Two miles beneath the surface of the Black Pool, the water was freezing and pitch-black. The pressure down here was enough to crush a modern submarine into tinfoil.
Nothing lived in this stretch of the drowned fault line. The lesser predators knew better.
But today, the water tasted different. A violet-gold pulse echoed down through the aquatic trenches, radiating from the cavern high above. It was the signature of the Corrupted Core, burning bright and loud.
Three pairs of bioluminescent yellow eyes opened in the abyssal dark.
The Level 92 Leviathan uncoiled. It was ancient, a remnant of a world that existed long before the System gamified the apocalypse. As the beast shifted, the displaced water created a localized riptide that tore fossilized coral from the canyon walls.
