Chapter 390: Unease

Late Morning - Late Fall : Acardi Laboratory | Siratha

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*Thump...* *RATTLEEE* *Thump...* *RATTLEEE* Watching the equipment embedded in the walls of the lab rattle as the entire structure seemed to vibrate, the empty blue window on the monitor next to me instantly began populating with light blue dots and lines. -Woah...-

It was a map of the bottom of the ocean, using patterns of deep thumps and vibrations to map not only the incredibly flat ocean bottom, but also the formations of things like caves beneath it. *Thump...* *RATTLEEE* -I can't say I'm not skeptical about how the rest of the Gape is gonna get mapped though...-

Currently, the charge pylons outside, along with the mapping facilities of the other labs Hera and I reactivated were all connected in order to create the map, but with each facility being tens of thousands of kilometers apart, and seeing how comparably localized the current mapping range was, I was skeptical.

-It's certainly impressive, even just to map everything within a couple thousand kilometers...- But the Gape was so large it made The Scar look tiny, and as things were, the mapped areas could barely be called dots on the monitor. -I thought the AI said these facilities would map the entire Gape... Have they just been worn down that much?-

But just as I thought that, and pushed some of my aura into the vibrating charge pylons outside, the thumps stopped, and the AI broke the silence. "Recalibration complete."

"Huh?" Hera instantly froze up.

"Beginning deep sea scan sequence."

In complete silence, Hera and I locked our eyes on the pixilated monitor and waited.

But it didn't take long for the screen to update.

Without a sound, the blue glow around one of the facilities started growing.. and growing.. and growing, like an endlessly spreading shockwave from the epicenter of a nuclear explosion, before eventually slowing down and dimming.

-Woah...- Quickly rotating the map and zooming in, I found that, rather than a map of the ocean floor, it was mapping the massive expanse of caves in a cone below the facility, revealing the countless scattered dungeons completely hidden from the eyes of the world.

When you looked far enough below the caves though, there was a vast flat space beneath it all. -H..Holy shit...- And it only took a moment for me to realize what it was. "Did it just map the surface of the mantle..?" I felt a bead of sweat form on my forehead as more cones started appearing, mapping more and more of the surrounding area while creeping upward as if stacking cones on their side. -How is it mapping things that far away...-

As the 'sonar' cones slowly pitched up, more and more of the map was filled out, until nearly everything within ten thousand kilometers of the lab was mapped.

When it finished, it moved to the next lab, and then the next, varying in range slightly with each lab before finally, it was the Sirathan lab's turn. *Thump...* RATTLEEE* -There it goes...- Using my aura to look into one of the, seemingly multipurpose charge pylons, I watched as a massive metal block was mechanically slammed into the inside of the metal casing, sending massive shockwaves into the ground and vibrating the entire dungeon with each thump.

But just like when it was recalibrating itself, it was just warming up.

-What the...- After a moment, the piston stopped moving, and some of the antimatter the pylon created was brought into the chamber to be accumulated before eventually, the chamber was flooded with hydrogen, and the antimatter was detonated. *crackle-WOOOOM*

Sending out a shockwave so massive it ripped space, the explosion slammed the piston into the ground so hard it melted the black mythril containing it, and completely liquified the regular rock on the other side.

But while the initial impact rattled the lab, after just under a minute, the lab rattled again, yet the piston didn't move.

It was an echo off the surface of the mantle, nearly two hundred kilometers below us.

"So that's what those sounds were..." Blankly staring at the monitor as the map was populated, Hera spoke softly.

"You recognize it?" Looking over at her, I watched her gently nod.

"During the war, we felt vibrations like this all the time... We thought they were earthquakes..." Her expression slowly darkened as she spoke.

"Is that so..." Looking back at the monitor, I watched as the map was populated before the piston rotated and slammed down again...

And again...

And again...

Until all that was left was the very center of the Gape, around the central tower.

By then, I had zoomed into the area around where we found the divinity, looking for any of the absolutely colossal caverns and deformations we saw elsewhere, assuming they were left behind by the Leviathan moving around in or near the planets crust.

And we ended up finding quite a few in the general area, but there was nothing too close. "It seems like he frequents the area under Bahamut, huh..."

Gently nodding, Hera moved around the viewfinder to get a few different angles before zooming out and moving to other areas. "Aren't they way too small though..? I mean look at these under The Forgotten Islands. They don't look like dungeons since they come up from the mantle and go back into it, but it's definitely too small..."

Seeing what she was getting at, I tilted my head. "Do you think they could be old trails from when Jormungandr was younger?"

Pausing, Hera glanced up at the AI. "Do you happen to have old maps like this stored in records?"

Without responding, the AI's glow pulsated, and the computer beeped.

*Beep* -Huh?- Another map was instantly layered on top of the map we were watching with orange dots, showing an intricate map of caves just like we had seen. -But.. they're all different...-

Of all the caves, only a handful actually matched, and for the most part, they were solely the smaller caverns we believed were young dungeons seemingly making their way to the surface, with many of the larger, older paths leading up and down into the mantle having been mostly filled, leaving a much smaller cavern behind in its place.

"What the..." Looking back at the monitor, Hera's eyes went wide. "So all those old tunnels turned into dungeons?"

Comparing all the similarly looking, small caverns from the old map, it was quite clear they were moving toward the surface because many of them had reached the surface and grown. -To think this is where dungeons come from...- But just as it was fascinating, it was puzzling. -How would a dungeon core form that far beneath the surface of the planet though..?-

However, the longer we stared at it, the more puzzling differences we noticed, and the more questions we asked. -Wait...- "Why are there so many more tunnels on the new map?"

"And.. why are they a bit bigger than before?" Hera spoke with a mix of anxiety and worry.

But it only took a moment for our questions to be answered.

*Blip* Seeing a spreading blue glow on the edge of the screen we zoomed out to see that the connection tower in the middle of the Gape had begun its own mapping.

This time though, it wasn't mapping the planet's crust, but rather the mantle.

However, as I zoomed out to watch the wave of blue dots spread through the mantle, I felt my stomach churn.

Throughout the mantle, there were dozens of worm-like shapes spread around, with the smallest of them being almost a kilometer in diameter and a dozen kilometers long. -What the fuck...-

It was like the planet was infected, filled with worms like maggots in rotting flesh, and over the following minutes, it only seemed to get worse, until eventually, the spreading wave of dots neared the planet's core.

"That must be.. The Leviathan..." The awe in Hera's voice seemed to mimic my own.

Right next to the outer core, seemingly swimming around it, was an indescribably massive object so dense it seemed to absorb the scan, creating a massive shadow on the map and hiding the core along with a huge section of the mantle on the other side.

With its curled-up pose and odd body shape it was kind of hard to tell what it looked like, but after seeing similarities with the other smaller objects scattered around.. I only became more unsettled. -What.. are these things...- Although I had vivid memories of Jormungandr's existence, and could piece together that he was the creature near the planet's core.. the worm-like things on the map were.. unfamiliar to say the least.

Even after trying to reference the countless years of traveling through space, I couldn't even begin to guess what they were.

But Hera had an idea I simply wasn't ready for. "Are all these smaller ones.. The Leviathan's offspring?"

Instantly tensing up, my expression turned grim. "I.. don't know..." Trying to jog old memories, I did everything I could to think back to my time on Delphi as Nott, but everything always turned up blurry.

But the more I looked, the more uneasy I became.

Even if I couldn't find a memory with details, I expected to at least feel familiarity with things, especially with something major like the planet being infested with worms...

But there was nothing... Nothing at all...

"Hera..." Seeing my expression, she turned to me with a look drowned with worry. "During your time as monarch.. how often were there new dungeons?"

Unsure how to respond, she hesitated. "Almost.. nev-" Realizing what I was getting at, she froze, before looking back up at the monitor with wide eyes. "Wait.. are you trying to say the reason there are so many young dungeons is..."

"I think Delphi might be Jormungandr's incubator..."

"T..Then.. the oracle..."

"It was probably placed there by someone other than Jormungandr, if he ever ventured to the surface we would see it. He's far too big to be the one making any of those caverns.. but..." Now, the contents of the oracle had an entirely different meaning. -He wouldn't just come up to the surface for no reason...- It was why I had doubts about the validity and likelihood of the oracle, especially after confirming it couldn't have been from Jormungandr himself.

But now, there were more than a few reasons I could think of, and not one of them was good.

"This.. might be a bigger issue than I was anticipating..."

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