The water was thick with carcasses. Broken shells, torn mandibles, and shattered claws drifted in slow motion around the Worm God. A ‘macabre parade of death’ was what Victor would call it if the man were here.

  It’d been a decently long month for him down in the whirlpool. All in total, he’d killed over fifty thousand Critter-Classes, over twenty thousand Giant-Classes, and one thousand two hundred and ninety-two Mutant-Classes. Now, they were little more than flotsam in the abyss. He floated among the swirl of carcasses like a ghost, and he was aware his boyish figure looked absurd here, like a misplaced piece in the world—but that was just ‘him’ in a nutshell. He wasn’t a normal human by any means. He didn’t have to hold himself to normal human standards.

  As he tossed a dead Mutant-Class away, something went crack in his body. He blinked slowly and looked down at his own hand. His skin, pale as moonlight, was starting to etch with glowing blue cracks that spiderwebbed across his bare arms, shoulders, and torso. The fissures deepened with every slight movement, leaking silver ichor into the water.

  A nuisance. The crushing pressure of Depth Eight was starting to get to him.

  [This body is just about done, I suppose,] he muttered, flexing his fingers and watching another crack bloom across his palm. He didn’t wince. Pain didn’t matter—not here, not now. This clone was a disposable tool. His real self was back on the mainland continent, safe, so he had no problems going all-out against the Swarm over the past month.

  But now, his gaze drifted downward into the maw of the abyss.

  The imperators called it ‘Depth Nine’, a part of the whirlpool blacker than the spaces between stars. Even he couldn’t see its bottom. His senses couldn’t pierce through the thick killing pressure forming a semi-physical barrier between Depth Eight and Depth Nine, and he was hovering only ten metres away from it.

  Then, the barrier shifted, and a small, tender, human-like shadow uncoiled in the darkness below. It moved with unsettling grace. A liquid mass that seemed both infinite and formless. Water churned softly as it rose from the abyss, carrying with it an oppressive weight that had nothing to do with the depth.

  He tilted his head, watching with mild curiosity as glowing blue eyes opened within the shadow. They glared up through the water like twin lighthouse beacons of cold, unyielding light, and for a second—an emotion akin to ‘fear’ washed over him.

  But just like ‘pain’, it was a distant emotion that he could largely ignore because of his immortality.

  [... Well,] he said, breaking the silence, [look who decided to show up.]

  The shadow paused just at the edge of Depth Nine. Its shape flickered, neither solid nor fluid, but something in-between. The glow of its eyes remained steady.

  [So,] he said, his smile widening slowly, [what now? What is the plan after conquering the Whirlpool City and forcing the Imperators to evacuate from the island, Corpsetaker?]

  The pressure around him deepened, almost imperceptibly, as if the abyss itself was leaning in to listen.

  And when Corpsetaker finally spoke, his voice rumbled through the water, low and deliberate.

  “This breach was not my doing.”

  [Really? You could have fooled me.] The Worm God gestured lazily at the swirling battlefield above, littered with the remains of Corpsetaker’s children. [You sure left your fingerprints all over it for an assault not of your doing.]

  “It was Rhizocapala’s plan,” Corpsetaker rippled, voice still calm and without shame. “I merely lent him my support. A fraction of my forces. Nothing more, nothing less.”

  The Worm God raised an eyebrow. [How generous of you.]

  “Pragmatic,” Corpsetaker corrected. “Not generous.”

  The Worm God leaned forward slightly, cracks radiating further across his shoulders as he smirked. [Pragmatic? You would call sacrificing all but two of your children on the surface pragmatic?]

  “It is necessary,” Corpsetaker replied plainly. “You and I both know the cost of survival.”

  The smirk on the Worm God’s lips faltered, replaced by something colder. He floated in silence for a moment, then tilted his head as if considering.

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  [So, what now? You have your foothold. You have the city. Will you breach the surface now and take over the Deepwater Legion Front, or is this where you call it quits?]

  “You know very well that I cannot breach the surface myself as long as your real body’s railgun is still active on the mainland continent,” Corpsetaker said, shrugging as he gestured casually around him. “Besides, I have already obtained what I wanted out of Rhizocapala’s campaign: peace in the whirlpool. No human will ever disturb my domain ever again. No human will ever pollute my kingdom with their aura again. I have no vested interest in going any further for the time being.”

  [You expect me to believe you’re just going to stop here?]

  “Yes.”

  The simplicity of the response caught the Worm God off guard. He blinked, then let out a short laugh, sharp and humourless.

  [And the other two Insect Gods? Having conquered the Whirlpool City, will they cease pursuit of the Imperators and let them go free?]

  “The two of them are… ambitious,” Corpsetaker admitted. “Rhizocapala hungers for total infestation and dominion. Kalakos craves annihilation. I did not raise them that way, but… they are who they are, and they will act according to their nature.”

  [You’re washing your hands of them, then?]

  “I am acknowledging what I cannot control. Now that I have obtained peace in the whirlpool, I will no longer be providing any support to the two of them by continuously sending my children up to stop you from returning to the surface. From here on out, they will be the architect of their own fates—and I suppose that does mean Rhizocapala, being more ambitious than me, will indeed try to slaughter every last human in the Deepwater Legion Front.”

  The Worm God studied him, his eyes narrowing. [You’re leaving a lot to chance by not offering your children any support.]

  “Not chance,” Corpsetaker corrected. “Inevitability. Rhizocapala may only be an ‘E-Rank’ Barnacle God by your human standards, but it is not for no good reason that he is my oldest child. I am not too worried about him losing to your Imperators. It would not surprise me at all if Rhizocapala, alongside his sister, manages to at least destroy the Harbour City your humans are heading towards even without my assistance.”

  The Worm God let the silence stretch.

  Then his lips curled into a lazy smile, and he raised his voice over the crushing void.

  [... Which one is Rhizocapala again?]

  For the first time, the shadow of Depth Nine seemed to stiffen. The light of Corpsetaker’s eyes narrowed into slits.

  The Worm God tilted his head, not feigning confusion. [Rhizocapala, Kalakos—whatever you call them. I don’t bother remembering the names of every bug I squash. Which one is which again? Is Rhizocapala the barnacle or the remipede?]

  The darkness roiled, violent currents rippling around the Greater Crab God. Corpsetaker didn’t speak, but his killing pressure swelled, pressing against the water as if trying to fill the entire abyss.

  [You’re angry,] the Worm God noted casually. He raised his left arm to the side, the cracks along his skin deepening. [I like to see that. Anger makes all living beings sloppy.]

  Corpsetaker’s voice finally came, a low and guttural growl vibrating through the abyss. “You think this is a game, child?”

  [I don’t think much about your children at all,] the Worm God replied lightly. [To begin with, I do not know where you get your confidence from. Do you believe your children will be able to defeat the Imperators?]

  As he spoke, his left arm began to morph. Pale flesh twisted and bulged, veins brightening as it expanded. He didn’t flinch as the transformation began, his fingers fusing into a grotesque, fleshy spiral. His arm elongated, thickened, taking on the segmented appearance of a giant worm, glistening with silver chitin plates that shimmered faintly in the water.

  He flexed his oversized appendage experimentally, watching as it writhed of its own accord. [Do not underestimate my humans either, Corpsetaker,] he said plainly. [You may have claimed the Whirlpool City for now, but one day, it will be ours again. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next week, and maybe not in ten years, but this island is just as much our home as it is your prison.]

  The abyss trembled, Corpsetaker’s laughter rolling through the darkness like thunder. “Home?” he sneered. “You humans, born of the earth, dare to call this sacred place your home?”

  [It is a home in dire need of pest control,] the Worm God said, [but we have been known to make do.]

  The laughter ceased abruptly as Corpsetaker’s glowing eyes narrowed further. “But you won’t get to see it reclaimed,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

  [No,] the Worm God admitted, glancing at the cracks crawling up his legs and torso. [But I am just a clone, after all. The real me will simply replace me. It only takes a year to make another one, so it’s not a big deal if I die here.]

  “And you—not as a clone, but as an individual—are content with dying here?”

  [Of course.]

  [No ‘champion’ of humanity would shy away from the opportunity to fight you in your element.]

  “...”

  Then Corpsetaker shifted again, his shadowy form condensing. Slowly, one of his human-like arms began to morph. Fingers fused into a monstrous claw, each jagged edge of the appendage bristling with ridges and spikes, and it was massive—dwarfing the Worm God’s mutated arm in both scale and menace.

  But the Worm God didn’t falter. His worm-arm lashed through the water, leaving a trail of faintly glowing blood as it coiled and uncoiled.

  [I am curious to know,] he said, [how well does a mere clone of the Worm God stack up against you in this day and age?]

  Corpsetaker’s laughter rumbled again, but this time it was quieter. Colder.

  And then both of them reared their monstrous arms back, water surging in all directions as the tension reached its peak.

  They struck each other as one.

  Chapters remaining: 19

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