The team had been walking for thirty minutes when Li felt a faint vibration through the soles of his boots. It wasn't sharp—just steady and hard to ignore. The hallway ahead was washed in a dull, unnatural purple, and something in the air felt off. Not panic, but a slow build-up of pressure, like a warning before a breach.
"Keep in line. Anomaly should be close. Stick to the plan."
They rounded a corner and entered a spherical chamber. Smooth walls. No visible exits. Just a massive grate across from them, sealed shut, with nothing but darkness behind it.
"Halt. I'm calling it in. Guard the perimeter."
The vibrations were more frequent now. Li had felt worse during Drill Team missions, but this was different. Too regular. Too calm. The Guardians took formation, weapons at the ready. Li adjusted his grip on the cannon. He didn't like how still everything had gotten.
Then came the sound—low, deep, distant. It rolled in like a pressure wave. The Guardian nearest the grate raised his weapon, but his stance wasn't steady. Li noticed his arms twitching.
The grate didn't give a warning. It broke.
Water burst through, thick and dark. It slammed into the chamber and swallowed half the squad before anyone reacted. Li was hit hard, tossed into the rising flood. The suit kept him stable, but not fast. He struggled to move as the cold bit through the armor. His thermal buffer wasn't on.
The water climbed faster than expected, trapping him against the ceiling. His body spun as the flow kept rising. Someone fired—an energy round snapped past his helmet. There was yelling on the comms, but no clear orders.
"Hostile entity! Report status—now!"
Nothing.
Li looked around. The water was dark, but not empty. A shape drifted through it—huge, slow, too controlled. Like a predator moving through its own territory. It didn't move like a machine or animal. It moved like it knew the space better than they did.
The squad was scattered, caught in the current. Li leveled his cannon and fired. The shot went wide. The shape was already gone.
He wasn't swimming anymore—he was being pulled. A current had formed, dragging him toward the center of the chamber. He tried to resist, but it wasn't working.
Someone slammed into Li from behind. He was jolted forward, his vision shaking, but he didn't let go of the fish-beast in his sights. It was massive and violent, shredding through Guardians like they were made of fabric. Limbs and armor floated in its wake, caught in the disturbed current. The chamber echoed with a deep boom—loud enough to be heard underwater.
The floor gave way.
A section beneath them collapsed, and the pressure shift sent the water spiraling downward, rushing into the breach like it had been waiting for this moment. The current was instant and brutal. The beast noticed him—its huge eyes locked onto Li—and it surged forward, using its bulk to carve through the resistance.
Li aimed, bracing against the pull. His heart pounded and his arms shook, not from fear, but from the overload on his suit's servos and his own fading stamina. He kicked, pushed, tried to maneuver, but it was like swimming in a flood. The creature's jagged teeth came into view, wide enough to tear him in half.
Then the current won.
Li was sucked into the breach, pulled into the tunnel beneath. Just before he slipped through, another Guardian shot past him—uncontrolled, silent. The fish-beast lunged, but its size worked against it. The hole was too narrow. It crashed against the edges, screeching underwater, its head slamming into the frame as it missed its chance. It thrashed at the gap in a fury that echoed through the tunnel.
Li tumbled through a tight passage, water pushing him faster than he could react. The walls whipped by, too fast to track. He passed broken stairwells, bent railings, and corridors now serving as water slides. Somewhere in the blur, a faint glow flickered—a room? A console? It didn't matter. He was pulled away before he could even think.
Then, a voice cracked through the comms.
"HOLD THE LEDGE! HOLD THE LEDGE! DEAD DROP! DEAD DROP!"
Panic flared. He didn't know where the voice came from or who it belonged to, but it confirmed what he was already seeing: the passage ahead ended in a straight vertical drop.
He began to claw at the walls, at anything, bouncing off debris and steel. A Guardian clung to a crevice—eyes wide, one hand out. Li reached back, desperate, but their fingers missed by inches.
The drop was just ahead. A wide circular hole swallowed the corridor's end, a dark mouth waiting for him. He didn't have time to think. The current dragged him through, and for a split second, everything was quiet.
He was airborne.
The chamber he fell into was vast, bigger than the one above. Lights flickered in patches across the walls. Then gravity took him.
He hit hard.
The suit didn't absorb enough. Pain shot through his left side—either his ribs or arm had taken the brunt. Something cracked. A dent formed along the plating, and fragments of armor broke off as he skidded across the ground, briefly lifted again by the residual water flow.
He tried to move—his arm didn't respond right. The HUD flickered. Warning signs blinked red. Internal pressure systems reported damage. His breathing was shallow now. He checked the cannon. Still attached. Slightly bent, but intact.
The rest of the water went down a narrower opening on the ground and Li tumbled violently into the bodies of other Guardians who had ended up taking the same path as him.
The water pulled back. No one said why, no one questioned it. It just went, and the comms filled with shouts and static until even that fell quiet. What was left of them lay scattered—armored shells cracked open, Guardians inside barely conscious or worse.
Li gasped for air, lungs fighting him, heart pounding against his ribs. The HUD swarmed with red. Notifications, system errors, commands—he didn't read any of it. His eyes closed again.
…
When they opened, he was being dragged across the broken arena floor. The center had become a triage zone. Corpses were lined up on one side, wounded on the other. Those who could still move worked without orders. Only one looked completely unhurt.
Li tried to speak. No sound came. A Guardian crouched over him, bleeding through layers of bandages. Blood leaked freely, soaking Li's exosuit. It was red. Human. Bandages held cracked armor together while unfamiliar equipment buzzed low against ruined plating. Every inch of Li ached. Something burned near his lower spine. Another figure knelt, sparks flying as his armor was patched with a welder's hiss.
"He can still fight. Hit him with adrenaline."
The needle went in. A pulse of heat followed. Li jerked as feeling returned to his limbs, raw and shaking. Another Guardian pulled him up by the arm.
"Grab your weapons. We're exposed. Reinforcements incoming, forty minutes. Barricade units, build now. Everyone else, defend this ground. Move."
Someone shouted from behind the line, voice cracking.
"The Drill Team could be here in five! They dropped us, they can evac!"
"They're keeping the S-tier ones busy!"
Li froze.
The Drill Team hadn't abandoned them. They were bait, pulling the monsters away. Without them, this arena would've been a massacre.
Li grabbed the cannon and staggered forward. He didn't remember signing up for barricade duty—though by now, a scolding would've been a mercy.
A voice called from above, from the hole they'd fallen through. A lone Guardian, the one who'd hidden in the crevice, was shouting in a language the translator couldn't decode.
Everyone looked up.
Then the Guardian leapt, crashing into a pile of corpses with a sickening thud. Seconds later, massive pincers snapped shut where they'd just stood.
The ground shook. A monstrous centipede—scaled, glowing red and purple, its body bristling with claws—descended from the opening.
"BARRICADE! HOLD THE PERIMETER! HEAVIES, FIRE!"
Li didn't hesitate. He raised his cannon and opened fire. No cartridges, but somehow it worked—one of the strange "systems" the others talked about. He didn't question it anymore.
The beast touched the corpse pile. The Guardian rolled free just in time. Li's shots barely scratched it, but his aim was improving.
"THE CLAWS! AIM FOR THE CLAWS!"
A Guardian screamed—then was sliced in two by the beast's jaws.
The full weight of the centipede hit the ground. Its thrashing body knocked Guardians aside. Even the leader struggled.
"HIT THE EYES! SYSTEM CANNON LI, THE EYES!"
Li's grip tightened. His cannon pulsed with strange energy, growing stronger with each blast. He moved fast, targeting the beast's black eyes under its armored plates. His shots grazed them—and then, one of the creature's own broken shards drove through an eye.
It screamed, nearly deafening Li, just as the back swung right into him.