The tattered chart trembled under Beran's finger, the designation ‘Leviathan’s Maw’ a stark, cold pronouncement. The Maw. A whispered legend, a territory of crushing voids where the sea crushed bone to paste. Savia, in her defiance, had chosen a tomb. “Impossible,” Valen snarled, stepping forward, his harpoon still gripped like a lifeline. “No one goes to the Maw and lives. She wouldn’t. She *couldn’t*.” His voice cracked on the last word, the bravado dissolving into naked terror. “She’s not trying to live, Valen,” Beran said, his gaze meeting Korinthal’s with grim clarity. “She’s running out the clock on her own terms. Croy’s lie about having the cure… it must have confirmed her suspicions. Death in the Maw is preferable to his ‘mercy’.” Nausea churned in Korinthal's stomach. He had driven her to this. His cunning, his calculated cruelty, had painted her into a corner so desperate that she chose the ultimate obliteration. The forged manifests, the seized assets, her ruined standing—every memory twisted in his gut like iron hooks. “How?” Korinthal managed, his voice a rasp. “How can we follow? No vessel can withstand the Maw’s depths, not for long.” Beran folded the chart, steadying his breathing. “There’s the *Trench Eel*,” the warden began, his voice dropping. “A prototype descent bell, built by the Morvaynian Wardens for extreme geological surveys. We confiscated it from the Kith-House Sarrak’s black market acquisition ring last cycle. Its deep-glass integrity fields are theorized to hold beyond known limits, but it’s never been tested to the Maw’s true nadir.” “Then we test it,” Korinthal said, the words brittle with urgency. “Now. Get it ready.” Beran nodded, acknowledging the task. “It’s docked in the restricted Lower Echelon. I can get us clearance, but it’ll have to be quiet. Croy’s eyes are everywhere.” Hours later, the three men stood on the cramped platform of the vessel, a monstrous tear-drop of reinforced deep-glass and obsidian-steel, nestled in a hidden grotto beneath the public docks. The air shimmered with the faint hum of its experimental energy matrix. Valen checked the harpoon launchers mounted to the bell’s exterior, while Beran adjusted the atmospheric regulators. Korinthal watched the dockhands cast off the mooring lines. The *Eel* slid into the ink-black water, its interior lamps casting a sterile glow on their strained faces. The hatch clanged shut, a final, metallic echo sealing them inside. Then, with a low thrum that resonated in Korinthal’s bones, the bell began its descent. The load mounted with each passing fathom. The deep-glass viewport, several hands thick, began to sing with the strain, a high-pitched whine that grated on their nerves. Outside, the brine shifted from murky teal to bruised indigo, then to an absolute, light-swallowing black. The temperature inside the bell plummeted, despite the struggling heaters. Water condensation beaded on the walls, mimicking the sweat on Korinthal’s brow. They had been descending for what felt like an eternity when the first tremor hit. A low, resonant thrum that wasn’t mechanical. It built, then burst into a violent, rattling collision. The submersible groaned, protesting the impact. Alarms shrieked, a piercing cry in the confined space. “We have something incoming!” Beran barked, wrenching the navigation console. A blotch of phosphorescent green flared on the sonar, massive and rapidly approaching. “A deep-wyrm! A fully-grown Lithos-coil!” Another strike, harder this time. The *Eel* spun, the internal gyros fighting a losing battle. A crack spider-webbed across the main viewport, a sickening tear in the deep-glass. Water, frigid and black, began to weep through the fissure, hissing as it met the air. “Hull integrity failing!” Beran shouted, his skin pale. “It won’t hold! The field generators are overloading!” Korinthal didn’t hesitate. He thrust his hand against the cracking deep-glass, raw deep-glass energy surging through his arm, through the material. A low, guttural cry tore from his throat. The violet luminescence of his ability flared, a frantic, concentrated force. The fractured glass began to mend, coalescing, the very atoms knitting back together under his forceful will. The Lithos-coil struck again, a monstrous, serpentine body visible for a horrifying moment as it slammed against the bell. The *Eel* shuddered violently, but the deep-glass, reinforced by Korinthal’s power, held. He felt the draining, a profound emptiness stealing his strength, but he pushed through it, refusing to yield. The water slowed, then stopped. The crack sealed. Then, the wyrm vanished from the sonar, leaving only the deafening silence and the labored thrum of the *Eel*’s systems. Korinthal collapsed, gasping, his vision blurring. Exhaustion dragged him down like lead ballast. He had drained his marrow raw to bind the fracture. Beran and Valen rushed to him, grasping his shoulders. “You saved us,” Valen murmured, his voice laced with awe, a grudging respect entering his eyes for the first time. Korinthal merely nodded, too spent for words. He could only think of Savia. This was nothing compared to what she was enduring. Slowly, the *Eel* continued its descent. Hours later, the sonar pinged, indicating a sudden drop-off. They had reached the edge of the Maw. The bell settled onto a vast, barren plain of black volcanic rock, riddled with jagged spires of crystalized minerals. The exterior beams, engineered to pierce the Maw’s eternal night, cut through the gloom to reveal a desolate landscape. A graveyard. The Maw was aptly named. “There!” Beran pointed, his voice tight. “Approximately one hundred meters, bearing zero-four-zero.” Korinthal peered through the viewport. There, half-buried in a drift of fine seafloor silt, lay the mangled remains of a submersible. Savia’s *Scorpion’s Kiss*. It was shredded, torn open like a burst carapace. The hull was rent in multiple places, the deep-glass observation dome shattered inward. Whatever had attacked it had done so with immense, brutal force. Hope, a fragile thing, shattered within Korinthal’s chest. “No,” he whispered, the sound raw. “No, Savia. Not like this.” They launched a small, remote-operated drone, its manipulators equipped with a high-intensity scanner. Korinthal watched the feed on the monitor, his pulse thumping violently in his ears. The drone navigated through the wreckage, illuminating twisted metal and pulverized instruments. Then, the drone’s camera focused on a jagged shard of iridescent coral. Caught on its sharp point, a scrap of crimson fabric, edged with gold thread. Savia’s cloak. A piece of the garment she had worn the day she signed her entire estate over to him. The crimson was stained, not with the dark red of ordinary blood, but with a faint, sickly violet gleam. Void-radiation. Her cellular breakdown was not just accelerating; it was consuming her. He felt a profound, physical ache, as if the Void-poison had infected him too. “She’s still alive,” Beran said, his voice quiet, pointing at the drone’s sensor readings. “The radiation signature… it’s fresh. Fading, but fresh. She was here recently. But the damage to the sub…” “Something dragged her out,” Valen finished, his gaze sweeping the desolate landscape outside. “Or she dragged herself.” The drone’s beam picked up something else then: faint, intermittent glows along the basalt shelf. Indentations left by soles coated in residual Void-laced mineral. The trail led away from the wreckage, toward a cavern mouth swallowed by black water. Hope, fractured and agonizing, flared again. “She walked,” Korinthal breathed, dread and raw awe knotting his chest. “She’s still fighting.” “Let’s go,” Valen urged, his hand on the hatch release. “Before the trail goes cold.” The *Abyssal Eel* extended its external ramp, allowing them to exit onto the crushing ocean floor. The abyssal column bore down relentlessly against their armored suits. They tracked the faint, violet-glowing strides marking her path. The cavern entrance beckoned, a maw within the Maw. As they crossed the threshold, their suit lamps piercing the dark, the luminous strides became clearer, more numerous. But they weren’t alone. Interspersed with Savia’s fading stride marks were other, heavier tread marks. Fresh ones. And at the mouth of a smaller chamber, deeper inside the cavern, a scattering of spent deep-glass cartridges lay on the ground, glinting dully. Croy’s signature deep-glass, crafted for his elite personal guard. His assassins had beaten them here.

The Leviathan's Maw