POV: Wynter Ash
Time: Day 6 Post-Fall.
Location: The Aurum Sea (Coordinates: The Silent Drift).
The siren of The Gilded Wreck didn't sound like the elegant danger warnings in Nexus Hall. It sounded like the scream of a dying animal—coarse, rusty, and ringing in the ears.
"JACKPOT! ALL HANDS ON DECK! WE'VE GOT BIG GAME!"
Quartermaster Grimm's shout echoed through the communication pipe.
I was sitting at my rickety work desk in the corner of the logistics storage, trying to balance the ship's ledger filled with red numbers, when the storage door was kicked open.
Solstice stood there. She was already in full combat gear—not her lost Valdor armor, but a thick leather vest modified with scrap metal plates, and welding goggles hanging around her neck. She held the Solaris umbrella in one hand and an iron crowbar in the other.
"Get up, Auditor," she said flatly. "The Captain's calling for you. We're going out."
I closed the ledger, feeling bone-deep exhaustion. For two days I had worked as this ship's 'brain', calculating fuel stocks and rationing the meager food supplies. My body was still weak, but at least I no longer vomited blood every morning.
"Out?" I asked, standing with the help of a wooden cane I'd found. "I'm not combat crew, Solstice. I can't lift heavy things."
"You're not told to lift," Solstice replied, tugging my collar to make me walk faster. "You're told to look. The Captain needs your eyes."
We went up to the main deck.
The air outside smelled strange. Not the usual salt scent.
It smelled sweet. Putrid. Like meat fermented in alcohol for ten years.
The crew crowded the ship's railing, pointing ahead with faces mixed with fear and greed.
There, floating in the middle of the gray sea, was a mountain of flesh and metal.
It was a Leviathan. But not a natural kind.
The creature was the size of a small island. Its pale, slimy skin was studded with ancient, rusted steel plates. Its fins were replaced with dead turbines. Half its face was organic bone, the other half a giant shattered optical sensor.
It was a Bio-Weapon remnant from the ancient war before The Great Tear. A floating piece of historical wreckage.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" Captain Sable stood on the bridge, observing the carcass with his mechanical eye.
He turned to me as I arrived beside him, breathless.
"Auditor," Sable greeted. "You're an educated man. You know what this is?"
I adjusted my tattered robe, staring at the carcass with analytical eyes. Even without mana, my knowledge of magitek history wasn't lost.
"That's an Abyssal Titan, Dreadnought-class," I explained, my voice hoarse but steady. "A remnant from the sea war 50 years ago. Organic matter modified with a Liquid Mana reactor core."
"A reactor?" Sable's eye glinted green. "You mean... that thing still has a Core?"
"Most likely," I answered. "This type of Titan was designed for hibernation. Its heart—or Core—is usually encased in Blacksteel in the chest area. If it hasn't exploded, its energy value could power this ship for ten years."
Sable grinned widely, showing his gold teeth.
"Grimm! Prepare the dive team! We're going to dissect this dead god!"
Sable pointed at me.
"And you, Auditor. You're going down."
I jerked. "What? Captain, I have no magic. I can't fight. I'll die down there."
"You're the only one who knows what that Core looks like," Sable said, leaving no room for argument. "Grimm only knows how to hit things. If he cuts the wrong cable, we all blow up. You will guide the cutting."
He looked at Solstice.
"And you, Furnace. You're his guard. Burn anything that tries to eat my brain asset."
We didn't dive. We entered through a gaping "wound" in the creature's flank.
A small boat lowered us—me, Solstice, Grimm, and three other crew—into the Titan's exposed chest cavity.
The moment we stepped inside the creature's body, sunlight vanished.
We were inside a labyrinth of rotting flesh and steel skeletons. The floor was slick with oily mucus. The air was toxic, filled with methane gas. We all wore old gas masks that hissed with every breath.
"Don't touch the walls," I warned, my voice muffled by the mask. "That mucus is corrosive acid. Residual digestive fluid."
Grimm snorted behind me, directing his large flashlight into the darkness.
"Keep moving, Scrap. Less talk."
Solstice walked right in front of me. The hot steam from her body was the only thing that made me feel safe in this cold, damp place. She held the Solaris umbrella in closed mode, ready to stab anything.
"Which way, Auditor?" Solstice asked tensely.
I looked around, searching for patterns. Among the rotting flesh, there were artificial nerve cables as thick as a human arm.
"Follow those blue cables," I pointed at the dimly glowing strands of optical fiber. "That's the main neural pathway. It will lead us to the Heart."
We walked deeper.
The atmosphere inside was terrifying. The sound of dripping water echoed like a ticking clock. Occasionally, the flesh on the walls twitched—dead nerve reflexes still holding residual energy.
"I hate this place," muttered one of the crew. "Feels like we're walking inside a ghost's intestines."
"Quiet!" Grimm barked.
Suddenly, I stopped.
The floor beneath my feet vibrated. Not machine vibrations.
Vibrations... of footsteps. Small. Many.
"Stop," I whispered.
"What now?" Grimm asked, annoyed.
"Listen," I said.
Skitter... skitter... skitter...
The sound of thousands of tiny feet running over metal and flesh.
Solstice immediately opened her umbrella.
"Something's coming."
From the darkness ahead of us, a pair of small red eyes lit up. Then two. Then ten. Then hundreds.
"Parasites," I hissed in horror. "Corpse-Eaters."
They weren't ordinary insects. They were mutant sea lice the size of dogs, with hard shells and jaws designed to chew through Titan steel. They were the ocean's natural cleaners, and we had just entered their dining room.
"FIRE!" Grimm yelled.
The crew fired harpoon guns and flare pistols.
BANG! BLAM!
A few parasites exploded, splattering acidic green blood. But there were too many. They crawled on the walls, on the ceiling, dropping down on us like a rain of nightmares.
"Burn them, Solstice!" I yelled, retreating behind her back.
"Fall back!" Solstice commanded.
VWOOM!
Solstice spun her umbrella. A wave of blue fire shot out, burning the narrow corridor. The parasites shrieked—a high-pitched screech that hurt the ears—as their shells melted.
But this was an enclosed space.
"Watch the gas!" I yelled, seeing the flames licking at pockets of methane gas in the ceiling.
Solstice quickly shut off her flames, switching to physical attacks. She used her umbrella as a club, batting back parasites trying to leap at me.
CRACK!
One parasite slipped through, leaping at my leg. I had no magic. I had no weapon.
In a desperate reflex, I hit it with my wooden cane.
The cane snapped. The parasite hissed, its jaws open ready to bite my leg.
SREEET!
A hydraulic claw crushed the parasite into pulp.
Grimm stood beside me, breathing heavily.
"Don't die yet, Brain," he grumbled. "You haven't shown us where the treasure is."
"Over there!" I pointed at a large hatch door with a radiation logo at the end of the corridor. "Behind that door! Their nest is here because they're attracted to the leaking Core energy!"
"Furnace! Clear a path!" Grimm ordered.
Solstice advanced, becoming the spearhead. She no longer held back. She concentrated heat at the tip of her umbrella, stabbing every parasite blocking the way, turning them into instant charcoal.
We ran, slipping on mucus and bug carcasses, towards the hatch door.
We broke into the reactor room and sealed the door behind us.
The sound of parasites scratching on the other side was terrifying, but the thick steel door held them.
Silence.
Except for a low hum.
In the center of the circular room, suspended among organic cables, was The Core.
A crystal sphere the size of a water barrel, glowing with an unstable purple light. Cracked in places, leaking pure Plasma fluid that made the air in the room feel heavy and electrically charged.
"That's it..." Grimm whispered, his eyes wide with greed. "That could buy an island of its own."
He stepped forward to touch it.
"DON'T TOUCH IT!" I shouted.
Grimm stopped, turning to me angrily. "What?"
"Look at the floor," I pointed.
Beneath the Core, a puddle of plasma fluid had dissolved the steel floor.
"It's unstable. If you touch it with bare hands or ordinary metal, you'll melt. Or worse, it explodes and we all die."
"Then how do we take it, Genius?" Grimm challenged.
I walked closer, carefully. My mind worked fast, recalling Titan manual diagrams I'd read in the Valdor library.
"We need an insulator container," I said. I looked around. "Solstice, give me your leather vest."
"What?" Solstice glared. "You want me naked in here?"
"That vest is made from Sea Salamander leather, right? It's heat and mana-radiation resistant. We'll use it to wrap the Core. Hurry!"
Solstice grumbled, but she took off her outer vest (leaving a thin, sweat-drenched undershirt). She threw it to me.
"Now," I looked at Grimm. "I need your claw. That claw is coated with Rust-Proof, right? It's non-conductive."
I guided Grimm closer.
"Clamp the top cable. Slowly. Solstice, when the cable snaps, catch the Core with the vest. Don't let it touch your skin."
The surgical operation began.
Grimm, with cold sweat pouring, aimed his claw.
CLICK. The cable snapped.
The Core fell.
Solstice jumped, catching it with the leather vest as if catching a baby.
THUMP.
Purple light pulsed through the thick leather, but didn't burn. Solstice grimaced.
"Heavy," she hissed. "And... this thing is vibrating. Like a heart."
"Carry it," I ordered. "We have to get out before the parasites outside realize their dinner is being taken."
Getting out was harder than getting in.
The parasites were waiting outside the door.
"We can't break through," said Grimm, checking his remaining ammo. "I'm out of rounds. One harpoon left."
Solstice held the Core in one hand (wrapped in the vest) and the umbrella in the other. She looked exhausted. Using fire in this low-oxygen space drained her.
I looked around the reactor room. My eyes landed on an emergency heat ventilation pipe in the ceiling.
"Heat exhaust pipe," I muttered.
"Solstice," I called. "Can you heat the air inside that pipe?"
"What for?"
"Physics," I answered, my brain formulating a crazy plan. "Hot air expands. If you heat the air at the base of the pipe extremely and quickly, it will create thrust pressure."
I pointed towards the exit.
"We're not going through the door. We're going through the roof. We'll turn ourselves into cannonballs."
"You're insane," said Grimm.
"Do you want to die eaten by bugs or fly out?" I asked coldly.
Grimm growled, then nodded.
We climbed the cables to the mouth of the ventilation pipe in the ceiling, which led vertically to the surface of the Titan's back.
The three of us squeezed into the narrow pipe. Tight, dark, slippery.
"Now, Furnace!" I yelled. "BLAST IT!"
Solstice, at the very bottom position, released the remainder of her heat energy downwards into the pipe.
BOOM!
The explosion of hot air in the confined space created a giant pneumatic thrust.
We were shot upwards like bullets from a rifle barrel.
We shot up through the slimy pipe at high speed, screaming as the G-force pressed on our chests.
WHOOSH!
We burst out from the Titan's back, flung into the open air, then crashed into the sea with a hard splash.
The cold seawater felt like heaven after the hell inside.
I surfaced, coughing, gasping for air.
"I'M ALIVE!" shouted one of the surviving crew.
Beside me, Solstice surfaced, clutching the vest-wrapped Core tightly so it wouldn't sink. Her face was pale, but she grinned.
"Crazy plan, Ice Cube. Truly crazy."
The Gilded Wreck's rescue boat approached. Sable was waiting there.
As we were hauled onto the deck, we were soaked, smeared with green slime, and smelled of carcass.
But when Solstice opened the vest bundle in front of Sable...
The purple light from the Dreadnought Core illuminated the Captain's greedy face.
"Beautiful..." Sable whispered. He stared at the Core, then stared at me.
I stood, soaked, without magic, leaning against the ship's railing so I wouldn't fall.
"Fuel for 10 years, Captain," I reported, my voice flat and professional. "Or 5 million Coins on Sector 9's black market."
I turned to Grimm standing beside me, also soaked. He stared at me. No more mockery. Just a wary gaze from someone who realized this "Scrap" had just saved his life with physics.
Sable patted my shoulder. A hard pat, but filled with appreciation.
"Good work, Auditor. You pass the probation."
He turned to the crew.
"Tonight we feast! And give the Auditor a double rum ration!"
The crew's cheers sounded.
I didn't cheer. I just slumped onto the deck floor, watching Solstice cleaning slime off her umbrella.
She looked back at me. Her blue eyes met my red ones.
"You're useful in the field too," she murmured softly, almost inaudible among the crew's cheers.
"You're not bad either, Furnace," I replied, closing my eyes, letting the sea wind dry my clothes.
We survived the belly of a dead god.
But I knew, that look from Grimm earlier wasn't a look of gratitude. It was a new threat.
The position of 'Brain' on this ship is dangerous. And I had just made myself very, very visible.