Glass shattered behind Kane with a sound like breaking ice, the tank's inhabitant lunging through the freezing water with predatory grace. Time seemed to slow as combat instincts that should have felt foreign but didn't took control – his body moving with a precision he didn't remember learning but somehow knew to his bones. Pierce's pistol came up with practiced ease, quantum patterns blazing through the dark water. The beam caught the creature mid-lunge, its mutated form unraveling into mathematical impossibilities before it could close the distance.

No time for relief – the Leviathan's massive bulk was already forcing its way through the broken wall, drawn by the scent of combat and the promise of new pearls to absorb. Without Aria's analysis or his HUD's targeting data, Kane had to trust whatever combat knowledge lived in his cells now, each movement guided by muscle memory he'd never earned but somehow possessed.

The research chamber sprawled before him like a cathedral dedicated to science's hubris. Its vast dome disappeared into shadows above, while most of the structure lay submerged in black water that reflected competing light sources in nauseating patterns. Ancient emergency strips cast their crimson glow through the depths, but it was the chamber's primary illumination that caught Kane's attention – massive floodlights mounted on corroded gantries, their white-hot beams somehow still burning after ninety-nine years. The light cut through the water like solid things, creating layers of illumination that transformed the chamber into something alien and wrong.

Mold crept across every surface above the waterline, but not the random growth of natural decay. These patterns formed perfect fractals, each iteration exactly 1.618 times smaller than the last – the golden ratio expressed in viral mathematics. The growth followed the chamber's structural supports in ways that suggested intelligence, as if even the fungi had learned new ways to think in this pressurized tomb.

The dark water pulsed with impossible life. Creatures no larger than his thumb darted through the depths, their bioluminescent bodies creating sheets of living light that rippled in response to movement. But these weren't simple deep-sea adaptations – their light patterns formed recognizable symbols, fragments of SubTech code expressed through evolved biology. The water itself seemed to carry purpose, current patterns moving with too much precision to be natural.

Through vision that should have been hampered by the gloom but wasn't, Kane could read the chamber's original purpose in its bones. Massive testing tanks lined the walls, most now shattered, their reinforced glass suggesting containment of something far more dangerous than standard marine life. Heavy power conduits, their shielding eaten away by time, ran from each tank to a central hub – the massive research pod that now rose from the water like a metal island.

Kane kicked hard through the freezing water, each stroke burning through stamina he wasn't sure how to measure anymore. His body moved with efficiency he hadn't trained for, cutting through the water in clean lines that spoke of combat swimming experience he'd never had. The cold tried to sink into his bones, but something in his blood fought back, maintaining core temperature through processes he didn't understand.

The pod's surface proved slick with algae that formed circuit board patterns too precise to be accidental, but his muscles got him clear of the water just as the Leviathan finally forced its bulk through the opening. The pistol felt warm against his palm, its quantum patterns pulsing in sync with his dead neural interface, but without Aria's monitoring he had no way to know how many shots remained. Each trigger pull would be a gamble, guided only by the weapon's resonance against his skin.

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From his elevated position, Kane saw the true scope of what they faced. The Leviathan was a nightmare of adapted flesh – a whale-like form assembled from dozens of transformed human bodies, each one still recognizable but twisted by equations that lived in its protein chains. Pearls studded its massive frame like a constellation of hungry stars, their patterns suggesting not just power but processing – each one a node in a vast biological computer that had learned to think in ways metal and silicon never could.

The competing lights painted its wet skin in strobing patterns, revealing details his mind tried to reject. Faces pressed against its flesh from within, all of them still aware, still screaming in silent equations that rippled through the water like visible sound. Its movement displaced enough water to send waves crashing against the chamber's walls, each impact shaking loose fragments of steel and concrete that had somehow resisted ninety-nine years of submersion.

More disturbingly, every aspect of the creature's movement spoke of cold intelligence. Its dozens of eyes – arranged in patterns that suggested deep understanding of fluid dynamics – tracked him with predatory calculation. The pearls weren't just power sources; they were processors, each one containing absorbed knowledge that the Leviathan had learned to use. Kane's fingers touched his throat where he'd swallowed that first pearl, wondering if the creature recognized something of itself in him.

The water rippled with subsonic pulses as the Siren variants took up position around the chamber's periphery, their mutated vocal structures already beginning to hum with frequencies that made his bones ache. The Lurkers moved like well-trained soldiers, cutting off escape routes with practiced coordination that suggested decades of refinement. This wasn't just a hunt – it was a coordinated attack by creatures that had spent a century learning the art of war.

Kane studied Pierce's pistol, watching the quantum patterns pulse along its surface with a rhythm that felt like a countdown. Each shot would have to count, but without his HUD's targeting assistance, he'd have to trust whatever combat instincts lived in his borrowed reflexes. The weapon alone wouldn't be enough – the Leviathan's mass suggested it could absorb dozens of direct hits without slowing.

The research pod beneath his feet had to hold answers – SubTech wouldn't have built something this massive without purpose. But reaching any potential weapons or tools meant diving back into water where the Leviathan's evolved form held every advantage. The creature seemed content to wait, its countless faces rippling beneath its skin as absorbed minds calculated optimal attack patterns.

Familiar combat logic whispered strategies through his thoughts, each plan feeling both foreign and natural – knowledge absorbed through that first pearl integrating so smoothly he couldn't tell where the security officer's training ended and his own instincts began. The pistol hummed against his palm, its quantum resonance the only guidance he had without Aria's presence.

Through the competing light sources – emergency red and sterile white creating layers of shadow and revelation – the chamber's water continued to ripple with precise patterns, as if the very fluid had learned to think during its century of isolation. The Leviathan's pearls pulsed in sequences that might have been mathematics or might have been hunger, while Kane's own borrowed combat knowledge screamed warnings about ammunition and angles and tactical options he shouldn't have understood but somehow did.

Whatever he decided, it had to be soon. The Sirens' subsonic pulses were already making his vision blur, their frequencies designed to disrupt the human nervous system – or whatever his nervous system had become. Without Aria's analysis or his HUD's corruption gauge, every decision carried the weight of evolution itself.

Time to discover if SubTech's engineers or the facility's monsters had created the superior version of humanity's next step.