Depth Eight.

  Eight kilometres below the surface.

  It’d been a while since Rhizocapala went this deep. He’d spent most of the past decade lurking around the Upper Depths, licking his wounds, gathering his strength—he was pleasantly surprised to see Depth Eight hadn’t changed much at all.

  The humans on the surface called it the ‘March of the Dead’, and it wasn’t an inaccurate description: it was a dark, barren wasteland of pressure-crushed corpses, bugs and humans alike, all strewn across the ashy walls of the whirlpool like tombstones in a twisted graveyard. Each body was tied down and kept from drifting away with ropes woven from shells. Only a few dead coral shards poked out from the ground here and there like broken teeth. Fragments of armour, discarded weapons, and shattered carapaces—remnants of battles long lost to time were all buried just beneath the sand, worn down by salt and age. His feet made soft crunches as he walked over stray shells and bones.

  He looked left, right, up, and around the circular walls of the whirlpool. Sunlight couldn’t reach this deep into the whirlpool, so he and the others had stabbed small lamps filled with tiny, glowing copepods into the ground, letting faint and bioluminescent bluish-pink light wash over the entirety of the graveyard… but it wasn’t like that was a lot of light, still.

  He had to squint, he had to estimate, and he had to do a bit of maths in his head. Across the entire graveyard and accounting for its whole circular length, there had to be ten or twenty thousand more ‘tombstones’ since the last he visited. And he wasn’t the one who’d filled in those empty spots in the graveyard.

  “... Ye’ve been hard at work, ” He whistled, strolling deeper and deeper into the graveyard. He only had all of his eyes set on the very end of the Depth, but it seemed there were other pairs of eyes that weren’t nearly half as focused as he was. “Hey, can ye give me one of yer offerins’? ‘Ah ain’t got nothin’ with me but good news, good news, and good news. Now, ‘ah bet fifty barnacles of mine our king will be more than giddy to hear what ‘ah have to say, but ‘ah still wanna get him a gift—”

  The ripples came from thirty metres away to his left. He didn’t bother dodging. A scorpion tail whipped through a hundred ‘tombstones’ and split them open like cracked shells. Armour and carapaces shattered, limbs torn free, and fragments of bone and blood erupted into the water in chaotic bursts. A cloud of pretty red bloomed through the water, and that, the tail extended and cut into his neck—moving too fast for even him to react.

  In a single, messy stroke, the tail decapitated him. The shockwave continued to his right, ripping deep cracks and trenches across the seabed, chunks of stones and shells flying outward as the destruction spiralled out.

  He sighed from his chest as the tail retracted and red haze drifted through the water. Silence returned once the shockwave to his right faded, and his severed head scattered into a hundred writhing barnacles as it started sinking slowly.

  It took him five seconds to push out a new head made of barnacles, and he made a big show of cracking his neck, groaning in exaggerated pain just to appease his sister.

  “‘Ah said fifty barnacles, not a hundred,” he said, continuing his stroll down the graveyard. “Why, , ye oughtta work on yer temper every once in a red moon. The humans call it ‘abuse’ whether it’s the younger or the older one who punches up or down.”

  The Water Scorpion God, Eurypteria, emerged from the red bloom to his left, and she glared at him as she marched alongside him thirty metres away. She didn’t want to get any closer than that. She didn’t to get any closer than that to kill him.

  “And what foul body are you infesting this time, brother?” she muttered, matching his pace, her tails swishing aimlessly behind her and cleaving through shells and bones. That thing was as carelessly destructive as ever. “Don’t tell me that’s the Mutant-Class copepod we sent up there to distract the humans. You killed it? If you’d just left it alive, it could’ve be a thorn in their side for just a few more days—”

  “It ain’t me,” he mumbled back, kicking a fossilised crab pincer out of his way. “The copepod would’ve died either way. Ah’d been infestin’ it since the day it was born, so even if it killed the Flower Cape and the others, ah’d have to kill it on my way out.”

  “Instead, it didn’t kill the Flower Cape, and didn’t kill her either.”

  He whistled, bubbles coming out of his barnacle lips. “Wowwa. Ye heard? ‘Ah didn’t peg ye for someone who listens to the goins’ of the Upper Depths, but maybe ah’ve always underestimated ye.”

  The water around him rippled as she threatened to cleave him with her tail again, so he threw up his arms and protested, backing away from her with a nervous laugh.

  “Nah, nah! Of course ye heard! Why wouldn’t ye have?” he said in a sickly sweet voice, shifting the barnacles in his chest and relocating his heart quietly. “Now, ‘ah say ‘ah come bearin’ only good news, so let’s stay off the handsy until we get our audience with our king, eh? ‘Ah bet a hundred barnacles he ain’t gonna care so much about a simple Flower Cape once we make our full report—”

  “You had one job,” Eurypteria growled, and her killing pressure slammed into him from thirty metres away, making him giggle in delight. “Kill the Flower Cape, crush her Archive, and come back unharmed. You’ve only done one of those things.”

  “Hey, ‘twas up there who stopped me. Do ye wanna fight him? Ye can switch places with me if ye want.”

  “I don’t care if it’s Victor or Andres or the entire Deepwater Legion of a thousand Imperators and Guards. Crush them. Are you not a god?”

  “Easy for ye to say when ye ain’t the one starin’ the old man down. Now, yer gonna get a move on or not? ‘Ah bet two hundred barnacles the others are also gonna be late—”

  “You’re damn right we’re late. Now get your ass up here.”

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  The voice came from below. Beneath the ground. Beneath the graveyard. A valley of chitin spikes exploded from the ash between them and rose like a wall, making him smirk. He jumped onto the armoured head of the Remipede God, Kalokas, at the same time Eurypteria did, and the giant remipede , undulating across Depth Eight and tearing through an entire section of the graveyard as she did.

  With nothing better to do, Rhizocapala sighed and plopped himself down on Kalokas’ head, crossing his arms. “Ay, other How’s it goin’? Last ‘ah saw ye was a decade ago, right? Ain’t ye a bit chubbier and… uh, rounder near the tail? Ye big with children or what? Ah, ye should’ve told me if ye were gettin’ hitched! ‘Ah would’ve come to paid a visit down in Depth Seven—”

  “Shut the fuck up,” she grumbled, and her reverberating voice make his barnacles clatter in pain. Eurypteria curled her tail under her and sat next to him, wincing slightly as well. “And I’m not ‘big with child’. It’s called a growth spurt. I’ve grown an additional twenty-five segments since we last met, which is—”

  “Twenty-five metres?” Eurypteria offered.

  “Big with child?” Rhizocapala offered.

  “Five hundred metres, assholes. I’m nearly as big as that Greater Beetle God of the Northeast now.”

  “Big don’t always mean strong,” Rhizocapala said, shrugging as water whistled past his ears, the three of them nearing the end of the graveyard. “And speakin’ of strong, where the hell’s Marculata? Didn’t ye pick him up on the way down here? ‘Ah don’t see him anywhere.”

  “Right in front of us,” Kalokas muttered. “He’s never late.”

  Both Rhizocapala and Eurypteria squinted as Kalokas slowed to a screeching halt, her giant legs and mandibles kicking up a tidal wave of ash and dust at the end of the graveyard.

  At the end of Depth Eight, beyond the final line of tombstones, was nothing but an immense, gaping darkness. None of them crossed the border between Depth Eight and Depth Nine. The ‘Abyss’ seemed to extend endlessly downwards, a black so absolute it absorbed every bit of light coming from the copepod cages in the graveyard. It was like the world had decided this was it. This was the point of no return, and past it, there was just going to be nothing—no sounds, no movement, no life. A stretch of nothing no eye, human or bug, could penetrate.

  Rhizocapala closed all but two barnacle eyes as he frowned down at the Mantis Shrimp God sitting cross-legged in front of Kalokas, back turned, punching the ground every ten seconds and making the entire whirlpool rumble.

  “... So it’s ye, . Yer still makin’ these thumps and callin’ in bugs from all across the great blue?” Rhizocapala said, forcing a casual, careless grin onto his face. “Ain’t like me to ask, but can ye, like, tone it down a little? Ah’ve been tryin’ to sleep the past month, but when there’s this constant in my ears, it gets just a bit annoyin’, don’t ye think?”

  Marculata didn’t respond. He didn’t even turn around to address Rhizocapala. He continued punching once every ten seconds, his oversized shrimp arms cracking the ground beneath them, so Rhizocapala tilted his head back.

  Maybe he could shoot the shrimp in the back with a giant bony spine. That’d ought to get his attention—

  “What is it, my children?”

  Two giant blue eyes lit up in the Abyss like miniature suns in the far distance, and killing pressure wrapped around Rhizocapala’s heart like a vise, crushing and squeezing blood out of his chest.

  He immediately shot to his feet alongside Eurypteria, standing at attention. Kalokas dipped her head ever so slightly in a gesture of respect. For his part, Marculata didn’t stop punching the ground. He simply froze and missed the timing for one of his punches before resuming the steady , and there was no doubt about it now; he’d been ordered by his king to never stop punching.

  And the two blue eyes swung forward like they were hung on invisible strings, their king’s killing pressure growing stronger and stronger until he suddenly stopped right at the edge of the graveyard—between Depth Eight and Depth Nine, where the Swarm ruled.

  He didn’t cross into the light.

  He didn’t so much as let his silhouette be shrouded in shadows.

  Two cold, unfeeling eyes glared down on all four of them, and for the second time today, Rhizocapala felt like crawling under a rock just to get away from his scrying gaze.

  “... I bring you land, my king,” Kalokas said, stabbing her giant antennae into the ground before her as she dipped her head even further. “I have swallowed every last human construct in Depths Seven and Eight. We own the Frozen Abyss and the March of the Dead now.”

  “I bring you blood, my king,” Eurypteria said, kneeling slowly with her tail curled around her neck. “I have slain every patrolling Imperator in Depths Four, Five, and Six. We own the Whispering Canyons, the Sulphur Fields, and the Vent Gardens now.”

  “‘Ah bring ye good news, my king,” Rhizocalapa said, bowing slightly with his arms crossed behind his back. “Now, it’s true ‘ah ain’t managed to kill the Flower Cape and crush the system in her neck, but—”

  “—let’s see lil bro talk his way out of this one—”

  “—he’s basically a dead barnacle walking—”

  “Shut the fuck up,” he snapped, stomping on Kalokas’s head for a second before covering his mouth with a hand, looking coyly up at his king. “‘Ah don’t mean ye, of course. And while ‘ah didn’t manage to shove the humans out of Depth Three, either, ‘ah touch and infest Depths Four and below with my barnacles. They’ll be our static defences. Eurypteria and Kalakos may have wiped out the humans, but ‘ah secured Depths Four and below, and my barnacles will automatically mess up every scout and construct the humans send down here to investigate.”

  “... And what does that do for us?”

  Rhizocapala put on a nervous grin. “Buyin’ time. We need the rest of the year to make sure my plan can actually go off without a hitch, but we ain’t doin’ that if the Imperators are sniffin’ anywhere close to Depth Six and below—so my barnacles will slow them the fuck down. If they wanna figure out what we’re plannin’, they’ll have to recapture the whirlpool Depth by Depth, section by section, and they’re already distracted enough as is by the Mutant-Classes yer callin’ from all over the great blue. Ain’t that right, ”

  It would be if Marculata could back him up a little, but the Mantis Shrimp God was still just punching the ground, muttering ‘Worm God, Worm God’ under his breath. Rhizocapala sighed. No backup after all.

  “Marculata’s been punching the ground since Year Seventy-One,” Eurypteria muttered, shaking her head slowly. “I don’t know what you’re planning, Marculata, but I assume calling bugs from all over the great blue is just a side effect of your punches. We’re not breaking out of the whirlpool that way, though. We can’t break the walls.”

  “...”

  Eurypteria clicked her tongue when Marculata didn’t respond. “Just join the three of us, Marculata. We could use your help once we come out swinging—”

  “Marculata is working for me,” “He will be sitting out of your plan this time, so it will be just the three of you dealing with the humans. I trust you will succeed nevertheless.”

  The three of them dipped their heads at once. Rhizocapala stole one last glance at Marculata’s back before peeking up at their king, raising a barnacle brow.

  “Would ye like to know the details of my plan, my king?” he asked. “This a big undertakin’ with lots of movin’ parts. ‘Ah know ye and Marculata ain’t involved in it this time around, but—”

  “Will the success of your ‘plan’ lead to a better future for the bugs of my kingdom?”

  Rhizocapala paused.

  Then he lifted his head and smiled from ear to ear, sticking out all of his tongues.

  “Of course. Ye ain’t gotta doubt that.”

  “Then I do not care,” “Do as you will, Rhizocapala. Bring glory to the good name of ‘Corpsetaker’, to the Swarm of the Deepwater Legion Front.”

  There was no room for further discussion. Unlike Marculata, their king was a quiet god, and he valued the peace in his Abyss more than anything else in the world.

  It was the Four Leviathans’ birth duty to protect his peace.

  “... We will, my king.” Rhizocapala laughed softly as he thumped his heart with a fist, Eurypteria and Kalakos doing the same. “The whirlpool will be yours by the end of the year.”

  Water Bug Facts #61: Decorator crabs are crabs of several species that regularly interact with each other to exchange materials from the environment. They're really good at camouflaging themselves with bits of seaweed, algae, sponges, corals, and stuff like that, and the reason why these materials stick to them so well is because they have setae on their shells and legs. If you don't remember what setae is, they're velcro-like hairs that basically stick to stuff, and it's how the tier three mutation 'Segmented Setae' allows Marisol to stick to walls and ceilings!

  Next chapter on Thursday!

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