88: The emperor's sword doesn't need to know why it cuts.

The descent of the elevator platform from the sea surface to the Deep Palace took eleven minutes.

C-19 stood at the forefront of the platform, hands clasped behind his back, staring into the ever-descending darkness beneath his feet.

The platform was circular, roughly twenty meters in diameter, with a waist-high metal guardrail running along its edge.

A thin layer of salt frost had formed on the guardrail, shimmering with fine, white specks under the light of the lamps.

Behind him stood forty Thunder Warriors.

Fully armed. Bolters loaded, Chainswords hanging at their waists, the joints of their power armor emitting low hydraulic hisses.

They stood in four orderly, silent columns.

The platform continued its descent.

Surrounding it was a massive vertical shaft, its diameter only a couple of meters wider than the platform.

The shaft's inner walls were smooth metal, with embedded lighting rings every ten meters casting a cold, white light.

The light welled up from below only to be swallowed by the darkness above, creating a strange visual effect.

Hector stood beside C-19, clutching a data-slate, his knuckles white with tension.

"Depth, twelve hundred meters," he announced, his voice echoing in the shaft.

C-19 did not respond.

"Two thousand meters."

The platform's speed increased.

C-19 could feel the pressure building on his eardrums.

He swallowed, and the pressure vanished, only to begin accumulating again.

"Three thousand five hundred meters."

"Has Corvin's comms restored?" C-19 asked.

"Intermittent," Hector said. "The last communication was seven minutes ago. He said the main gate was open, the Deep Palace interior is breathable, and Nathan Doom is inside."

"Alive?"

"Alive."

A muscle in C-19's jaw twitched.

"What else did he say?"

Hector hesitated for a second.

"He said Nathan Doom didn't resist."

C-19 said nothing.

His gaze shifted from the shaft wall to his own left hand. The hand that used to tremble uncontrollably.

Now it was steady.

The effects of the Genetic Stabilizer were still holding.

His body felt better than it had in months.

But he knew it was temporary.

The genetic sequence was still collapsing, just at a slower rate.

"Five thousand meters," Hector said.

The platform continued its descent.

C-19 closed his eyes, mentally reviewing the operation plan.

Corvin and TW-201 were already inside. The gate was open. Nathan Doom offered no resistance.

It was too smooth.

In his experience, things that went this smoothly often meant something had been overlooked.

"Hector."

"Yes."

"What's the first thing we do after entering the Deep Palace?"

"Secure the entry zone, establish a defensive perimeter, then advance inward."

"No," C-19 said. "The first thing is to find Corvin."

Hector glanced at him but didn't press for details.

"Seven thousand meters."

The air grew colder.

Seven thousand meters deep, with thousands of tons of seawater overhead and unknown depths below. C-19 clenched his fist.

He opened his eyes.

Not one of the forty Thunder Warriors behind him spoke or moved.

Only the occasional faint sound from their power armor joints proved they were alive.

Twenty-seven among them were veterans, having fought with him all the way from the Ural Mining Area to the Pacific coast.

They had seen Void Crushers' gravity fields crush comrades into paste, seen Sun Warriors' golden armor shatter under Bolter fire, seen brothers die in their sleep from genetic collapse.

The remaining thirteen were rookies. Activated less than a week ago.

C-19 didn't look back at them. He didn't need to. He could hear the rookies' breathing, twice as fast as the veterans'.

"Nine thousand meters," Hector's voice tightened slightly.

The platform began to decelerate.

The vibration underfoot changed, shifting from a uniform descent to a series of intermittent decelerations.

"Nine thousand five hundred meters."

"Nine thousand eight hundred meters."

The platform stopped.

A dull metallic thud echoed from below, the entire platform shuddering slightly before settling into stillness.

C-19 looked down at his feet.

Beneath the platform was a massive circular hatch, as wide as the platform itself. A seal ring around its edge was slowly retracting.

Then the hatch opened.

Light welled up from below. A cold, blue light, soft yet harsh.

C-19 saw the space below.

A vast circular hall. The dome was high, its surface covered in luminous material. The floor was smooth metal, devoid of dust or stains.

In the center of the hall stood a dais.

On the dais was a chair.

A person sat in the chair.

Two people stood beside the chair.

Corvin and TW-201.

Corvin's gun was trained on the person in the chair. TW-201 stood on the other side, similarly armed and vigilant.

"Jump," C-19 said.

He was the first to leap from the platform.

A three-meter drop. His boots struck the metal floor with a heavy thud, the power armor's shock absorbers taking most of the impact, though his knees still bent slightly.

Behind him, the forty Thunder Warriors jumped down one after another.

Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!

Forty impacts overlapped, the echoes in the hall merging into a sustained rumble.

The floor shook. The luminous material on the dome flickered several times.

Corvin turned his head and saw C-19.

"Commander."

C-19 walked towards him. His gaze wasn't on Corvin, but past his shoulder, fixed on the figure in the chair.

Nathan Doom.

He was shorter than C-19 had imagined. And older.

Long, gray hair hung down on either side of his shoulders, his face deeply lined with wrinkles.

He wore a suit of golden armor, its craftsmanship exquisite, belonging to an era not of this time.

But what drew C-19's attention most were his eyes.

Gray.

Deep, murky gray. Those eyes were looking at him.

Not with fear, not with anger, not with pleading. With scrutiny.

"You're their leader," Nathan Doom said. It wasn't a question.

C-19 didn't answer.

He walked up to Corvin and asked in a low voice, "Status."

"He's alone," Corvin said. "The Sun Warriors withdrew three days ago. The Deep Palace contains a Dark Age database and a Self-Destruct System tied to his heartbeat. If he dies, the system activates, and twenty-four hours later, the entire Deep Palace blows to pieces."

C-19's brow furrowed slightly.

"You verified this?"

"No," Corvin said. "But I don't think he has reason to lie about this."

"Why?"

"Because he wants to live," Corvin said. "He says he doesn't care, but he gave me the unlock codes for the gate and told me about the self-destruct. Someone who truly wanted to die wouldn't do that."

C-19 looked at Corvin.

A year.

He had known Corvin for a year.

This taciturn veteran never spoke this much.

"What else did he tell you?"

Corvin was silent for a second.

"Some... unimportant things."

Corvin's reply came too quickly.

Someone who genuinely thought it was "nothing important" wouldn't answer in just one second.

C-19 didn't press further.

Not because he didn't want to know, but because now wasn't the time.

He turned to face Nathan Doom.

The distance between them was about five meters.

"Nathan Doom," C-19 said.

"Hmm."

"Ruler of the Pan-Pacific Empire."

"Former ruler," Nathan Doom corrected. "From the moment you set foot on my coastline, I ceased to be a ruler. I'm just an old man sitting in a chair waiting to die."

"You're not old," C-19 said.

Nathan Doom laughed. A short, sharp laugh.

"You're right. I'm not old. I'm just tired."

His fingers tapped on the armrest, the rhythm irregular.

"What's your name?"

"C-19."

"C-19," Nathan Doom repeated. "Is that your real name, or a number they gave you?"

C-19 didn't answer.

"I'll guess it's a number," Nathan Doom said. "You Thunder Warriors have no names. Only numbers and functions."

"I'm not a part," C-19 said.

"Oh?" Nathan Doom tilted his head slightly, his gray eyes glinting. "Then what are you?"

"I am The Emperor's weapon."

"Weapon," Nathan Doom nodded. "Weapon sounds a bit better than part. But the essence is the same. A weapon needs no name, no thought, no need to know why it cuts. It only needs to cut."

The muscles in C-19's jaw tightened.

"You're probing me."

"I'm talking to you," Nathan Doom said. "Is there a difference?"

He stood up.

The movement was sudden. C-19's hand instinctively went to the Chainsword at his waist, but Nathan Doom merely stood there, hands spread in a gesture of harmlessness.

"Relax," Nathan Doom said. "I'm unarmed. Even if I were, what do you think an ordinary human could do against a room full of Thunder Warriors?"

He stepped down from the dais.

With each step, his right leg dragged slightly.

C-19 noted his gait. It wasn't an injury, but some kind of chronic degeneration.

Nathan Doom walked to the massive screen and turned his back to everyone.

"What does your master want?" he asked.

"Your surrender," C-19 said.

"Surrender," Nathan Doom repeated the word and laughed. "What does surrender mean? Kneel? Hand over weapons? Sign a document?"

"It means your empire ceases to exist."

"It already doesn't," Nathan Doom turned around. "From the day you landed on the coastline, it ceased to exist. I'm just cleaning up the mess."

His fingers touched the screen.

The display lit up.

The map of the Pacific region appeared again.

Cities, ports, factories, mines—a dense spread of icons filled the entire screen.

"Thirty years," Nathan Doom said. "I spent thirty years building these. How long did it take you to destroy them?"

C-19 didn't answer.

Because the answer was three months.

From landing on the Pacific coast to breaching the Mariana Deep Palace, three months in total.

In three months, they had crushed thirty years of Nathan Doom's work.

"Do you know what's most ironic?" Nathan Doom said, his voice growing very soft.

"The things you destroyed—schools, factories, power stations—your master will have to rebuild them later. Using the same blueprints, in the same places, building the same things. The only difference will be the flag flying over them."

"That's for the future," C-19 said.

"Right. That's for the future," Nathan Doom's lips curved slightly. "You just focus on cutting people down. Leave the building to others."

He turned off the screen.

The hall was plunged back into the cold blue light.

Nathan Doom turned to face C-19. His gray eyes looked especially hollow in the blue glow.

"I have a condition," he said.

"You're in no position to set conditions."

"I am," Nathan Doom pointed to his own chest. "The Self-Destruct System. If my heartbeat stops, twenty-four hours later this Deep Palace and all its data will be destroyed. You can kill me, but you'll lose everything."

C-19 stared at him.

"What is your condition?"

"Take me to see your master," Nathan Doom said. "Not you, not your soldiers, not any intermediary. I want to see with my own eyes the man who calls himself The Emperor."

"Why?"

Nathan Doom smiled.

This smile was different from all the ones before.

Not sharp, not bitter, not mad.

It was a calm, almost gentle smile.

"Because I want to see," he said, "how much humanity remains in the eyes of a man who turns living people into weapons."

C-19's fist clenched.

Not out of anger.

Because Nathan Doom's words had struck something he had been avoiding.

The Emperor fought personally on the battlefield. He knew that.

The Emperor killed with his own hands. He knew that too.

But The Emperor turned living people into weapons with lifespans of only a few years. What happened after the modification, after they were used up?

And then?

Nathan Doom waited for his answer.

C-19 didn't answer. Because he didn't know what the "then" was.

He only knew his genetic sequence was collapsing, his left hand trembled, and he didn't have long to live.

And The Emperor was developing new, stronger, more stable superhuman soldiers.

By then, the Thunder Warriors would be scrap.

"I will relay your request up the chain," C-19 said, his voice steady, devoid of any emotion.

Nathan Doom looked at him, his gray eyes narrowing slightly.

"You know he won't come."

"That's his decision," C-19 said. "Not yours, and not mine."

Nathan Doom stared at him for a few seconds. Then he nodded.

"Fine," he said. "Then we wait."

"Hector," C-19 turned to the Chief of Staff.

"Yes."

"Deploy two squads to secure this hall. The rest, with me, search the interior of the Deep Palace. Find the Self-Destruct System's control center."

"Understood."

"Corvin."

"Yes."

"You stay here and watch him."

Corvin nodded.

C-19 glanced at Nathan Doom.

The man had already settled back into the chair, arms crossed over his chest, eyes closed.

His lips were moving slightly, emitting that low, distorted chanting sound.

C-19 turned and left.

His boots made heavy, echoing thuds on the metal floor.

Behind him, Nathan Doom's chanting reverberated in the vast, empty hall.