CHAPTER 2 – WHEN THE DROWNED BITE BACK
Two days since the descent.
Kovarra's Teeth had grown silent beneath the tides. What had once been scorched rock and ruin now shimmered with heat-sealed steel, pulse-locked hatches, and Codex-forged chambers. Crate and his Forgebinders welded pressurized barriers along the old tunnel ribs while Ashguard soldiers reinforced scaffolding with grav-pylons.
Steam hissed. Resonance coils flickered. Aquatic regulators hummed softly as seawater was cycled through containment tanks below.
EchoWomb was transforming.
—
"Never thought I'd see it," muttered a rugged Beta hybrid named Torv as he passed a glimmering containment pipe. "Water chambers… inside Kovarra."
"Beats dying in the Dust Reaches," replied a Thal'khaar Deepborn named Rhassa, her voice warped with a soft bubbling accent. She adjusted the coralline tubes snaking across her arm. "Besides. Your kind needs to stop fearing the sea."
Torv grinned, tossing her a wrapped ration. "We don't fear it. We just don't trust anything that breathes through its ribs."
"Fair," she said, biting into it. "We don't trust surface folk who still wear Codex mesh."
Kestri soared past overhead, her wings sending down a breeze of salt-filtered wind. "Enough chatter. War's quiet. That never lasts long."
Redmaw chuckled from a nearby ledge. "Spoken like a warrior itching for blood."
"No," Kestri called back. "Spoken like someone who smells it coming."
Whisper-Vow emerged from the shadows of a pillar, her voice a whisper that halted them all. "The tunnels aren't stable."
A pause.
Then: a groaning noise.
Not metal. Not pressure.
Stone.
—
Crate's ears twitched. He spun toward the sound. "That wall wasn't meant to move."
Varka was already in motion. Buzzjaw flexed. Gaze narrow.
The trench gate.
Half-buried. Sealed long ago. A forgotten Codex marker shimmered once—then flickered.
"Something's vibrating," Crate muttered, adjusting a sonar plate. "Wait… that's not from our system—"
The wall exploded.
—
They came in a writhing mass of claws and bio-light.
Deepspawn.
Misshapen. Hulking. Glowing with shattered Codex glyphs and dripping bile that burned through alloy.
Whisper-Vow vanished and reappeared mid-motion. Her blades struck like afterimages. "Veiled—strike pattern Echo-Seven!"
The Veiled emerged like death incarnate, carving through the front wave.
"Codex ping offline!" Crate yelled. "They're jamming our relay!"
Kestri dived into the thick of it, talons shredding one Deepspawn's exposed gill-plate. Another lunged—she didn't see it—
—but Yaveth did.
The scout-commander fired a concentrated burst of barbed feathers, skewering the threat mid-air.
"Their patterns are chaotic!" Yaveth growled. "We're being overwhelmed!"
VyrmClaw charged with the Bloodbound. "Chaos is where we thrive!" he roared.
Redmaw split a Deepspawn from collar to waist, his bone axe screeching against metal-bone plating.
Ironmark and Bront Veil crashed into the corridor flanks, shields locking with seismic pulses that staggered the advancing tide.
Still… there were too many.
Kovarra's lower sanctum began to drown in noise and heat.
—
Kael dropped into the fray.
Codex burning. Blood trailing from a forearm wound. He moved like thunder forged into shape—no wasted motion.
He shattered a Deepspawn's spine with his gauntlet.
Whisper-Vow landed beside him. "They're not just reacting—they're drawn. Varka's signal… it summoned them."
Across the chaos, Varka fought alone.
She defended Crate's position with terrifying grace. A lance of coral fused to Codex fire in one hand, her Gravemaw howling beneath her.
"Her armor's etched," Crate shouted from the forge wall. "Old Codex glyphs—some of them are still live! She's broadcasting to deep lure stations!"
Kael turned, eyes burning. "Can we shut it down?"
"Not fast enough."
Kael barked, "Talym—reinforce Sector Three! Kestri, bleed the breach dry!"
Sovereign Pulse flared—but it didn't matter.
Bodies dropped.
The swarm thickened.
Even Whisper-Vow faltered, veil torn, shoulder split.
Crate's pylon hissed and shattered as another wave burst into the forge.
Kael's left gauntlet cracked as he absorbed a crushing strike. He fell to one knee, barely catching himself.
And then—
Silence.
The water trembled.
—
A glow rose from the shattered trench.
A ripple. A presence.
Thyrn returned.
A formation of reefspike-mounted warriors thundered from the broken gate, their warbeasts shrieking through the corridors. Coral-forged armor gleamed with oath-script. Bio-lanterns pulsed across their limbs.
Selkha, her eyes focused and fingers twitching, dropped beside Crate.
"Overriding relay lock," she said. "Vent flow… now."
With a burst of fire and water, she collapsed the upper section of ceiling. Dozens of Deepspawn were crushed beneath the debris.
Crate blinked. "You're barely seventeen."
Selkha grinned. "And I just saved your life."
Mharrek moved like death. Silent. Unstoppable.
He didn't need a weapon—just his hands.
One hybrid shattered in his grip. Another crumpled beneath his elbow. He moved like the ocean itself had willed him forward.
Kael stood, blood streaking down his face.
Across the broken battlefield, Thyrn approached, trident glowing.
"You came back," Kael rasped.
Thyrn raised his weapon.
"No," he said. "We rose."
—
To be continued in Chapter 3.