The sea was too still.
Yuchen stood on the broken remains of the Sutherland docks, his borrowed coat heavy with saltwater, watching the horizon where the Wei-Xing fleet had vanished. The Titan's carcass smoldered beneath the waves, its twisted metal bones sinking deeper with every passing second. But it wasn't the wreckage that held his attention.
It was the light.
That impossible, depthless glow beneath the surface—pulsing like a heartbeat, growing brighter.
Xing snarled beside him, his silver-marked hackles raised.
"We need to move."
Vera's voice was uncharacteristically quiet as she came up beside them, her flight suit torn and streaked with ash. "That's not a normal radiation signature."
Jiang spat into the water, his good hand resting on the plasma pistol at his belt. "Because it's not radiation."
The ocean shuddered.
A swell rose against all natural rhythm—a slow, deliberate heave of water that lifted the wreckage like toys in a bathtub. Then the surface parted, revealing a glimpse of something vast and shadowed moving beneath.
Lucien, for once, had no clever remark. Versailles the peacock had gone utterly still on his shoulder, one golden eye fixed on the deep.
Song Lihua stepped forward, her bare feet sinking into wet sand. The other awakened children clustered behind her, their silver eyes reflecting the eerie glow from below.
"It's angry," she whispered.
The Abyss had awakened.
The Sutherland war room was in chaos.
Holographic maps flickered with frantic updates—sonar readings, thermal scans, energy spikes that defied classification. The shape beneath the waves didn't appear like a traditional beast. It didn't surface. It didn't roar.
It simply existed, a presence so immense it distorted the sea around it.
"Confirmed," a Sutherland technician announced, voice shaking. "Profile matches historic S-rank encounters. Designation: The Abyss."
Yuchen's fingers tightened around the edge of the table. "What do we know about it?"
Vera pulled up an archive—scattered reports, half-destroyed footage from the early days of the Awakening. The images were grainy, but unmistakable: a creature of impossible scale, its body more shadow than flesh, its movements sending tidal waves crashing into coastal cities.
"It's one of the first," Vera said. "Evolved right after the Collapse. Never attacks unprovoked, but it's sunk entire fleets that trespassed into its territory."
Jiang scowled. "So why's it pissed now?"
Song Lihua didn't look away from the screens. "The Titan."
Silence.
"The Abyss hates artificial power," Lucien murmured, stroking Versailles' feathers absently. "And we just dumped a melting superweapon into its home."
The implications settled over the room like a suffocating weight.
They hadn't just won a battle.
They'd started a war with something far older.
Yuchen found Song Lihua on the fortress's highest tower, her small frame silhouetted against the bruised twilight sky. The other children slept fitfully in the med-bay below, their minds finally free of Wei-Xing's control.
But Lihua didn't sleep.
She stood perfectly still, her silver eyes fixed on the horizon where the Abyss waited.
"You can hear it," Yuchen said. Not a question.
She nodded. "It's… singing."
The word didn't fit. Nothing about that presence felt like music. And yet—
"What's it saying?"
Lihua's fingers curled against the stone railing. "It wants to talk."
Behind them, Xing let out a low whine.
Yuchen exhaled. "To who?"
Lihua turned to him, her gaze too knowing for a child.
"To the one who woke it up."
The Sutherland's last submersible was a sleek, armored thing, built for stealth over combat. It looked like a toy compared to the Abyss.
Jiang stood at the dock, arms crossed, his expression stormy. "This is the dumbest damn plan we've ever had."
"Not arguing," Yuchen said, adjusting the comm unit at his wrist.
Vera handed him a modified depth gauge. "This'll monitor the Abyss's bio-signatures. If it starts to see you as a threat, the readings will spike."
"And then?"
"Pray," Vera said flatly.
Lucien, for once, wasn't smirking. He pressed a small device into Yuchen's palm—a Valois neural link, its surface etched with delicate circuitry. "This will let Lihua maintain contact with you down there. If the Abyss tries to… influence you, she can pull you back."
Xing shoved his muzzle into Yuchen's hand, growling.
"No," Yuchen said firmly. "You're staying here."
The pup's golden eyes burned with betrayal.
"He'll keep the link stable," Lihua said softly. She knelt, pressing her forehead to Xing's. The pup's markings flared in response. "He's connected to you. To it. More than any of us."
Yuchen didn't ask what she meant.
He didn't want to know.
The submersible descended in near silence, the ocean swallowing it whole.
At first, there was nothing but the oppressive dark, the occasional flicker of bioluminescent fish darting past the viewport. Then the light began—a soft, eerie glow from below, pulsing in time with Yuchen's own heartbeat.
The comm crackled.
"You're nearing the boundary," Lihua's voice whispered in his ear. "It knows you're here."
The submersible's sensors screamed a warning as the water shifted around them. A current, impossibly precise, cradled the vessel and pulled it deeper.
Then Yuchen saw it.
The Abyss wasn't a whale.
It wasn't anything he could name.
Its body was a living shadow, its form shifting between solid and smoke. Eyes like dying stars regarded him from the dark, each larger than the submersible itself. And its voice—
Not sound.
Pressure.
It spoke inside his skull, in a language older than cities.
"Luo heir."
Yuchen's breath fogged the viewport. "You know me."
The Abyss's laugh was the sound of continents breaking.
"I knew your ancestors. They, too, thought to command the world."
The submersive groaned under the weight of the words.
"I didn't come to command," Yuchen said.
The eyes blinked. Once. Twice.
"No," the Abyss agreed. "You came to beg."
The pressure in Yuchen's skull intensified, threatening to crack his bones from within. The submersible's hull groaned in protest, its reinforced glass viewport spiderwebbing under the strain. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he felt Xing's presence—a warm, anchoring pulse against the Abyss's crushing weight.
"I'm not begging," Yuchen ground out, tasting blood on his tongue. "I'm asking."
The Abyss shifted, its massive form sending slow, undulating waves through the water. The glow of its eyes dimmed slightly, considering.
"Asking implies a choice."
The words reverberated through the submersible like a depth charge.
Yuchen's comm crackled—Lihua's voice, strained but clear: "It's testing you. Don't show fear."
Easier said than done.
He forced his breathing to steady. "You could've destroyed us already if that's what you wanted. So what do you want from me?"
Silence.
Then, the Abyss moved.
One moment it loomed in the darkness; the next, the submersible was enveloped in swirling shadows, the exterior cameras showing nothing but endless black. The temperature inside plummeted. Frost crawled across the control panels.
And then—
Memory.
Not his own.
Yuchen stood on a cliff overlooking the Pacific, but the year was wrong—2025, the air thick with the scent of burning oil and ozone. Below, the ocean churned as something vast breached the surface.
Not the Abyss.
Another beast.
A creature of jagged bone and glowing veins, its body half-metal from military experiments. It screamed, a sound that shattered windows for miles inland.
Then the sea opened.
The Abyss rose, its true form incomprehensible—a living storm of ink and starlight. It didn't attack the mutated beast.
It consumed it.
Whole.
The vision shattered.
Yuchen gasped, back in the submersible, his hands clawing at the armrests. The Abyss's voice was quieter now, almost pensive.
"Your kind forgets. We were here first."
Yuchen's pulse hammered. "The Collapse. The Awakening. You weren't just reacting—you were cleaning up."
A pulse of approval vibrated through the water.
"And now you bring another abomination into my waters."
The Titan. Of course.
"It's gone," Yuchen said. "We destroyed it."
"And left its poison behind."
The submersible's monitors suddenly flared to life, displaying a real-time scan of the seabed below. The remains of the Titan weren't just sinking—they were dissolving, tendrils of blackened energy seeping into the ocean floor.
The Abyss's rage was a tangible thing.
"This is your doing. Your responsibility."
Lihua's voice cut through, urgent: "Yuchen, the readings—it's not just angry at the Titan. It's reacting to the children's energy signatures. The ones Wei-Xing used."
A terrible understanding dawned.
"You recognize them," Yuchen whispered. "The awakened children. They're connected to you."
The Abyss stilled.
For the first time, something like hesitation rippled through its presence.
"They are of the new world. As am I."
Then, softer—
"But they are not meant to be weapons."
The submersible surfaced at dawn, its hull streaked with strange, phosphorescent marks.
Yuchen staggered onto the dock, his legs barely holding him. Jiang was there instantly, gripping his shoulder hard enough to bruise. "Well?"
Before Yuchen could answer, the ocean erupted.
A geyser of black water shot skyward, twisting into a spiraling column that loomed over the fortress. The Sutherland soldiers raised their weapons in panic—but Vera shouted them down.
The water didn't attack.
It shaped itself.
Into words.
BRING THEM TO ME.
Lihua stepped forward, her small face pale but determined. "It wants the children."
Jiang's grip on Yuchen tightened. "Like hell."
"Not to hurt them," Yuchen rasped. "To heal them."
The water shifted again, showing an image—a deep trench, untouched by human light, where the last dregs of the Titan's corruption could be purged. Where the children's fractured minds could be made whole.
But there was a price.
ONE OF YOUR BLOOD MUST STAY.
Silence.
Then—
"No."
The voice came from behind them.
Luo Jinhai stood at the edge of the dock, his robes whipping in the sudden wind. The Abyss's watery form tilted, as if regarding him.
Jinhai didn't flinch. "The children go. But my grandson does not."
The ocean roared.
Vera's hand went to her sidearm.
Then Lihua walked to the very edge of the dock—and knelt.
"I'll stay."
Yuchen lunged for her. "Lihua, no—!"
She turned, her silver eyes glowing brighter than ever. "It's not punishment. It's a trade." She touched his wrist, where the Luo markings curled beneath his sleeve. "You have a war to fight. I have… this."
The Abyss's presence shifted again, considering.
Then—
AGREED.
The column of water collapsed, drenching them all.
When the spray cleared, Lihua was gone.
The remaining children left at dusk.
They walked into the waves without fear, their small hands linked, their silver eyes calm. The ocean welcomed them, gentle currents carrying them away from the shore. From the fortress walls, Yuchen watched until the last glimpse of their light vanished beneath the waves.
Jiang stood beside him, uncharacteristically quiet. "You really think that thing will help them?"
"Yes." Yuchen didn't know how he knew—only that he did.
The Abyss wasn't human.
But it wasn't cruel.
A hand touched his shoulder. Jinhai's expression was unreadable. "Wei-Xing has blockaded the northern ports. They're calling the Titan's destruction an act of terrorism."
Of course they were.
Yuchen looked down at Xing, who leaned heavily against his leg. The pup's markings pulsed faintly, still resonating with whatever connection he'd forged with the Abyss.
"Then we'll have to show them what real terror looks like," Yuchen said softly.
Far below, in the crushing dark, something ancient and vast hummed in agreement.
The world burned in headlines.
Yuchen stared at the holographic news reels flickering above the Sutherland war table—each one more damning than the last.
"LUO HEIR DESTROYS PEACE ACCORDS!"
"WEI-XING RELEASES FOOTAGE OF 'UNPROVOKED ATTACK'!"
"INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL DEMANDS LUO DYNASTY DISARM!"
The footage was doctored, of course. Grainy images of the Titan's destruction spliced with fabricated audio of Jinhai ordering the strike. Worst of all was the final clip—a slow pan across the Sutherland docks, where the awakened children had walked into the sea. The commentary was venomous.
Sources confirm the Luo Dynasty has been experimenting on awakened children, disposing of them when they became inconvenient.
Xing's growl vibrated through the floor as the reel looped.
Vera slammed her fist on the table, scattering holograms. "Those lying, scheming vultures—"
"They're good at this," Lucien murmured, uncharacteristically grim. Versailles perched on his shoulder, the peacock's feathers puffed in agitation. "Wei-Xing has spent decades mastering the art of rewriting history."
Jiang scrolled through a military dispatch, his mouth a hard line. "They're not stopping at propaganda. The Valois border skirmishes were just the start—Wei-Xing's moving full battalions into the neutral zones."
Yuchen's nails bit into his palms. "They wanted this. The second we took out that Titan facility, they had their excuse."
A soft chime interrupted them. The holograms dissolved, replaced by the shimmering image of Luo Jinhai. His face was etched with exhaustion, but his voice was steel.
"The council has voted. The Luo Dynasty is officially under sanctions until we surrender Yuchen for 'war crimes investigation.'"
Jiang spat a curse.
Jinhai continued, "The Sutherlands and Valois are the only major powers refusing to comply. For now." His gaze locked onto Yuchen. "You cannot return home."
The words should have hurt more. But all Yuchen felt was a cold, quiet certainty.
"Then where do I go?"
Jinhai's hologram flickered. "You find the truth. And you force the world to see it."
The transmission cut out.
Silence.
Then Vera grinned, all teeth. "Well. Time for some old-fashioned piracy."
The Wandering Tide was a Sutherland stealth cruiser, sleek and predatory as its namesake. Yuchen stood on its deck at dawn, watching the last of the supplies get loaded. They'd leave at high tide—just as Wei-Xing's blockades shifted patrols.
Jiang adjusted the plasma cannon strapped to his back. "You sure about this?"
Yuchen didn't answer immediately. His eyes were on the horizon, where the first hints of sunlight painted the waves gold. Somewhere beneath those waters, Song Lihua and the others walked with the Abyss.
"Wei-Xing's lying," he said at last. "Not just about us. About everything."
Xing pressed against his leg, warm and solid.
Jiang sighed. "Kid, I meant about bringing the damn bird."
Lucien, boarding with Versailles perched regally on his arm, shot them an offended look. "She's a vital tactical asset."
"She's a glorified spy camera with feathers."
Versailles pecked Jiang's shoulder. Hard.
Vera's laughter carried across the dock as she approached, tossing Yuchen a compact holodrive. "Coordinates for Wei-Xing's new Titan facility. Courtesy of our favorite traitor scientist."
Yuchen caught it. "Dr. Lin?"
"Burned her own lab down and vanished. Left this buried in the ashes." Vera's smirk faded. "It's not just a location. It's a live feed."
He activated the holodrive.
The image that flickered to life made his blood freeze.
Rows upon rows of glass pods.
Hundreds of children.
And at the center—
A Titan, its skeletal frame nearly complete, its chest emblazoned with the Wei-Xing dragon...
And the Luo phoenix.
"They're not just framing us," Lucien breathed. "They're building an army with our stolen blood."
Yuchen's hands shook.
Then steadied.
"Then we burn it all down."
The Wandering Tide set sail.
Far below, in the crushing dark, Song Lihua walked.
The Abyss had no corridors, no walls—only endless water and the slow, rhythmic pulse of its presence. The other awakened children moved with her, their silver eyes cutting through the gloom.
They came to a place where the ocean floor dropped away into nothingness.
The Abyss waited.
"Why did you bring us here?" Lihua asked.
The answer came not in words, but in sensation—a pressure against her mind, gentle but insistent.
Remember.
And she did.
The year was 2025.
A laboratory, buried deep beneath the Pacific.
Scientists in Wei-Xing uniforms monitored rows of tanks, each holding a creature pulled from the depths. The largest tank held something massive—a whale, its body crisscrossed with wires, its eyes wild with pain.
A console flashed red.
The whale screamed.
And the ocean answered.
Lihua gasped, wrenching free of the memory. The Abyss loomed closer, its starless eyes burning.
"They did this to you," she realized.
The Abyss's rage was a living thing.
"They did this to us."
And for the first time, Lihua understood.
The awakened children.
The beasts.
They were never separate.
Wei-Xing had fractured the world long before the Collapse.
And now, the Abyss would help them mend it.
The Wandering Tide cut through the night like a blade, its blackened hull nearly invisible against the storm-wracked waves. Yuchen stood at the prow, the salt-laced wind whipping through his hair as the first fat drops of rain began to fall. The coordinates from Dr. Lin's holodrive pulsed on his wrist display—a remote atoll in the South Pacific, officially uninhabited.
Unofficially, it was Wei-Xing's gravest sin.
Xing pressed against his leg, the pup's silver-marked fur bristling with static. His golden eyes reflected the distant flicker of lightning, watching. Waiting.
Behind them, Jiang and Lucien pored over the holographic schematics of the facility, their faces bathed in pale blue light.
"They've learned from last time," Jiang muttered, rotating the image with a flick of his fingers. "No volcano to destabilize. No single neural core to sabotage. This thing's decentralized—take out one node, the others compensate."
Lucien tapped the edge of the projection, where a series of underground tunnels snaked toward the coast. "But they still need coolant. And these pipes run straight from the ocean."
A slow grin spread across Jiang's face. "You thinking what I'm thinking?"
Versailles, perched on Lucien's shoulder, let out a soft trill.
Vera's voice crackled over the ship's comms: "We've got company."
Yuchen turned.
On the horizon, silhouetted against the storm, a massive shape loomed—a Wei-Xing dreadnought, its crimson insignia glowing like fresh blood in the dark.
"They've spotted us," Vera warned.
Yuchen didn't move. "No. They were waiting."
The realization settled over them like a shroud.
This wasn't a patrol.
It was a trap.
The first artillery shell hit the water fifty meters off their starboard side, sending up a geyser of white foam. The Wandering Tide banked hard, its reinforced hull groaning under the strain.
Vera's hands flew across the control console, her teeth bared in a snarl. "Evasive pattern delta! Prepare for—"
The second shell struck true.
The impact threw Yuchen against the bulkhead, his vision swimming. Alarms shrieked through the ship as the scent of burning circuitry filled the air. Xing's frantic barking sounded distant, muffled beneath the ringing in his ears.
Jiang hauled him upright. "Kid! You with me?"
Yuchen blinked blood from his eyes. "Go."
They stumbled onto the deck just as the third shell hit. This time, the Wandering Tide's prow shattered, the reinforced steel peeling back like paper. Freezing seawater poured into the breach.
Lucien appeared beside them, Versailles clutched protectively against his chest. The peacock's feathers were singed, one eye swollen shut. "Lifeboats won't hold against this swell."
Vera emerged from the smoke, her left arm hanging limp at her side. "Doesn't matter. We're not abandoning ship."
Jiang followed her gaze.
The dreadnought was closing in.
And beneath the waves, something stirred.
The ocean boiled.
One moment, the Wandering Tide was listing, its decks awash with seawater. The next, the Wei-Xing dreadnought lurched violently—as if an invisible hand had seized it from below.
Metal screamed.
The massive warship listed starboard, its hull buckling under some unimaginable pressure. Sailors tumbled overboard, their shouts lost in the storm.
Then the sea parted.
The Abyss rose.
Not fully—not its true, impossible scale—but enough. A vast, shadowed mass breached the surface, water cascading off its form in thunderous waterfalls. Its eyes, those twin dying stars, fixed on the dreadnought.
And then it spoke.
Not to them.
To her.
Song Lihua stood at the edge of the Abyss's consciousness, her small form dwarfed by its presence. The other awakened children flanked her, their silver eyes glowing in unison.
"You called," she said simply.
The Abyss's voice shook the world.
"YOU ARE READY."
Lihua turned to Yuchen.
And smiled.
"So are you."
The facility burned.
Not from outside attack, but from within—sabotage. Dr. Lin's work. The holographic feed from the holodrive showed chaos: alarms blaring, scientists fleeing, the half-completed Titans twitching in their restraints as their neural links short-circuited.
And in the central chamber, standing before the primary control console—
Dr. Lin herself.
Her hands moved with desperate precision, her face gaunt in the flickering emergency lights. The console sparked, its screens flashing warnings.
Then the feed cut to another camera—a sublevel, where rows of glass pods hissed open one by one. The children inside stirred, their silver eyes blinking awake.
Lihua's voice whispered through Yuchen's mind:
"She kept her promise."
The Wandering Tide, miraculously still afloat, limped toward the atoll. The Wei-Xing dreadnought was gone—swallowed by the sea. The storm raged on, but the waves themselves seemed to guide their path now, pushing them toward shore.
Vera gripped the wheel with her good hand, her knuckles white. "This is it. Once we hit that beach, there's no turning back."
Jiang checked his plasma rifle. "Kid never learned how to retreat anyway."
Lucien, uncharacteristically solemn, met Yuchen's gaze. "The world will never be the same after tonight."
Yuchen looked down at Xing.
Then to the horizon, where the first hints of dawn battled the storm.
"Good."
They made landfall as the sun rose.