Eighty meters.
It wasn't just a number; it was a physical curse, pressing down on every nerve in Max Walker's body. Every breath felt like swallowing lumps of congealed lead. The helium-nitrogen-oxygen mix (heliox), brutally compressed by seven atmospheres of pressure, became viscous and heavy, carrying the cold tang of metallic rust as it forced its way into his burning lungs. Each heartbeat fought against the crushing weight of ten thousand tons of seawater pressing in from all sides – an eternal, silent force powerful enough to crumple steel. He sat before the control console in the pressurized chamber deep in the hull of the research vessel Poseidon's Eye. Beyond the fifteen-centimeter-thick resin viewport lay absolute, light-devouring ink-blackness. Water thick as crude oil oozed slowly, suspended particles of millennia-old sediment forming an eternal haze of chaos. The only anomaly in his view came from two beams of light projected upwards from the shipwreck operations area below – the eyes of the ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) Pathfinder. The stark white beams cut through the viscous darkness like twin swords, carving a fleeting, fragile "tunnel of light" through the endless suspended particles.
At the edge of this light, where illumination met murk, a figure ghosted past. Aya Thorne. Clad in a streamlined black wetsuit and equipped with an advanced rebreather system, she moved like a creature truly adapted to the abyss. Her movements possessed a fluid grace, every fin kick precise and efficient, embodying a freedom Max could only envy at this moment – she wasn't shackled by the torturously long pressurization and depressurization cycles of saturation diving, measured in days or weeks. She could commute daily between the surface and this life-swallowing deep, like a dolphin.
"'Pathfinder's' left arm, joint three stress feedback anomaly! Torque output fluctuating beyond threshold! Max, I need to ascend to adjust the hydraulic valve, and the imaging module's buffer fluid is running low!" Aya's voice crackled through the underwater comms, distorted by the depths, delayed, and carrying a barely perceptible urgency that pierced the pressurized chamber's dead silence.
Max's gaze remained fixed on the largest screen at the center of the console – Aya's helmet camera feed. On screen, she hovered beside the decaying prow of a massive wreck, its hull like a leviathan's carcass draped in thick sediment and ghostly white deep-sea coral. She was meticulously brushing a soft-bristled brush over a metal plaque embedded in rotten oak. With each stroke, clouds of murky sediment billowed. As layer after layer of muck was swept away, a blurred yet astonishingly powerful outline emerged – a double-headed eagle, wings spread, crowned, gazing imperiously down!
"'Santa Maria'! Holy Mother Mary! It's really her!" Historian Eva Romanov's voice instantly soared over the comms, trembling with disbelief and historical fervor. "1748! Flagship of the Spanish Treasure Fleet! Laden with gold, silver, emeralds plundered from the New World… and the legendary 'Golden Sun Disc'! Max! The clue… the casket we found… it's real! It's here!"
The screen feed snapped to a new focus, zeroing in on the shadows just inside the entrance to the captain's cabin. A square, lead-gray box lay half-buried in silt and shattered deck planking. Its surface was crusted with thick deep-sea sediment and dense clusters of barnacles, its edges eroded by seawater into a lunar landscape, yet it radiated a heavy, time-defying resilience. Aya approached cautiously. The powerful LED lights on her helmet cast a spotlight beam onto the leaden surface. There, on one corner scarred by time, etched Latin letters suddenly reflected the harsh light with cold, undeniable clarity: Sanctus Spiritus Custodiat.
"'The Holy Spirit Protects'…" Max's voice dropped low, but his heart hammered against his ribs like a drum, straining against the high-pressure confinement. Blood surged, carrying a wave of near-dizziness – a potent mix of excitement and the crushing weight of history. Centuries of time, kilometers of abyss, countless covetous eyes… the legend was right there!
"Lead casing! No doubt about it!" Eva's voice was adamant, charged with a scholar's fervor upon solving the ultimate puzzle. "Impervious to deep-sea corrosion, bio-erosion… the most reliable vault of the eighteenth century! Inside, it must be filled with layers of thick beeswax or special resin compound for hermetic sealing! The core… the core must be parchment scrolls preserved by the Church with near-miraculous methods! Only a relic or secret of this magnitude would warrant the 'Sanctus Spiritus Custodiat' inscription! Max, we've found the 'Navigator's Casket'! The final key to the 'Golden Sun Disc'!"
A jolt of pure elation, immense responsibility, and a shiver of trans-temporal awe shot down Max's spine. His knuckles turned white where he gripped the alloy edge of the console.
At that moment, another voice cut into the comms channel. Cool, sharp, like a scalpel slicing tense air. Kate Lee, meteorologist and comms specialist.
"Max, all stations! 'Poseidon's Wrath' intensifying exponentially! Latest data: Category 4 Hurricane! Sustained winds 70 meters per second, core pressure 929 hPa! Track locked! Speed 30 kph, heading straight for our coordinates! 48 hours! The hurricane's eyewall engulfs us in 48 hours!"
The main console's largest screen instantly filled with a monstrous satellite weather image. A massive, dense, violently swirling white vortex cloud system, like the cold, merciless eye of a cosmic beast, pinned the tiny light representing the Poseidon's Eye. Wind speeds, wave heights, countdown… crimson digits flashed frantically.
"Damn it!" Max's fist slammed onto the console, the dull thud echoing in the pressurized chamber. Deadly threats were piling up! Kate's voice continued without pause, sharp as steel:
"17:03 hours: Intercepted high-strength, frequency-hopping encrypted signal. Signature analysis… 99.7% match for the Nemesis comms fingerprint! Simultaneously, passive sonar array detected low-frequency DPV (Diver Propulsion Vehicle) thruster noise! Bearing 245 degrees, range 300 meters, sector three! Signal drifted for 17 minutes then vanished! Target confirmed: the wreck! It's Volkov!"
"'Nemesis'… Volkov!" Finn Gallagher's voice came from the habitat section, tight with suppressed tension. Max whipped around. Finn stood beside the habitat control console, the screen's cold light casting his angular face in stark relief. A faint glint on his temple – was it sweat?
"That ravenous hyena again!" Max's anger surged like pent-up magma. Time, the storm, the enemy… all the nooses were tightening at once!
"The bad news isn't over, Max." Eva's voice was leaden. The screen switched to a chilling color-coded 3D geological map. "'Santa Maria's' tomb… sits on the threshold of hell! It's perched on the edge of an ancient landslide! The geology? A tower of precariously stacked blocks! Below is soft silt-clay; above, unstable sediment piles. The deep-water surge from 'Poseidon's Wrath'… the sheer stress could rip apart this fragile equilibrium! Massive sediment flows… even the wreck itself collapsing or shifting… it's imminent!" On the screen, the red outline marking the wreck sat starkly on the edge of a glaring crimson zone labeled "EXTREME SLIDE RISK". Fault lines, sediment layers, shear strength… wove a blueprint for destruction.
Inside the pressurized chamber, the air instantly froze solid. Only the low hum of the life-support systems remained, like the gasps of the dying. Eighty meters down in the dark abyss. Above, a storm beast brewing annihilation. In the shadows, a greedy viper baring its fangs. Max's eyes flicked back to the ancient Latin inscription on the screen – "Sanctus Spiritus Custodiat". In this desperate abyss, the sacred prayer felt more like a vast, icy sneer from the god of fate.