36: There are no mermaids in the sewers

Gothar hated water.

His massive Ceramite warboots stepped into knee-deep, toxic water shimmering with a greasy green light; with every step, he lifted a viscous liquid that reeked of hydrogen sulfide and centuries of decay.

It trickled down through the gaps in his leg armor, making a faint "hissing" corrosive sound.

The power armor he wore was an iron coffin, stripped from the corpse of a dead brother and hammered together by Mortal craftsmen with hammers and welding torches.

Its original paint had long since worn away; now, new rust was spreading along the weld seams on the grayish-black leg armor like ugly scars.

"Damn... water."

Gothar let out a low, beast-like growl from deep in his throat.

His voice, transmitted through the helmet's aging speakers, was heavily distorted, sounding like he was speaking through a bag of sand.

He really didn't like this new "uniform."

Because it was far too quiet.

So quiet that he missed the familiar, reassuring, tractor-like roar of the Mk I power armor's back exhaust.

That sound meant power, it meant combustion, it meant he was still alive.

But now, this patched-together Mk II locked everything away.

The genetic fire within him burned wildly, scorching his organs and nerves, but the heat was suppressed within this cold iron shell, with nowhere to vent.

It made him feel like a deaf man stuffed inside a tin can.

He looked up and stared ahead.

At the end of the searchlight's pale beam was a massive, pitch-black circular opening, over thirty meters in diameter.

That was the main sewage pipe of the archimedes.

Thousands of years ago, this had been an outlet for dumping billions of tons of industrial waste and domestic sewage into the ocean.

Now, it gaped like the mouth of a steel behemoth leading to hell, constantly vomiting toxic gases and filth.

"Dark Raven Squad, prepare to enter."

A young, steady voice, devoid of any emotional fluctuation, came through the comms channel.

That was "Raven-01," the captain of this strike team made up of a bunch of green recruits.

Gothar snorted a puff of hot air disdainfully from his nostrils.

He didn't like these Dark Ravens.

They were too quiet, quiet like a group of ghosts clad in power armor.

They walked without sound, fought without sound, and even their breathing was suppressed to a minimum by the internal recycling system.

They weren't like warriors; they were more like a group of accountants following behind The Emperor, responsible for tallying loot and calculating casualties.

Skilled in calculation, but entirely devoid of passion.

He turned his head and looked at the remaining eleven brothers beside him.

Like him, they wore tattered, cobbled-together armor, each looking like a scarred mobile fortress that could collapse at any moment.

Their silence was different from the silence of those Dark Ravens.

In their silence, a storm was brewing, ready to explode.

"Mission objective: Infiltrate and retrieve data," Raven-01's voice rang out again, as if reciting a tactical manual he had long since memorized.

"Upon encountering any hostile targets, prioritize elimination. Veteran Gothar, per the Commander's orders, your mission is to act as the breakthrough spearhead, clearing all heavy obstacles we cannot handle. Understood?"

Gothar snorted another thick puff of hot air as his answer.

Veteran?

He was only nineteen years old this year.

But for a Thunder Warrior, that was already a ripe old age.

He had personally watched his fellow brothers, one by one, turn into steaming piles of meat during brutal battles or due to the uncontrollable genetic collapse after the war.

He was the one who should be charging at the very front, burning himself to ashes along with the enemy in the most brilliant way possible.

Not acting like a nanny, following behind these green recruits to serve as their can opener.

"Let's go, boys."

Gothar raised his massive, notched Chainsword and was the first to stride into the viscous, knee-deep toxic water, kicking up a large spray of green waves.

"Let's go see what kind of local specialties are hiding in these sewers!"

...The interior of the pipe was wider than imagined, but also darker and more oppressive.

The searchlight beam could only illuminate about a dozen meters ahead; the edges of the beam were swallowed by thick humidity and suspended particles, with bottomless darkness further out.

Beneath their feet was a thick layer of organic sludge that had settled for countless centuries, soft to the touch, occasionally crunching as they stepped on the bones of some large creature.

Water dripped from massive, rusted valves on the ceiling, echoing "drip, drip" in the dead silence, striking everyone's nerves one by one.

Raven-01 walked in the center of the squad.

He and his Dark Ravens formed a standard diamond defensive formation, weapons raised, tactical visors glowing ghostly green in the dark, constantly alert to their surroundings.

Meanwhile, the twelve Thunder Warriors were like a pack of unruly beasts, ignoring formations entirely as they strode arrogantly at the front of the group, splashing sludge with every step, completely unconcerned about the noise they made.

On Raven-01's tactical visor, the biological signal icon representing Gothar was flashing a piercing red.

[Unit: Gothar - Thunder Warrior]

[Status: Genetic Collapse (Moderate), Nervous System Overload, Heart Rate: 180 BPM (Non-combat state), Forced Hibernation Recommended.]

"His combat effectiveness is irreversibly decaying at a rate of 3% per hour," Raven-01 said in a short line of code within the squad's encrypted data stream.

"His emotions are extremely unstable, and his adrenaline levels far exceed the threshold; there is a potential risk."

"But he is strong," another Dark Raven warrior, designated Raven-07, replied via the data stream.

"A recent physical assessment shows his physical strength is... 1.7 times ours. This data is inconceivable."

Raven-01 did not reply again. He simply raised his hand silently in a "stay alert" gesture, then equated Gothar's threat level with the unknown enemies ahead.

Just then.

Gothar, walking at the very front, suddenly stopped. He raised his armored hand, signaling everyone to be quiet.

"Something's here," he whispered, a hint of undetectable excitement in his voice.

In the darkness, a rustling sound came, like countless fingernails scratching against metal pipes.

Then, dozens of pairs of eyes glowing with a faint red light lit up from all directions, from the pipe junctions overhead.

"Ha, the local specialties are here!"

Instead of feeling fear, Gothar let out an irrepressible, ecstatic low growl.

The Thunder drug in his body boiled again upon smelling the familiar scent of blood belonging to prey!

A group of hunched, pale-skinned humanoid creatures with long, spider-like limbs crawled out of the shadows.

They were the Scavenger Gang.

Degenerate humans living in the sunless depths of the Hive City, surviving on industrial waste, fungi, and... the corpses of their own kind.

They held sharpened steel pipes and pipe bombs made of iron-wrapped low-grade explosives, their eyes glinting with beastly greed and hunger.

To them, this group of glowing, moving tin cans was an unprecedented feast.

"Roar—!"

Accompanied by a sharp, ear-piercing screech, the members of the Scavenger Gang surged forward like a tide from the walls, ceiling, and floor, from all directions.

"Fi..."

Raven-01 was about to give the "Fire" command.

But Gothar was faster.

"FOR The Emperor—!!!!"

With a deafening roar, Gothar charged directly into the surging swarm of monsters like a maddened rhino.

He didn't even activate his Chainsword. He simply swung that heavy, toothless hunk of iron like a battering ram, smashing it down hard.

Boom!

The head of the first scavenger to charge was smashed directly into its chest cavity, the sound of its neck snapping clearly audible.

Thud!

The second scavenger was sent flying by the shoulder of his power armor; its fragile body was like a thrown sack of rags, slamming heavily against the pipe wall and instantly turning into a blur of meat.

This was a purely violent display without any aesthetic.

Gothar rampaged through the enemy ranks; he didn't care about defense or tactics, he was simply enjoying the pure pleasure of tearing life apart.

Every punch, every collision allowed him to temporarily forget the bone-deep, fire-like genetic pain.

He was using a frenzy to combat his approaching death.

On the other side, the Dark Raven Squad's style was entirely different.

Raven-01 did not charge. He and his squad quickly stepped back half a pace the moment Gothar rushed out, forming a semi-circular steel defensive line centered around him.

"Target locked. Short bursts. Conserve ammunition," Raven-01 ordered calmly.

Bang! Bang! Bang.

The dull, rhythmic sound of heavy-caliber Autoguns rang out.

Not wild spraying, but precise, controlled short bursts.

Every bullet accurately drilled into the chest or head of a scavenger trying to bypass Gothar and charge the rear.

No wasted movements, no wasted ammo.

A scavenger had just raised a pipe bomb in his hand, and before he could light the crude fuse, his head popped like a tomato hit by a hammer, exploding into a mist of blood.

Another trying to ambush from a side pipe was hit in the chest by an armor-piercing round the moment he showed his head; the massive kinetic energy pinned him to the wall behind him, where he twitched twice and went still.

If Gothar's combat was a wild, destruction-filled death metal song...

Then the combat of the Dark Ravens was a cold death march composed by a computer, with every note precise and error-free.

In less than thirty seconds, the battle was over.

The ground was covered with the severed limbs of scavengers, and a thicker scent of blood filled the air, almost overpowering the stench of the pipe itself.

Gothar stood in the middle of the pile of corpses, his chest heaving, with thick white steam billowing from the power armor's vents.

He looked down at his power fist covered in brains and shredded meat, then back at the Dark Ravens who hadn't even moved from their positions, and let out a disdainful "hiss" from his nostrils.

"A bunch of cowards," he grumbled.

Raven-01 ignored his provocation.

He simply stepped forward calmly and crushed the head of a scavenger corpse still twitching on the ground with his heel, confirming its death.

"Area secure," Raven-01 said in the channel with a flat tone, "Clear the battlefield. Check equipment wear. Continue advancing."

His voice was as steady as if he had just stepped on a nest of foraging ants.

He walked to a wall that had been collapsed by the recent battle.

It had originally been a small pump room control center.

In the ruins, a metal skull half-buried in the sludge, flashing a faint red light, caught his attention.

Servo-skull.

A product of the old age.

Raven-01 knelt down and extended a long, thin data probe from his wrist armor, inserting it into the interface at the back of the skull.

This was his standard operating procedure—collecting any potentially valuable data.

On the damaged screen, a large amount of meaningless garbled code flashed by. Most of the data was corrupted.

But just as Raven-01 was about to pull out the probe, a line of barely recognizable text written in Ancient Terra Language popped up.

[...Flight Log 734B-Fragment...]

[...Deviated from intended course... encountered Warp storm...]

[...Emergency landing... objective corrected...]

[...Final beacon pointing to: Sol System - Mars - Sector: Noctis Labyrinthus...]

"Noctis... Labyrinthus?" Raven-01's internal lexicon didn't have this term.

He couldn't understand the meaning of this information.

But it didn't matter.

He had faithfully executed his mission.

[Data recorded. Threat level: Unknown. Value: High. Uploading to Commander's database.]

He stored this data, which he judged to be "high value" but couldn't understand himself, deep within the power armor's memory bank.

Then he stood up, pulled out the probe, and crushed the metal skull, which had lost all its value, into the sludge with one foot.

"New passage discovered," a Dark Raven scout reported from ahead, "leads to the upper maintenance elevator shaft."

"Good." Raven-01 holstered his gun and glanced at Gothar, who was still panting from post-battle excitement. "Veteran, keep up. Don't fall behind."

He didn't realize that the "junk data" he had just uploaded would, in the near future, completely change the destiny of this nascent empire.

The key to Mars was already in their hands.

Only they themselves were still completely unaware.