapping her cane once against the floor.The chamber exhaled only after she was gone.They all understood.Something had entered the board.And the rules had just changed.
---
Miles above, a forest clearing reeked of blood and torn earth.Leylin stood barefoot among the carcasses of beasts that had once ruled this region.Their cores were gone.Devoured.Still insufficient.
Inside him, the sin cores shifted restlessly, pressing against his mind like starving predators scraping bone.Leylin rolled his neck slowly.
"Easy," he murmured.
His voice carried the patience of someone soothing children, not forces capable of erasing civilizations.
"You'll eat again."A pulse answered.Gluttony.Violent. Impatient. Offended.Leylin sighed.
"Yes, I know. You're starving."Another pulse ..sharper.Demanding.Petulant.He rubbed his temple like a tired parent.
"You're alive," he said quietly. "You can afford hunger."
The vibration eased, sulking.For a moment, the clearing felt almost peaceful.Then space folded.Something passed him.Not fast.Absolute.His arms separated from his body before pain existed.Blood painted the air a heartbeat later.Leylin swayed once.Stopped.
Looked down at the empty space where his arms had been.Then forward.A golden figure stood several meters away.Sixteen meters tall.Four arms.Fur like molten sunlight.
Eyes ancient with an intelligence that had watched species rise and fail.Reality bowed around it.Domain Expansion.Leylin stared at it for a long moment.Then he smiled.Not rage.Not madness.Relief.
"So you're real," he said.
The creature tilted its head, studying him the way a god might examine a tool.Leylin laughed softly, breath hitching from delayed pain.
"I was starting to think this world had nothing left for me."
Flesh began to regrow at his shoulders.He stopped it.Blood continued to fall.Inside him, the sin cores recoiled in confusion.
"Yes," he said inwardly, amused.
"We're keeping it like this."Gluttony pulsed in outrage.Leylin's eyes gleamed.
"If I crush you at full strength," he whispered, "that's not a hunt."
He stepped forward.Bleeding.Unarmed.Completely calm.
"I just woke up," he told the titan conversationally.
"It would be rude not to stretch first."
The gorilla's lips peeled back, revealing curved blades of bone.The ground shattered as it shifted..leylin inhaled slowly.Savoring the pressure.
The danger.The fact that something here might actually force him to try.For the first time since his fall, something warm spread through his chest.Not anger.Not hunger.Joy.
"Come," he said gently.The beast moved.The forest ceased to exist.
Shockwaves erased trees into splinters before sound could form.Leylin vanished from where he stood..not dodging.Advancing.
He tapped beneath the creature's descending fist, shoulder slamming upward into its arm with a sound like continents colliding.
The titan staggered.Leylin slid back across shattered earth, heels carving trenches.He looked up, eyes bright.
"Yes," he breathed.."Finally."
Blood still dripping.Armless.Smiling like a man who had been bored for far too long.And the battle truly began.