Ahead of the group moving through the seawater, there was nothing but darkness.
At the front was Ninora Penders, who had slipped down into the drainage pipe first. Behind him followed Irat Gahanov, Jamie Spahitch, and finally Yi Vens, the four moving in a single line through the tunnel.
Jamie, the smallest among them, was forced to wade through seawater that reached up to her waist, pushing through the cold darkness as they moved forward.
Unlike the future soldiers they had encountered earlier, they had no maps transmitted directly into their minds. They had no guidance from any headquarters.
All they could do was rely on instinct.
And so they had walked.
But along the way, Jamie—who talked endlessly like a broken radio—had never once kept quiet. She and Irat had been arguing the entire time.
“When are we finally getting out of this water?” Jamie complained.
“Not water,” Irat corrected lazily. “Seawater.”
Their exchange sounded exactly like a pair of teenagers bickering.
From the back of the line, Yi Vens’s deep voice echoed against the titanium walls.
“Is the gun usable?”
He had brought a shotgun with him, but during the octopus creature’s attack he had dropped the backpack that carried the ammunition. Only the two shells already loaded remained.
Ninora tapped the rifle once and glanced back.
“Don’t know. Won’t know until we try.”
The two had only met yesterday, yet their conversation already sounded familiar.
“So what? You think something else is going to show up?” Jamie snapped, splashing the seawater irritably.
Her tone alone was enough to make anyone’s patience snap.
“There’s no problem,” Irat said with a grin. “We can use our abilities now, right? Messiah’s not here. So why hold back?”
The others fell silent.
No one had openly talked about their powers before. None of them knew what words to use.
Irat slowly drew the F92 Beretta model gun tucked into his belt.
A crooked smile spread across his face.
“We should save our abilities,” Yi Vens said calmly. “The situation is already dangerous. We might need them later.”
Irat only looked bored.
Then suddenly he raised the gun toward the ceiling of the pipe.
The others sensed something immediately.
At the tip of the gun, blue lightning flickered.
In the next instant—
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The lightning shot forward.
It tore through the darkness like a blade, exploding far ahead as electric veins spread across the tunnel like a spiderweb.
Something screamed.
The sound of burning flesh echoed through the pipe.
Irat whistled softly.
Moments later, the lightning he had fired rose like a flare and burst like fireworks, illuminating the tunnel.
And what they saw made them freeze.
The pipe was enormous—nearly twenty meters wide.
Seawater pooled along the bottom where they had been walking.
But the walls—
The titanium surface had turned black.
Thousands upon thousands of creatures clung to it.
Red eyes stared down at them.
The tunnel was filled completely with Devil’s Children—small insect-like monsters, each roughly thirty centimeters long.
Individually small.
But in numbers reaching tens of thousands.
The sight alone was nauseating.
The moment the three—Ninora, Jamie, and Yi—recognized the swarm, they instinctively prepared for battle.
Irat whistled again.
Lightning scattered throughout the tunnel, striking the creatures.
Explosions of burning flesh echoed repeatedly.
Several monsters melted instantly, boiling the seawater beneath them.
But the swarm responded immediately.
The creatures spread gray wings like hornets and rose into the air all at once.
The sound was deafening.
Jamie and Irat clutched their ears in pain.
Ninora stepped forward and fired his rifle.
The shot hit.
One creature fell.
Just one.
It was like pouring a cup of water into the desert.
With a shrug, Ninora tossed the rifle into the seawater.
A grin spread across his dark face.
It was time.
He released his limiter.
Ripples spread across the water around him.
His body began to change.
His face stretched forward, becoming wolf-like.
Muscles swelled violently beneath his skin, tearing through flesh as they expanded.
His arms thickened, hardening like solid concrete.
His forearms became weapons—massive blunt instruments of muscle and bone.
With a roar, the transformed beast-like Ninora charged into the swarm.
The creatures covered him instantly.
But their fangs could not pierce his skin.
He crushed them like insects between steel presses.
Acidic fluids sprayed everywhere.
Still, their numbers were overwhelming.
So Ninora stopped crushing them.
Instead, he thrust his right arm forward.
The hardened flesh opened—
And a beam of light fired from his arm.
A single flash erased thousands of monsters instantly.
But the swarm still filled the tunnel.
Some creatures dodged the beam, circling behind him.
They had intelligence.
The insects on his back began swelling.
Yi Vens instantly realized the danger.
“They’re going to explode—!”
Before he could finish—
A white mist rushed through the swarm.
Steam.
Cloud.
Jamie.
Her body dissolved into vapor, spreading through the tunnel.
The swelling creatures were engulfed.
A moment later—
Their explosion was compressed and suffocated within the dense cloud.
The swarm began falling from the air, suffocating.
With their rear secured, Ninora roared again and pushed forward, firing beams of light.
The swarm began retreating.
The creatures could feel fear.
The sound of their wings slowly faded deeper into the tunnel.
“This might actually work,” Irat muttered.
But as they turned a curve in the pipe—
They froze.
The tunnel opened into a massive dome-shaped chamber, likely the largest underground space beneath the artificial island.
And inside it—
An ocean of black.
The swarm filled the entire chamber like a living storm.
“So this was the plan…” Irat muttered bitterly.
Ninora’s beastly face twisted with frustration.
“How are we supposed to kill all that…?”
Jamie suddenly rushed forward.
“We have to keep moving!”
She transformed into a cloud again, expanding rapidly and crushing the monsters.
But the swarm was too large.
A massive wave of insects surged toward her.
Jamie screamed and fell into the seawater in terror.
Her cloud form vanished instantly.
At that moment—
Yi Vens stepped forward.
His muscular body grew even larger, surrounded by a strange aura.
His eyes opened.
The normally black irises of the Asian man expanded into seven colors.
And then—
The swarm exploded.
Chain explosions filled the entire chamber with fire.
The shockwaves were powerful enough to warp the titanium walls.
Yet the four of them stood completely unharmed.
As the flames faded, Ninora’s beast form shrank back into his human body.
Ash fell like snow.
Ninora bared his white teeth at Yi Vens with a grin.
For the first time, they had witnessed each other’s powers.
This moment became the signal flare that marked the beginning of the battle for those bound by fate.
To be continued in Episode 17.
