Chapter 57: Deep Sea

I've always had the worst luck, haven't I?

First, I get kidnapped out of nowhere—snatched from my apartment in Lungmen, of all places, and transported to Laterano like some kind of criminal.

Then, before I can even catch my breath, I'm assigned a mission I didn't ask for, tracking down a kidnapper who's taken dozens of Sankta.

And of all the things that could be involved, it had to be Seaborns—those nightmarish creatures I've dreaded ever since I played Integrated Strategies and the events back in my Arknights days.

But to top it all off, it's not just any Seaborn we're dealing with.

It's an even more incredible, rare subspecies: a Siren.

Any astute Arknights player would know that such a thing was never mentioned in the game, and for good reason.

The odds of a Siren being born are one in a million—a parasitic Seaborn capable of mimicry so perfect it can pass as human, or in this case, a Sankta.

I thought I'd seen it all, but this… this is a whole new level of bad luck.

Howard stood in the storage hold of the Santa Isabella, the ship's violent shuddering a grim backdrop to the scene before him.

The tied Sankta whimpered in the corner, their halos flickering with fear, while Lemuen sat in her wheelchair, her pink braid swaying as she stared at the body of the small Sankta girl Howard had just shot.

Blue fluid seeped from the girl's head, pooling on the floor, its unnatural shimmer confirming her Seaborn nature.

Lemuen's blue eyes were wide with shock, her hands trembling as she gripped her sniper rifle, her voice unsteady as she turned to Howard.

"How… how did you know?" she asked, her tone a mix of disbelief and dread.

Howard sighed, holstering his pistol as he began to explain, his voice calm but methodical, his mind working like a machine as he pieced together the clues—each detail slotting into place with precision.

He crouched beside the girl's body, his eyes sharp as he pointed to the cabinet where she'd been hiding.

"It started with this," he said, gesturing to the wooden interior.

"When I found her, the cabinet was wet—far too wet to be normal. I tapped the wood floor earlier."

He demonstrated, rapping his knuckles against the floor, the sound dull and solid.

"This type of wood—treated oak, common in Iberian ships like this one—doesn't allow water to seep through easily. It's designed to resist moisture, even in a damp environment like this ship. So the water couldn't have come from the surroundings."

He stood, his expression focused as he continued.

"I considered sweat as a possibility—maybe she'd been in there long enough to cause condensation. But the amount of time and heat necessary to produce that level of moisture through sweat would be impossible."

"She's a child, not a furnace, and the air in here is cold, not hot. That ruled out natural causes."

Lemuen listened, her shock giving way to curiosity as Howard moved to the next clue.

"The second point was her body temperature," he said, his tone steady.

"When I touched her—when I patted her head and held her hand to reassure her—she was too cold, far colder than any living Sankta should be.

"Sankta physiology is similar to most Terrans; their body temperature should be warm, around 37 degrees Celsius. But her skin felt like ice, even through my gloves. That wasn't normal."

He paused, his gaze sharpening as he recalled another detail.

"Then there was her pulse. When I checked it, pretending to comfort her, I did so unsuspectingly—she wouldn't have noticed. Her heart was beating, but it was slow—too slow. A child her age should have a pulse of 70 to 100 beats per minute, but hers was closer to 30."

"That immediately set off a red flag. No living Sankta, no matter how scared or exhausted, would have a heart rate that low unless something was gravely wrong."

Howard's expression grew colder as he moved to the final, most damning clue.

"But what sealed it was her lie about you, Lemuel. When I asked her how you felt—testing her—she said you were filled with sorrow and sadness, that you felt you could have protected the kidnapped Sankta better."

"But that wasn't true, was it?"

Lemuen blinked, her blue eyes widening with surprise.

"Her lie? How could you tell?"

Howard's lips quirked into a faint, knowing smile.

"I have a knack for reading emotions—it's something I've honed over the years, working cases like this. You weren't feeling sorrow or guilt, Lemuen. You were focused, determined, maybe a little angry at the situation, but you weren't blaming yourself."

"I could see it in your posture, the way you moved, and the set of your jaw. But more importantly, Sankta have an innate empathy ability—you can sense the emotions of others, especially your own kind."

"If she were truly a Sankta, she would have felt your emotions accurately, not guessed wrong. Her mistake betrayed her—she wasn't a Sankta at all."

He straightened, his voice steady as he concluded.

"That kind of deception, combined with her ability to hide all her Seaborn traits—no tentacles, no scales, no briny stench—points to only one thing."

"There's a rare Seaborn subspecies, a parasitic class so elusive there's only one recorded instance of its existence."

"It comes from an ancient Iberian journal, written during their Golden Age, by a ship captain whose vessel fell victim to one."

"He described a creature that could take the form of a loved one, luring sailors to their doom with a voice that compelled obedience—a Siren."

Lemuen gulped, her blue eyes wide with realization, the weight of Howard's words sinking in.

"A siren…" she whispered, her voice trembling.

"That means what we're dealing with now is far worse than we thought."

Howard's expression darkened, his voice heavy with resignation.

"There's more bad news," he said, glancing around as the ship continued to shudder, the groans of the hull growing louder, and the sound of water rushing somewhere below.

"It's likely this ship is now underwater. The siren's presence, the sudden movement—it's manipulating the environment, dragging us into its domain."

***

Lemuen had fully released the tied Sankta, her hands working quickly to undo the coarse ropes, her pink braid swaying as she moved in her wheelchair.

But the freed Sankta were unresponsive, their halos flickering weakly, their golden eyes dull as if they were losing energy with every passing second.

Some slumped against the wall, their wings limp, while others stared blankly ahead, their breathing shallow.

Lemuen's blue eyes were wide with stress, her voice trembling as she assessed the situation.

"This is worse than I thought," she muttered, her hands gripping the arms of her wheelchair.

"Not only are they fading, but just like Howard said—we're underwater now. There's no way to get them out."

She wheeled over to a small porthole in the storage hold, peering out to confirm the grim reality.

Beyond the glass was nothing but an endless expanse of dark water, bubbles rising lazily as the Santa Isabella sank deeper into the ocean's embrace, the faint glow of bioluminescent creatures in the distance only adding to the surreal horror.

Howard sat at a rusted table in the corner of the hold, his fingers tapping rhythmically against the metal surface, his mind racing as he tried to understand the Siren's motives.

Why would a Seaborn Siren—a creature so rare, so cunning—capture Sankta?

Why had Gavriel, a once-respected doctor, become entangled in this nightmare?

And why the ship, the submersion, and the elaborate deception?

The clues began to gather in his mind, each piece a fragment of a larger puzzle, his talent for deduction kicking into overdrive.

His tapping grew faster, his red eyes narrowing as the fragments of evidence swirled in his head—Gavriel's disappearance after treating a patient rescued from the sea, the Siren's mimicry, the Seaborn's influence, and the Sankta's fading energy.

Then, like a shock, the pieces clicked into place.

Howard's eyes snapped open, a jolt of realization coursing through him as he stood abruptly, his voice urgent.

"Lemuen, we need to go—now."

Lemuen turned to him, her expression a mix of hope and fear as she reassured the Sankta, her voice soft but firm.

"We'll come back for you, I promise. Stay strong." She wheeled toward Howard, following him as they rushed out of the hold, her voice tense as she asked,

"Did you figure it out? Do you know why the Siren's doing this?"

Howard nodded, his pace quick as he replied, "I have an idea of the reason, but we need to move fast. There's no time to explain."

They hurried back through the ship's dark hall, the filtered rays of light from the hull's holes casting eerie patterns on the slick floor.

Suddenly, a gunshot rang out, sharp and jarring, echoing through the corridors.

As they rounded a corner into the hall, they saw Executor—his white hair disheveled, his grey eyes sharp with focus, his halo flickering as he stood in a defensive stance, his firearm raised.

In front of him was a giant Seaborn, a bipedal monstrosity that bore a haunting resemblance to the late Garcia, a figure from the Seaborn's history tasked with proliferating and using its spawn to identify preferable evolutionary paths for the Many.

Its body was a grotesque amalgamation of scales and tentacles, its limbs elongated and jagged, its eyes glowing a sickly green, its presence radiating an oppressive aura of ancient, primal intent.

The situation was spiraling out of control. Howard shouted, his voice cutting through the tension,

"Executor, jump!"

Executor, caught off guard by Howard's command, reacted instinctively, his wings flaring as he leapt toward them with a giant bound, the deck splintering beneath him.

Howard reached out, catching Executor's arm and pulling him up onto the slightly elevated platform where they stood, the Seaborn—known as a Pathfinder—lurching forward with a guttural roar, its claws raking the air where Executor had been moments before.

The Pathfinder turned its glowing eyes toward them, its massive form filling the hall as it began to charge, the ship trembling with its movements. Howard's expression hardened, his voice urgent as he addressed Lemuen and Executor.

"Run ahead—find Gavriel. There should be a path down to the lower decks. He's the key to stopping this madness."

Lemuen hesitated, her blue eyes flashing with defiance as she gripped her sniper rifle.

"We can fight it together, Howard—we don't have to split up again!"

"There's no time!"

Howard shouted, his voice raw with urgency as he pushed them forward, the Pathfinder's roar growing closer.

The creature slammed into the platform, its claws tearing through the wood, destroying the path between them, and forcing a gap in the floor.

"Leave!" Howard yelled, his tone leaving no room for argument as Lemuen and Executor reluctantly turned, rushing down the hall toward the lower decks.

Left with no choice, Howard faced the Pathfinder alone, the ship's groans and the Pathfinder's growls filling the air.

'Let's hope I can mentally revert back.'

He silently prayed, his heart pounding as he prepared for what he had to do.

He jumped down into the lower section of the hall, landing with a thud, his eyes locking onto the Pathfinder as he removed his black overcoat, letting it fall to the floor.

His body began to change, the transformation swift and agonizing, the air around him crackling with energy as the Nethersea Brand—a Seaborn phenomenon known for its transformative corruption—took hold.

Howard clutched his head, a guttural cry escaping his lips as the pain seared through him, his voice raw and strained.

"Agh—damn it!" He gasped, his words breaking into a sharp groan, "It's… too much!"

The collective knowledge of the Many flooded his mind, a torrent of alien thoughts and instincts threatening to overwhelm him, each wave of information feeling like a dagger to his psyche.

His voice trembled, a mix of anguish and defiance, "I… I can't—argh!" as his body contorted, the metamorphosis taking hold.

His hair, once dark, lengthened and turned white with streaks of blue, shimmering like the ocean's depths.

His eyes, already a striking red, glowed with an even more intense, bloody sheen, their light piercing through the darkness.

Gills sprouted along his neck, their edges pulsing with a faint bioluminescence, and strings of water coalesced above his head, forming a crown-like circle that hovered with an eerie grace.

A unique liquid seeped from his body, the Nethersea Brand terraforming his clothes into a blue-white ensemble, their fabric rippling like the surface of the sea.

A grotesque mask formed over his face, covering everything but his glowing eyes, its surface a mix of scales and bone, a visage of primal terror.

The Pathfinder, sensing the transformation, stepped back slowly, its instincts recognizing the presence of something greater—something ancient.

It knelt, a gesture of submission, as if in the presence of a higher being.

Howard—or what he had become—stood tall, his new form radiating an otherworldly power, the crown of water circling above him like a halo of the deep, his breaths ragged but steadying as the pain subsided.

The Pathfinder rose, and together they walked silently forward, their steps echoing through the ship as they headed toward an unknown destination, the darkness of the underwater abyss closing in around them.