Chapter 35: Black Traces of the Dark Depths

A micro sea of fire burns every corner of Elias Rington’s blood vessel network. The old man laughs hoarsely amidst the roar of destruction, his chest skin cracking open and emitting an orange glow that marks the self-combustion phase.

Alexander Rington gives no room for that madness to continue. With a single lightning-fast movement void of sympathy, he draws his white-gold flame sword and decapitates Elias before the micro-explosion can damage the clan ancestor’s entire brain structure.

Elias’s head rolls across the marble rubble. The spark of life in his eyes dims instantly, stopping the Self-Detonation Reaction before it reaches a dangerous radius. Yet, that victory feels cold and poisonous.

"Alex! The children!" Genevieve screams from inside the helicopter cabin.

Alexander turns his body, leaping through the building rubble billowing heavy smoke. Within one second, he kneels inside the medical helicopter cabin.

Ethan and Stella lie rigid on the emergency mattresses. The delicate skin of the two children is now covered in coarse, raised blackish veins, spreading from their palms across their necks. Every time their hearts beat, that black color flashes with a faint red glow, exactly like the color of Deus’s chitinous shell.

"Their body temperature is surging past forty-two degrees Celsius," Daniel says hoarsely while holding a portable biometric scanner with his injured left hand. "That biological parasite is not just poison, Alex. It is a mutant RNA strand rewriting their cellular structure from within."

Genevieve cradles Ethan’s and Stella’s heads, shedding tears that wet her children’s foreheads. "There must be a way to neutralize it here... our laboratory has all the family’s pure blood samples!"

"It cannot be done, Genevieve," Alexander cuts in, his voice remaining calm despite the tension hardening his jaw. He stares at the scanner screen displaying the cellular destruction graphics. "Elias designed this parasite with high-level biological encryption. Without the pure binding agent from the Prime Queen, any serum we inject will only accelerate the conversion of their internal organs."

He turns to Daniel. "How much time do we have before brain conversion occurs?"

Daniel studies the data calculation lines on his console. "One hundred sixty-eight hours. Exactly seven days. On the eighth day, their brain tissue will lose human cognitive function and completely submit to the main host’s telepathic frequency."

Alexander clenches his fists. Seven days to penetrate the deepest point on the face of the earth, a place no military expedition has ever touched openly.

The Sacred Temple of Ouroboros.

An ancient structure built by the forbidden faction of The Black Sun in the prehistoric era, hidden inside the Mariana Trench at a depth of eleven thousand meters beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean. The place where the mother biological organ of Deus, the Prime Queen, is bred in eternal pressure isolation.

"Daniel, prepare the Leviathan-X class attack submarine at the secret Okinawa base," Alexander orders without hesitation. "Activate all Alpha-level Obsidian Legion personnel. We depart in two hours."

"WHAT ABOUT DEUS?!" Daniel shouts while pointing toward the Alpine abyss. "That monster fell into the ravine carrying the authorization key! If we leave him, he will regenerate and—"

"He will not go far," Alexander interrupts coldly. "The spores in my children’s bodies are quantum-biologically linked to Deus. That monster is pulled by instinct to return to his place of origin... to the Mariana Trench. We will hunt at his birthplace."

Thirty-six hours later.

The Western Pacific Ocean stretches vast beneath rolling gray clouds bringing a cataclysmic storm. Atop ten-meter-high waves, the Obsidian Legion command aircraft carrier cuts through the ocean toward the Mariana Trench coordinates.

Inside the specialized pressurized sterile care room on the third deck of the Leviathan-X submarine, Genevieve sits holding baby Gabriel on her lap. The tiny baby sleeps soundly, the golden glow on his neck emitting a protective aura that passively holds back the spread of the parasite inside the room.

Alexander steps inside, slinging his water-pressure-proof tactical cloak over an iron chair.

"You do not have to come all the way to the bottom of the trench, Genevieve," Alexander says gently while touching his wife’s shoulder. "The Okinawa base is safer for you and Gabriel."

Genevieve shakes her head firmly, staring at Alexander with hazel irises burning with pure resolve. "I will not let you take Ethan and Stella into that hell alone. If our children must fight at the edge of death, my place is beside them."

Alexander stares at the steadfastness in his wife’s eyes, then nods slowly. He knows full well that the power of the De La Croix blood within Genevieve is the only shield that can stabilize their children’s psychological condition when the parasite’s influence reaches its peak.

"The dive begins in fifteen minutes," Alexander says.

He turns his body, walking out toward the Leviathan-X’s main bridge. The two-hundred-meter-long submarine is made of a specialized titanium-carbide alloy designed to withstand a water pressure of one hundred ten megapascals, enough to crush a standard warship into a sheet of paper in an instant.

Daniel stands in front of a three-dimensional holographic map table. Beside him, six Obsidian Legion squad commanders armed with Vanguard mechanical diving suits stand in precise formation.

"We have mapped the trench floor structure," Daniel explains while projecting ocean topographic graphics. "The Ouroboros Temple does not lie on top of a tectonic plate, but rather hides inside an underwater magma rift called the Challenger-Zero Rift."

The screen displays a giant two-hundred-meter-diameter trench penetrating the earth’s crust, surrounded by hydrothermal vents spewing water at four hundred degrees Celsius.

"The pressure down there will crush standard electronic navigation systems," Daniel continues. "And worse... long-range sonic scans detect massive-scale biological movement around the mouth of the rift. Not just Deus, Alex. There are dozens of secondary-level mutant organisms guarding the temple perimeter."

"Use the Sonic-Kinetic torpedo cannons to stem them," Alexander cuts in. "Our main objective is solely to enter the core sacrament chamber and retrieve the Prime Queen’s liver tissue."

Suddenly, the submarine’s depth alarm sounds loudly in a dual rhythm!

WARNING: APPROACHING 8,000 METERS ETHICAL DEPTH. EXTERNAL PRESSURE INCREASING SIGNIFICANTLY.

The bridge lights shift to a dim red. Outside the thick crystal-layered viewport, the eternal darkness of the Pacific Ocean envelops all vision. Light from the Leviathan-X’s spotlights only penetrates a distance of fifty meters before being completely absorbed by the dense seawater.

The temperature inside the cabin drops sharply. Thin ice begins to form along the secondary cooling pipes.

Alexander stands in front of the windshield, staring into the void of darkness outside. An alien sensation suddenly creeps up his spine—a powerful biological gravitational pull, as if something at the ocean floor is calling his name through the vibration of pure blood!

"Alex," Daniel’s voice sounds tense. "Ethan’s and Stella’s biometric graphics... their heart rates are suddenly doubling!"

"What is happening?!"

"The parasites in their bodies are responding to the signal from the bottom of the trench!" Daniel screams while pointing at the medical monitor screen.

On the monitor screen, Ethan’s and Stella’s brainwave graphs no longer display normal human activity. Their synapsis lines form a symmetrical wave pattern linking directly to the sonic frequency from outside the submarine!

A violent impact strikes the Leviathan-X’s starboard hull!

The thousand-ton submarine throws fifteen degrees to the side! Hull breach sirens instantly explode loudly throughout all corridors!

WARNING! DAMAGE TO SECTOR FOUR! FLUID PRESSURE INCREASING 40%!

"What is that?! A torpedo?!" one of the squad commanders shouts while holding onto a console.

"No!" the sonar operator screams with a deathly pale face. "It is not a mechanical object! Something massive is wrapping around the outside of the hull!"

Through the main viewport, a giant shadow sweeps past quickly.

The object wrapping around the submarine is a five-meter-diameter black-scaled biological tentacle, coated with hundreds of blinking red eyes emitting a toxic bioluminescent glow!

The tentacle tightens its grip on the Leviathan-X’s titanium wall! Steel walls creak loudly, revealing fatal bends along the medical corridor!

From the dark gap of water outside the viewport glass, a giant face emerges in the shape of an ancient dragon shell with four golden eyes burning in eternal hatred—the Prime Queen of Ouroboros awakened from her slumber!

And from inside the Prime Queen’s giant jaw opening wide in the dark water, an ancient telepathic voice echoes, deafening the brains of the entire crew.

"The intruder’

s blood arrives to complete the eternal sacrifice."