Chapter 194: Deep-Sea Fortress

Chapter 194: Deep-Sea Fortress

The cross-section schematic of the underwater fortress filled the main screen, red markers flashing in layered pulses.

Mia's fingers flew across the keyboard. "The fighter's inside the shaft — position locked. The trench entrance has three layers of camouflage, deep-water mines and sonar nets on the outside, decoy signals buried on the inside. Whoever built this did not want company."

David stood at the edge of the hangar platform, facing a black deep-sea submersible. The rear propulsion ring was already running its warmup cycle.

"Hull came straight from the Middle East R&D division — custom build. The outer shell has a composite layer of stellar-drift alloy. Under normal conditions, it can handle the pressure at the trench's mid-section." Hassan's voice crackled through the comm channel.

"Normal conditions don't include a place like the Soul Sanctum." Mia looked up. "I've already rewritten the submersible's routing. Silent mode holds for fifteen minutes, tops. After that, they'd have to be blind not to spot you."

Devereaux cut in. "Boss, want us to just blast an opening from above?"

"No." David swung himself into the cockpit. "Hold the outer perimeter. Anyone surfaces — put them down."

"Copy that. Tonight, this stretch of water belongs to us. Anyone who pokes their head up is going to regret it."

The hatch sealed. The submersible dropped from its cradle and plunged into the sea.

"Keep your eye on my wake model. Peter's fighter still has residual traces on its stealth coating — I can track the electronic signature from there."

"Something on the left," David said, eyes fixed on the sonar display.

Three points of pale blue light blinked to life in the dark. Mia swore. "Torpedoes — deep-water models!"

David worked the control stick with one hand and pressed the other flat against the hull. Telekinetic force surged outward.

The water behind them lurched violently. Several torpedoes veered off course and detonated against the rock face, sending shockwaves ripping through the water, churning up silt and debris.

"Two more ahead! Launch tubes are hidden inside a fissure!"

The second wave hit. A wide section of the outer armor tore away. The left stabilizer fin was blown clean off. Every warning light blazed red, and the cockpit lurched hard to one side.

"Hull's breached! Any deeper and you're dead!"

David held his eyes on the depth gauge, then shifted them to the massive shape materializing ahead. At the base of the trench, a black fortress was embedded in the rock strata. The elevator shaft at its crown was slowly sliding shut.

"We're here." He unclipped his harness.

Mia went still. "Are you out of your mind? What are you doing?"

David drew his long blade and secured it across his back. "Going in."

"This is the Mariana Trench, not your backyard pool!" Mia slammed the keyboard hard enough to rattle her desk.

A moment later, the hatch blew open. Water poured in with a roar. David stepped out of the submersible and let the deep ocean take him.

The pressure hit all at once. The Crimson Tear burned hot against his chest. His telekinetic force compressed inward, forming a spherical barrier around his body. The water that crashed against its edge immediately twisted into spiraling turbulence.

The submersible's wreckage collapsed behind him, crushed by the deep-sea pressure. David drove forward through it, straight toward the fortress wall.

Gun emplacements swung toward him. Dozens of sensor beams swept the water. Warning lights lit up in rings along the fortress hull.

"They've got you! Cutting cannon, lower right!"

A high-energy beam lanced through the water. David rolled clear, swept up a chunk of wreckage with his telekinesis, and drove it straight into the cannon mount. The turret snapped sideways, and the beam sheared into the rock face, blasting out a shower of stone.

He closed the distance fast. The fortress wall was black alloy, brutally thick, its surface alive with a flowing energy shield.

David pressed his palm against it. His telekinetic force collapsed to a single point and bore down with everything it had. The edge of the barrier compressed the surrounding water into a spinning drill. It turned in sync with the dark-red blade, and together they cut through. The outer shell split. An entire alloy panel was torn free. Water surged around him as he poured into the inner corridor.

Inside the fortress, red emergency lights strobed across every surface. Waterproof blast doors dropped in sequence.

David's boots hit the floor. His spherical force field expanded outward, and the flooding water reversed, pushed back the way it came.

"You always have to make an entrance," Mia said, letting out a long breath. "Primary lab is on the lowest level. The central elevator shaft is the fastest route — also the most heavily defended."

"Then that's the route."

Blade in hand, David cut through the blockade and descended.

A pair of light-frame combat mechs rounded a corner and moved to intercept. David swung once. A single arc of light. Their power cores went dark on the spot.

The door to the core sector floated with dull-gold symbols. David kicked it in.

The doors crashed into the hall beyond. Hundreds of cultivation tanks filled the room from wall to wall. Human bodies floated suspended inside them, experimental cores embedded in each chest, the enhancement fluid glowing a deep, cold blue. Mechanical arms and energy conduits covered the ceiling in dense networks, all of them running down to the central altar at the room's heart.

Peter stood before the altar. He had shed most of his dark-gold armor, leaving the blue-light core in his chest exposed.

He held a black sample case. Inside it, a single vial of K-serum concentrate remained.

"You're four minutes and seventeen seconds ahead of schedule," he said.

"This is the end of the road for you." David advanced, blade raised.

Peter glanced down at the vial. "No. It just means it's time for an upgrade."

He raised the injector and drove the needle directly into his heart. The moment the dark-blue concentrate was fully depressed, vascular patterns erupted across his neck and arms. Muscle restructured at a visible rate. Bones cracked and reset. His frame stretched upward by half a foot.

"His density is spiking — fast! Speed too!" Mia's voice caught as she stared at the readouts.

Peter raised his head. Blue light pulsed in his eyes. "Now," he said, "this is what evolution looks like."

He vanished.

David's instincts fired before his mind caught up. He brought the blade horizontal. The shockwave detonated at point-blank range. Three cultivation tanks shattered simultaneously, blue enhancement fluid spraying across the hall.

Peter reappeared directly in front of him, drove a fist into the flat of the blade. The impact was heavier than anything before — by more than one degree.

David skidded back several meters, boots carving deep grooves into the floor.

Peter didn't let up. Knee strikes, elbow drops, palm strikes — they blurred together into a continuous barrage. The hall became a storm of afterimages and explosions. Cultivation tanks shattered in rows, debris filling the air.

David brought the blade down toward Peter's neck. Peter turned his head just enough to avoid it and drove the back of his fist into David's shoulder. The shoulder plate cracked. The impact sent David crashing through a row of tanks behind him, alloy support frames collapsing in a chain.

"You're still running on old-world hardware." Peter walked toward him over the broken glass, unhurried. "Strong. Ruthless. But too slow."

He raised his hand. Every gravity node in the core sector activated at once. The floor under David's feet buckled inward. The pressure crushed down from all sides. Debris and wreckage flattened against the ground. The surface of the enhancement fluid in the nearby tanks dimpled under the force.

"Ten times gravity — he's locked down the whole room!" Mia's voice came through the earpiece.

Peter closed in, step by step. "This is my domain. You'll go to your knees. Your bones will fracture. The blood will be forced out of your lungs."

David didn't answer. His breathing stayed even. His eyes tracked down to Peter's legs.

Under ten times gravity, every time Peter pushed off, there was a fractional hesitation in the knee joint. A stutter so small it would have been invisible to anyone else. But David saw it.

Peter was done waiting. He lunged, a high-density strike cutting through the air toward David's skull. David slipped to the side — a beat too slow, taking a partial hit on the shoulder.

The floor cratered where the blow landed. David used the rebound to flip clear, bringing the blade across in a cut aimed at Peter's knee. Peter pulled back half a step. The lag appeared again.

That half-beat was all David needed. He lifted his gaze to the ceiling.

Four massive seawater filtration pipes ran above the core sector, holding back the full differential pressure of the deep-ocean circulation outside. Peter had pushed his gravity nodes to maximum output to hold the field stable, and the overhead supports had already begun to shudder.

David drove the blade upward at an angle. The pipes ruptured. High-pressure seawater tore through the breach with a sound like the world splitting open. In an instant, the entire core sector was swallowed by white water.

The gravity field and the flood met head-on. Cultivation tanks were ripped from their moorings in waves. Mechanical arms were torn apart at their joints. Light strips exploded. Thousands of tons of force slammed into Peter and pushed him a half-step off center.

David drove forward into the current, telekinetic force pressed tight against his body. The blade rode the flow upward in a straight line. Peter raised his hand to stabilize the field — and the knee joint stalled. His frame stuttered.

David's blade punched through his chest plate and into the core behind it.

Peter's pupils contracted to a point.

David twisted his wrist. The blade drove through to the hilt. Blue light detonated from Peter's chest and cascaded out of control through every conduit in his body.

"You read this wrong from the start." David levered the blade upward. "You're the one who didn't measure up."

The core in Peter's chest split apart.

The floodwater sent him spinning. His limbs stopped responding. The blue light died in segments. He dropped to his knees in the churning water, and his head went down.

"That arrogant son of a bitch is finally quiet," Mia breathed.

David pulled the blade free and shook off the blue fluid. As Peter hit the ground, the main display above the central altar blazed to life. The red lights across the hall shifted, one by one, to a deeper shade.

A face appeared on the screen. Colorless. Drained of blood. Eyes the shade of dark red.

The Supreme Sovereign of the Soul Sanctum.

He looked at David standing in the flooded hall, his voice carrying a cold cruelty. "Peter is dead. What a disappointment."

"You're next." David raised his eyes to the screen.

The man's lips curved into a faint, quiet smile. "You killed an imperfect prototype. That changes nothing about what comes next."

He pressed the control beside him.

The entire core sector shuddered. Every cultivation tank in the hall switched to red. The alarm cut through the room like a blade. Inside the tanks, the experimental subjects convulsed — spines arching, fingers seizing, the cores in their chests blazing to a searing brightness.

"No — the tanks are forcing the subjects awake! David, get out — "