Ten thousand meters below, in the abyssal plains, the darkness that had remained silent for countless eons was violently torn asunder.
With a low-frequency roar powerful enough to shatter eardrums, the seawater began to boil furiously. On the satellite's infrared thermal imaging, a dark red shadow over five kilometers in diameter was slowly rising from the depths of the ocean trench. It was no mere biological creature; it was a mobile calamity—the "Leviathan-class" war fortress of the "Remnants of the Old Days."
"Commander, first wave tsunami warning! Height: 3,000 meters. Impact on the offshore defense line expected in ten minutes!" The adjutant's voice cracked with terror over the communication channel.
Su Zhe stood atop a jagged coastal reef, his black tactical duster whipping wildly in the gale. Behind him, five thousand soldiers of the "God's Punishment" Infantry Regiment stood like steel statues, the power cores of their exoskeleton armor emitting a low, rhythmic hum.
"What is there to panic about?" Su Zhe glanced coldly at the white line on the horizon that seemed to connect the sea to the heavens. He slowly raised his right hand, and a golden system interface flickered in the void, code flowing through his vision like a torrent.
"System, bring out the 'Abyssal Silencer.' I want those Remnants to know that the Age of Discovery ended a long time ago!"
[Command confirmed. SSS-Class Strategic Asset—'Abyssal Silencer' extracted.]
Hum—!
A pitch-black, shuttle-shaped device etched with flowing azure runes materialized in Su Zhe's palm. Simultaneously, a row of cold system data forced its way into his retina.
"All units, activate 'Water-Repelling Protective Barrier.' Set intensity to maximum!"
Su Zhe violently hurled the "Abyssal Silencer" into the ocean. The tsunami collapsed into a harmless mist.
"God's Punishment Regiment, hear my command! Kill—!"
Five thousand steel-clad warriors leaped into the sea. Under the intervention of system technology, the seawater parted automatically, forming a vacuum corridor leading directly to the seabed.
"First through Third Squadrons, breach the external carapace on the beast's starboard side! Force a landing!" Su Zhe barked orders mid-air.
Following a deafening explosion, several breaches were blasted into the Leviathan's island-sized back. The God's Punishment warriors plummeted like silver meteors, slamming into the creature's interior.
The inside of the Leviathan was a nightmare of non-Euclidean architecture. It was an Abyssal Cathedral constructed from calcified bone and pulsating obsidian polymer. As the soldiers' boots hit the "floor," they felt a sickeningly soft, rhythmic vibration; the ground was not metal, but a layer of hyper-dense muscle tissue covered in a semi-transparent, gelatinous film.
The air inside was thick and humid, smelling of ozone and ancient brine. Gigantic, translucent arterial pipes—thick enough for a tank to drive through—snaked along the vaulted ceilings. Within these pipes, bioluminescent etheric fluid surged in rhythmic pulses, casting a sickly violet glow over the jagged, rib-like support columns.
"Watch your step! The walls are alive!" Sergeant Thorne warned. He was right. Every few seconds, the "walls"—a terrifying fusion of chitinous plates and fiber-optic nerves—would spasm, secreting a caustic, lime-green mist that hissed as it dissolved the rocky debris from the breach. In the corners of the massive chambers, strange, coral-like structures grew, their tips flickering with bio-electrical sparks that served as the fortress's internal sensory nodes.
The silence of the depths was replaced by a cacophony of biological machinery: the low-frequency thrum of the primary hearts, the hiss of pressurized steam venting from organic valves, and the unsettling, metallic scraping of the Leviathan's internal "immune system" waking up.
"Contact! Six o'clock!" Thorne yelled through the comms. He brought his Dual-Rotary Electromagnetic Cannon to bear. A swarm of "Old Day Sentinels" lunged from the pulsing arterial pipes.
Thorne pulled the trigger. The rotary barrels hissed as they spun up to maximum RPM, unleashing a hailstorm of tungsten slugs. The first Sentinel was disintegrated mid-air, its black armor shattered into a thousand shards. Thorne didn't stop; he pivoted on one hydraulic heel, sweeping the fire in a 180-degree arc, turning the corridor into a corridor of shredded bone and blue ichor.
To his left, Corporal Anya engaged a group of Sentinels armed with energy pikes. She activated her High-Frequency Vibration Blade. As a Sentinel lunged, Anya didn't retreat. She used her suit's thrusters for a micro-burst, sliding beneath the pike's reach. With a precise upward slash, her blade—vibrating at millions of cycles per second—sliced through the Sentinel's reinforced joints like a hot knife through butter.
"Squad Two, form a phalanx! Suppressive fire, now!"
The soldiers locked their armored shields together, creating a mobile wall of steel. When a Sentinel managed to bridge the gap and leap onto the shield wall, a soldier simply activated the Thermal-Static Discharge on his gauntlet, punching the creature and sending ten thousand volts through its nervous system.
Su Zhe moved through the chaos like a ghost. He held his phase-vibration longblade, moving with a grace that defied the heavy armor he wore. Every flash of his blade was followed by the falling head of a sentinel.
"The self-destruct sequence has started." Su Zhe's eyes narrowed as the Leviathan's massive abdomen began to glow with a dangerous violet light.
"System, initiate Phase Two—'Absolute Realm Lockdown'!"
[Command accepted. Deducting 500,000 Evolution Points.]
Golden code chains surged from Su Zhe's fingertips, burrowing deep into the Leviathan's flesh. In ten short seconds, the violent violet light stabilized, forcefully converting into pure electricity that fed back into the God's Punishment warriors' armor.
"Power levels at 120%! All systems overcharged!" Thorne shouted, feeling the surge of energy. His rotary cannon glowed with blue plasma, its fire rate doubling as he turned the next wave of enemies into red mist.
Meanwhile, thousands of miles away in the Atlantis Trench, the "Old Day Royalty" watched their fortress become a battery for their enemies. Their shock turned into a cold, murderous resolve.
As the last sentinel was purged, Su Zhe stepped into the Leviathan's now-still core chamber.
[Ding! Detected 'Leviathan-class' bio-fortress has been completely neutralized.]
[Calculating chapter rewards...]
A magnificent settlement list appeared before Su Zhe:
1. Basic Reward: +2,000,000 Evolution Points.
2. Rare Drop: "Etheric Core Fragments" x 12.
3. System Special Unlocks: 'Abyssal Sovereign' and 'Planar Slicer'.
"Two million evolution points..." Su Zhe looked at the astronomical figure. He turned toward the breach, looking at the Royal Fleets rapidly approaching on the horizon.
"God's Punishment Regiment, switch to 'Firmament-class' exoskeletons. Thorne, Anya—lead the vanguard. We're going to tear down their palace."
"Acknowledged, Commander!" Five thousand voices roared in unison, their voices echoing through the hollowed-out carcass of the deep-sea god.