Blue light flashed against the nursery dome, then deepened to crimson, a color we did not use unless the reef itself was at risk. Water vibrated with the alarm's low thrum. I pushed off the barrack wall, pearl still aching from earlier strain, and cut through the lanes toward the outer ridge. Each kick carried a faint pulse of pain through my wrist brace, but the current's urgency drowned it.
Lis and Ashekan slid into the main current beside me. Lis had her anchor pack slung across both shoulders, fins working fast. Ashekan's spear glimmered as he thumbed the charge on.
"Council ordered a ridge hold," she said, voice tight. "The evac lanes are still full of nursery workers."
"If the invaders try to punch through, we hold them here," Ashekan added. He did not slow.
"We stop them," I answered. There was no space for doubt.
As we cleared the final arch, the familiar glow of the reef fell away. Open water stretched before us, smeared by rolling silt clouds. Lantern beams bent and failed against that muddy curtain. Inside the fog, hulking silhouettes advanced in steady formation, each step shaking faint ripples into the surrounding current. Smaller shapes darted around their feet, mechanical drones carving channels in the seabed, stirring more debris.
My sensor crystal jumped from green to orange, blinking a steady warning. I could see the outlines now: armored suits twice my height, plating dark and seamless, and at each chest a pulsing knot of foreign light, mana organs, stolen, wired into harnesses that glowed like captive hearts.
Saar hovered above, mirrored cloth still folded tight. "They mask themselves with earth dust. Good trick. Bad smell."
Echo‑Hand let the cloth unfurl with a flick. "We scatter their sonar first. Nets second."
Lis locked an anchor bolt into the tallest ridge spire, pulling a net of near‑invisible lines across the pass. I followed, casting a broad spiral current that settled just behind the netting, ready to push any breakthrough back. Veshra and two shellguards floated low, fixing chill charges in a crescent to freeze joints once targets slowed.
The first drones knifed ahead, tiny propellers buzzing, teeth rotating. They hit Lis's net and shredded the first layer before the anchors snapped tight. I twisted my wrist, nudging the spiral forward. The current caught two drones, spun them into the stone flank, and the impact snuffed their lights.
A heavy suit stepped from the cloud. Its plated foot sank deep into the silt, yet it moved with slow confidence. A speaker grid in its helm crackled. The voice that emerged sounded dredged from cold mud.
"Yield living cores, reef survives."
The words hung in the muffled water. I flicked my visor comm switch. "Not today."
A panel on the suit's forearm opened. It expelled a burst of glowing dust, thick with mineral shimmer, darkening the water until lantern beams looked like sick moons. I felt the grit scrape my faceplate.
"Spread," I ordered.
Ashekan rushed left, cut down a drone with one sweep. Lis climbed on her anchor line, pulled herself higher, and planted a second net. Saar rose beside her, mirrored cloth billowing into a silver sheet. Dull sonar pings from the armored suits slammed into the cloth and refracted away, breaking their targeting rhythm. The huge figures slowed, turning side to side as if blinking in sudden dark.
One suit lunged blind, and Ashekan thrust his spear into the joint behind its knee. Metal cracked, coolant hissed, but the suit fought on, wrenching the spear free and sending Ashekan tumbling. A second suit swung a broad arm, claws raking the ridge rock, tearing coral free.
I pulled water in a narrow spiral and slammed it against that arm. The limb wavered in the drag. Veshra fired a chill charge that burst against the forearm plate, frost racing across metal. The suit's movement hitched. It tried to flex, shattering the ice, but the slowdown bought us seconds.
Seconds were enough.
Lis dropped a stabiliser canister into the silt cloud at the group's center. It cracked with a sharp flash, bright enough to punch through the murk. The sudden light shredded the invaders' shadow, revealing every jagged seam.
Pressure shifted. Cold swept in like an unseen tide. The water behind me deepened to black, not darkness, but density, and I felt, rather than saw, the demi‑god arrive.
A tremor rippled through my pearl. I turned. The guardian of the island rose along the ridge line, dwarfing every shape on the field. His skin mirrored stone and tide, mottled emerald under faint lantern glow. When he inhaled, the current bent toward him; when he exhaled, it rolled outward in rings that rattled my teeth.
He lifted one webbed hand. The sea obeyed.
A broad sheet of water detached from the deep, curling upward until it towered over the ridge like a moving cliff. Lantern light caught its face, turning the mass into shifting blues shot with plankton spark. Silence followed, a breath no creature dared disturb.
Then the hand swung forward. The wall launched, accelerating faster than natural tide could manage. It hit the mech line with the weight of mountains. I watched armor bend inward, plates folding like thin coral. Debris and drones spun inside the wave, helpless.
That should have been chaos, but the guardian sculpted every drop. Portions of the wave parted around our nets, cushioning anchor points and letting pressure bleed into the abyss below. My spiral coursed along the wave's underside, a guided counter-current that stopped the ridge stone from cracking.
Two suits found a pocket of space, thrusters burning green trails, and tried to punch free. The guardian's other hand pressed downward. The water under the suits condensed, a sudden column of crushing force. Metal groaned. One suit collapsed inward, lights fading. The other ejected ballast and fled, limping into the haze.
The wave fell away, settling into a shimmering barrier. Fish startled from hiding darted around the dying eddies. Silence returned, broken only by hiss of damaged coolant canisters.
I released the spiral and felt my arms shake. Pearl veins glowed amber, not yet red, but close.
Veshra swam past, collecting a damaged organ harness. "This will take study," she said, voice low with awe. She did not guess its composition, only that it was strange and new.
Ashekan pried a cracked claw from the rock, sliding it into a salvage pouch. "Proof," he said. "Enough to show how they channel stolen power."
The demi‑god's eyes turned toward me. They were fathomless, green streaked with storm light. I felt gratitude and warning in that single look. Then his bulk drifted backward, currents folding neatly around him, and he sank beneath the ridge into deeper dark. The water barrier he raised remained, a curved wall of shimmering current that shielded the reef edge.
Lis floated to my side, breathing hard through flared gills. "If that wall holds, they cannot enter for a while."
"For a while," I echoed, pulse still hammering.
We gathered injured shellguards and drifted toward city lanes. Artisans were already swimming out, nets trailing behind to haul debris back for study. Yera and Elder Fin waited near the tide hall. Fin's gaze latched onto the salvage pouch.
"We finally have something solid," she said, fingers brushing the claw's ragged edge. "We study. We learn."
I looked beyond her to where the barrier met fading lantern glow. It shimmered under the twilight currents, calm yet unyielding. The reef was safe tonight, but only because a power far greater than ours carried the weight.
My pearl tingled, steady green again, but I felt the pulse of larger currents out beyond the dark. If we wanted to guard this place forever, we would need more than walls of water. We would need to leave these depths and carry the fight into the unknown.
That thought pulled at me, no fear, just certainty. Whatever waited beyond the sea, I would meet it. Because tonight showed there were guardians, and there were those learning to guide. I intended to be both.