The_Destiny

Deep below the churning ocean, beneath layers of steel and concrete sunk like a spear into the heart of an ancient sinkhole, a hidden chamber flickered with a sickly blue glow. Here, where the sea pressed in from every side, the walls wept condensation and old salt, and machines hummed — not alive, but not dead either — like the steady heartbeat of something vast and patient.

In the center of the dim control room, a lone figure stood still as stone. Half his face lay hidden behind an intricate mask of dark metal and bone, its edges fused with veins of something that pulsed — not quite shadow, not quite flesh. His visible eye gleamed, cold and fixed on the shifting console before him.

A lattice of old symbols glowed beneath his fingertips — relics from a time before this sinkhole ever swallowed the sea.

He whispered to the machines, or maybe to himself:

"The fragment has chosen its vessel."

No emotion crossed his face — just a faint tightening at the corner of his mouth, a twitch that might once have been a smile when he'd still been more man than monster.

At his command, a hooded attendant emerged from the shadows behind an iron pillar — obedient, faceless.

"Prepare the tail," the masked figure murmured, voice steady as the ocean's slow churn far above. "Accelerate the spread. Let the corruption breathe. Let it hunt."

A shallow bow, then the attendant melted back into darkness — footsteps muffled by the hum of old machinery and the distant echo of brine dripping through the pipes.

Alone again, the masked figure raised his head slightly — as if listening to the fathoms of black water pressing down on the tower's spine.

"Soon," he breathed, so soft the machines seemed to lean in to hear. "It will all return to one."

A single drop of saltwater fell from a cracked pipe overhead, striking the console with a sharp tap that echoed through the silence.