85: At a depth of 9,800 meters, someone is knocking on the door.

Corvin heard a sound.

It wasn't the creaking of metal, nor the sound of his own breathing, nor his heartbeat.

It was something else.

Far away and low-pitched. The sound traveled through the metal walls of the abyss coffin, distorted by the water pressure into a continuous, rhythmic tremor.

Hum— Hum— Hum—

His bionic eye flickered in the darkness, automatically switching to sonic analysis mode.

[External Sound Source Detected: Low-frequency vibration, 17Hz, Azimuth: 12 degrees to the left of dead ahead, Distance: approx. 400 meters]

Four hundred meters.

"Number Two, did you hear that?"

TW-201's voice came through the communicator, carrying a distinct tremor.

"I heard it."

"What is it?"

"I don't know," Corvin said. "But it's ahead of us."

He reached out and touched the control panel on the inner wall of the abyss coffin.

The abyss coffin had no active propulsion system, but it did have a simple attitude adjustment device; several small compressed gas cylinders could change the coffin's orientation and position by ejecting gas.

He pressed the forward button.

The compressed gas cylinder gave a short hiss, and the coffin slowly moved forward.

At this depth, the density of the water was nearly solid; every push forward was extremely slow.

The coffin's speed was only about half that of a walking pace.

But it was moving.

Corvin stared at the distance reading on his bionic eye.

380 meters.

360 meters.

340 meters.

The low-frequency vibration became clearer and clearer, no longer a blurred hum, but a regular pulse.

Thump, thump, continuous.

"Corvin," TW-201's voice rang out again, "my coffin... it's leaking."

Corvin's finger paused on the control panel.

"How bad?"

"Not... not too bad. There's a leak in the bottom-left seal, the stream is very thin."

Corvin closed his eyes for a moment.

At the bottom of the sea, nine thousand eight hundred meters deep, any leak was a death sentence.

"What is your structural integrity?"

"...Fifty-seven percent."

One percentage point lower than his.

"Listen," Corvin said, his voice as steady as possible, "don't try to plug that leak. The moment your finger touches the crack under this water pressure, the stream will cut your finger right off."

"Then what do I do?"

"Do nothing. Keep moving forward. We must find the entrance before the water fills the coffin."

"How long will that take?"

Corvin did the math in his head. Leakage rate, coffin volume, current water level.

"About forty minutes."

"Forty minutes," TW-201 repeated.

His voice echoed in the communicator, carrying a strange calmness.

It wasn't the calmness of accepting fate, but the kind of calm that comes after reaching the absolute peak of terror.

Corvin had seen this state before.

On the battlefield, some people facing a certain-death situation would suddenly become exceptionally calm because the brain had given up on finding an escape route and instead focused all resources on "how to complete the mission before dying."

"That's enough," Corvin said. "Stay close to me."

300 meters.

The seabed terrain began to change.

Corvin's bionic eye switched to sonar imaging mode, outlining the surroundings in the darkness.

Before, it was flat silt ground with occasional rocky protrusions. Now, regular patterns began to appear on the ground.

Not naturally formed.

Man-made cuts.

Straight lines.

Right angles.

Grids.

The foundation of some massive building, mostly buried by millennia of silt, with only its topmost edges exposed.

"Do you see it?" TW-201 asked.

"I see it."

"This is..."

"The outer structure of the Deep Palace," Corvin said. "We've arrived."

He adjusted the coffin's angle, pushing forward along those regular patterns.

The artificial traces on the ground became increasingly dense, moving from simple grids to complex geometric patterns.

In some places, the reflection of metal could still be seen—alloy surfaces covered by silt, appearing as a cold blue under the sonar scan.

200 meters.

The low-frequency vibration grew stronger. Corvin could feel the coffin trembling slightly.

150 meters.

He saw it.

In the sonar imaging, a massive circular structure appeared ahead.

Approximately thirty meters in diameter, protruding from the seabed silt.

The surface of the circular structure was smooth metal, without any signs of rust or corrosion.

At the bottom of the sea, nine thousand eight hundred meters deep, under nearly a thousand atmospheres of pressure, for thousands of years, this metal remained perfectly intact.

This was no ordinary alloy.

In the center of the circular structure was a smaller circle, about five meters in diameter, darker in color than the surroundings.

It was a door.

"Found it," Corvin said.

His voice echoed in the communicator, carrying a tremor he himself didn't even realize was there.

His fingers gripped the edge of the control panel tightly.

The words of that Sun Warrior soldier surfaced in his mind again.

"The door will not open for you."

Corvin stopped the coffin about fifty meters from the door.

"Number Two, stop."

"Copy that."

The two abyss coffins floated side-by-side in the dark seawater, facing that silent, cold metal door.

Corvin stared at the door for a long time.

No handles. No buttons. No mechanisms to operate. Only a smooth, perfect metal surface.

"How do we open it?" TW-201 asked.

"I'm thinking."

Corvin's bionic eye scanned back and forth across the door's surface, trying to find any gap, interface, or sensor.

Nothing.

He scanned it again.

Still nothing.

"Maybe it needs some kind of signal," TW-201 said. "That supply submarine could get in, which means it has some kind of identification code or communication frequency."

"We don't have that."

"Then..."

"Wait."

Corvin's bionic eye caught an anomaly.

Not on the door, but around it.

On the surface of the thirty-meter diameter circular structure, there was a ring of extremely subtle grooves.

The grooves were less than a millimeter wide; it would have been impossible to find them without the high-precision scan of the bionic eye.

The shapes of the grooves weren't random.

They formed a pattern.

Corvin magnified the image.

It was a string of symbols, not in any language he recognized, but the arrangement had a strange regularity.

"Number Two, do you see those grooves?"

"I see them. What are they?"

"I don't know. But I think... they're the key."

Corvin was silent for a few seconds, his mind racing.

They had no password, no ID code, nothing that could open this door.

But they had explosives.

"Number Two."

"Here."

"How many demolition charges do you have in your coffin?"

"...Standard loadout, two melta charges."

"I have two as well. Four melta charges concentrated on a single point to detonate."

"You're going to blow it open?"

"Do you have a better idea?"

TW-201 went silent.

"No."

"Then that's what we'll do."

When Corvin said those words, he noticed his heart rate was accelerating.

Not because of fear.

But because of excitement.

He had lived for one year.

In that year, he had fought seventeen battles, killed countless people, and watched countless brothers die before his eyes.

He thought he had become numb to everything.

But now he realized he was wrong.

At nine thousand eight hundred meters deep, inside a metal coffin that could disintegrate at any moment, facing a door that had never been breached in thousands of years, he felt something he hadn't felt in a long time.

The feeling of being alive.

The next fifteen minutes were the most delicate demolition work Corvin had ever performed in his life.

The hatch of the abyss coffin could not be fully opened; opening it under this water pressure was equivalent to suicide.

However, the bottom of the coffin had a small mechanical arm, originally intended for collecting seabed samples.

Corvin operated this clumsy mechanical hand, taking two melta charges from the storage compartment and carefully pushing them toward the door.

Every movement was maddeningly slow.

The reaction speed of the mechanical arm under the water pressure was only a third of its normal rate.

Corvin's fingers trembled slightly on the control panel—not from nervousness, but as a symptom of genetic collapse.

His left hand had already begun to stop obeying him, his fingers twitching inadvertently.

He gritted his teeth, using his right hand to steady his left, and continued the operation.

The first explosive was placed to the left of the door's center.

The second was placed to the right of the center.

"Number Two, what about yours?"

"Placing them now." TW-201's voice sounded a bit more stable than before. "First one in place. Second one... wait..."

A moment of silence.

"What's wrong?"

"The mechanical arm is stuck. The water pressure is too high, the joints won't turn."

"Use manual mode, open the hydraulic valves to maximum."

"They're already at maximum."

"Then use force."

Another moment of silence.

Then the sound of metal grinding came through the comms, accompanied by TW-201's suppressed low growl.

"...It moved."

"In place?"

"In place."

Four melta charges were arranged in a diamond pattern, affixed to the center of that door.

Corvin checked the detonation wiring.

At the same time, he noticed water seeping from the bottom of TW-201's coffin.

The stream of water was clearly visible in the sonar imaging, gushing from the bottom-left corner of the coffin and forming a thin warm current in the seawater.

The water level was rising.

TW-201 didn't mention it, but Corvin knew.

They were out of time.

"Are you ready?"

"Ready."

"After detonation, the shockwave will travel through the water. At this depth, the power of the shockwave will be amplified. Our coffins might not hold."

"I know."

"So immediately after detonating, turn your coffin so the bottom faces the blast point. The armor at the bottom is thickest."

"Understood."

Corvin took a deep breath.

His left hand twitched again. He pressed it down with his right, feeling the friction between his phalanges.

"Three."

His finger rested on the detonation button.

"Two."

TW-201's breathing grew rapid over the comms.

"One."

He pressed the button.

An explosion's behavior in water is completely different from on land.

No fire, no smoke.

Only a flash of white light.

Then the shockwave.

Corvin didn't have time to turn.

The shockwave slammed into his coffin at supersonic speeds, and the entire world turned into chaos in that instant.

His body was violently thrown against the bulkhead, the back of his head hitting metal, and white light exploded before his eyes. The coffin began to spin wildly.

Alarms shrieked.

[Structural Integrity: 41%]

[Warning: Multiple seal failures]

[Warning: Oxygen supply line damaged]

Corvin tasted blood in his mouth.

He had bitten his tongue.

He shook his head hard, trying to clear his vision.

The feed from his bionic eye flickered intermittently.

"Number Two!" he shouted, "Number Two, respond!"

There was only static in the comms.

"TW-201! Respond!"

"...Here."

The voice was very weak.

"You're alive?"

"...Alive. Coffin... structural integrity thirty-eight percent. The leaks have worsened."

TW-201's voice trembled slightly when saying those last few words.

It wasn't fear. It was a statement of fact.

Corvin closed his eyes and opened them again.

The bionic eye's feed finally stabilized.

He looked toward the door.

The door was still there.

But a hole had appeared in it.

It wasn't large, about a meter and a half in diameter.

The edges were jagged, the metal curled inward by the blast.

The edges of the opening were still glowing slightly red; that was the residual heat from the melta charges.

Furthermore, the opening was shrinking.

The metal was slowly growing inward, attempting to repair the damage.

The speed was slow, but visible to the naked eye.

"The door is self-repairing," Corvin said.

"What?"

"We have about five minutes. In five minutes, this hole will close."

TW-201 didn't answer.

He didn't need to.

On the other side of the hole was light.

A faint, cold blue light seeped through the opening, diffusing into the dark seawater.

"I see it," TW-201 said, his voice carrying a strange calm. "The door is open."

"It's not open," Corvin corrected him. "We blasted it open. And it's closing. Move."

He controlled the coffin to move forward.

The opening was right before them.

He could see the space on the other side of the hole.

It wasn't seawater; it was air.

Some kind of force field kept the seawater out, maintaining a dry, oxygenated environment on the other side of the door.

The force field formed a thin membrane at the edge of the opening, vibrating slightly and appearing unstable.

"There's air inside," Corvin said. "We can get out."

"Get out?" TW-201's voice was hesitant. "And then what?"

"After we get out, we'll no longer be corpses in coffins," Corvin said. "We are Thunder Warriors."

He pressed the hatch release button.

The seal valves popped open.

The terrifying pressure of the moment the seawater rushed in instantly weighed down on his entire body.

But it lasted for less than a second.

His body passed through the opening, through that vibrating membrane of the force field, and then—

Air.

Dry air with a metallic scent.

Corvin tumbled onto a hard metal floor.

Water ran off him, pooling into a puddle on the floor.

His whole body ached, the wound on the back of his head was still bleeding, and the trembling in his left hand was worse than before.

But he was alive.

He scrambled up, pulled the Bolter from his waist, and looked around.

It was a massive circular space, at least fifty meters in diameter.

The dome was high, about twenty meters, its surface covered in some kind of luminescent material emitting a cold blue glow.

The floor was smooth metal, devoid of any dust or stains.

The entire space was unnaturally clean.

Thousands of years.

This place had existed for thousands of years, yet it looked as if it had been built yesterday.

In the center of the space was a platform.

On the platform was a chair.

A person sat in the chair.

Corvin aimed the muzzle of his gun at that person.

The person didn't move.

He wore a suit of golden armor, but it wasn't the crude imitation used by the Sun Warriors.

The craftsmanship of this armor far surpassed anything Corvin had ever seen; there were no seams on the surface of any plate, reflecting a warm luster under the blue light.

His hair was grayish-white and long, hanging down both sides of his shoulders.

There were deep wrinkles on his face, not marks of old age, but more like the result of enduring immense pressure for a long time.

His eyes were closed.

*Thump!*

Another dull sound of something hitting the ground came from behind him.

TW-201 had also passed through the opening and tumbled onto the floor.

He was soaking wet and deathly pale, but he gripped his Bolter tightly.

Corvin glanced at him out of the corner of his eye.

TW-201's left leg was shaking. It wasn't fear; it was muscle spasms caused by being soaked in the ice-cold water of the coffin for too long.

But he stood firm.

"Who is that?" TW-201 asked, his muzzle aimed at the person in the chair.

"I don't know," Corvin said.

The two of them held their guns ready, slowly approaching the platform.

Twenty meters.

Fifteen meters.

Ten meters.

Corvin noticed some details.

There were signs of wear on the armrests of the chair.

It wasn't wear on the metal, but marks left by long-term friction from fingers.

That person had been sitting in this chair for a long time.

A very, very long time.

There was a ring of shallow indentations on the floor of the platform. Those were left by the legs of the chair being pressed into the same spot for a long time.

How many years had this person been sitting in this chair?

The person opened his eyes.

Corvin's finger tightened on the trigger.

Those eyes were gray.

A deep gray, with an indescribable cloudiness.

There was no fear in those eyes, no anger, none of the emotions Corvin could understand.

There was only one thing.

Fatigue.

An endless fatigue that reached deep into the bone marrow.

"You have come."

The person spoke.

His voice was very low and deep.

"I have waited a long time."

Corvin's muzzle did not move away.

"Who are you?"

The person looked at him.

Those gray eyes appeared exceptionally hollow in the blue light.

"My name is Nathan Doom."

He said.

"Welcome to my tomb."