The lake swallowed him whole. The world instantly collapsed into a crushing, soundless dimension. A violent surge of glacial, stinging pressure crushed against Zander's ribs and chest as he plunged deeper, the pale, filtered light from the surface vanishing into shifting, chaotic ribbons of opaque green and electric blue. His lungs immediately began to burn, the desperate, primal reflex to breathe overriding all conscious thought. The silence was absolute, heavy, and profound, broken only by the deafening, frantic hammering of his own heartbeat inside his skull. The deeper he sank, the heavier the water became, pressing down on every nerve ending like a thousand invisible, suffocating hands, challenging the very structural integrity of his bones.
A faint, deep-seated vibration trembled through the bedrock beneath the lake—a signature of raw, powerful energy. Raixin was coming.
Zander wrenched his gaze back against the instinct to look forward. A faint, terrible glow pulsed in the distance, growing rapidly: three crimson streaks slicing through the dark water like tracers. Raixin's Force moved the environment around him like a living, displaced current, each motion sharp, deliberate, and undeniably predatory. The sheer density of Raixin's cultivation seemed to push the water molecules away, creating a temporary, distorted wake that looked like shimmering red glass.
Zander kicked downward with powerful, focused strokes, feeling the familiar, deep hum of Force ripple through his arms and legs—not the brute strength of his pursuer, but a subtle, guiding energy. His instincts screamed at him to move faster, quieter, smoother. He knew the disadvantage: he didn't have Raixin's Tempered cultivation, but he had precision—a purity in control that allowed him to shift with the water, not against it. He found the current's hidden lines, slipping through the depth as if he were a part of its pressure.
He gritted his teeth, the muscles in his jaw straining against the cold. He's faster... but heavier. He's making the lake fight him, wasting energy to force his passage. Zander, by contrast, felt lighter, slipping through the path of least resistance.
A blinding flash of crimson light lit the murky depths as Raixin fired a blast of compressed Force. It was a focused torpedo of energy that tore through the water with destructive speed, scattering glowing, serpentine eel-like creatures in a panic that flashed momentarily like fireworks. Zander instinctively twisted his body in time, the Flowing Current concept guiding his form through the impossible turn. The devastating shot grazed his outer thigh, the brief contact scalding the skin and violently spinning him end over end in the dark water. A sharp, piercing pain lanced through his leg, and a hiss of agony escaped his lips, immediately swallowed by the cold, indifferent water.
The faint glow of the geothermal vents below shimmered into view—veins of brilliant crimson and shimmering gold threading through the dark, fissured stone of the lakebed. The intense heat bled upward in trembling, visible layers, warping the water above the vents into visually distinct, wavering strata of temperature.
Zander fought the debilitating pain and the onset of hypothermia, steadily his breathing until it became an internal, meditative rhythm, forcing his body to adapt to the crushing cold and the deep ache in his limbs. And then, without warning, a voice from memory flickered through the painful haze—calm, stern, unyielding, cutting through the chaos of the deep.
"A Tempered Master," Sensei had said, his voice echoing in Zander's mind with the clarity of a chime struck in a quiet room, "is a man whose flesh has been reforged by Force itself. Their bones are conduits, their skin resistant, their breath woven with pressure. They no longer resist the world—they bend it."
Zander vividly remembered standing in the dojo's quiet, moonlit glow, the air thick with incense, watching Sensei trace his hand through the air. The movement had been subtle yet surgically sharp enough to bend the flame of a nearby candle without touching it.
"You are not there yet, Zander. You cannot bend the world yet. But your instincts... they're something else. The body can be trained—instincts can only awaken. Trust the feeling of the current."
The memory broke as another, more powerful Force blast rippled through the lake, a blinding shockwave that felt like a physical blow against his ribs. Raixin's silhouette appeared now, massive, crimson, and monstrously quick, his aura bending the surrounding light into a field of murderous red.
Zander darted away, brushing through a dense swarm of luminous eels that illuminated his form for a painful heartbeat—his outline slicing through the water like a phantom. His pulse slowed, not from emotional calm but from a deeper, automated rhythm, one that guided his body without the need for conscious thought, responding only to pressure changes.
The vent directly below erupted violently, scattering superheated bubbles and fragments of molten rock, throwing the water into extreme turbulence. Raixin, relying on the sheer power of his Tempered state, cut through the boiling chaos effortlessly, his armor gleaming in brief, arrogant arcs of molten light.
Zander spun sharply, meeting Raixin's next pulse with a calculated burst of his own counter-force, not trying to stop the attack, but redirecting the massive shockwave downward. The energy tore a sudden, jagged fissure in the lakebed, and the current instantly shifted. The world seemed to tilt as streams of light-filled bubbles spiraled frantically into the new, hungry gap below.
For an instant, Zander froze, his mind reeling from the sudden change—then saw it.
Tunnels.
Dark, winding, snaking through the earth like subterranean veins. The lake wasn't one solid body of water—it was a network. Hidden passages connecting the cold waters across the entire biodome's sub-level.
He pushed toward the nearest opening, lungs screaming a desperate, raw plea for air that was now far beyond exhaustion.
Raixin saw the movement and followed instantly, his aura cutting through the gloom like an accelerated, crimson storm. The water around him shimmered with faint red light, his controlled Force distorting the flow—a human engine of focused destruction closing the gap.
Zander reached the narrow fissure first, his body barely fitting through the jagged opening. The sharp rock scraped agonizingly against his shoulder and back; dark, fresh blood spiraled behind him in twisting ribbons, quickly dissolving into the gloom. He pulled himself deeper, ignoring the tearing pain as the tunnel narrowed, the light from the lake vanishing entirely, leaving only black, claustrophobic stone.
He could feel the powerful vibrations behind him—Raixin entering the wider part of the fissure. But the current, split by the new passage, divided into two distinct streams.
Zander hesitated for a gut-wrenching half a second, his body trembling with the need for air, then let instinct decide. He took the tighter, more punishing passage.
Raixin, relying on the predictable path, chose the other.
The pressure mounted exponentially in the narrowing passage. His eardrums throbbed violently, threatening to burst. The tunnel twisted upward sharply, the sound of rushing water growing louder, closer, until— He broke through.
Zander erupted into open air, gasping a ragged, painful lungful, half-collapsing onto the slick, rocky edge of a hidden cavern. The chamber glowed faintly—its walls laced with patches of bioluminescent algae and dripping minerals that shimmered like pale blue-green glass. Water cascaded from an unseen crevice high above, feeding into a tranquil pool below that perfectly mirrored the faint, ethereal glow.
He lay there for several precious breaths, half submerged in the cold water, half sprawled on the wet stone. His body convulsed and trembled uncontrollably from the cold and the exertion, the wound in his leg pulsing with dull, insistent pain. Each breath burned like acid, searing his throat, but he was undeniably alive.
The silence around him felt unreal, vast, and absolute—as if the entire lake, the mountain, the world, held its breath just for him.
Meanwhile, deep in another, separate tunnel, Raixin surfaced in a parallel, empty chamber—silent, utterly bare, nothing but cold stone and still water. His crimson aura faded instantly to a low, lethal simmer. The surface of the pool rippled gently, mocking him with its tranquility.
He clenched his armored fists, the sound of protesting servos barely audible. His voice, low and venomous beneath his helmet, cut the silence.
"You won't run forever, boy."
The echo died swiftly into the flat, cold water.
Back in his glowing cavern, Zander slowly lifted his head, the faint bioluminescent light painting his features pale blue and green. His heart rate slowed, syncing finally with the quiet rhythm of the dripping cave water. For a long, restorative moment, he simply listened—to the drip of the water, to the profound silence, and to the quiet, vital hum of his own surviving spirit.
Then he whispered under his breath, almost to the shadows themselves,
"Neither will you."
And the pool of water, shimmering faintly behind him, reflected his gaze—a survivor's gaze, sharpened by instinct and the crucible of fire and ice.