The Azure Ghost shot through the water, its new "Ghost-Steel" plating vibrating with a strange, low-frequency hum. Kaito's breath was still ragged from the fight with the Abyssal Watcher, but there was no time to rest. On the glowing radar screen, a small, rhythmic red dot continued to blink—an emergency signal that hadn't been heard in a decade.
"It's his frequency," Kaito whispered, his fingers trembling as he adjusted the sonar. "Sector 7-G. That's deep... even for this ship."
The Dead Zone began to change as he moved toward the signal. The graveyard of ships gave way to massive, underwater mountains made of obsidian and jagged volcanic glass. The water here was so dense with ancient magic that it felt like syrup, slowing the ship's movements. Strange, translucent creatures with no eyes drifted past the canopy, their bodies glowing with a sickly pale light.
"Silas warned me about the 'Pressure of the Void'," Kaito remembered. "It's not just the water pressing down; it's the weight of the secrets hidden here."
Suddenly, the signal grew louder, turning into a high-pitched whine that filled the cockpit. Kaito slowed the ship as he rounded a massive obsidian spire. There, nestled in a valley of glowing white sand, was something he never expected to find.
It was an escape pod—shattered, covered in thick layers of barnacles and deep-sea rust. But on its side, barely visible through the grime, was the emblem of the Royal Tide-Guard. His father's unit.
Kaito's heart hammered against his ribs. He felt a surge of hope, followed by a crushing wave of fear. Was the pod empty? Or was it a tomb?
He activated the external lights, illuminating the interior of the pod through its cracked glass. Inside, there was no body. Instead, there was a single, waterproof metallic cylinder—a message capsule—and a small, carved wooden toy of a dolphin. A toy Kaito had played with when he was five years old.
"He was here," Kaito choked out, a single tear escaping and hitting the control panel. "He was alive... at least for a while."
But as he reached out with the ship's mechanical arm to retrieve the capsule, the white sand around the pod began to swirl. The valley wasn't made of sand at all. It was made of millions of tiny, bone-white insects—Sea-Locusts. And they were hungry for the magic energy radiating from the Azure Ghost's heart.
"I'm not leaving that capsule behind!" Kaito roared, slamming his hands onto the core to overload the shields. He had to act fast before the swarm consumed the very ship that was supposed to save him.