Chapter 31: The Predator and the Storm

  The Deep Crown moved like a ghost through the abyss, the sleek frame of the submarine cutting through the ocean with predatory grace. It was a war machine, an apex hunter designed to hunt and kill without hesitation, without mercy. The crew knew their mission. Another deployment, another strike on the Dorne Phyrax harvesters, another step toward ending this war.

  It was supposed to be routine.

  Then, ANDI spoke.

  "Captain, I am receiving an anomalous signal. A concentrated call to a set of coordinates…"

  Nathan’s blood ran cold.

  He already knew.

  It was him.

  A whisper escaped his lips, barely audible, but enough to send a ripple through the bridge.

  "Kael'Zir."

  The warlord. The executioner. The legend.

  "Battle stations!" Nathan’s command struck like a hammer.

  Alarms blared. The once-fluid tension of the bridge turned razor-sharp. The crew moved like clockwork, practiced hands preparing for a fight unlike any they had faced before. Screens flickered with incoming enemy formations. Sinclair cursed under her breath. Ortega’s grip on his chair turned white-knuckled.

  And there they were.

  The Dorne Phyrax had come prepared.

  Two colossal beasts, their armored bodies gliding through the black like silent titans. The water around them churned with their sheer presence. The Leviathans weren’t ships. They were nightmares sculpted into existence—organic and machine fused together, armored hide layered with living metal, immune to conventional weaponry.

  Six war behemoths, armed with depth charges, seismic torpedoes, and shockwave emitters, each capable of leveling a city block with a single blast.

  Three monolithic war machines, humanoid in design but twice the height of the Deep Crown, four arms, each wielding twin plasma-forged blades, bodies reinforced with Titanium-Gel plating, nearly impervious to kinetic rounds.

  And in the center of them all—

  Kael'Zir.

  The warlord stood on the surface of the ocean like a phantom, the water parting beneath his feet, his body untouched by the tides. He carried a katana of pure fire, a weapon that shimmered with the heat of a dying star. His armor, once forged from the glory of his people, now burned with the marks of his own exile.

  He had come for them.

  And they were not ready.

  "Contact! Hostiles closing in—2000 meters!"

  "Locking weapons!"

  "Pulse cannons primed!"

  Nathan clenched his fists. "Fire."

  The Deep Crown roared to life.

  The railguns let loose a metallic symphony, slugs traveling at near-relativistic speed, slamming into the first enemy battleship. Explosions ripped through its hull, sending fire and metal spiraling into the abyss.

  The pulse cannons followed—high-energy bursts slicing through the dark, striking two of the approaching fighter mechs. Their armor cracked, the force sending them careening backward.

  Guided missiles arced through the water, targeting the Leviathans. Torpedoes, their payloads carrying hyper-compressed quantum charges, sped toward their marks.

  And still—it was not enough.

  The Leviathans shrieked, their bodies shuddering, and then they retaliated.

  Tidal wave generators activated. A storm surged through the deep—a force so powerful it sent the Deep Crown spiraling.

  "Stabilizers failing!"

  "Hold on!"

  The battleships returned fire—shockwave torpedoes detonated, sending ripples of devastation, forcing the Deep Crown into evasive maneuvers.

  The mech fighters lunged, their plasma blades scarring the ocean itself, carving through the darkness as they chased their prey.

  The Deep Crown dove, shifting with precision, weaving through incoming fire. It was fast. Faster than anything the enemy had ever encountered.

  But they were too many.

  And then—

  Kael'Zir moved.

  He didn’t charge. He glided.

  The water bent around him, his body untouched by the ocean, untouched by physics itself. He moved between the debris, through the carnage, avoiding railgun fire, dodging torpedoes as if they were nothing more than falling leaves in the wind.

  Nathan’s breath hitched.

  "We can’t stop him."

  Then Kael'Zir lunged.

  He shot forward, fire sword raised. The moment before impact, he spun, slicing through three torpedoes mid-flight, avoiding the explosions, then—

  He landed on the Deep Crown’s hull.

  "He’s on the ship!"

  "Starboard side—he’s cutting his way in!"

  The hull screamed as his blade carved through the reinforced plating, molten metal spilling into the sea. The airlock trembled—a breach warning blaring across the command deck.

  The crew scrambled.

  Ortega and Sinclair grabbed their rifles. Nathan pulled his sidearm.

  "Seal all interior bulkheads!"

  But it was too late.

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  The airlock door burst open.

  And Kael'Zir stepped through.

  The ship’s interior, normally filled with the hum of machinery and voices of command, fell into absolute silence.

  The warlord stood before them.

  His presence was suffocating.

  The heat from his sword caused the walls to sweat, the metal groaning under the weight of its power. His armor shimmered, still dripping with the essence of the abyss.

  Ortega raised his rifle. Sinclair followed. Nathan kept his finger tight against the trigger of his pistol.

  Kael'Zir did not strike.

  He did not move.

  Instead—

  He knelt.

  And laid down his sword.

  Silence.

  Total. Deafening. Silence.

  Ortega blinked, his rifle lowering slightly.

  Sinclair exchanged a glance with Nathan, confusion bleeding into fear.

  No one spoke.

  No one breathed.

  Nathan stared at the legend, the executioner, the warlord of the Vey’Narii.

  A being that had torn through fleets. A warrior who had burned cities to ash.

  And he was surrendering.

  Nathan took a step forward. He half-expected a trap, half-expected the warrior to strike the moment he came close.

  But Kael'Zir remained still.

  When he spoke, his voice was not a command.

  It was not a threat.

  It was a plea.

  "The war must end."

  The air inside Deep Crown was thick with tension, the heat of Kael’Zir’s sword still lingering in the metal plating of the ship’s interior. The battle raged outside—the distant thud of railgun fire, the screech of metal torn apart by torpedoes, the Leviathans roaring through the abyss.

  Nathan stood still, his sidearm trained on the warlord kneeling before him, but his mind was a whirlwind.

  This didn’t make sense.

  This man—this legend, this killer—had fought them with everything he had, nearly torn Deep Crown apart, and now… he surrendered?

  Kael’Zir slowly lifted his gaze, meeting Nathan’s eyes with something that was almost… desperate.

  "We've been lied to."

  The words hung in the air like a heavy stone sinking into the depths.

  "This war was never meant to happen."

  Nathan’s trigger finger twitched. Every instinct screamed that this was a trick. A deception. A last-second ploy.

  "I know now," Kael'Zir continued, his voice low but resolute. "I went to the Island, Nathan. I know the truth."

  Nathan let out a sharp breath, a bitter chuckle breaking through.

  "What truth? You mean besides the fact that water can’t hurt you anymore? Because trust me, I’ve figured that one out." He gestured toward the chaos outside, the flashing alarms, the red-tinted battle reports flickering across the holoscreens. "Oh, and let’s not forget that just five minutes ago, you were trying to gut us. Why in the hell should I trust you? You nearly got us killed!"

  Kael’Zir exhaled sharply.

  "I had to make this look real," he said, voice edged with urgency. "They are watching. Azael is watching."

  Nathan’s pulse kicked up.

  There it was again. That name.

  "Who the hell is Azael?"

  Kael’Zir didn’t hesitate.

  "A god."

  A pause.

  Nathan stared at him, expression unreadable. Behind him, Sinclair, Ortega, and the rest of the crew exchanged glances, but no one spoke.

  Then—

  "Captain, we can’t hold much longer!" Ortega’s voice crackled over the comms, his tone strained with exertion.

  Nathan’s focus split—Kael’Zir in front of him, his crew fighting for their lives outside. The ship shuddered violently as one of the gargantuan fighters made impact against the hull, the force sending a ripple through the deck.

  "Shields at 32%!" ANDI’s voice chimed in, eerily calm despite the chaos.

  "We need to retreat!" Sinclair’s voice snapped through the comms. "Whatever’s going on in there, Captain, you better figure it out fast!"

  Nathan clenched his jaw, but Kael’Zir’s voice remained unwavering.

  "Nathan, listen to me. The Dorne Phyrax—the enemy you’ve been fighting—" his golden eyes darkened, the weight of centuries pressing into every syllable, "they are not the ones pulling the strings."

  Nathan’s breath caught.

  "Then who is?"

  Kael’Zir’s jaw tightened. He turned his gaze upward, as if seeing something beyond the ship, beyond the battle.

  "Azael has orchestrated everything." His voice dropped lower, reverent and heavy. "He is older than time itself. The war, the suffering, the endless bloodshed—it has never been about power, or survival, or territory. It is about control. It is about keeping both sides locked in a conflict neither of them understand."

  The crew stood frozen, absorbing every word.

  "He does not want this war to end, Nathan. Because the war itself is the prison. We are all his prisoners."

  Nathan felt his heartbeat in his throat. The pieces clicked into place—fragments of unexplained battles, whispers of disappearances, the sensation that no matter how hard they fought, they were never truly winning.

  The battles never changed the tide.

  Because the tide was never meant to change.

  "Captain, the battleships are repositioning—!" Ortega’s voice cut in again, a warning. "They’re going for another strike!"

  "We can’t hold them off much longer!" Sinclair added.

  Nathan made a split-second decision.

  "Kael'Zir, if what you’re saying is true, then why are you here? Why now?"

  Kael’Zir’s expression hardened.

  "Because I cannot stay here much longer. Azael’s eyes are everywhere. If I remain, he will know something is wrong."

  Nathan inhaled sharply.

  "Then why tell me this?"

  Kael’Zir stood slowly, his movements deliberate, measured.

  "Because you are the only one who can stop this. And I need you to understand."

  The ship shuddered again—this time, the hull groaned under the strain. Warnings flared across the bridge.

  "We’re losing integrity!" ANDI’s voice cut in. "Critical damage detected—retreat is advised!"

  Kael’Zir nodded once.

  "Meet me on the Island in two days. Everything will be revealed."

  Nathan exhaled, frustration warring with something dangerously close to hope.

  "How do I know this isn’t another lie?"

  Kael’Zir’s golden gaze locked onto him.

  "You don’t."

  And then—

  He grabbed his sword.

  And launched himself out of the ship.

  Nathan barely had time to process what he was seeing—Kael’Zir twisting in mid-water, his body moving with inhuman precision, his blade gleaming as he mimicked a desperate escape, making it look as though he had been violently expelled by an unseen force.

  A deception.

  A perfectly executed illusion.

  Kael’Zir landed on the surface of the water, balanced impossibly, and then—

  He vanished.

  The Deep Crown rocked violently as another blast narrowly missed the hull.

  "Captain!" Ortega yelled.

  Nathan didn’t hesitate.

  "All hands—retreat!"

  The ship lurched, engines roaring as it dove into the abyss, slipping through the chaos. The crew worked in perfect synchronicity, evading fire, dodging war machines, slipping past the Leviathans as they let out a final, hollow shriek.

  And then—

  Silence.

  They were gone.

  The battle was over.

  And as Deep Crown disappeared into the darkness, Nathan leaned back in his chair, exhaling a breath he hadn't realized he’d been holding.

  Two days.

  Two days until the truth.

  And for the first time in his life—

  He wasn’t sure if he wanted to hear it.