Fragments of the undersea bunker's dome came crashing down with tens of thousands of tons of seawater, like a chunk of the sky caving in.
Under deep-sea pressure strong enough to crush steel into foil, a black figure stood driven into the wreckage like a nail.
Ryan slowly straightened up. His black coat whipped wildly in the surging current.
He wiped the seawater from his face with one hand. He didn't even glance at the skeletal colossus looming right next to him. Instead, he turned his head and looked at Piers, whose face was set with grim resolve, fingers still white-knuckled around the C-Virus syringe.
"Hey, Piers. That stuff's not exactly a proper enhancement serum."
Ryan's voice cut through the cacophony of collapsing metal with unnatural clarity.
"Ry...?!" The iron tension in Chris's nerves finally cracked, just a fraction. He stared in disbelief at the man who'd dropped out of nowhere.
"I know you love leading suicide charges, but this ending? Not a fan."
Ryan let out a short laugh, and his gaze finally turned to the massive thing roaring in the abyss ahead.
HAOS sensed a provocation from the very depths of its being. As Carla's final masterpiece, its still-developing instincts told it that this tiny human was far more dangerous than those two BSAA operatives.
A dozen translucent tentacles thrashed wildly through the water, then hammered down on Ryan all at once like a volley of thunderbolts.
A saturating barrage that could have pounded any B.O.W. into paste.
Ryan didn't move an inch.
He simply raised his left hand.
When the first tentacle, weighing several tons, slammed into his palm, a visible white shockwave rippled outward from the impact.
Ryan's feet didn't budge. The tentacle, condensed from high-density C-Virus flesh, might as well have struck an immovable mountain.
"Decent power. Too bad the structure's sloppy."
His five fingers clenched. A piercing crunch rang out. The translucent gelatin capable of infinite regeneration crumbled in his grip like expired jello, disintegrating into a cloud of debris.
The agony of having its tentacle crushed drove HAOS into a frenzy.
The creature's body swelled again, gorged on raw C-Virus fluid. Beneath its translucent skin, countless bone-white spurs punched outward, bristling in Ryan's direction.
Inside its massive skull-like maw, a glob of acid so concentrated it had turned black was rapidly forming.
The undersea bunker groaned its death rattle under the flooding seawater and the monster's thrashing. Ceiling panels crashed down in sheets. Cables short-circuited in the water, throwing off blinding flashes of blue.
"It's evolving!" Piers shouted the warning, ignoring his own injuries.
"Don't worry about it." Ryan waved a hand without looking back. "Chris, take them both to the escape pod. The pickup ship's already in position above us. Don't make me fish you out of the ocean."
Chris hesitated for a single heartbeat. He looked at Ryan's broad back, then at the ashen-faced UN official. He gritted his teeth, nodded, hoisted both of them, and sprinted toward the emergency escape pod at the edge of the lab.
The moment Chris and the others sealed inside, HAOS launched its attack.
Bone spurs fired like a rain of arrows. A curtain of black acid followed close behind. But Ryan didn't dodge. He closed his eyes and took a slow, deep breath.
For an instant, the seawater around him seemed to freeze in place.
"I hear you can regenerate forever down here?"
His right foot stomped backward. The entire bunker floor shuddered. He clenched his right fist. Muscle locked tight beneath the black coat. A force so terrifying the surrounding seawater began to boil gathered at the head of his fist.
"Now... die."
Ryan threw the punch.
No dazzling beam. No flashy explosion. Just pure, absolute physical kinetic energy.
The speed and force were so extreme that his fist punched a cavitation bubble into the deep sea. A massive vacuum sphere formed in front of his knuckles, then ripped forward with apocalyptic momentum straight into HAOS's enormous body.
That single punch landed like an invisible warhammer dead center on HAOS's chest.
The translucent gelatin body couldn't hold for even a tenth of a second against that absolute physical annihilation.
A visible shockwave tore through the monster's entire form.
Its indestructible blue core, its frantically writhing cells, even the heavy alloy wall behind it were all pulverized down to molecular dust by the sheer force of that one blow.
The ocean seemed to stand still.
HAOS was gone. All that remained were superheated bubbles churning violently where the fist's shockwave had boiled the water white.
Through the reinforced glass of the escape pod, Chris and Piers witnessed something they would never forget:
The skeletal colossus that had been near-invincible in the deep sea didn't even get out a roar. Its entire massive body was shredded along the trajectory of that punch, scattered into a shower of blue phosphorescence by a shockwave that split the ocean itself.
For one instant, the boiling seawater blotted out all light.
Ryan didn't bother looking at the dissolving remains. He spun around, a black blur, and in the last second before the water swallowed the chamber whole, he materialized outside the escape pod's hatch.
He kicked the tail of the pod. The massive thrust, combined with the ejection system firing, sent the silver capsule rocketing toward the surface like an arrow.
A few minutes later.
The waves off the coast of Lanshiang were torn apart as the escape pod broke the surface under the moonlight.
In the distance, a Star Fire recovery vessel that had been waiting for some time was already lowering its massive retrieval crane.
The hatch opened. Chris helped Piers onto the deck. When the air hit their lungs, tinged with gunpowder smoke and salt spray, both men felt like they'd crossed back from another world.
Then they noticed the deck was a lot livelier than expected.
Sherry and Becky were leaning against an ammo crate. Sherry was wiping down her electrified long blade. Becky was servicing her electromagnetic sniper rifle.
Seeing Chris and Piers come up alive, Sherry raised a hand in greeting. Becky gave a small nod, which was about the warmest welcome she was capable of.
On the other side, Leon was wringing water out of his tactical gloves. Helena sat next to him, silently watching the sea. The ashes of Quad Tower were still smoldering in her memory.
Up by the signal tower on the bridge, a red scarf snapped in the dawn wind.
Ada had appeared up there at some point, looking down at everything happening on the deck. She didn't come down and didn't leave, just stayed quietly at the distance that belonged to her.
Ryan was the last one up. He took the dry towel Jill handed him and scrubbed his soaking hair with zero finesse.
"Good work, Ryan." Jill glanced at the UN official collapsed in a heap behind them, a faint smile at the corner of her mouth.
"Wasn't that tough. Water was a little cold, though." Ryan draped the towel over his shoulder, swept his gaze across everyone on deck, then looked up at the flash of red by the signal tower.
All present. All accounted for.
A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. He stuffed the towel back into Jill's hands, turned, and headed for the cabin.
"Asia's done. We won. Everyone did great!"
His voice drifted back on the sea breeze.
"Alright, people! Party time. Everyone in. No exceptions."
Sherry sprang off the ammo crate instantly, slotting her long blade onto her back. "About damn time. I'm starving."
Becky silently packed up her sniper rifle and followed. Passing Piers's stretcher, she glanced down at him, expression flat. "Lucky to be alive."
Piers managed a weak tug at the corner of his mouth. "...Thanks?"
Leon watched the two girls walk off, sighed, and held a hand out to Helena. "Come on. Star Fire's throwing a party. No reason to pass up free food."
Everyone piled noisily toward the cabin.
By then, the sun had cleared the horizon completely. Golden light spilled across the cold armor of the Star Fire warship, casting the glow of a new order.
[This novel is now COMPLETE. Read the entire series right now on Patreon: patreon.com/NiaXD]