The ocean churned with relentless motion. Black scales, needle-like teeth, and flickering shadows closed in from all directions, their combined force driving the team ever closer to the yawning mouth of the trench.
William clenched his jaw, orange flames coiling tighter around him, scorching the water with their intensity. "Form a wedge!" he commanded, his voice cutting through the chaos over the comms. "We take them head-on!"
Without hesitation, Rain darted to the left flank, his liquid armor sharpening into jagged fins. Eve moved into position on the right, her pink aura flaring until the surrounding sea glowed with radiant light. Behind them, the Atlantean riders fell into formation, their mounts' tails churning the water into turbulent currents.
The swarm reacted immediately, condensing into a single writhing mass and surging straight toward the trio.
"They're not defending," Eve gasped, her breath quickening. "They're herding us!"
William's eyes shifted to the trench below, where a faint green-gold light pulsed like a heartbeat. But now another rhythm joined it, a slower, deeper thrum, like the breath of something ancient and immense.
The first wave of the swarm collided with them. Rain spun in a whirlpool of motion, his forearm blades carving a wide path, while William charged forward like a meteor. Each swing of his weapon seared the water with molten-orange heat, rippling outward in waves of raw power.
A sudden surge of force erupted from the trench, a pressure wave so immense it distorted the surrounding currents, forcing the swarm to scatter. The creatures didn't hesitate; instead, their formation divided, parting like a curtain, and William grasped the meaning immediately.
"They're creating a path," Rain said grimly, cutting down yet another assailant.
"A direct path to the gates," William replied. "Move!"
The Atlantean riders pulled into a tighter formation, their sea-beasts accelerating with powerful tail strokes that churned the water into a frothy wake. Eve pushed her aura to its limit, unleashing spears of hardened light that spiraled outward, shattering any predator that ventured too close. Rain's blades moved like a blur, liquid metal slicing cleanly through anything with fangs.
With each passing moment, the glow of Atlantis grew brighter, its domes of coral and stone sparkling like submerged constellations, and its spires arching majestically toward the surface. The city's defenses were fully operational; massive runic arrays shimmered across the perimeter walls, while faint tremors rippled through the currents as siege platforms locked into position.
At the forefront of the defense stood two figures, framed by an army.
The Queen's war armor shimmered with gold-edged sea-dragon scales, her crest streaming like a living banner. Her spear pulsed with a faint glow, its opalescent tip leaving trails of light in the water. Beside her loomed Aquarius, clad in obsidian armor etched with glowing blue channels, his trident poised forward like the prow of a breaking wave.
Behind them, countless Atlantean warriors held their ground: infantry clad in overlapping scale-mail, mounted skirmishers astride armored sharks, and massive siege-beasts harnessed to chariots bristling with harpoons. Mages floated within protective domes, their hands glowing as they wove shimmering shields around the ranks.
As William's force breached the defensive perimeter, the Queen lifted her spear, not in greeting, but as the signal.
The ocean itself seemed to hold its breath.
With a sweeping arc, the Queen's spear carved a crescent of searing brilliance through the water, and the Atlantean line surged forward like a relentless tide. Harpoons streaked past William and his team, their luminous runes igniting on impact, sending shockwaves rippling through the abyss. Siege-beasts bellowed, their cavernous jaws unleashing cone-shaped bursts of sonic energy that obliterated the advancing vanguard.
The enemy remained undeterred.
From the trench's depths, more shadows emerged, serpentine figures with eyes of molten gold and jaws that unfurled into grotesque spirals of teeth. They wove through the harpoon fire with unsettling precision, their movements eerily synchronized, as if governed by a singular will. Smaller predators darted alongside them, using the larger creatures as living shields to penetrate the Atlantean defenses.
"Brace!" William shouted, propelling himself to the front of the formation. Morrigan's molten blade roared to life, its intense heat vaporizing the surrounding water into clouds of superheated steam. A charging leviathan bore the brunt of the strike, its armored hide bubbling and peeling before the sword pierced its skull in an eruption of boiling gore.
Rain became a storm of silver and sapphire, his liquid armor forming serrated blades that sliced through flesh with merciless precision. Eve followed close behind, her constructs transforming into towering lances of radiant energy that skewered the largest beasts, holding them in place for the Atlantean siege lines to finish.
Yet for every monster felled, two more rose from the abyss.
From the trench's depths, the green-gold light grew stronger, no longer a faint pulse but a steady, radiant glow that spilled into the surrounding waters. The deeper thrum intensified into a vibration that shook armor, gnawed at nerves, and embedded its rhythm into the bones of every warrior present.
Then the seafloor split open.
A gaping fissure erupted, spewing a boiling torrent into the battlefield. From it emerged a creature the size of a palace tower, an eel-like monstrosity with translucent skin stretched taut over muscle like braided cables, its inner organs glowing with a fiery brilliance. Dozens of fin-blades jutted from its back, each razor-sharp like forged steel, moving independently as if they were the fingers of some abyssal deity.
Its head turned toward Atlantis, its maw spiraling open into rows of serrated teeth, as the vibration in the water deepened into a bone-rattling roar. The sheer sound shattered coral formations and sent smaller predators fleeing in panic.
"Target the head!" Aquarius commanded sharply, thrusting his trident forward. The order rippled through the Atlantean ranks like a shockwave.
William tightened his grip on Morrigan, its molten-orange heat flaring into a ferocious blaze. "Rain, Eve, cut off its flanks. Don't let it gain momentum!"
The beast surged forward, a blur of muscle and light, its tail smashing siege platforms to splinters. Harpoons ricocheted harmlessly off its skin until a coordinated barrage of runic explosives detonated along its flank, forcing it to twist away with a sound like the groaning of a ship's hull under immense pressure.
William intercepted its turn, swinging Morrigan in a tight arc that traced a blazing afterimage through the water. The strike landed along its jaw, and for the first time, the monster recoiled, roaring as molten blood poured into the ocean in curling plumes.
But instead of retreating, it lunged, straight at him.
The water between them churned into a violent maelstrom as the creature's massive form surged forward, displacing entire walls of current. William kicked hard, twisting his body just in time as the spiraling jaws snapped shut where he'd been moments before. The immense suction dragged him backward, his armor groaning under the crushing pressure.
He drove Morrigan against the beast's teeth and activated its core, the molten blade igniting so intensely that the water hissed and screamed around it. Steam erupted between them, obscuring vision but amplifying the sounds. The monster roared, a muffled thunder that reverberated through William's chest like the pounding of war drums.
Rain was already in motion, streaking in from the left like a silver blur of mercury and foam. His liquid armor morphed into barbed chains that coiled around the creature's pectoral fins, embedding into its flesh with a sickening crunch. The beast thrashed wildly, unleashing shockwaves that sent Atlantean riders tumbling from their mounts.
On the opposite side, Eve's aura blazed with such intensity that the surrounding water was washed in pale pink light. She launched a lattice of hardened constructs at the creature's midsection—an interlocking cage that clamped down like the jaws of a vice, squeezing tightly around its torso.
"Hold it steady!" William shouted, using their combined efforts to propel himself forward. He streaked along the monster's head, carving deep into its translucent hide. The glowing organs beneath pulsed erratically, their light flickering in chaotic bursts.
The eel thrashed in agony, its massive tail slamming into the seabed with such force that sand and coral erupted in plumes, shrouding Atlantis's glow in a dense cloud of silt. Amid the haze, William felt another rhythm, a deeper, resonant thrum that wasn't just the creature's heartbeat. Something else was responding.
Then, from the depths far below, another pulse rippled upward. It was stronger. Closer.
And that's when William realized, the monstrosity before them was only the beginning.
The resonating pulse struck like a tidal shock, surging across the battlefield and halting even the relentless swarm. Every creature, predators and Atlantean mounts alike, jerked in instinctive recognition, their primal senses warning of something ancient and far more menacing.
The trench began to shimmer, no longer just green-gold but now laced with a deep, abyssal red, seeping upward like blood dispersing through water.
Rain's voice crackled over the comms, tense and low. "William... that's not one heartbeat. That's many."
The fissure widened, rending the seabed with a grinding howl of rock and undersea pressure. Massive shapes emerged, initially indistinct but sharpening as the glowing light behind them grew stronger. Each was eel-like, yet uniquely terrifying: some clad in ridged obsidian armor forged by volcanic heat, others enshrouded in living kelp that writhed like sentient tentacles. Their eyes burned with the same molten gold intensity.
The queen's command cut through the chaos, her voice resonating across the Atlantean war-channel. "Hold the line! If they breach the inner gates, Atlantis will fall!"
Rather than retreat, the swarm spiraled inward around the emerging creatures, creating a living cyclone that funneled them toward the city. This was no longer a battle; it had become an orchestrated siege.
William steadied his stance, the heat from Morrigan surging until the weapon's metal sang in protest. "Then we break their spiral."
He charged forward into the tumultuous vortex, the water around him boiling into steam. Rain and Eve followed closely, their powers carving through the enemy cyclone. Yet the crimson light intensified, and with it, the pulse of the abyss quickened, threatening to overshadow all other sounds.
Far below, something immense and ancient was still awakening.
The ocean deepened into darkness as the trench's light flared, casting a haunting glow over the battlefield. The massive, eel-like shapes surged forward, their synchronized motion resembling the lethal dance of a primordial leviathan's spawn. Each ripple of their bodies sent devastating shockwaves that threatened to obliterate the city's fragile defenses.
William's focus sharpened, his vision narrowing on the unending tide of creatures pouring through the breach. The fiery heat of Morrigan pulsed in his grip, as if it were an extension of his unyielding will.
"Hold fast!" he shouted, cleaving through the cyclone with a searing strike that unleashed waves of scalding molten water, cutting through the enemy ranks.
Rain's silver chains lashed through the currents, tearing apart the larger beasts, while Eve's luminous spears pierced clusters of lesser predators, redirecting their momentum against them.
Still, the ominous red glow from the trench grew stronger, saturating the battlefield in its sinister light.
A deafening rumble suddenly shook the water. The seabed fractured and crumbled as a colossal form began to emerge, a creature so vast its massive body overshadowed entire city blocks of Atlantis. Its shimmering scales were etched with ancient runes, faintly glowing as if imbued with the primal energy of the ocean itself.
The leviathan's eyes opened with a snap, twin orbs blazing with an intelligence both incomprehensible and eternal.
"Brace yourselves," William commanded, his voice firm with unwavering resolve. "This battle is far from over."
The massive leviathan erupted from the depths, its colossal form displacing the ocean currents and unleashing shockwaves that tore across the battlefield. Its presence was a maelstrom incarnate, an elemental force surpassing any adversary they had encountered.
William's hands tightened around Morrigan's hilt, the blade igniting with searing brilliance, its molten glow casting dancing shadows across the creature's ancient, carved runes. Surrounding him, the Atlantean warriors braced themselves, their weapons raised and unwavering against the overwhelming menace.
Rain and Eve moved with flawless coordination, darting through the leviathan's gargantuan limbs and the smaller beasts that swarmed around it. Rain's chains snapped and seared through armored scales, binding the monstrous appendages, while Eve's luminous spears detonated against the leviathan's thick hide, scattering fragments of enchanted energy like splintered stars.
The leviathan bellowed, a sound akin to the fracturing of the earth's spine, and lashed out with its immense tail, obliterating siege platforms and hurling defenders into the abyss. Yet the Atlantean fighters stood resolute, their courage blazing brighter than the shadowed depths that surrounded them.
William's gaze locked onto the leviathan's luminescent eyes, a wordless challenge exchanged between mortal and ancient entity. With a thunderous battle cry that resonated through the watery expanse, he lunged forward, Morrigan blazing like a comet streaking through the dark ocean, determined to pierce the heart of the primordial storm.
A blazing comet of orange flames streaked through the ocean, colliding with the massive tail of the sea creature. The force of their clash erupted in a powerful shockwave that displaced the surrounding water, forming a temporary bubble around William. Within this fleeting moment, he caught a glimpse of the scorched wound his attack had inflicted on the creature's tail. Yet, the immense energy from their combined blows surged back along his blade, reverberating through his body and forcing a ribbon of blood from his mouth as he was hurled backward like a torpedo.
BOOOM!
William slammed into the walls of Atlantis with tremendous force, leaving a human-shaped crater on its once flawless surface.