Chapter 187 - Bloody Baiting

*(mood song: "Rise Against - Ready to Fall")

The octopeople were all there as bots as well, a huge lizardman with a tower shield and a long spear turned to Sarah's bot.

Lizardman (Timberly): "Good shot... Sarah" and winked at her.

Grunt guard (Sarah): "W-what?... Timberly?!"

Lizardman (Timberly): "Shh~ don't get distracted during a monster wave!" the huge lizardman turned back to the bloody waters, spearing right through a monster that had just popped out of the water and throwing the corpse back inside the water.

Another lizardman with a rifle nearby also elbowed Sarah: "Reload already!"

Sarah woke up from the surprise and quickly reloaded her harpoon launcher: "...Inky, right?... about earlier-"

Lizardman (Inky): "Focus on killing for now, rid your mind of idle thoughts!"

Grunt guard (Sarah) nodded: "...Alright!"

-- At the deck of the submarine --

Erik was still in the bot body of the city lord Rhaphkar, as monsters kept flying out of the water, only to be shot down by the snipers from the iron sect or speared through by the garrison from the Golden Dawn merchant group. The golden raiders had lost their mounts, but most of the lizardmen on top had survived and were now keeping the lines on the submarine's deck.

Rose: [yes! reinforcements are coming from all directions!]

Erik: [really? what did you promise them in return?]

Rose: [Everything~ all that they have, every single coin and possession, they are even willing to become slaves and sell their families as such~, I didn't just pull all strings, I set them on fire haha~]

Erik: [well that's reassuring... when will they arrive?]

Rose: [The first ones shall arrive in around one hour, and the later ones around a day]

Erik: [good enough, we can last that much, how are our forces?]

Rose: [well, the bot lizardmen are keeping the lines on the docks, and on the submarine deck but... a scan revealed the creatures are starting to chew through the bottom of the floating city and... it's slowly sinking]

Erik's lizardman bot frowned as it shot a monster dead: [is that so?... well, I liked this city but... we can always make one better, it was a mess anyways...]

Rose: [yeah, that's right, but there is some good news]

Erik: [hmm? what is it?]

Rose: [My bot battalion is already here, I've made them hide nearby on the bottom, they look like inanimated metal so the monsters are ignoring them for now, so if things look dire we can make a run for it]

Erik: [that is indeed good news..., we have all our people on the submarine anyways, we can go at any time]

Rose: [yes, and- HOLD TIGHT!]

The seas churned at that moment, and thousands of serrated mouths full of teeth emerged from the waters, engulfing every other monster on the surface like whales swallowing krill, one of them even about to swallow the submarine, but a swift barrage of railgun rounds and torpedoes into the open mouth made it close for good.

The floating city seemed too big for them to swallow, fortunately, and they promptly retreated back underwater.

Erik: [what the heck was that?!]

Rose: [They seemed a group of migratory leviathans, the blood must have attracted them...]

Erik: [shit! those bloody whales will spread the lizardman's genes everywhere then, or even worst... evolve into lizard leech whale people-]

Rose: [maybe, but we should focus on the battle at hand, more creatures are coming and the morale isn't looking good]

Erik: [I got it]

Rhaphkar (Erik): "Don't get scared soldiers and keep the lines! reinforcements will be here in an hour!"

The fighting continued and after an hour, hundreds of floating fortresses arrived at the horizon, firing salvos of huge depth charges all around the city. Hours passed and the night came and then morning as explosions continued, the fortresses used chains to support Rhaphkar's city from sinking as thousands of lizardmen warriors and engineers killed the remaining beasts that had infiltrated inside, patched the holes, and pumped out the water.

After two whole days, the seas finally calmed down, as the hundreds of thousands of depth charges used had turned anything underwater into a bloody pulp.

Rhaphkar (Erik) was currently expressing his thanks to the commanders and representatives of the different forces that had sent reinforcements, as even the Iron Sect had sent reinforcements. Every one of them salivating at the prospect of their reward, looking at the city up and down as they discussed how they would sell and divide it.

Rose: [Erik and all the octopeople, get the bots back to the submarine, the battalion has detected the signal of something huge coming from the depths]

Erik: [How big?]

Rose: [gulping cities size]

Erik clapped: [yep, we are out of here!]

Rhaphkar (Erik): "Well people, since I've transferred the ownership of the city to you all, then it's time for me to go away" he turned to Kardalok (Rose) who nodded "We should go"

Kardalok (Rose): "As per the previous agreement the submarine now belongs to the Iron Sect, but as its an emergency I will drop somewhere those that were inside earlier" he turned to a commander of the Iron Sect that had arrived with the reinforcements "gather the troops, let's depart immediately!"

The lizardman in power armor bowed his head slightly: "as you order high elder"

Kardalok (Rose): "We will leave first, follow when you are ready"

The lizardman frowned slightly, but didn't dare to go against orders: "...as you order high elder"

All the replicants and battle bots quickly ran inside the submarine and sailed away quickly, causing some confusion. Luckily everyone was too distracted looking at their new possessions and reporting to their bosses the success.

-- Inside the submarine control room --

Everyone was there looking at a screen, and on it, a gigantic figure appeared on the sonar.

Erik's face paled, while Sarah had to sit down.

Erik: "Can we even escape it?"

Rose: "Of course, we just need to get away from the bait~"

Erik: "But at this speed-"

Rose smiled: "it's fine~"

Bots sped up from the sea bottom at max speed, as they attached themselves to the submarine, propelling it faster.

Rose: "I had already designed some new extra turbine thrusters~" the surface of the submarine then heated up quickly, creating a leidenfrost effect as water vapor accumulated around it, allowing the submarine to almost fly through the water.

Everyone inside the submarine had to hold on for dear life as the submarine rocketed through the waters to the South, going just barely over the surface to avoid the waves that at high speeds would cause a lot of damage to the submarine.

After twenty minutes the submarine started decelerating, they had passed over lots of supply boats that were still going in the direction of the city. And in that moment they felt it, a vibration of the water, a sound that made the entire submarine vibrate uncontrollably.

*KRHUUUUUUUHHH*

Erik: "What was that?!"

Rose pointed at the sonar, behind them just a couple kilometers away, there was an enormous silhouette, at a depth of just a hundred meters below the surface.

Rose: "That would be the equivalent of a whales geolocation... it's checking the area of the bait, now let's hope it-" she couldn't finish as the submarine suddenly surfaced, and they could see on the deck monitors a colossal mouth like a serrated beak devour the entire city and surrounding fortresses, all in one big gulp as it then quickly dove back underwater again, causing a huge wave on the surface that propelled them forward quite a bit.

Erik: "...well that... that was terrifying"

Sarah: "How could such a beast even exist? to oxygenate such a huge body alone would be almost impossible..."

Rose shrugged: "Some have various hearts, every problem has a solution after all, and the deep abyss is full of such monsters tearing each other apart all the time~" She then turned to Erik "Well, what now then, where do you wanna go first?"

Erik lifted an eyebrow: "Do I get to choose now?"

Rose: "Well, let's just say I'm in a good mood"

Erik mulled over the options: "An option would be the capital but... we might be lacking in firepower for that, which leaves us with the Iron Sects base to steal their navy and their apparent super huge boat, or... the Golden Dawn's secret genetics lab..."

Sarah got interested: "Genetics lab?"

Inky: "What's that?"

Timberly: "Any danger we should know about?"

Erik turned to Rose: "I think you can explain it better than me"

Rose: "Sure" with a wave of her hand a hologram of an enormous floating building appeared "This should be the lab, or what the lizardman Sarlex remembers about it at least, now as to answer the questions in order" he looked at Sarah "this is apparently a secret lab belonging to the high directors of the Golden Dawn commerce group, and takes a good amount of their budget, they release medicines extracted from leviathans that increase longevity, as well as heal parts of the body and increase its aptitudes. Unfortunately, Sarlex didn't know much more. But he did know some from a day he entered the complex for a budget control ordered by the higherups... and he saw a dead leviathan being dragged inside... or another day creating a budget to recruit two hundred new research assistants as well as signing defunction compensations to the families of the previous ones... So, at the very least we can deduce that some dangerous experiments are happening inside" Rose then looked at Inky "A genetics lab is a place-" but Inky wasn't there anymore.

Erik: "She went to eat something"

Rose closed her eyes for a second: "Better then, I will personally explain it to her then" She looked at Timberly "As for security" the building in the hologram became transparent, but most areas appeared as grey blobs "We don't have much information, but Sarlex did know that they had defense system to scare and repel leviathans away"

Timberly pondered: "Such a thing would be really useful to install at our base..." and nodded "It is worth the risk if we could obtain that".

Erik: "It does sound quite interesting indeed... and the Iron Sect is still making their boat anyways..." Erik looked around and clapped "It's decided then, let's go check that lab~"

Rose: "alright, setting course to the last known coordinates from Sarlex's brain~"