Inside the freezing underground laboratory, the silence shattered as the steel door slid open.
Scyte stepped inside with slightly hurried breaths, yet he still wore the most shameless grin possible as if nothing had happened.
"Sorry I'm late, Boss. There was... an old lady crossing the street," Scyte casually lied with a crooked smile.
Tora clicked his tongue in annoyance, already prepared to throw insults at him, but one sharp glance from No Name, who sat behind the console desk, immediately shut the giant up.
Arrow and Rare stood straight, waiting for instructions.
No Name paid no attention to Scyte's excuse.
His hand calmly pressed a button on the desk.
Instantly, the holographic screen in the center of the room lit up brightly.
Instead of displaying assassination targets or enemy satellite data like usual, it projected a three-dimensional image of an ancient object.
It resembled a pitch-black hourglass, but instead of sand, a swirling mass of purple mist rotated slowly inside it against gravity.
"I don't need questions," No Name's voice broke the silence, flat yet demanding absolute obedience. "You only have one task. Bring this object to me."
Arrow narrowed his eyes, analyzing the hologram carefully. "What kind of artifact is that, Boss? And where are we supposed to find it?"
"A space-binding relic. Achronal Miasma," No Name answered quietly.
He leaned back in his chair, hiding the insane truth that the artifact was the only anchor capable of preventing his existence from being erased completely within the Void Rift. "The coordinates have already been uploaded into your systems."
Arrow glanced at the coordinates appearing on his wrist display. His eyes widened slightly. "Huh? What kind of coordinates are these... This is right in the middle of the Mariana Trench. You're telling us to dive into the deepest ocean trench on Earth?!"
Scyte instantly slapped his forehead and let out a long sigh. "Man... we just got done setting off fireworks in outer space, and now we're being sent swimming in some pitch-black abyss. Our boss seriously never gives us normal vacation missions, huh?"
Rare simply smiled innocently while tightening his grip on Excalibur. "Wow, I've never been to the beach before."
"This isn't a beach, Rare. This is water hell," Arrow corrected while rubbing his temple.
"You have twenty-four hours. Leave now," No Name ordered finally, ignoring all complaints before shutting off the hologram display.
The night wind of the Pacific Ocean blew violently against the hull of No Name Corporation's stealth jet, which hovered motionlessly above the waters of the Mariana Trench.
The rear hatch opened wide.
Cold, salty sea wind rushed into the cabin immediately.
Near the hatch, Arrow busily inspected the helmet and oxygen tanks of his thick Nano-Pressure Suit.
The equipment had been specially designed by No Name's lab to withstand the immense pressure of depths reaching dozens of kilometers underwater.
Arrow checked the display on his wrist, then turned around.
His eye twitched in irritation.
Tora stood casually wearing nothing but black pants, his gigantic muscles completely exposed.
Scyte was stretching his shoulders leisurely in a casual shirt, while Rare quietly sat staring at the ocean.
"You three... are seriously planning to dive into the Mariana Trench dressed like that?!" Arrow pointed at them with exhausted disbelief. "It's eleven kilometers deep! Sunlight doesn't even reach down there! It's going to be completely pitch black, and this mission could take a long time!"
Tora snorted dismissively while resting his twin axes on his shoulder. "I already can't see anyway, idiot!"
"Besides, holding my breath for a few hours down there is easy. Consider it breathing practice," Scyte added with a smug grin.
Rare nodded innocently. "Don't worry, Arrow. If the air runs out, I'll just make an energy bubble."
Arrow could only rub the side of his helmet in surrender, already accepting that the laws of physics no longer applied to his teammates. "Whatever. Just jump already."
Without another warning, all four of them leapt from the aircraft.
SPLAAASH!
They pierced through the ocean surface and shot downward like bullets.
The deeper they descended, the more sunlight vanished.
The ocean's blue gradually darkened into deep navy, then into a bottomless black void.
At a depth of eleven thousand meters, absolute darkness engulfed The Four Pion.
The water temperature neared freezing.
At this depth, sunlight was nothing more than a myth.
"It's so dark... I can't even see the tip of my own scythe," Scyte grumbled through the communication channel.
"Focus, Scyte. Don't move too much or the water pressure will drain your energy," Arrow calmly replied. His hawk-like eyes remained fixed on the small radar screen attached to his arm. "We're close. The object is beneath us."
Tora let out a low grunt, gripping his twin axes tightly despite his movements being far slower underwater.
Meanwhile, Rare calmly swam behind them as if he were casually sightseeing inside an aquarium.
Suddenly, Arrow's radar blinked.
At the bottom of the black sandy trench, a faint purple glow slowly emerged.
An ancient crystal hourglass stood upright among the rocks.
Inside it, instead of flowing sand, thick purple mist slowly rotated while defying the most basic laws of physics.
The artifact radiated such a powerful anomalous aura that even the surrounding space and time felt frozen.
"There it is... Achronal Miasma," Tora muttered, preparing to descend and retrieve it.
But before Tora could move...
WUUUUUNGGG...
A deep low-frequency vibration swept through the surrounding ocean.
The sound wasn't heard by the ears.
It directly assaulted their organs and brains.
Bloop...
"Argh!" Scyte grabbed his head as a violent pain suddenly pulsed through it.
"What the hell was that?!" Arrow struggled to steady himself against the sudden current.
Within the endless darkness ahead of them, two gigantic pale-white eyes slowly opened.
A colossal humanoid figure hundreds of meters tall emerged from the abyssal trench.
Its body was smooth white flesh without scales.
It possessed human-like arms and legs, yet its face was nothing more than a black hollow void without any visible nose or mouth.
It was the absolute ruler of the deepest abyss.
But the most horrifying part was that the creature was not alone.
Its massive pale hand held a dark blue spiritual energy chain.
That chain restrained a gigantic leviathan-like monster resembling an ancient fish corpse, its rotting flesh continuously emitting deadly soundwaves.
The monster feared by humanity throughout history...
...was merely a hunting pet owned by the pale giant.
"Holy crap! Isn't that one of those mythical sea monsters people used to talk about ages ago?!" Scyte shouted.
The pale being lowered its head, staring at The Four Pion as though they were insects attempting to steal its toy.
Rare tilted his head, his innocent smile. "Wow... that fish is really huge. I wonder if it's ready to be sliced apart."
Tora grinned savagely, momentarily forgetting the pain pounding inside his ears.
His muscles tightened, fully prepared to charge forward despite standing within the deadliest environment on Earth.