The Valkyria II cut through the open waters with a constant, comforting roar. Leon kept one hand on the wheel, his eyes alternating between the horizon and the instruments on the console. His other hand tapped lightly on the console, an unconscious habit when he was processing information.
Aylin had returned to the deck. He could see her through the cabin window, sitting near the stern, still trying to clean the last traces of black blood stubbornly clinging under her fingernails. She rubbed her hands with excessive force, as if she could also erase the memory of the fight.
Leon looked away. It wasn't his problem if she was having trouble dealing with the violence. Everyone had to learn fast in this new world, or die trying.
He turned his attention to the pocket of his tactical jacket where he had placed the crystal. Without touching it, he could feel its weight. It wasn't a physical weight; the thing was light. It was something else. It felt like a presence. It was as if the crystal was aware that he was there.
Leon took the crystal from his pocket and held it up to the light coming through the window.
The crystal was irregular, the size of a coin, with rough edges that looked like freshly broken natural glass. The surface was opaque, a dull silvery gray reminiscent of oxidized metal. But at its core, thin veins of green light coursed through the interior in slow pulses, like a heart beating in slow motion.
He brought the crystal closer to his face, observing the patterns. The green veins didn't move randomly. They followed a logic, branching and reconnecting in complex fractals. Almost like synapses, he thought, remembering what Aylin had said about the rain substance.
He extended his hand, his fingers almost touching the surface.
That's when he felt it.
A magnetic pull. Something instinctive and deep, coming from the pit of his chest. Like hunger after days without eating. The crystal wasn't just there. It was calling to him.
The System interface flashed in his vision, overlaying reality:
[Lesser Soul Crystal Detected]
[Source: Common Infected]
[Contained Energy: +1 Unit]
[Absorb?]
[YES] / [NO]
The urge to choose "YES" was almost unbearable. His fingers trembled. He could feel the crystal pulsing in his hand, as if alive, asking to be integrated, to come home.
Leon closed his fist tightly around the crystal and pulled his arm back, as if forcing himself to let go of something addictive.
"No," he said aloud, to no one but himself. "Not yet."
But the hunger remained. Throbbing quietly, like a toothache that never goes away.
He put the crystal back in his pocket and took a deep breath, trying to clear his head. He needed to focus on their current objective: reaching the Institute. Getting more information and, most importantly, improving the Valkyria II.
Leon looked at the navigation panel. According to GPS, the northeastern coast was just a gray line on the horizon, about eighteen kilometers away. The Marine Research Institute was still far. Maintaining their current speed, it would take at least forty minutes to reach the shallower waters of the peninsula.
He was about to increase throttle when he heard a sound.
The sound was deep and vibrated through the air.
The floor beneath his feet trembled. It wasn't a wave's sway, but a continuous, powerful vibration that shook the Valkyria II's very skeleton, as if something gigantic were scraping against the earth's very crust.
Leon grabbed the console to steady himself, his eyes sweeping the horizon for a collision with debris.
But visually, the sea remained indifferent. The same medium waves, the same cloudy sky. The disconnect between the violence of the tremor rising through his legs and the calm of the landscape outside made his instinct scream that something was very wrong.
Then the sound came again. Louder this time. The hull vibrated. Tools hanging on the cabin wall rattled.
"What was that?" Aylin appeared in the cabin doorway, her eyes wide.
"I don't know," Leon replied, slowing the engine. "Stay here."
He went out on deck, holding the railing, and looked around. The sea was… strange. The waves had stopped. The surface was beginning to flatten, like stagnant water. The boat rocked less and less.
"Leon!" Aylin's voice came from inside, sharp, urgent.
He ran back into the cabin. Aylin was in front of the sonar panel, her hands trembling, pointing at the screen.
"What is that?"
Leon looked.
The Valkyria II's sonar was military-grade, capable of mapping the seafloor down to eight hundred meters. The screen normally showed small dots, schools of fish, debris, and rock formations.
But now the entire screen was covered by a solid mass. Dark green. Occupying the entire sonar field of view.
And it seemed to be rising.
"Is it an error?" Leon asked, but he already knew it wasn't.
Aylin shook her head, her voice coming out in a trembling whisper. "That… that shouldn't be possible. The scale is wrong. This can't be real."
"What are you seeing?"
She pointed to the numbers on the side of the screen, showing depth and length.
"That's at two hundred meters depth. And it's the size of… of a football stadium. And it's rising fast."
Leon felt his blood run cold. He turned and went back to the wheel, turning the engine to maximum.
"Hold onto something."
The Valkyria II roared, its propellers cutting the water as they tried to gain speed. However, the boat seemed to be fighting something invisible. It was as if the water around them had thickened into syrup.
That's when Leon noticed the water level was changing.
He looked out the side window. The waterline on the hull was dropping. Fast. It was as if someone had pulled a giant drain plug on the bottom of the ocean.
"Aylin, hold on tight!"
She grabbed the wall handrail, her eyes glazed with terror and confusion.
The water level fell even further. Leon looked out the window and saw something he couldn't have imagined even in his worst dreams.
The sea floor.
The water had receded so much that the seabed was exposed. Dark, glistening mud. Thousands of fish flopped in the mud, leaping desperately out of the water. Old fishing nets were caught on rocks. Skeletons of ancient boats, rotting for decades. And beyond that, only darkness. A void that seemed to suck the light.
The water began to be sucked in violently, pulling the Valkyria II with it toward the center of the abyss. The boat plummeted vertiginously, following the sea's retreat, spinning out of control as it was dragged into the shadow.
Then the shadow covered everything.
Leon looked up and his breath caught in his throat. A living mountain range was rising from the abyss right beside them, blotting out the sun.
It didn't look like an animal; it looked like a moving landscape. Bony plates the size of cars covered its skin like ancient armor, pulsating with that silvery light in deep fissures. Water cascaded from its back like waterfalls, revealing dorsal spines that projected toward the sky like towers of a ruined cathedral.
It was too big for him to even think of calculating its size. Leon looked left and right and couldn't see the end of the creature. The horizon had simply ceased to exist, swallowed by an infinite wall of flesh, bone, and scales.
Aylin didn't scream. She just stood paralyzed, mouth open, her eyes trying to process something her brain wasn't made to comprehend.
Leon, by instinct, tried to turn the wheel. But to where? The creature was all around them.
The Leviathan didn't seem to be attacking them. It wasn't even hunting them. It was just moving.
But the movement of something of that size was enough to change the world.
The displaced water came back. Not as a wave. As a wall.
Leon saw the liquid mass rise around them, ten, perhaps fifteen meters high, advancing from the creature like the shockwave of a nuclear bomb made of saltwater.
"HOLD ON!" was all he managed to shout before the impact.
The wave hit the Valkyria II on the starboard side with the force of a freight train.
The world turned upside down.
Leon felt his stomach lurch as the boat was thrown upward, spinning in the air like a flipped coin. He clung to the wheel with both hands, but the next impact tore him from his place and threw him against the opposite wall of the cabin.
His head hit a metal cabinet. Stars exploded in his vision.
Aylin screamed, the sound cutting through the roar of the water. She was thrown to the other side, slamming her shoulder and left arm against the navigation console. The sound of bone hitting metal was loud and horrible.
The Valkyria II surfed the wave like a toy.
Leon, dazed, with blood streaming from his forehead, dragged himself back to the wheel. The engine was screaming, the propellers spinning in the void whenever the hull was lifted above the water, then choking when submerged again.
He tried to turn the boat, align the bow with the wave's direction to avoid capsizing, but there was no control.
Through the cabin's cracked window, Leon saw what was coming.
Buildings.
The city.
The wave was carrying them back to Monleciti.
"Leon!" Aylin screamed, pointing ahead with her good hand, the other pressed against her chest. "There!"
They were being pushed directly toward the commercial district. Skyscrapers of glass and concrete rose like a wall ahead. The wave, instead of diminishing, seemed to be accelerating as it approached the structures, channeled by the flooded streets.
Leon spun the wheel with all his might, trying to veer into a side street, but the water had its own will. The Valkyria II entered a wide avenue between two office buildings, creating a narrow urban canyon.
The water roared around them, six meters high on the sides, slamming against the glass walls of the buildings. Windows exploded in cascades of shrapnel. Submerged cars were dragged along with them, colliding with each other in a metallic symphony of destruction.
Leon saw light poles bending and breaking. He saw traffic signs being ripped out. He saw a bus being swept along by the current like an empty soda can.
A ten-story commercial building partially blocked the avenue ahead. The water was forcing the boat directly against it.
"HOLD ON TO SOMETHING!"
The Valkyria II was thrown sideways. The steel hull collided with the concrete of the building's third floor with a sound of metal tearing, glass exploding, and structure giving way, all at once.
Leon felt the world spin. His shoulder hit either the cabin ceiling or the floor. He couldn't tell. Something warm ran down the side of his face. Blood. His ears rang.
The boat spun, climbed over a mountain of debris—crushed cars, office furniture, twisted metal structures—and finally stopped.
In silence.
A silence so complete it was deafening.
Leon opened his eyes slowly.
He was lying on the slanted floor of the cabin. No, wait. It wasn't the floor. It was the wall. The boat was crooked.
Everything hurt. Especially his head. He brought his hand to his forehead and felt warm, sticky blood. A deep cut above his eyebrow.
"Aylin…" his voice came out as a hoarse whisper.
Silence.
"Aylin!"
This time, he heard it. A low moan, coming from somewhere behind him.
Leon dragged himself, each movement sending waves of pain through his body. His vision was blurry. He blinked several times, trying to focus.
Aylin was slumped at the back of the cabin, at an odd angle. Her left arm was bent in a way that didn't look natural. Her face was pale, a sickly pallor that went beyond fear. There was blood on her forehead, and her eyes were half-closed.
"Aylin, are you okay?"
Stupid question. She clearly wasn't okay.
She tried to speak, but only an incoherent murmur came out. Her eyes rolled back.
"No, no, no," Leon dragged himself to her, ignoring the pain. "Stay with me. Aylin, look at me."
She tried to focus on him, but consciousness was slipping. He saw the moment she gave up, her body relaxing, her eyes closing completely.
"Damn."
Leon checked her pulse. Weak, but present. Shallow breathing, but steady. She had passed out. Probably shock or a concussion. Her arm was definitely broken.
He tried to stand up, but the world spun. Nausea hit him like a punch to the gut. He staggered, holding onto the wall—or was it the ceiling? He couldn't keep his balance.
The cabin was destroyed. Glass everywhere. Panels torn loose. Water dripping from the ceiling. The smell of diesel and burning oil filled his nostrils.
Leon forced his eyes to focus. He had to think. He had to do something.
But the darkness at the edges of his vision was growing. He felt his knees weaken.
"Not… not now…"
But his body didn't seem to be asking for permission.
Leon collapsed next to Aylin, consciousness slipping through his fingers like water.
The last thing he saw before everything went dark was a broken window. And through it, buildings. Buildings on all sides.