The metal box arced through the water, its smooth metallic surface suddenly splitting open shortly after leaving his hand.
There was no roar of energy shockwaves, no screech of twisting metal—only a bizarre, deathly silence that instantly swallowed all sound.
The captain of the Marketing Development Department had just raised his energy rifle, his finger still resting on the trigger. The mocking sneer of triumph was frozen on his face.
Beside him, his team member remained locked in a lunging posture, limbs frozen mid-air. Even the floating flecks of rust and drifting seaweed in the seawater completely froze in place at that moment.
Yet in the very next second, the gray ripples emanating from the metal box receded back inside it.
Everything in the corridor that had been frozen moments ago returned to motion.
Since everything recovered after only a second, Byrne panicked slightly at first. But he quickly realized something was wrong.
Though they seemed to have recovered, the captain who had been arrogantly mocking him just moments ago no longer spoke or moved. He and his teammate floated in the seawater as silently as corpses.
Byrne retrieved the metal box and swam slowly toward them.
He leaned in close to the captain's diving suit and peered through the visor's viewing window. His pupils contracted sharply, and a shiver ran straight up his spine.
The small-time captain of the Marketing Development Department before him still held his gun-toting, sneering posture.
Byrne turned to look at the other squad member.
That soldier still maintained his lunging stance, the joints of his diving suit bent at an angle.
But when Byrne looked through the visor, he saw that the man's body had also been compressed into a flat plane, his limbs looking like deliberately stretched lines.
Eerie. Incredibly eerie.
In just a single split second, two living, breathing people had been turned into lifeless, two-dimensional paper cutouts.
Within the visors, what once were living men were now nothing more than flat paper figures.
Byrne had never expected that the term "Dimensional Reduction Strike" would manifest before his eyes in such a direct, terrifying fashion.
No wonder Aventurine said this Curio was called "Dimensional Reduction Strike." It certainly lives up to its name.
Only now did Byrne truly grasp the sheer, terrifying concept of the Curio in his hand.
That was too close. I almost kicked the bucket right here.
Byrne used the repair kit on the captain's suit to patch up the damage on his own.
Afterward, he copied all the data they had gathered on Victor.
Next, Byrne had to figure out how to escape.
Byrne tried to find a way forward, but the corridor ahead was completely caved in and blocked off. He would have to find another exit.
With the help of his optical computer, Byrne pulled up the shipwreck's deck layout.
As things stood, his only way out was the emergency escape hatch located at the very top of the sunken vessel.
The emergency escape tunnel was located on the wing of the uppermost bridge, designed as a final fail-safe for the crew.
Because his previous escape had drained a lot of energy, Byrne dimmed his diving suit's lights to conserve power, swimming toward his destination under a faint, weak glow.
The seawater inside the shipwreck formed strange undercurrents, swirling and gently clinking loose bones against rusted metal like whispered secrets.
Following the route marked on his optical computer, Byrne navigated the winding corridors with great difficulty.
The interior of the wreck had long been decimated by time and the ocean. Collapsed metal scaffolding blocked the middle of the corridors, and rusted pipes hung down like ghostly tentacles; one wrong move and the jagged edges would tear right through his diving suit.
He stayed low, using his thrusters to carefully maneuver around obstacles. Every movement was slow and cautious, for fear of disturbing the fragile hull and triggering a secondary collapse.
Along the way, he encountered several more scattered skeletons. Some were curled in corners, while others lay crushed beneath fallen metal beams, their bones etched with the dark, corrupted veins of Stellaron energy.
These were the marks left behind by the Stellaron disaster, silent witnesses to the annihilation of Victor's fleet.
Byrne didn't stop; these bones could no longer offer any useful clues.
His eyes remained locked on the navigation marker. The signal from the emergency escape hatch grew stronger, just ahead on the flank of the bridge.
Before long, Byrne finally arrived in front of the sealed, circular emergency hatch.
Unlike the other battered doors, this one was still tightly sealed, having clearly never been opened.
Scanning it with his optical computer, Byrne discovered that this emergency door utilized a purely mechanical locking mechanism, independent of any electronic systems.
He took a deep breath, braced his arms, and slowly turned the manual wheel.
Clank... Clank...
Unfortunately, after being submerged in seawater for so long, the mechanical components were completely rusted shut, refusing to budge an inch.
[Emergency hatch: Mechanically locked. External authorization or forced entry required.]
Reading the solution provided by his computer, Byrne shook his head helplessly.
As an outsider, he had neither the authorization nor the explosives required for a forced breach.
It seemed his only option was to scavenge the cutting tools from the two dead pursuers' suits.
Fortunately, Byrne had possessed the foresight to strip the plasma cutter off one of the squad members beforehand, sparing him a trip back.
The cutter was a universal modular model, fully compatible with his older-generation suit.
Once it was fitted, Byrne pressed the ignition switch and began cutting into the emergency hatch.
The intense heat instantly scorched the rusted metal, sending clouds of white steam billowing into the seawater and forming a hazy mist.
Despite the rusted state of the thick alloy wall, slicing through it proved far more difficult than Byrne had anticipated.
The pale blue arc of the cutter burned steadily in the deep dark, gradually heating the edges of the heavy alloy door to a dull crimson glow.
Byrne gripped the handle tightly, his arms trembling slightly against the drag of the water. He kept his eyes locked on the steadily deepening groove.
His suit's power bar slowly ticked downward. In the dead silence of the deep ocean, the only sounds were the constant hum of the cutter and his own heavy breathing.
After several minutes of intense effort, Byrne finally managed to carve an opening wide enough for a person to squeeze through.
He didn't dare waste a second. Even though he had siphoned some energy from the dead squad members earlier, this prolonged cutting had already pushed his suit's power gauge into the warning yellow.
He quickly shut off the cutter and slipped sideways through the freshly cut gap, his movements smooth and practiced.
Beyond the emergency hatch lay a circular shaft leading straight to the exterior of the shipwreck.
The moment he swam out of the wreck, Byrne let out a long sigh of relief.
Whew, I finally made it out.
That was far too close. If not for Aventurine's Curio, I'd be dead by now.
I only have two uses left. I need to be extremely careful and not squander them.
Having made his decision, Byrne adjusted his trajectory and began swimming toward the surface.
But barely a hundred meters up, the crescent pendant resting against his chest suddenly began to vibrate.
At the same time, the blue crystal embedded in the pendant flared with a bright, soft radiance.