Underwater Discovery

After the events in the previous chapter, a few tens of kilometers from the battle, Johnathan, Michael, and a few Tavai/Sea Elves were submerged. They were a few thousands of feet below the ocean's surface and were swimming through the ocean..

There were a few corals here and there but the sunken remains of wooden ships and the skeletons of their sailors that weren't devoured by the ocean's predators and scavengers  littered the decks and the surroundings. 

Michael uses his enhanced eyesight and sees the construction of Facility-UF B 85 kilometres west from their position, an underwater construction facility that would exploit the surrounding ocean bed for resources needed to construct submarines. 

The submarines were detailed in blueprints made by Caitlyn. Michael has always wondered where Caitlyn gained the knowledge of these sophisticated vehicles but has decided not to question her.

Besides, as long as Caitlyn was loyal to their commander, then there was nothing to worry about. 

Johnathan was navigating through the coral reefs when he came across a cliff and the end of the cliff was a large city.

[IMAGES]

"This kinda reminds me of the lost city of Atlantis," Michael said, his human emotions astonished by the city before them.

"It is, my friend, it's underwater but it still looks perfectly nice with the designs of the city." Johnathan said to his partner, his voice doesn't show his astonishment but there is indeed a hint of it.

The messenger old man who asked the two Androids to come, told the two of them to follow him, it seems like they try to lure them into a trap but in reality they are gonna reward them. The Dragaemae, also known as the Terror of the Deep or 'The Leviathan' what Michael named it instead, it was a giant sea monster that always threatened the Na'vi Kingdom, the kingdom home with sea elves known as Tavais. It took them hundreds of years to hunt and kill most of its kind, for centuries both sides were in a hundreds of years of war that caused a lot of innocent marine creatures including the Tavais/Sea Elves.

While the Empire, the Republic, and the Theocracy dislike the Sea Elves because most of them were human supremacist nations and see Demi-humans as inferior and a deceased of the world, they aren't interested in conquering their lands because it's quite obvious there kingdom is in the depths of the ocean. 

Another info is that the Tavais walking on lands is also quite common, some of them went to countries who accepted Demi-humans, they also mostly went to the Dioz Kingdom because there is a safe haven for Demi-humans, it is the reason why you could see few Tavais with legs roaming around like it was an everyday life.

Another fact is that before they mostly choose Dioz, they like to live a city known as the City of Orazvil, in the lands of a Duchy somewhere in the Kingdom of Floral, the city is large and filled with many demi-humans and humans organized with no discrimination, including a huge Dungeon that every Adventurers in the continent loves to go there. Unfortunately a few years ago a terrorist group known as the Church of Carnage has attack the city and causes hundred thousands of lives. 

But thanks to the son of the Duke supported by the Church of the Rising Sun save the city by killing his own father, the Duke who caused the whole scenario.

But that story doesn't has to do with why they hated Orazvil, the reason is that the son of the Duke announce the city and the whole Duchy that him and the Church of the Rising Sun are the real heroes while he just criticize the other churches who didn't help more but instead adding more chaos, and so he made the Church of the Rising Sun as the city's official religion. 

The other Churches he criticizes are organizations that support Demi-humans, without them and letting the Rising Sun as the official Church of the city, they kicked every demi-humans in the city and it includes the Tavais.

This is what Michael learned according to the information he read not too long ago, which is kinda the most interesting thing he has heard.

Now back to the story, as the group entered the city, dozens of Sea Elves citizens swam around in their daily routines, Michael turned his heads and suddenly saw a few city guards with magic Tridents as their weapons while riding those large fishes as their mounts.

[IMAGES]

It was a fat fish that was quite familiar. It shined a greenish color but whenever he would try to touch it, its eyes glowed and lasers came out of its eyes straight towards his chest, while it didn't hurt because the creature didn't activate its attack yet, it just intimidates Michael to not touch him/her. A person would have instantly exploded if the creature was hostile if they only put their eye on each individual. It wouldn't kill Michael though but still, these large fishes are pretty dangerous creatures.

According to Michael's M1 sensors, the large fish was a storage unit of magic. A heavily concentrated form of magic was inside its body. According to the library in the theocracy that the MTF Droids infiltrated a few months ago, they were known as Guardians, peak <C+> rank monsters, they are very intelligent creatures and are quite fast swimmers and are highly dangerous monsters in the sea.

Guardians attacks are these: A Laser. Unlike most other monsters and beasts, a guardian does not follow an individual who moves out of sight. Instead, it simply continues swimming until the person becomes visible again to start charging its laser. The laser however has powerful explosion magic, if you are still in the guardian's sight, like it said, they explode.

The level destructive power of the explosion they create is equivalent to 5th tier spells and they most certainly could one shot an M1 Abram Tank to dust.

The Underwater City in front of Michael learned something about this according to the ancient history from the Theocracy's great library, according to it, the Underwater City was once a dungeon before the Second Great War and these Guardians were the main residents of it, roaming around the dungeon for hundreds of years, in fact, there is also more dungeons similar like this one.

Before the Tavai kingdom was first built, the Sea Elves and the Guardians were once at war with each other until then they made a peace agreement resulting in this. Now, for hundreds of years the Sea Elves and the Guardians began to team up, living, forming a bond and the Tavais rode the Guardians as their own partner, it is quite similar to a human hunter bond with a wolf in the wild.

When Michael first saw these Guardians, he felt very familiar towards them but can't put a finger on it.

But seeing how aggressive it was, Michael needed more help. 

Although he had no problems walking underwater, swimming underwater was rather limited. With the pressure underwater his weight was too much making it worse and so he relied on several thrusters located on his Palms, shoulders, and soles of his feet. 

Michael first thought that it could be a trap but after following them for a couple minutes through the underwater palace, he found himself inside and it was beyond beautiful he could imagine. While the design looks primitive, it doesn't change the fact that it is very beautiful, as if it is the actual city of Atlantis.

The King of the palace sat on his throne, his looks kinda remind him the greek god Poseidon, beside him was a very beautiful Sea Elf, while not human, she's extremely beautiful that could make female celebrities' beauty on Earth to shame even if they cosplaying or design themselves as her with the help from the world's best Make-up designers, that still won't make it fully identical.

Human males and even females would be succumbed by that little mermaid elf with just a simple glance, she is beyond beautiful than any woman. If Michael was a human, his first reaction is not mentally but physically... you know what I mean.

While Michael stood there, Johnathan, the whole time he was the one who is talking to the king, Michael hates politics but Johnathan however was very good at it, he will he a perfect diplomat if he wants to, but for second there he thought he saw the princess blush a bit, probably of that mature voice of Johnathan, or maybe he acts like one, or not.

After that long boring talk for little Michey here, both of the Androids went to the deepest floor of the palace towards the treasure room beside a few Tavai guards.

As they entered, the first thing they saw was a massive white fish large as a megalodon.

[IMAGES]

"Oof, that's a big boy," Michael muttered, getting overshadowed by the large creature with no fear.

The large creature in front of the group was known as an Elder Guardian, peak <A–> rank monster(Lv.80) because of its highly durability skin and a more destructive power from its lasers than the other lesser Guardians, it is also considered as the main Boss of this dungeon and far more powerful than a regular guardian, only A-rank beings and Adamantite-rank adventurers could easily beat it. Their job is to protect the treasures of the dungeon and the Conduit itself.

And right there it is, in the center of the room was the Conduit, just like every Dungeon core, the Conduit was one of them only in underwater dungeons.

Michael and Johnathan were interested in the Conduit not just powering up an entire continent-level space battleship, it could even give an effect to nearby people the ability to breathe underwater and boosted their stats 3 times. However, they have been ordered not to cause bloodshed towards the innocents yet, so right now they are not gonna make more enemies, so they'll choose something else instead.

As they looked around, they found a large diamond shaped crystal with strange magical energy inside.

Johnathan, using his scanner, analyzes these strange objects.

The result suprise him; this crystal has nearly endless amount of mana within it, with this could potentially revolutionize fuel source, and this is just one of the things the crystal contains, the second was it has an energy that affects something that could bend space itself, the other details are a bit complicated for him, but he and Michael don't care where did the Sea Elves or the Dungeon get this but it was completely unheard of but scientific investigation on this crystal would have to wait. The reason they accepted their offer was to get this reward in the first place was to see if those rewards could be used as a sort of alternative fuel source or something even variable.

But with this new discovery, these would change their plans on their full-scale invasion against the Western Region, the whole Great Isthmus Region and the other remaining countries in the Eastern Region especially the Beastmen Empire to the northwest, and they don't need the mages as living batteries to keep the Wormhole open, they need to figure how to manipulate and produce the energy of the crystal by the power of science, just in case if anyone managed to infiltrate their base and do some shit show and closes the Wormhole, then they will be stuck in this world, so they needed it something for the Wormhole to be immune to those future problems, but scientific investigation takes time.

Then, Johnathan got a call from Caitlyn through the Network link.

[Johnathan, where are you?]

Caitlyn said through the communicator. 

"85 kilometers from UF-B, currently in the Tavai Kingdom with these nice Elves here, and also..." Johnathan began explaining everything about their discovery.

[Well, that's good news, while you are done, I want you and Michael to return to the surface and meet up with Major Finn. A force of 60 Airships and 8000 Soldiers, each riding Wyverns leading with a Wyvern Lord from the Kingdom of Tigomal(A Nation located at the Northeastern side of the Senadate Theocracy in the Eastern Region) appeared to the south of your position, attacking our men and they needed immediate support, and also had thus far evaded our sorties, I want you to take care of them] 

Caitlyn said before cutting the communication link.

Johnathan then wondered. How do slow Airships and Wyverns evade a sortie Gunships and a few HP-HA Walkers?

No matter, he told Michael to leave now and as they had received the crystal, they powered their thrusters and went outside of the city saying goodbye to the Elves and finally returned to the surface, not before long they immediately added more power and launch at great speed, completely splitting the air itself and break the sound barrier countless times.