Chris had never flown in a military transport jet before.
Turns out, it wasn't that different from a livestock truck strapped with wings.
He sat shoulder to shoulder with the other trainees, strapped to a bare metal bench, knees crammed, ears popping every few seconds. No windows. Just the low, vibrating growl of the engines and the constant rumble of pressure.
The air stank of plastic and sweat. Everyone wore identical Ministry-issue gear—slate-gray thermals with reinforced padding, and boots designed to grip on every terrain imaginable. The uniforms didn't quite fit anyone.
Chris's watch buzzed.
"You are currently thirty-four thousand feet above Western Afghanistan. Minor radiation detected. No immediate threat. If engine failure occurs, survival rate: 1.6%."
He didn't respond. Just tightened his harness.
Across from him, Kelvin Prado had his head leaned back against the wall, mouth open. Asleep. Somehow. Next to him, Mina Akhtar quietly read a small black book with a frayed spine and no title.
Aya sat silently near the rear ramp, her eyes closed, back perfectly straight. The twins were playing a game involving slaps and profanity.
It was like sitting in a tin can full of mismatched ghosts.
Somewhere over the Indian Ocean, the flight attendant—if you could call a man in full body armor and a pistol that—walked down the aisle and banged the bulkhead twice.
"All operatives, prepare for descent. We're approaching the Old Goa Forward Naval Platform."
No one cheered. No one smiled.
They just shifted in their seats, adjusted their gear, and stared forward.
Chris's stomach knotted as the plane tilted and began its slow, groaning descent into what remained of India.
Goa wasn't a city anymore.
It was a launchpad.
Bombed-out buildings stretched along the coastline like ribcages of extinct animals. What used to be luxury beaches were now strip after strip of rusting military hardware, command bunkers, solar farms, and refugee shanties. There were rumors the Taj Mahal had been repurposed as a Magicka research lab. No one knew what happened to its staff.
Their jet landed on a slab of uneven tarmac beside a blackened warship that looked like it had seen hell and decided to stay. The runway ended not far from the cliffs. Below them was the sea—the endless, frothing blue that stretched toward the ice wall far beyond sight.
Chris looked at it and felt something twist deep in his gut. Not fear, not yet. Something older. Ancestral memory.
The Leviathan's Gate lay somewhere out there, in a place where maps ended and pressure increased.
The trainees were marched across the platform to a dock made of steel and desperation.
The ship they'd be boarding was called the MNS Aether Spire, a Ministry vessel specifically reinforced for the first Gate expeditions. It looked like a fusion between an aircraft carrier and an oil tanker—thick armor, reinforced hull, and strange antenna arrays like backward spider legs jutting from its deck.
"It has hull-wide magicka insulation, hydro-pressure balancing engines, and a Leviathan Repulsion Cannon," the officer briefing them claimed.
"Translation?" Kelvin whispered to Chris.
"It's gonna sink slower," Chris muttered.
They were herded into lower decks. Tight corridors. Dim lights. No windows. Bunkbeds stacked like coffins. You could hear the sea hitting the sides already. The Aether Spire groaned with every wave, like something ancient was trying to shake it apart.
That night, they were briefed again.
Not by a person—but by the ship itself.
A low hum began, and then from every speaker on the wall, a voice crackled out. Cold. Female. Robotic. Disturbingly calm.
"Welcome, Operatives. You are aboard Ministry Exploration Vessel Aether Spire, designated Pathfinder-01. Your mission is to breach the Leviathan's Gate and reach Continent Designate: I-0-Z.Expedition survival rate is currently projected at 0.4%. If you experience hallucinations, loss of time, auditory bleeding, or bone crystallization, please alert your superior officer immediately."
No one clapped. Danny just muttered, "Bone what now?"
The voice continued."Magicka surges are to be reported. Personal logs will be collected post-mission. In the event of death, remains may not be recoverable. Thank you for your service to Gaia."
Chris exhaled through his nose.
"What the hell did we sign up for?" Kelvin asked.
"Food and a bed," Chris said.
And then the ship began to move.
Into the sea.
The further south they went, the worse it got.
Waves taller than houses slammed the hull every thirty seconds. The ship creaked, its body groaning like something in pain. The sky overhead turned a deep iron gray, layered with black veins of lightning. Rain didn't fall—it sliced sideways.
Earthquakes were frequent. Sometimes subtle, like a deep stomach rumble. Other times the entire vessel lurched and threw people from their bunks.
Chris tried to sleep. Couldn't.
The watch didn't either.
"You are now within Range-Theta of the Gate. Aquatic lifeforms exceeding three hundred meters detected. They are watching. One appears to be circling."
Chris swallowed and sat up.
He looked to the nearest porthole—small, reinforced, fogged over.
Wiped it clean.
Darkness.
But beneath the water, just barely, a shape.Too big.Too deep.
Moving.
Not swimming—gliding.
No one else saw it. Just him.
He wanted to say something. Warn someone.
But how do you tell people they're being stalked by an ocean god?
Day Three at Sea
Mina had a seizure.
Blood from her ears. White foam. She whispered something about "songs in the salt" before collapsing.
The medics rushed her away.
Chris watched them go, jaw clenched. Kelvin said nothing. Even the twins weren't laughing anymore.
Aya sharpened a blade with slow, precise motions.
Outside, the sea grew louder.
They weren't even at the Gate yet.
But something knew they were coming.
Something very, very old.
Day Four.
Chris woke up to silence.
No groaning hull. No vomiting. No waves crashing like thunder outside. Just stillness. The kind that felt like an unnatural pause—like the ocean had taken a breath and was waiting to exhale.
He sat up slowly, blinking in the dim glow of the bunk lamps.
Kelvin was already awake, shirtless, brushing his teeth with a finger and staring at the ceiling. "You hear that?"
"No."
"Exactly."
Chris pulled on his jacket and stood. The floor didn't tilt beneath his feet for once. His knees didn't wobble to compensate. The Aether Spire was steady.
They weren't used to it.
"Maybe we passed it?" one of the twins muttered over breakfast. "Maybe that was it? All that ocean hell? Maybe we're through the Gate and didn't even notice."
"Don't be stupid," Aya said, sipping what barely passed for coffee.
Kelvin leaned over his tray. "No earthquakes in two days. Rain's gone. No more pressure headaches. No random nosebleeds. Maybe we actually are through."
Chris didn't say anything.
But he noticed the same thing.
The water outside—still as glass. No ripples. No foam. No wind. Just endless, dark blue under an equally blank sky. Cloudless. Featureless. Wrong.
That kind of calm didn't happen in nature. Not on Earth. Not on Gaia.
Later that day, a volleyball net was set up on the top deck.
No orders. No schedule. Just... a break.
Some of the crew played. Laughed. Music played on the speakers. Someone even grilled something that smelled vaguely like meat. One of the engineers brought out a guitar. A few rookies smoked cigarettes in the corner, staring out over the still sea.
The twins cheated constantly and got into a shouting match with a Korean sniper named Ji-Ho.
Chris found himself standing at the railing, staring out at the water again. His watch buzzed, unprompted.
"Hydrostatic pressure: normal. External seismic activity: none. Danger probability: 0.2%. You may relax."
He narrowed his eyes.
"Since when do you tell me to relax?" he muttered.
The watch didn't answer.
That night, Chris lay in bed, staring at the ceiling.
The laughter from earlier was gone. Just soft breathing from the rows of bunks around him. The calm still hung over everything, thick like syrup.
But something deep inside gnawed at him.
Not fear.
Instinct.
Like a dog hearing a whistle humans couldn't.
He got up, careful not to wake anyone, and headed to the observation deck. It was deserted.
Through the thick glass, he looked out at the sea again.
Still mirror flat.
And then—he saw it.
Not on the water.
Beneath it.
Just a faint shape. Too wide. Too long. Like the shadow of a landmass, except it moved.
Slow. Deliberate. Silent.
Chris leaned closer, breath fogging the glass.
The shape was circling them.
He backed away from the window. Fast.
Day Five.
The sea remained calm. Too calm.
Mina returned from medical. She was fine now—shaky, pale, but functional. She didn't talk much.
No one talked much, really.
Everyone was starting to feel it now. That unease. That crawling sensation on the back of your neck when the woods go quiet and the birds disappear.
Captain Harlow gave a speech that night over the intercom.
Spoke about how proud he was of the crew. How they had crossed the worst. How this was the beginning of a new age. How they were explorers of a new frontier.
How they had "braved the Leviathan's Gate."
And Chris, standing in the hallway, staring at the flickering light above him, realized—
They hadn't.
They hadn't crossed it.
They were inside it.
That night, the sky disappeared.
Not darkened.
Vanished.
Chris was on deck when it happened.
One moment: a normal, moonless night. The next—nothing.
The stars were gone. The sky turned pitch-black, like someone poured ink into space. Even the sea below seemed to blend into it, leaving only the ship as a speck in an endless void.
Then came the sound.
Not thunder. Not wind.
It was low. Deep. Like an animal breathing in its sleep, right under the hull.
All around them.
"Everyone inside! NOW!" came the cry over the PA.
Chris didn't move.
He stood at the railing, watching the shape rise beneath the water again.
This time closer.
This time—looking at him.
He couldn't see eyes.
But he knew they were there.
The calm was never peace.
It was the eye of a storm made by something that didn't belong in the world of men. Something that waited for ships to drift too far into silence before it opened its mouth.
Chris turned and ran below deck.
The Leviathan had noticed them.
And now, the Gate was waking up.