Gabriel’s consciousness drifted through the black waters, unmoored from any sense of time. The sun had long since abandoned his world, swallowed by the vast ocean, and with it had vanished all external reference points. He had entered a realm of silent eternity, where light, warmth, direction—even the rhythm of his own heartbeat—seemed to dissolve into the abyssal stillness.

  Here, there was no day or night, only the immutable deep blue and an endless, resounding silence.

  He descended further, the water pressing against his bones, an invisible force constricting his chest as though unseen hands were closing in. Breathing became a laborious effort; his muscles stiffened with cold, and his strength waned with each passing moment, his dwindling oxygen gnawing at his endurance. Yet, amidst the fatigue, a peculiar awareness stirred within him—a presence. These were no mere shadows of the deep; they were living things, gliding through the darkness with an ancient, unspoken authority.

  The first to greet his vision was a floating colony of marine organisms, their translucent bodies wavering in the dim water, spectral and unearthly. Gabriel’s gaze followed their movements, and only then did he realize—these were not individual creatures, but an immense, drifting congregation.

  They were sponges, or more precisely, relics of the Ordovician era. Anchored to the rocky walls, they formed bizarre, gnarled structures—some jagged like coral, others vast as funnel-shaped towers, their forms pulsing rhythmically as they siphoned minute particles from the water. They had no eyes, no awareness as he understood it, yet there was an uncanny sense that they perceived their world in a way beyond human comprehension.

  Deeper still, the seafloor unfurled before him, its alien landscape revealing a tableau of ancient life.

  A trilobite-like creature crept along the stony terrain, its flattened shell hugging the rock’s surface, its delicate antennae probing hesitantly, as if dreading an unseen predator. In the distance, a straight-shelled nautiloid drifted through the water, its enormous conical shell looming like an ancient tower, its spiral ridges etched with the passage of millennia. Its many tendrils undulated, seeking unseen prey.

  Gabriel held his breath, absorbing this strange, primeval world. A single thought crystallized in his mind: this was no place of death, but an ancient battlefield—where life continued in a ceaseless cycle of predator and prey.

  But the tranquility was fleeting.

  A change in the current—a tremor in the water. Something large was approaching.

  It began as a deep, rhythmic pulse—a steady thrum that reverberated through the depths, like the slow, patient movements of some vast, unseen leviathan. Then, from the corner of his vision, a shadow flickered—a sleek, sinuous shape, cutting through the water like a living spear.

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  He knew at once: he had been marked as prey.

  From the shroud of darkness, it struck.

  Gabriel reacted on instinct, twisting aside as the predator’s attack sliced through the void, missing him by a hair’s breadth. The force of its movement churned the water into a violent eddy, as though an invisible blade had carved a path through the abyss.

  His eyes fixed upon the hunter, and recognition dawned in a pulse of dread.

  It was a Pterygotus, an ancient sea scorpion, a true predator of the deep.

  Nearly two meters in length, its armored form glinted in the dim light, its powerful pincers snapping like scythes of death. Its compound eyes gleamed with a spectral, blue luminescence, two eerie beacons in the abyss, locked onto him with a predatory certainty.

  Without hesitation, it lunged again.

  Gabriel tried to evade, but the ocean’s resistance slowed his movements, while the sea scorpion’s agility remained unhindered. He twisted his body just in time, yet pain flared along his arm—a sharp, searing gash torn by the creature’s claw.

  He felt it before he saw it—the slow diffusion of warmth in the frigid water. His blood was escaping him.

  Then, something caught his eye. Something… unnatural.

  His blood, spilling into the abyss, did not darken the water in a familiar crimson hue. Instead, it shimmered—faintly, eerily—a luminous blue, drifting like phosphorescent smoke through the blackness.

  For a single moment, he froze.

  The pain remained, sharp and unrelenting, but clarity surged through him. His blood… had changed.

  Something within him was shifting, altering on a level beyond his control—perhaps the influence of the seeds, or some mutation he had yet to understand. Unlike the passive suffering of the shallower waters, he now found himself thinking actively, analytically. His genes were adapting, rewriting his very nature. Perhaps… he was no longer entirely human.

  But there was no time to ponder. Survival came first.

  The sea scorpion’s silhouette loomed once more, its hunt far from over. That faint, glowing blood of his—it was a beacon in the dark. A signal of vulnerability. A lure for predators.

  The sting of pain sharpened his senses. His breath came in rapid, measured draws. He had two options: fight, or flee.

  He thrashed against the current, kicking downward, desperate to put distance between himself and the relentless pursuer. Yet, the beast was faster, its streamlined body carving effortlessly through the water. It closed in, pincers raised—

  Then, something changed.

  A shadow, vast and looming, emerged from the abyss.

  Gabriel saw its form and felt his chest tighten.

  A colossal straight-shelled nautiloid.

  Its massive, spiraling shell housed a creature of immense power, and from its depths, a forest of tentacles unfurled, reaching outward. It had sensed the scorpion’s presence. And now, it struck.

  With terrifying speed, the nautiloid’s limbs coiled around the predator, ensnaring it in an unyielding grip. The sea scorpion thrashed wildly, its pincers clamping and scraping against the nautiloid’s armored tendrils, but the larger beast did not relent. The grasp tightened, pulling the struggling hunter into the black unknown.

  Gabriel drifted, breath ragged, body trembling with exhaustion. Pain still pulsed from his wound, but he was alive.

  His mind swam in disarray, trying to piece together the implications of what had just transpired. Yet, for now, only one truth mattered: by some twist of fate, he had survived.