Shrouded Seascape

Chapter 785: Plan Three

SITE 6's control center was still manually operated by humans. The room was filled with the rapid clatter of keycaps as the fingers of the staff had transformed into tentacles and were tapping furiously on projection keyboards.

Being assigned to oversee the site, T6 was suspended upside down from the ceiling as she surveyed the chaotic scene beneath. Once in a while, her spider legs would twitch, her anxiety and nervousness unmistakable.

Suddenly, a massive, black-glass segmented worm phased in through the nearby wall. Paiper's large, spinning maw gleamed menacingly as it looked at the giant spider.

"I just returned from SITE 2," Paiper said. "The place has completely submerged. The last transmission we received wasn’t fabricated—something happened to the central computer. We've also lost contact with the clones stationed at other sites."

"Impossible! We've thoroughly analyzed everything the Subterranean Sea humans possess. With their current strength, there's no way they could have pulled that off!" A2 exclaimed in disbelief.

T6 went silent. The gears in her mind spun for a moment before she said, "If they are incapable of it, then someone or something else managed to do it. Charles must have made use of something else that we didn't expect. But we can't dwell on that now. We need to reinitiate Plan Three immediately."

Meanwhile, beneath them, O5 Pogro, with its bloated canine form, moved toward them. Its mouth, riddled with tentacles, parted to speak, but before it could say anything, one of the screens in the room flared with a sudden, urgent red light.

"Dr. Pogro! The enemy is directly above us!" a Foundation staff member shouted in panic.

T6, Paiper, and O5 exchanged knowing glances before Paiper swiftly coiled its black-and-white segmented body around the other two. Enveloping them in its massive form, it phased through the solid walls and emerged into the open area outside of SITE 6.

A majestic, massive floating island hovered next to the corpse of the once-Divinity, Pede. A tentacled monster stood out on the island. The tentacled monster was covered in black scales, and there was a massive blood-red eye grafted onto the middle of its body.

Above the tentacled monster was another monstrous creature. She was a tangled mass of green tentacles that glowed with an eerie green light. Each of the green eyes that bore a chilling, cross-shaped pupil on the tentacles squirmed in their positions.

T6 instantly recognized them to be Anna and Sparkle. Just as she wondered where Charles was hiding, a sudden flash of white light blinded her vision. The next moment, T6's menacing spider-like head, bristling with dozens of blood-red eyes, tilted awkwardly and plummeted to the ground.

Alongside T6's brain, half of Paiper's segmented worm body was severed as well. Their injuries were the results of Charles' ambush. As the members of the GK Council formed the highest echelons of the Foundation, Charles had to take them out first.

However, being a member of the GK Council meant that they were far from easy to deal with. T6's decapitated body twitched and the grotesque cluster of brains bound to its spider abdomen by spider web came alive immediately. Roots sprouted out of them as they desperately wriggled in their spots, trying to escape in different directions.

Meanwhile, the remaining half of Paiper began to vanish and burrowed swiftly into the ground.

No longer looking like his human self, Charles was just about to pursue his targets when a massive hand, as large as a house and riddled with holes of varying sizes, tore through the metallic wall beneath him and seized him.

Charles triggered his teleport ability to leave but realized something amiss. He hadn't gotten as far as he thought he would. The massive hand belonged to Pede and its powers suppressed Charles's teleportation ability.

The gigantic hand brutally squeezed Charles, causing his bloated body to burst apart in a grotesque display of fleshy fireworks. Bits of decaying flesh and blood oozed out from the holes in Pede's hand, and dripped downward.

However, the current Charles couldn't be easily defeated. The massive hand from SITE 6 started trembling. Wherever Charles' blood and flesh touched, twisted limbs began sprouting like mushrooms. The phenomena spread rapidly like a plaque and was heading toward Pede's elbow.

Suddenly, a beastly roar sounded from SITE 6 down below. The deep roar of fury came from Pede, but it wasn't the Pede that had engaged Charles; it was another Pede.

A deafening screech echoed through the air and a massive, spiraling spike emerged from the nearby waters. Etched with strange, ancient glyphs, the spike swung toward the grotesque mass that was Charles.

The moment the tip of the spike came into contact with Charles, his minced flesh, along with Pede's impacted arm, swiftly withered away like plants deprived of water.

At this crucial moment, Sparkle appeared with a burst of white light before Pede and hurled herself directly into the limb riddled with holes.

Swish!

In an instant, a section of Pede's limb that was holding onto the spike was devoured by Sparkle. Upon losing its grip, the towering spike plunged helplessly into the inky dark waters below.

The underside of the floating island opened up and countless containment boxes tumbled down toward SITE 6 below. Standing on the island, Anna straightened up. Turning toward another Pede that had emerged from SITE 6, she opened her grafted eye.

Julio was standing on the floating island as ewll, and he observed the chaos unfolding before him. A resolute look flashed across his eyes as he prepared to leap down into the battle below.

However, before he could jump, the waters beneath suddenly reversed and swirled upward like a tidal wave. It caught the floating island in its grasp and hurled it toward the rocky dome overhead.

Instantly, pandemonium erupted. The deafening roar of the ocean, the thunderous explosions, and the primal screams filled the air, signaling an all-out war between the Foundation and the humans of the Subterranean Sea.

Amidst the chaos, Charles controlled his mass of decaying flesh to seep through the cracks of SITE 6 and headed toward the elevator shaft he had visited once before.

Charles hadn't forgotten his purpose of being here—to destroy the Foundation's final trump card.

Twisted limbs extended out of the mass of blood-red, decaying flesh. Anchoring itself to the walls, Charles rapidly ascended.

Some of the mobile task forces in SITE 6 swiftly responded. They swarmed in with an array of high-tech weapons, determined to stop him.

With Edikth's power in his hands, however, Charles made quick work of the mobile task forces; they were nothing more than a fleeting nuisance to him.

One after another, Charles tore through the protective barrier of each level and eventually arrived at the eighty-first floor. A strange sensation suddenly struck him, and he rapidly changed course. With a few quick teleportations, he arrived at a space that was roughly the size of a football field.

Despite the vast area, it was far from empty. Every inch of the floor was utilized with thick, transparent fiber-optic cables snaking around an array of bizarre machinery.

Strictly speaking, they were not actually machinery. There were clearly unmistakable traces of plant life, animalistic features, and even echoes of souls on these contraptions. Their different forms melded together and pulsated rhythmically with a dim, dark purple light.

The fiber cables interconnected these strange devices and converged at the center where a colossal, transparent heart dominated the space.

With each beat of the transparent heart, a black substance would surge from the right ventricle to the left, and then back again, creating an unending cycle.

Charles was certain—the black substance was the darkness of the Subterranean Sea. That heart could wipe out the entire human population of the Subterranean Sea. It was the core of the Foundation's Plan Three!