Chapter 8 - The Judas Fracture
The rotary cannon spun up, the underwater shockwaves tearing through the ocean as high-caliber, super-cavitating rounds chewed into the sea floor, kicking up massive clouds of silt.
"Take cover!" Elias shouted, diving behind a massive chunk of glowing ice. The bullets shattered the ice around him, sending thousands of needle-like shards spinning into the dark water.
"Elias, his armor is too thick!" Elena yelled from behind a rocky outcropping. "Your plasma cutter won't breach his hull before he shreds us!"
Elias looked at the glowing cavern walls around them. The organism—The Sculptor—was highly volatile. Magnus had said it fed on thermal energy.
"Elena, the thermal flares in our suit's emergency kits," Elias said, his mind racing. "If we deploy them into the ice walls, the sudden spike in intense heat will trigger a massive endothermic reaction from the organism. It will cause an avalanche."
"It'll bury us all!" Elena argued.
"It's the only way to crack his armor!" Elias roared over the sound of gunfire.
Elias popped the hatch on his suit's utility belt, pulling out three magnesium thermal flares. They burned at over 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit, even underwater.
He ignited the first flare. The blinding white light instantly illuminated the trench. He threw it with all the hydraulic strength of his suit, aiming not at the mercenary leader, but at the massive, overarching roof of the ice cathedral directly above the Titan.
The flare embedded itself deep into the glowing blue ice.
For a second, nothing happened. Then, a horrific, groaning sound echoed through the water, vibrating right through Elias's teeth. The organism was reacting to the massive heat source. The ice began to crack, the glowing blue veins pulsing violently as they rapidly consumed the thermal energy, structurally weakening the entire cavern roof.
"Fire in the hole!" Elias yelled, deploying the other two flares and diving into a deep crevasse.
The mercenary leader looked up just as the structural integrity of the cavern failed.
With a deafening roar that defied the silence of the deep ocean, thousands of tons of crystallized, parasitic ice sheared off the ceiling and collapsed directly onto the Titan. The mercenary leader raised his arms in a futile attempt to block it, but the sheer weight and pressure crushed his heavy mech suit instantly, burying him and the rogue submarine under a mountain of glowing ice.
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The shockwave knocked Elias and Elena off their feet, tumbling them through the dark water.
When the silt finally settled, the Titan was gone, entombed in the very weapon they had tried to steal.
