A few hours before a certain fool ended up stranded in the pitch-black night, preparing to plunge into the cursed waters of a Great Titan crawling with abominable creatures craving his blasphemous blood...
That exact same fool was walking side by side with five radiant heroes through a crimson labyrinth covered in razor-sharp steel webs, also crawling with abominable creatures craving his blasphemous blood.
After waiting out the rising tide for a few days atop the marble arch—passing the quiet hours in casual conversation and dark banter—the cohort had finally resumed their march. They had a tight schedule to keep.
Zachary remembered reading that this particular stretch of the coral labyrinth was notoriously treacherous. The terrain was crisscrossed with threads of steel spider silk, spun so thin and honed so sharp that merely brushing against one could slice clean through skin and bone. The spider-type Nightmare Creatures that nested within the high coral walls were capable of ambushing from any angle, using the vibrations in their metallic web to coordinate lethal, synchronized strikes.
Yet, while every detail described in the original novel matched the brutal reality he was currently treading, there was one simple, vast difference in their actual situation:
"Next one coming up. Get ready," Zachary said calmly, watching the cohort gather into formation with unhurried steps.
With relaxed precision, he guided the dark blade of his jian toward an almost invisible steel thread hanging across their path. But instead of severing it, Zachary simply pressed the flat side of his sword gently against the wire. The light contact sent a subtle vibration humming up the cable—and his senses immediately picked up sudden, aggressive movements surging from the far end of the net.
A second later, a blinding, crackling current of lightning coated the edge of Ender's Solace. The arc shot forward instantly, riding the steel thread and spiderwebbing into the massive net overhead. Zachary let the electrical surge course through the structure for a few seconds before cutting the power.
Moments later, a heavy thud echoed from above, followed by a rain of a dozen scorched spider corpses crashing onto the stone floor—some instantly fried, others curled up and steaming as they clung pathetically to life.
The cohort moved with flawless coordination, their seamless rhythm betraying just how routine this terrifying tactic had already become. While a few members moved in to execute the surviving abominations and harvest their soul shards, the rest swept forward to clear the path of the inert steel webs.
Now that the local nest had been electrocuted into oblivion, they didn't need to worry about accidentally signaling their presence. Zachary watched the clean-up with a calm expression before checking his runes with a quiet shake of his head.
Name: Zachary.
True Name: Heaven's Equal. [Unclaimed]
Rank: Dreamer.
Soul Core: Dormant.
Soul Fragments: [1000/1000]
Memories: [Ender's Solace], [Witness' Testament], [Antlered Wrath], [Midnight Shard], [Ordinary Rock], [Endless Spring], [Ordinary Rope], [Rising Attachment], [Flame of the West], [Mantle of the Underworld].
Echoes: [Carapace Scavenger], [Stone Saint].
Attributes: [The Fool], [Mark of Sin], [Conqueror's Soul], [Blasphemer], [Enlightenment], [Spark of Divinity], [Blood Weave].
But just like every other encounter on this run, despite being directly responsible for the vast majority of the kills, the Spell offered him no new Memories.
'Fuck the Spell... All my homies hate the Spell,' Zachary thought with dark amusement, shaking his head as Effie handed him a small pile of six soul shards.
The huntress had a relaxed, amused smirk plastered across her bronze face—a look that practically guaranteed an incoming joke. But her grin instantly died as she watched Zachary casually toss the hard, crystal shards straight into his mouth, swallowing them down with a loud gulp. Effie immediately scrunched her nose in disgust and took a massive step back.
"Eughh... I'm not gonna lie to you, Blabbermouth," she said, staring at him with unreserved distaste. "I kind of had you pegged as a gourmet. Now? I'm really re-evaluating that take."
'Pegged?' Zachary raised an eyebrow, an amused glint in his eye. "How can you be so quick to judge when you haven't even tried it?"
He ended up replying casually, closing his eye for a fraction of a second to focus on his digestion.
Throughout their journey, he had systematically consumed his share of harvested shards, gradually refining them and restoring the essence nesting in his body. Through sheer repetition, he had mastered digesting and processing soul essence so efficiently that he could do it mid-stride without breaking his walking pace.
Naturally, every single time he ate a shard like a piece of hard candy, he received horrified, revolted looks from everyone present. He didn't particularly care, but it wasn't as if he could easily explain his unique biology without raising a million dangerous questions.
Sighing inwardly at his own bizarre diet, he fell into step as the cohort pressed deeper into the labyrinth.
Yet he refused to let the absurdly low difficulty of their current stretch lull him into a false sense of security. In fact, it had the exact opposite effect. As Zachary continued to effortlessly trivialize the deadly spider nest with Thunder Song, a heavy, suffocating sense of impending dread began taking root in his mind.
He knew how the world was supposed to behave around him. He knew that Fate was supposed to follow him like a relentless hound, showering him with events so he could grow into the world... or some bullshit like that.
That meant that if he was having an easy, almost breezy time clearing the first leg of their trek, Fate was undoubtedly going to get even once he reached the Builder Statue... once Zachary dived into the waters of the Dark Sea.
And it was not going to be pretty.
Finally, and thanks to Zachary's convenient advantage, the cohort reached the end of their route.
A titanic canyon laid before them, crimson coral clinging to its walls in a way that made Zachary's spine twist in disgust. He knew the coral was just the Crimson Terror's spreading influence, but seeing how deep and far it reached made it feel horribly alive.
In front of them lay the ruins of a broken white bridge—once a grand highway for a prosperous city, now reduced to weathered stone clinging to one side of the cliff. And above it, standing like a colossal sentinel for a civilization long forgotten, stood a headless statue.
The dense grey spiderwebs adorning the statue to its peak were a clear sign of what was waiting for them. Nephis looked at Zachary and gave him a brief nod, and he immediately walked ahead at a bored pace. He didn't bother being careful with the spiderwebs around him, purposefully disturbing the threads until he reached a spot where most of the webs gathered together.
From between the legs of the statue and the surrounding crevices, a dozen spiders suddenly rushed out toward the source of the disturbance. Most were beasts, but Zachary spotted a couple of larger spiders—the same species as the monster he had killed in the Dark City that had granted him the Rising Attachment.
Without caring for the danger, he ignited Ender's Solace with thunderous lightning.
The electrical current traveled immediately through the steel with untamed voltage. The cohort gathered closer together to avoid any careless contact with the charged wire. If it was deadly for Awakened creatures, what would it do to mundane humans?
Surprisingly, the larger monsters turned out to be more durable than their smaller kin. But that didn't change the fact that their own steel armor ended up working against them—the lightning coursing through them fried their nerves, slowing them down enough for Caster and Nephis to step in and finish the job.
"Oh man, that was boring," Effie yawned carelessly, pulling her spear from a dead spider.
She looked at her bronze spear for a moment before turning her gaze to the headless statue, her expression softening briefly before she let out a sigh.
"You know, the Tyrant that commanded these spiders was a real piece of work." She glanced at Zachary out of the corner of her eye before shaking her head. "Dealing with its minions so easily... I don't know, it doesn't feel right."
"We don't need it to feel right," Nephis answered immediately, busy harvesting soul shards from the corpses. "We aren't doing this for the thrill, Effie. This just shows how Awakened combat relies heavily on advantages and disadvantages. Sooner or later, we'll find something where Zach's ability won't give us the upper hand."
"Fair enough," Effie replied, her grin quickly returning. "Hear that, Blabbermouth? You'll soon go back to being Mr. Inconvenient."
She walked away laughing loudly while Zachary flipped her the finger. Caster paused mid-dissection to look at him.
"That's a really good Memory," he said simply, before returning to his work. There was no greed behind his words; he was merely stating a fact.
"Yeah... a Memory," Zachary repeated with a professional smile, well aware of the cover story Nephis had shared.
Once the shards were collected and divided, the cohort finally made their way into the spider nest. It was spherical and lusterless despite being woven from endless metallic wires and the labyrinth's webs. Stepping inside with careful strides, the cohort held their weapons ready, expecting an ambush from any surviving spiders.
The nest was dark and damp, the muted grey light from outside barely managing to pierce the thick steel walls.
The humid, salty air immediately hit Zachary's nostrils as he surveyed the interior. The shattered remains of the Spider Tyrant lay broken on the floor, and behind it, numerous webbed cocoons adorned the dark wall.
Looking at them, a grim shadow crossed his face. It had taken him time to accept the role he had taken in this world. Being his own type of Fated person, it was obvious he was filling another Fated person's shoes. But that didn't change the fact that the Forgotten Shore's story was set in stone.
Which meant that even if one of those roles had been usurped by a certain fool, the rest remained in place.
Seven Sleepers were sent to die in this hell.
The cohort noticed his focus and quickly followed his gaze toward a specific cocoon—one hiding the distinct silhouette of a human body. The group approached with measured steps, a heavy, dark atmosphere settling around them.
Standing before it, Nephis turned to Caster, her voice emotionless. "Can you open it?"
Caster nodded sharply. Zachary watched as the Legacy sliced the cocoon open with masterful precision, letting the corpse inside fall to the floor with a wet thud.
Zachary was surprised to see a familiar face inside.
The gruesome pain eternally etched into his dead eyes and the silent, agonizing scream frozen on his features weren't enough to make him unrecognizable. And Zachary wasn't the only one who knew who the poor Sleeper was.
Beside him, Caster's face scrunched up as an audible hiss escaped his lips. Nephis turned to the scion for a second, and Zachary opened his mouth, saying flatly:
"Stephen..."
Kai and Effie turned to look at him at the sudden name, their expressions darkening further.
"You... you knew him?" the huntress asked in a quiet voice, but Caster was the one who answered.
"He is—was... the youngest heir of the Pandavar clan," Caster said flatly, looking at Zachary out of the corner of his eye.
Feeling Caster's gaze boring into him, Zachary scratched the back of his neck before saying in a detached voice, "I... I kinda beat the shit out of him back at the Academy."
The cohort turned to him, but before their expressions could turn accusatory, he immediately followed up:
"Don't give me those looks. I had no ill will against him. And even if I did... no one deserves to go through this."
The cohort fell entirely silent after that. There was no punchline, no snarky comment—just the crushing weight of reality settling heavy in their chests. It was a truth Zachary had long carried within him since his days in the Dark City, but perhaps experiencing a streak of successful hunts had lulled the cohort into a twisted, false sense of security.
The brutal reality remained unchanged: they were at the absolute bottom of the food chain in this forsaken corner of the world, and Death was patiently waiting around every single corner.
"We need to leave. The sun is setting," Nephis said, her voice hollow through gritted teeth.
Caster stared at her for a moment before his gaze flicked briefly toward Zachary. He spoke in a hesitant, cautious tone. "Aren't we… aren't we going to bury him?"
"There's no time," Nephis replied, her tone leaving no room for argument. "And I don't want anyone touching bodies infected with those eggs. It's too dangerous."
The members of the cohort looked at one another in silence. No one had a logical objection, but abandoning a fellow Sleeper like discarded trash felt inherently wrong. Zachary searched his chest for that familiar pang of sorrow, but as usual, he was met with the same cold detachment that had kept him alive. And yet... a quiet, lingering thread of empathy remained.
He understood the tragedy of it. After all, nobody wanted to die under a foreign sky, completely alone and far from anyone who cared about them.
Finally, Nephis let out a low sigh. A complex, pained expression flickered across her face before she spoke. "...Alright. Go. I'll catch up with you guys later."
Without another word, the cohort filed out of the dark nest with grim expressions, leaving Nephis alone with the remains.
Stepping out, Zachary looked up at the dying sun fading behind the towering coral walls. He turned to the group and spoke in a steady, calm voice. "We should start climbing." He cast a subtle look over his shoulder toward the dark entrance of the nest before adding, "I'll wait here."
Caster paused, eyeing him for a brief second, his bright green eyes glistening with an unreadable light. Seeing the scion's sharp gaze, Zachary immediately raised a hand in a placating gesture.
"Relax, I'm not planning on snooping or—"
"I'm not thinking about that," the Legacy cut him off flatly, turning toward the thick leg of the headless statue and beginning his ascent.
Effie followed immediately after him, her heart too heavy to toss out her usual jokes. Kai carefully gathered Cassie by her waist and legs, slowly floating upward alongside the climbers, keeping a sharp eye out for any lingering monsters clinging to the high stone.
A second later, a massive, blinding wave of white flame erupted from the depths of the nest. Feeling the sudden surge of intense heat brush across his skin, Zachary took a few steps back, leaning his shoulder casually against the cold steel structure.
The gesture was certainly a fitting send-off for a fallen Dreamer. But Zachary was also acutely aware of Nephis's Innate Ability—she could absorb the soul fragments of any creature consumed by her soul flame. And right now, there were hundreds of unhatched abomination eggs nesting inside those dark cocoons.
'Well, good for her,' he thought simply, a humorless chuckle escaping his lips.
A minute later, Nephis emerged from the nest. Her face was tight with pained endurance, a faint sheen of sweat glistening on her forehead under the dying light of the sun and the flickering embers of her flame. She caught sight of Zachary waiting for her a second too late, but she looked far too exhausted to act surprised.
"Is it done?" he asked, more out of polite courtesy than genuine curiosity.
"Yes," she answered flatly, her eyes rising toward the sky as it turned a deep, bruised shade of purple. They had only minutes left before the Dark Sea would begin its terrifying ascent.
Without wasting another moment, she turned toward the statue and began scaling it with swift, practiced agility. But just as Zachary moved to follow behind her, her cold voice drifted down from above:
"Zach... I know you like making friends. But you shouldn't get too close to Caster."
Zachary paused on the stone, looking up at her retreating silhouette, his single eye widening in genuine surprise at the sudden warning. But without offering another word of explanation, Nephis picked up her pace, leaving him alone with the weight of her words and the distant, rhythmic rumble of the incoming tide.
'So Cassie isn't the only one with an eavesdropping hobby...' he mused with a quiet, dry chuckle before scaling the statue after her. The sound of the rushing water grew louder and more menacing with every meter he climbed.
Reaching the summit of the Hunter Statue, Zachary surveyed the camp. The cohort sat scattered across the flat stone, each keeping to themselves, the heavy mood from below still hanging thick in the air. It was a bleak, sobering reminder of what a single careless mistake would cost them.
The sheer fragility of life, and the absolute certainty of death.
"I'll take the first watch. You guys should get some rest," Zachary said quietly, his eye fixed on the rising black horizon.
The group glanced at him briefly, but finding no reason to argue, they quietly settled in to rest. Within minutes, the camp fell still.
Zachary sat down near the edge of the stone platform, his mind trying to drift back to the grim discovery in the nest and the persistent emotional detachment inside him. But he had far more urgent, life-threatening problems to worry about right now.
Turning his head slightly, he watched as the pitch-black waters of the Dark Sea swallowed the last visible traces of the Crimson Labyrinth in the distance. The total absence of waves only magnified the eerie, unnatural atmosphere, making him forget for a brief second the unthinkable horrors lurking beneath the surface.
'I still don't have a reliable way to get through this leg of the journey alive,' Zachary admitted to himself, his heart sinking.
During his first few months exploring the coral labyrinths alongside the girls, they had been relatively fortunate, never once getting caught stranded in the path of the rising tide. The only time he had ever personally touched the Great Titan's dark waters was his very first day in this nightmare... and the memory of that suffocating horror was still vivid enough to make him shiver.
"Shit..." he muttered under his breath, aggressively dragging a hand through his messy hair.
Despite his long track record of pulling half-baked, surprisingly effective countermeasures out of his ass, his mind remained completely blank. He couldn't see a single realistic way to clear this upcoming stretch without diving back into those cursed, lightless waters.
'You know what? For once in my life, I'm just going to hope for the best,' Zachary thought with a bitter shake of his head.
'Nephis invited me on this trip fully aware of how much I despise the ocean... she has to have at least drafted some kind of plan.'
***
"So let me get this straight... You have no plan for me to face the Dark Sea?"
A full day had passed. The cohort had rested atop the Headless Statue until the sun once again began its slow descent into the west. Only this time, instead of seeking high ground to escape the dark tides, the group had purposefully descended, coming to a halt on the edge of the broken marble bridge.
Zachary was staring at Nephis with a completely flat, unimpressed expression, while she deliberately avoided his single eye, keeping her gaze fixed on the grey sky as it bruised into a pale shade of crimson. Her quiet silence was more than enough of an answer.
"You invited me to join your expedition knowing full well that my relationship with the sea is... complicated, and you didn't even think to prepare a contingency plan?" he pressed again.
Nephis's expression remained as impassive as ever, maintaining her usual aloof demeanor. Yet, surprisingly, her eyes refused to lock onto his as she replied in a quiet, even tone: "That's right."
The members of the cohort exchanged bewildered glances before turning back to Zachary.
Zachary let out a heavy sigh, spreading his arms in an exaggerated, placating gesture. "No, genuinely. I don't want to sound like an asshole—"
"You already do," Effie interrupted with a loud scoff.
Zachary snapped his head toward her with an annoyed frown, but caught the slight tightness in her posture. Her smirk looked a bit forced; she was just as nervous about this upcoming stretch of the journey as the rest of them.
"Look, I know I'm resourceful, brilliant, a master tactician, and objectively handsome," Zachary continued—Kai subtly pinching the bridge of his nose as his Flaw detected zero falsehoods in the statement. "But man, it really feels like you didn't even try to come up with anything."
Hearing his theatrical rant, Nephis let out a quiet sigh and finally turned her full attention to him. "Are you really in any position to complain to me, Zach? If I recall correctly, you were the one who made a point of clarifying that you aren't actually part of my cohort."
A small, dangerous smile tugged at the corner of her lips. "So I'm not entirely sure why you're suddenly throwing a tantrum, I shouldn't worry about you in the first place..."
Zachary stared at her in genuine shock. His mouth opened and closed like a landed fish, but no sound came out. He raised a single finger to interject, struggled for words, and then slowly closed his hand into a tight fist before looking away.
"Okay. You got me there," he finally admitted, prompting Effie to burst into a loud, obnoxious laugh at his side.
"I can't believe my eyes—you actually have nothing to say!" she wheezed, unable to hide her delight. "What's today's date? I'm writing this down."
"You know what? Fine by me," Zachary declared dramatically, taking a deliberate, heavy step toward the sheer drop of the broken bridge. "You finally did it, Effie. If you keep pushing, I might just hurl myself from the bridge."
"What the fuck?!" Effie yelled, startled by his sudden shift, while Kai instantly lunged forward and grabbed the edge of his sleeve.
"Zach, what are you doing?" Kai blurted out, panic lacing his voice. "You can't kill yourself over the slightest inconvenience!"
"Oh, I might just do that," Zachary shot back instantly, flashing a sharp grin at the speechless huntress standing behind the archer. "I'd rather plunge into the void than let that glutton over there hold a verbal win over me for the rest of my life."
Kai paled, his Flaw confirming the sheer, terrifying conviction behind Zachary's pettiness. He spun around and glared at Effie. The tall huntress looked back and forth between the two of them before sharply turning her head toward Nephis, who was watching the entire circus with an amused glint in her eyes.
"Alright, fine! Dammit, Zach!" Effie grumbled, aggressively kicking a loose pebble over the ledge. "How do you always figure out a way to win an argument?!"
The absurd exchange succeeded in cutting through the heavy gloom that had lingered since the previous night. As the cohort watched the sun fade over the horizon, the dark tension on their faces had notably lifted.
Noticing the shift, Nephis turned back to Zachary, placing a gentle, reassuring hand on Cassie's shoulder. "And as for not preparing anything—I didn't deem it necessary."
Hearing her words, Zachary turned his gaze back onto the pair as Cassie spoke softly, her voice delicate yet clear: "I saw us... I had a vision of our group reaching the edge of the labyrinth safely."
Zachary looked at them for a second before deadpanning, "Fantastic! I feel infinitely better now." He fell quiet, the sarcastic front dropping instantly in his mind.
'Said no one ever. Man, being tied to a narrative I'm actively trying to outrun is already bad... but being shackled to Fate itself is a thousand times more unsettling.'
Oblivious to his internal existential crisis, Cassie continued quietly: "But... you weren't covered in scars, Zach."
Zachary froze, turning his eye back to her with a sudden, rigid expression. But before he could ask her to elaborate, the final grey rays of the Nameless Sun died over the distant horizon. Pitch-black darkness swallowed the world in an instant—and right on its heels came the terrifying, deafening roar of the rising tide.
A sudden, furious white light shattered the darkness.
Nephis ignited her longsword, thrusting it high into the air. The cohort instinctively huddled close around her as the dark, frigid water surged over the edge of the canyon, soaking up to their shins.
Zachary stared at the blazing white blade and squeezed his eyes shut in a bitter grimace. He knew they needed illumination to navigate and spot their oncoming transport, but he also knew that the light functioned as a massive, glowing beacon for whatever monstrosities ruled the first tide of the Dark Sea. Any creatures drawn by the glare would lock onto him instantly, eager to greet the blasphemous, foolish mortal daring to trespass upon their domain.
'Fuck it all...' he cursed internally as his body began to tremble uncontrollably. Even with the absolute mental control his Ability granted him, he couldn't stop the involuntary shiver of pure, primal terror. "What the fuck am I doing here?!"
Just as the curse slipped past his teeth, he felt a deep, low-frequency vibration rumbling through the stone beneath his shoes. Out in the murk, he finally caught sight of a titanic, shifting shadow moving in their direction.
In an instant, his scattered focus snapped into place. The trembling stopped. Seeing the abrupt shift in his demeanor, Nephis looked straight ahead and fed more essence into her blade, making it burn even brighter.
"Get ready! It's coming!"
As if summoned by her command, the colossal silhouette of the Builder Statue loomed out of the edge of the darkness. It marched steadily through the abyss, parting the black river with a relentless, mechanical pace. Its massive shoulders broke the current, sending towering waves that crashed violently against their shins and nearly knocked them off their footing. And true to history, its head was completely missing.
Taking the initiative, Nephis vaulted off the edge of the stone, taking the light with her. She slammed her burning sword into the jagged surface of the statue and began scaling it with swift, practiced agility. Caster followed with a fluid, effortless leap, while Kai scooped Cassie up by her waist and legs, floating upward with delicate precision to keep pace with the climbers despite the rushing currents.
'I really shouldn't have come here...' Zachary thought grimly. Then, a sharp, manic grin split across his features—as if forcing a smile on his face could physically laugh away the crushing dread clawing at his heart.
Taking a quick step back to gather momentum, Zachary leaped into the empty air. A sharp mechanical whistle cut through the wind as the cables of Rising Attachment shot forward, biting deep into the stone and anchoring him securely to the statue's chest. Catching the cracked, weathered edge of its massive shoulder, he hauled himself up to join the rest of the cohort. Effie scrambled up right behind him a beat later.
Oblivious to its new passengers, the statue pressed forward, marching unyieldingly toward the opposite side of the titanic canyon. When Zachary had first laid eyes on the fissure a day prior, he had been awestruck by its sheer magnitude. But now, riding atop a colossal construct and realizing that even something of this immense scale had to march an incredible distance just to cross it, the terrifying truth became clear: the canyon wasn't just a simple tectonic fault line. It was a brutal scar torn directly across the fabric of the earth.
The dark waters continued to climb, inching steadily up the statue's stone torso until they reached its broad shoulders. It was only a matter of time before the flood engulfed the severed neck where the group clung desperately for purchase.
Right at that moment, Zachary caught a sudden, violent displacement in the water near the statue's right flank. Something massive was gliding past, cutting through the current with a motion entirely distinct from the statue's steady march. Something unfathomably huge.
{_^_^_^_}
{_^_^_^_}
{_^_^_^_}
Danger Sense shrieked a fraction of a second too late, sending a fresh wave of ice down Zachary's spine and locking his limbs in place. He pressed his entire body flat against the damp stone, curling into himself to make his profile as small as humanly possible.
Nephis had already extinguished her blade's flames, plunging them back into absolute blackness, yet she still managed to sense his frantic, rigid movements through the dark.
"Zach?" Her voice came muffled and strained over the deafening roar of the rising sea.
"Don't... don't worry," Zachary forced out through gritted teeth, his manic grin fading into a dark, heavy scowl. "Just a Corrupted."
A sharp, choked gasp echoed from someone nearby, though his overloaded senses were stretched too thin to identify who it belonged to. Yet, amidst the paralyzing terror, a bizarre, hysterical chuckle bubbled up in his chest. He was reasonably certain he was the first human in recorded history to feel genuinely relieved upon realizing they were only dealing with a Corrupted Creature.
He was about to voice the dark joke, but a wall of heavy, freezing water crashed over them, soaking them to the bone in an instant. The rising tide had finally caught up. They were still agonizingly far from the far side of the canyon, and miles away from the relative safety of the high ridge.
"Brace yourselves!" Zachary screamed into the wind, spitting out a mouthful of bitter, salty brine. "We're going underwater!"
Hearing a chorus of frantic curses and desperate profanities from the cohort, Zachary slammed his fist down, firing the cables of Rising Attachment deep into the stone beneath him. No matter what horrors awaited them beneath the surface, he was chaining himself to this statue. He wasn't letting go for anything.
His knuckles turned white as he clenched the stone as hard as his enhanced body would allow, his jaw groaning under the strain of his clenched teeth.
The water rose past his chest. Then his neck. Then his chin.
Against every screaming instinct in his soul, Zachary was forced to confront his worst nightmare far sooner than he had ever prepared for. And as the pitch-black, suffocating water closed completely over his head, swallowing him whole, he had no choice left but to accept it.
He was back on the rocks.