The rest of the patrol was uneventful, but the ascent in the diving bell was cheerful. Aidan popped open bottles of fresh fruit juice from the overhead compartments, Helena gawked and peppered Marisol with questions about the exact workings of her glaives, and Bruno smiled softly as he turned the small crank to pull them back up. If the Imperator siblings had any doubt Marisol was going to be of any use underwater, they didn’t seem to doubt her a single bit now.

  For her part, Marisol was still a bit light-headed. It wasn't Aidan chugging two bottles of juice at once or Helena poking the holes in her glaives that made her dizzy. Simply having spent two hours in Depth Two sapped all the strength from her, and the lingering pressure on her shoulders still made her body tremble slightly; this wasn't something she could get used to quickly.

  None of the siblings could see the Archive floating in front of her, pulling its front legs apart as though trying to shrug.

  She didn’t know if she should feel proud or disappointed by that fact. On one hand, she’d blazed a new path for all future Water Strider Class users, but on the other hand, it meant nobody could help her figure out how to use her Art underwater without electrocuting herself.

  .

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  The diving bell rattled as they broke the surface, and the colour of sunlight streaming in through the latch window turned from pale blue to a harsh, warm orange. Marisol nearly lurched off her bench as her head immediately throbbed.

  While Helena and Aidan hurried to swipe all the empty bottles in a bag under the small table, Bruno continued frowning out the window, muttering something under his breath as he turned the wheel to pop open the latch.

  Marisol didn’t hear much of anything afterwards, because the moment Bruno shoved the latch open to let in a wave of fresh, brine-scented air, she was assaulted with the blaring sirens of half a dozen armoured ships approaching them from afar.

  Reina was waiting for them on the platform right outside the bell, and her face was ghostly white as she frantically rushed towards them.

  … Victor’s hands tightened on his walking cane as he stared down at the whirlpool from the top of Lighthouse Seven, watching the medics struggle to pull bloody Imperator initiates out of their diving bells.

  It was sharp at noon, but he’d barely even touched his brunch an hour ago when the first incident report surfaced: an unnatural cluster of copepods appeared in Depth One and attacked a team of four initiates patrolling the area at the time, forcing them to end their patrol early. Soon after, three, four, five more diving bells surfaced earlier than usual. By noon, all in total, the diving logistic officers reported sixty-four initiates and commercial divers gravely wounded, all of them having barely escaped their attacks by the breadth of their hairs.

  Chaos reigned below. The Imperators always had half a dozen medical ships on standby during the morning, afternoon, and nighttime patrol sessions in case any team needed to surface early due to injuries, but they didn’t have enough ships to attend to sixteen diving bells at once. The result was apparent. Shouts and screams for volunteer medical aid from the upper city resounded across the whirlpool below, and for Victor’s part, he could do nothing but watch as bloody initiates were yanked out of their diving bells and placed on stretchers, being ferried to shore as quickly as possible.

  He wasn’t alone atop Lighthouse Seven, of course. He had an old friend to commiserate with.

  “Only the Imperator teams patrolling Depths One to Three were attacked,” he murmured, glancing at the Imperatrix standing next to him as he did. “What do you see with that eye of yours, Andres? Think it ain’t nothing but a coincidence?”

  Andres scoffed, face hardening as one of the medical ships below waved a red flag up at them: the signal that someone had perished inside a diving bell. “As if this could’ve been anything but a coordinated attack. Corpsetaker is behind this. First, the Harbour Guards outside the city report Mutant-Classes are heading towards the city from all over, and now a third of our initiates are benched for at least a month?”

  “What’s our move?”

  “No commercial diving company is to be allowed in the whirlpool for the next three days, and all morning, afternoon, and nighttime patrols in Depths One to Three are to be reinforced by at least one S-Rank Giant-Class Imperator for the next two months,” he said firmly, glaring at the officer who just barged into the room behind them with more miserable reports to offer. “We’re splitting our Depth Four to Six patrol forces in half. Tell the standby teams on afternoon and nighttime patrols to figure their allocations out by themselves.”

  The officer paused, saluted, and raced out of the room before he could even deliver his report. Victor sighed, pulling the brim of his feathered hat down.

  “You don’t want any of the initiates diving by themselves for the next two months?”

  “It’s the rational move to prevent bleeding out our young buds.”

  “And if half of the teams who are supposed to be patrolling Depths Four to Six aren’t there, you could stand to lose the other half from another coordinated attack,” Victor said plainly. “If anything jumps the weakened Depth Four to Six patrol teams, there won’t ever be enough high-rank Imperators nearby to immediately reinforce them. You’ll prioritise Depths One to Three over them?”

  “The city cannot sustain itself if the commercial divers aren’t allowed to harvest,” Andres replied steadily, a small scowl on his iron face. “We protect the livelihood of our citizens first and foremost. Does a Flower Cape prioritise slaughtering bugs before safeguarding human lives?”

  Victor threw the man a sardonic smile, though it was largely hidden behind his bandages. “We’re the wandering . Nothing else. Nothing more. I’d leave you dead in a ditch if it means I can get a clean hit on Corpsetaker or any of his Leviathans.”

  Andres’ expression didn’t change. “Asshole.”

  “Bitch.”

  “This is why you never get invited to any of the annual Arcana Hasharana meetups. Enki and Zora still find you irritating.”

  “It’s a compliment to have annoyed the great Worm God and the Thousand Tongue for over four decades.” Victor shook his head, a smaller, genuine grin rising onto his face as he spotted a particular medical ship being pulled back to the bottom of Lighthouse Seven. “In any case, there are only three initiates and an acting Flower Cape who seem to have gotten out of their copepod attack relatively unharmed. Who do you think you have to thank for that, hm?”

  The Imperatrix clicked his tongue, waving Victor away dismissively as he turned to leave the room.

  “The reports claim the unnatural copepod hordes originated from somewhere within Depth Three,” he said. “We’ll have a few scouts investigate, and once we know where they’re coming from, the three uninjured initiates plus your water strider girl will enter Depth Three to deal with the source of the copepods. Have Reina go with them to err on the side of caution. Reina alone can take down a low-rank Mutant-Class no problem, but I’d like to see what those initiates and your girl can do in Depth Three as well.”

  Victor looked over his shoulder, squinting at the Imperatrix. “It’s too early for her to be down in Depth Three. She doesn’t even have her sonar mutation unlocked yet, so she can’t even speak underwater—”

  “It’ll be a while before the investigations wrap-up,” Andres interrupted. “At the very least, she’ll have enough time to join a few extermination missions and get enough points to unlock the sonar mutation."

  Once the Imperatrix made up his mind, there wasn’t going to be any arguing back—so Victor simply let the man leave as he continued surveilling the whirlpool, lips tightened in a thin line.

  But the whirlpool, like the great blue, had a mind of its own, and no doubt the hermit king lurking in the abyss had something to do with the attacks.

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