Shrouded Seascape

The humanoid fissures began to spider across the icy walls. As their bodies started splitting open ever so slightly, a bone-chilling wind, visible to the eye, seeped out and spread through the elevator shaft.

The temperature plummeted to a deadly cold within a mere few seconds.

The icy gust brushed against one of the workers wearing a mining helmet. His body instantly turned an eerie shade of indigo; his strength was sapped out of him, and he limply plummeted down the shaft.

When his body passed by the young explorer, the boy instinctively reached out to grab him, only to hear a sickening crack. A frozen arm broke off and remained in his grip while the rest of the man's body continued its fall toward the depths below.

Horror gripped the onlookers as they let out gasps of despair. It was evident that even the slightest touch of that freezing air meant death.

As he watched the icy chill creep closer to those still climbing the rope ladders, Charles rushed into the elevator shaft.

His gaze snapped upward, and in an instant, transparent tentacles sparked with electric arcs sprouted from the walls like seagrass swaying in the wind.

Some of the tentacles froze instantly. But more tentacles rose and thrashed wildly, striking the humanoid fissures on the ice.

The layers of ice shattered like glass, and their perilous situation was eased.

"Attack the ice!" Charles shouted. "Those things can only exist within the ice! Without ice, they have no ground to stand on!"

The explorers didn't need to be told twice and started their retaliation against the unknown entities.

In an instant, the elevator shaft descended into mayhem. Humanoid fissures encased in shattered ice fragments and frozen corpses continuously rained down from above.

Clearly, both sides suffered losses. Yet, it was evident that Charles and his group were gaining the upper hand. They just had to make it out of the elevator shaft, and the entire island would be in peril.

Charles knew it. Those things knew it too. They wouldn't let this happen without a fight.

Just as Charles steadily scaled the rope ladder with the jar of organs in his arm, a sudden uproar erupted from above.

"This is bad! The exit's shrinking! They're trying to trap us in here!"

Anxiety struck Charles. He wanted to move faster, but the ladder was already packed with people above him, blocking the way.

With no other options, his leg muscles tensed up, and he kicked off hard against the wall.

He soared through the air momentarily before his steel prosthetic arm shot out and clung to the opposite wall.

He then triggered the teleportation ability of the relic within him. Sticking close to the wall, Charles repeatedly vanished and reappeared, each time moving closer to the top of the shaft.

Just as the familiar pain hit his stomach once again, he was finally close to the upper end of the elevator shaft. However, the exit that should have been there was gone. In its place was a layer of ice that grew thicker by the second.

Do you really think this can stop me? Charles' figure began to mutate, and within moments, a massive bat monster filled the narrow confines of the shaft.

From below, the beams of several miners' headlamps cut through the darkness to illuminate Charles' mutated form. Under everyone's gazes, the monstrous bat opened its grotesque maw to let out a deafening screech.

The sharp-pitched soundwave echoed through the tight space causing everyone below to clutch their ears in agony. At the same time, the ice sealing the exit began to crack and splinter. It didn't take long for the frozen barrier to crumble and the exit to reappear once again.

Charles not only saw the exit, but also the fissure creatures amongst the icy dust. They overlapped with each other, their forms like cryptic characters that moved within the solid ice.

He braced himself for a hard fight, but the moment he saw the glow of green, cross-shaped pupils at the exit, he knew it was over.

Those eyes belonged to his daughter. The young girl, whose appearance resembled that of a fabled elf, stood at the exit.

With a gentle tap of her bare, delicate feet, she gracefully leaped into the elevator shaft.

Her dress, white like snow, flared as a mass of green, liquid-filled tentacles exploded outward to fill up the entire shaft.

Be it the chilling ice, or the humanoid fissures, they were rapidly engulfed by Sparkle's tentacles. Of course, Charles and the remaining survivors who hadn't managed to escape were being swallowed as well.

When Charles focused again, he realized that he was back on Sottom. Or, to put it more accurately, Sparkle transported the entire elevator shaft of SITE6 onto Sottom.

The twisted white metal shaft now lay sprawled across the artificial island. Combined with the melting ice that pooled around it, it resembled the discarded intestine of some unknown creature.

Aliya led the others into a rescue operation and rapidly helped those inside the shaft out.

Sparkle extended her right hand to support her father, who had reverted to his human form. With hints of reproach in her voice, she rebuked, "Didn't we agree that you'd call me if things got dangerous? Why didn't you call for me earlier?"

Drenched from melted ice water, Charles gently shook off her arm. "Who knew what those things were? What if they hurt you too? Besides, the situation earlier wasn't that dangerous enough yet."

Charles' gaze then drifted to the distant SITE 6, which was illuminated by the harsh glare of Sottom's searchlights. The areas that had been melted by Lily were now slowly freezing over again as a thin layer of frost started encroaching on them. On top of that, the cold was spreading in all directions. Those things weren't giving up.

With a burst of white light, Sparkle's figure vanished and reappeared almost immediately. A large block of ice appeared before them and there were two complete humanoid fissures encased within.

Sparkle raised her hand to touch the ice. Charles tried to stop her, but Sparkle's fingers merely phased through his arm and touched the cracks on the ice.

"Dad, these things are really strange. They don't have a physical form," Sparkle remarked.

"What's so strange about that? The Subterranean Sea is full of things without physical forms. I wonder why they are so intent on occupying this site. Is there something special about it? Is it some kind of sacred ground for them?" Charles replied as he stared at the distant site with a furrowed brow while his mind raced with strategies to deal with the creatures.

Sparkle shook her head. She pried a piece of ice from the block and casually nibbled on it. "No, that's not it. They're not ghosts or spirits. Actually, they're the opposite of us."

"What do you mean? Did you figure out what they are?" Charles asked.

"Mhm…" Sparkle pursed her lips before continuing, "When I say they don't have a physical form, I mean… how should I put it? They are like bubbles in seawater; they are fissures between solids."

Charles raised an eyebrow. "You mean, they are the fissures themselves? What kind of fissures possess intelligence? They even have the power to freeze everything around them."

"I'm not too sure about that. I didn't get that information from tasting them," Sparkle replied with a nonchalant shrug.

Charles stared at the distant SITE 6 for a few more moments before he turned to the side and shouted, "Aliya! Relay my orders: Sottom's cannons to full power. Obliterate the site!"

If those things existed by clinging to solid matter, there was a straightforward solution to dealing with them. They only had to destroy the solid foundation they existed on, and those creatures that relied on the ice would vanish along with it.

"Daddy, do you need me to go?" Sparkle's delicate face lit up with eagerness.

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