The moment Marisol, Maria, and Andres vaulted over the railings, the sea and sky became their battlefield.

Marisol's glaives barely skimmed the surface before she launched forward, skating across the waves in a streak of white spray. Wind howled past her ears, her heart hammering as the black tide loomed ahead. It wasn't just a wall of crustaceans she had to break through—it was a living avalanche of chitin and hunger, moving with the force of a natural disaster. To contend with it was to contend with nature itself, and…

Then the first volley came.

From the crusted backs of the colossal crustaceans, giant volcano-like barnacles burst open one by one like infected wounds, spitting a storm of jagged spines. The sky darkened. Hundreds, thousands of giant bone-white spikes screamed through the air, faster than arrows, faster than anything natural, but Marisol didn't feel like reacting to anything Rhizocapala was doing.

She didn't have to.

A deafening explosion rocked her head for a moment. The warship behind them—the warship they'd been standing on just seconds earlier—went up in a firestorm, the deck erupting as Victor's fuse reached the explosives in the lower hold. Shattered wood, burning debris, and a thick cloud of smoke billowed outward, swallowing the sky. The shockwave sent a heavy pulse through the sea as well, lifting Marisol briefly off the water before she landed, skating seamlessly through the massive cloud of smoke that hid the three of them from the giant barnacle spines.

Heat scorched her lungs, but she didn't slow down. Rapid rehydration was enough to keep her skin moist and her head refreshed.

As she skated past the second warship, the long fuse linked across the sea detonated the explosives there, and the detonation happened right as she passed by. Then another detonation. Then another detonation.

One by one, the fleet of warships burst apart, their destruction forming a shifting corridor of black smoke and flying wreckage across the sea. Marisol shot through it all, dodging chunks of burning hull, the sharp scent of ash and gunpowder searing her nostrils. She didn't have to catch a glimpse of it, but she could hear hundreds of giant spines slamming into the waves around her, stabbing deep like harpoons. If she hesitated for even a moment, she'd be skewered—so where the hell were Maria and Andres?

Heart thumping in her ears, she flicked her gaze to her sides. Nothing.

Then the Archive whispered, [Below.]

She barely hesitated before glancing down.

Two blurs sliced through beneath the great blue.

Andres surged forward like a javelin, his body tight, his legs pressed together in perfectly smooth and seamless dolphin kicks. Maria wasn't far behind, but her movement was a bit different. More violent, less controlled. Weaponised. Water twisted into spiralling drills around her arms and legs, whining with force as they propelled her through the sea.

[Andres only has the Hammer Mantis Shrimp Class], the Archive noted. [He can swim underwater rather quickly, but that is about all he can do. Maria, on the other hand, is capable of skimming across the surface of water like you—given the Whirligig Beetle Class has hydrospine mutations as well—but again, she is just faster beneath the surface. They both have branch mutations adapted for underwater movement.]

So I'm the only one getting barraged by giant spines?

The Archive shrugged on her shoulder. [Sand-Dancer's misfortune. At least they are not leaving you in the dust, hm?]

Marisol grinned.

Months ago, back in Depth Four, she couldn't keep up with Maria. Not even close. Maria had made her a current, adapted to her rhythm, and still it'd felt like the Lighthouse Imperator was slowing herself down just to keep Marisol from being a complete deadweight.

But now? She was keeping pace.

She'd far, far, far surpassed her old self.

The sea erupted behind them as the final warship detonated by her side, fire and wreckage swallowed by the churning waves. They shot through the last cloud of black smoke, their surroundings snapping into focus—

And there she was.

Kalakos.

Fifty metres ahead, the Remipede God hurtled towards them, her colossal form a writhing nightmare of segmented black chitin. The sea boiled around her as her tide of crustaceans swarmed in her wake, their exoskeletons clicking, writhing, shifting—a mass of crabs, lobsters, and even several other giant remipedes that turned the ocean into a horror of legs and claws.

Marisol's breath hitched as she locked onto Kalakos' head. The Remipede God's suffocating killing pressure slammed down on her, raw and suffused with death, and her instincts screamed. Every nerve in her body bristled with a primal fear.

[Insect Gods can choose their form, after all,] the Archive murmured. [Eurypteria and Rhizocapala may have taken humanoid shapes—as do most Insect Gods across the continent—but Kalakos has not bothered. It seems she much prefers her Giant-Class form over any poor mimicry of a human's.]

And Marisol could understand. Why would she take a human shape when her normal Giant-Class form was far more terrifying?

Kalakos' massive eyes flicked downward, locking onto them with a sudden, terrifying clarity. The weight of her attention crashed over Marisol like a physical force, and her instincts screamed at her to turn back again.

But she bared her teeth instead. She drew in a sharp, cold breath and called on the power thrumming in her veins. Lightning surged through her glaives. Kalakos' jaws began to close in front of them, those massive mandibles slamming together like a fortress gate, but thirty metres ahead, Maria and Andres exploded upwards at the same time, water shearing off them as they broke through the surface.

There was no need for words. No need for planning. The three of them leapt up together, readying their synchronized strike.

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Andres lashed out first, his mantis shrimp arm punching forward with raw, concussive force. The air around his fists distorted, the sheer power behind them enough to rupture steel. Maria followed an instant later, both her arms spiraling with whirling drills of water, the edges carving through the air with a high-pitched whine. Marisol kicked out with the War Jump as well, putting every ounce of strength into her crackling strike—and the impact was immediate.

A deafening crack shattered through the air as their combined attacks collided with Kalakos' largest mandible.

The chitin split.

Fractured.

Then it exploded.

Jagged shards of Kalakos' own armour scattered like shrapnel around her mouth, but she had no time to process it. The three of them crashed through the opening in her mouth together, momentum carrying them straight into the vast, gaping darkness of her stomach.

Vaguely, Marisol felt Kalakos dipping, plunging beneath the surface. The sea surged in behind them. Water flooded the cavernous insides of her body, but the three of them screeched to a halt on her fleshy stomach walls, unperturbed by their complete submergence.

Andres and Maria were Imperators who fought underwater for a living, after all, and Marisol hadn't been doing this for eight months for nothing.

Now, they were in the belly of the god.

… Well.

Can't say it feels good to be back.

Kalakos' stomach walls pulsed around them—slick, iridescent flesh undulating in slow waves as she slithered through the sea. Purple and pink bioluminescence oozed from the stomach lining, casting an eerie glow over all of them and the graveyard of her own kind.

Somewhat like the last giant remipede Marisol had found herself in, carcasses of giant crustaceans—some the size of warships—lay half-dissolved in the murky blue stomach acids mixed into the water, and she barely had a second to take it all in before her fingers flew up to her neck gills.

Right.

How many minutes do I have underwater again?

[You have six—]

Then, a tap on her shoulder.

Maria. Smirking beneath her bandages, holding out a small handful of skyball coral candies. The Lighthouse Imperator winked, flicking one of the smaller candies right into Marisol's open mouth before stuffing the rest into the back of her skirt.

Air filled her lungs immediately, the oxygen in the coral candies diffusing into her bloodstream. Much, much better. She didn't have to worry about the six minute time limit anymore.

"... Good call, Marisol," Andres said, his voice warbling in the water a little as he scanned the pulsating stomach walls. Marisol peered forward as well; Kalakos was twice as wide as the last giant remipede she'd been in and twice as long, so it was considerably less claustrophobic in here. "If we can't crack her from the outside… well, I suppose you'd know all about cracking a remipede from the inside-out, wouldn't you?"

Marisol snorted, turning off Storm Glaives for a moment. "I kill one giant remipede from the inside, and suddenly I'm the expert?"

Andres only chuckled. "You are the third person to have a recorded giant remipede kill."

Then the first barnacle spike shot through the water.

Maria moved before Marisol even registered it. A sharp crackle of energy pulsed across the walls as water spiraled around Maria's arm, forming a drill that deflected the barnacle spine an instant before it would've skewered Marisol's chest. Another shot came from above. Andres spun, his mantis shrimp arm lashing out like a cannon, smashing the incoming projectile to pieces.

Marisol skated backwards and let her two vanguards stand before her, glaives crackling to life once more as she grumbled under her breath.

A shadow moved atop a giant crustacean carcass far in front of them, taking human form.

"Marvelous. Ye've finally arrived," Rhizocapala said casually. The Barnacle God stood atop the carcass like a throne, humanoid yet alien, his barnacle-covered limbs unnaturally twisted as ever. He tilted his head, a mockery of curiosity. "Predictable, of course. 'Ah just knew ye'd try somethin' like this. That's why 'ah was waitin'."

With that, he spread his arms wide, gesturing to the carnage around him.

But Marisol didn't have time for his bullshit.

Neither did Maria or Andres.

The three of them blitzed him at once.

Lightning crackled as Marisol shot forward, glaives pulsing with a deadly current. Maria's arms twisted as she dashed in from the left, debris swirling in deadly drills around her hands. Andres closed in from the opposite side, his mantis shrimp arms coiled tight, muscles primed to shatter anything in his way. It was a three-pronged attack directed straight at Rhizocapala's heart—but the Barnacle God barely reacted.

"Nope."

His body warbled. His barnacles splintered and opened into hungry, gnawing mouths. Then, with a sickening pop, a tiny barnacle ejected from his back as all three of their attacks decimated his main body.

He was gone in an instant.

All of them skidded to a halt on opposite sides of where they started as Rhizocapala's humanoid body reappeared several carcasses away, a hundred more tiny barnacles clumping together to form his arms, legs, and torso. His laughter rang through the stomach like a chittering tide, taunting them, cursing them.

For the next thirty seconds, they chased him deeper into Kalakos' stomach.

Marisol dashed, twisting through wreckage and floating debris, her glaives striking at empty space as Rhizocapala flickered between barnacles, regrowing himself again and again before they could land a proper hit. Maria's water drills tore through the stomach like miniature typhoons, but Rhizocapala was always a step ahead, his body vanishing before her attacks could connect. Andres swung as well, fists breaking through crustacean shells like brittle glass, but Rhizocapala only laughed, slipping away like the tide.

None of their attacks mattered.

Every time they struck, he'd be gone, his heart ejected like a shell-fired projectile. A barnacle would be popped open, and he'd be reborn somewhere else—perched atop a floating rib cage, hanging from a drifting shell fragment, or clinging upside-down to the undulating stomach walls.

"Ye don't get it, do ye?" he mocked, evading another strike from Andres with effortless grace. "As long as 'ahm touchin' water—" another pop, another reformation, "—'ahm fuckin' untouchable! 'Ah can go wherever 'ah want!"

His ejected heart dove between the rotting remains of colossal crustaceans, and then another slew of giant barnacles grew out of the shells, turning into giant maws that chomped at Marisol's glaives. It wasn't enough that Rhizocapala himself was hard to catch. His damned barnacles just kept popping up everywhere, and Marisol of all people should know they were easy to grow. It wasn't that long ago when she'd learned remipedes had symbiotic relationships with them.

So, two hundred meters deep into Kalakos, the three of them stopped. They weren't getting anywhere just chasing after Rhizocapala's tail. Andres ducked behind a giant hollow hermit crab shell and yanked Marisol and Maria in, letting them take cover from the storm of giant barnacle spines pelting the front of the shell.

As Marisol stood still, breathing hard, she flicked a glance at Maria. "Can't we do the lightning cyclone thing again? The thing we did down in Depth Four?"

Maria grimaced. That was all the answer she needed.

[Not in here,] the Archive muttered. [Kalakos' stomach is a thousand meters long, but you do not have the necessary width space to run circles around him.]

She clenched her jaw. Then, what do we—

"Don't panic."

Andres' voice cut through her thoughts.

She turned on him just as he stepped forward, positioning himself between her and Maria.

His expression was calm, steady—too steady—as he lifted his left mantis shrimp arm, rolled his shoulder back, and curled his chitined fingers into a tight fist, pressing his knuckles against the giant hermit crab shell.

"Just as he figured we'd be here, I figured he'd be here," he said simply.

And Andres didn't elaborate as the water in front of his knuckles twisted.

Marisol's breath caught.

A current spiraled into the seams between his knuckle chitin, drawing everything toward it: debris, bubbles, flecks of dissolved flesh. Then the vortex tightened, hastened, swallowing the surrounding water into itself.

Her stomach dropped.

She knew this 'pulling' sensation.

It was just like Eurypteria's vortex.

Uncontrollably, her body shuddered. It was a deep, instinctive recoil—and then Andres released his killing pressure, slamming it into her like a tidal wave.

"... Swarmblood Art," he said calmly, "Crushing Current."

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