I swam hard, clade half secure, and my breath sharp in my gills. Sirens still pulsed through the reef, flickering red across every current path. Around me, Watchers rushed past in full armor, shouting to one another over the current roar. I wasn't supposed to be out here, but when the alarm sounded, I moved without thinking. The reef was under attack, my instincts told me to act.
I passed two hatchery workers clutching a sealed tidepod between them, the infant inside still drifting in a sleep state. Neither worker looked at me. They were too focused on getting uphill, away from the breach. Behind them, a patrol surged downward through the trench archway, fins sharp and deliberate, casting mana flares ahead of them to mark the safest lanes.
I followed the last of them. I looked out of place joining behind a well geared patrol. But I didnt care, and no one stopped me.
The breach had torn open beneath the southwest ridge, a scar that ran along the outer wall like a wound that had festered too long. The scent of scorched coral hit me first, sharp, sour, and laced with something worse. Mana burn. I tasted it through my gills before I saw the light.
Red flare-glyphs painted the reef floor, streaked and wide, alerting all to corrupted presence. Defenders had already formed a battle line at the basin curve, half Watchers, half shellguard. Some held blades, others carried hooked polearms or long-chain flares. Overhead, two Lightcasters hovered in position, ready to blind the enemy when it came.
And then it did.
The first shadowspawn lunged from the breach mouth, limbs folding over themselves in wrong directions, They seemed to melt into itself, forming again from somewhere unseen. It moved fast, faster than I thought anything could, and slammed into the front line before I could shout a warning.
A Watcher fell instantly.
Another slashed wide, caught the creature across what should have been a shoulder. The spawn shrieked, but didn't retreat, it split, body warping, spilling twin arms into the current that reached for another defender.
I swam faster, closing the distance, determined to help defend my home.
More spawn came through behind it.
They didn't move like animals. They moved like memories, flickering in and out of shape, blinking across the trench. One scaled the side wall and launched down into a trio of shellguard, scattering them with a single, jagged swipe.
The reef lit up with counterfire. Defense wards triggered, sending mana surges out to bombard the attackers. long range echo attacks joining the barrage, obscuring sight of the shadowspawn for a brief moment.
Flare tubes cracked, sending streaks of heated glyphlight through the water. The spawn didn't scream when hit. They folded, burst, or crumbled into ash, leaving behind trails of black-thread mist that spun upward like reverse sediment.
A body floated past me.
I didn't look.
I dove into the fray, blade out, breath steady. The training field didn't prepare you for this. No rhythm. No choreography. Just panic and teeth.
One of the spawn twisted toward me.
I struck low, aiming for the leg joint. The blade met resistance, not like bone, but like sinew made of wet rope and unripe fruit. It hissed, swung upward, missed, then lunged again.
I rolled under it, used the momentum to drive my foot into its side, and shoved off into open water. It came after me, i barely had the time to orientate before it was nearly upon me again. I flared a glyph, weak, but the only thing i could think of in the panic.
Light exploded in its face.
It recoiled, and a Watcher drove a spear through its side, anchoring it to the trench wall. It spasmed once, then stilled. It did not bleed like things where supposed to, no trail of fluid tainting the water.
Only smoke.
"Kaelen!" a voice shouted above me.
I turned. Yera was descending with a full crest team, each one marked with the silver glyph of the southern ridge patrol. Her blade pulsed blue along the edge, already stained from combat.
"What are you doing here?"
"I followed the alarms," I said, panting.
She glanced once at my blade, my half-fastened harness, and the grit on my skin.
"You're in it now," she said. "Stay tight. Watch the sides."
Then she vanished into the fog of glyphlight and debris.
We forced the spawn toward the trench mouth, used flare bursts to herd them through bottlenecks. Lightcasters dropped nova pulses to blind and scorch. Shellbinders activated old seals carved into the ridge walls, reawakening dormant wards that crackled back to life.
But it wasn't a clean fight. We lost six to the breach. every loss was felt between all cast, and a time of sorrow would be following soon.
Two more shadowspawn drifted toward critical chambers and had to be intercepted. One spawn got as far as the bloom troughs before it was stopped, causing allot of damage along the way. The coral there may never recover. I killed once. Maybe twice. I'm not sure. i began to lose sight of direction, just swinging to keep myself alive.
What I remember is the moment the last spawn twisted back toward the breach and paused. I Had just struck it away, barely avoiding its swiping blow. I had yet to recover myself, and I left myself wide open. But as the creature reared to strike, it froze, shimmered slightly, and simply disappeared. It was almost as if it was removed from existence. I floated there, gills burning, confused.
After the final flare was cast and the reef fell quiet again, we floated in silence. Bodies were collected. The wounded were stabilized. Wards were sealed. And Yera approached me once more.
"You're reassigned," she said, her voice flat. "Report to glyphbay six."
I opened my mouth, then closed it.
"What happened here isn't over," she added. "You've seen it now."
She didn't wait for an answer, turning away to handle the enumerable task she now had to deal with. Still confused, i decided to just follow the orders, still trying to make sense of what just happened. tainted life has always existed, spawning from decay and death. but never had it been known to just disappear.
Glyphbay six was deeper than I expected, tucked behind an old reef wedge used for storage back when the water flow still spun in predictable rhythms. Now it hummed with relay glyphs, stacked layers of combat codes blinking slowly on coral walls.
I arrived still wearing blood on my sleeves.
A single figure stood waiting, his armor matte-sheened and scuffed. He had the look of someone used to surviving rather than winning, scarred at the ridge of his jaw, one gauntlet stitched shut at the palm.
"You're Kaelen?" he asked without preamble.
I nodded.
"Ashekan," he said. "Your first run's now."
He handed me a beacon thread, already lit.
"Follow my lead. We don't hesitate."
We moved out fast, two lights in a corridor of stone and fear. The trench Ashekan led me to wasn't marked for deep decay, but it had the smell. Not rot, just stagnant. Like the water had given up trying to hold life and was now just waiting for it to go.
Dead kelp fields lined the left wall, too uniform to be natural, likely cleared in some fruit reroute. Pockets of brittle coral dotted the cracks. One had already sprouted a black-veined vine that pulsed faintly as we passed.
"Shadowform," Ashekan said without turning. "Low threat."
The silence made the hairs along my arms stand up.
"There," he said, and pointed.
At first, I saw nothing. Then something moved, wrongly, like a ripple flowing the opposite direction of the current. A shape peeled itself from the wall and slid into our lane.
My blade was halfway up before I saw its eyes—if they were eyes at all. Points of shimmerless black, ringed in shifting red, as if staring was a function rather than a sense.
Ashekan charged it without hesitation.
They clashed hard, his blade carving a long arc through its middle. It responded by splitting at the waist, the top half spinning out into the open trench where it tried to reform. I flared a glyph, aiming to hit the bottom half. It cracked with light and burned one newly formed limb into drifting mist, but the rest persisted.
It turned to me. I steadied my hands, drew my blade higher, ready to finish what Ashekan started, But the spawn didn't lunge.As it faced me It stopped. It just hovered in the water, watching, maybe, and for a breath, everything slowed. The current behind me dimmed. Ashekan's movement fell out of sync.
And I felt it. Not the creature's attention. Something larger. It felt like I was being watched, and it contained a weight. almost suffocating. As if the god of Destruction itself had paused, leaned closer, and chosen to leave me breathing.
Then, in a moment that felt stolen from time, the spawn collapsed—not slain, not struck, just undone. Disappearing like it was never there. "what?" i muttered to myself, confused.
Ashekan muttered a curse, already checking the perimeter, seemingly just as confused about the spawns disappearance and assuming it was still nearby. But I remained still.