The Gorged Abyssal Wyrm struck the underwater dark rock shelf with the bone-shaking striking force of a high-speed freight train.
Forty-two metric tons of living muscle, tightly packed fiery stone, and razor-sharp black glass scales slammed through the dark water. He drove a massive high-pressure bow-wave ahead of its wedge-shaped skull. The shifted weight surge crashed against the Iron Ark’s armored forward pontoon with enough water-pressure violence to crush ordinary naval steel like an empty tin can.
Inside the mobile lab, the inner wall plating screamed under the sideways tearing force.
“Impact incoming!” Toby yelled, ducking under the tracking data console as high-pressure fluid hissed from the shock-dampening ceiling brackets.
Titus didn’t yield an inch. The Tectonic Trench Titan dropped his massive, wrinkled head until his horn-beaked snout pressed flat against the heavy floor grating. His four pillar-like legs tensed, the dark rock armor scales across his shoulders locking together into an unbroken mantle of stone. Through the four high-pressure grounding stakes anchored deep into the living granite, Titus channeled the moving shock directly into the land-wide bedrock:
KRRR-BOOM.
The emerald dome of Titus’s [Earth-shaking Deflection Barrier] flared to blazing bright glare as the wyrm’s blunt snout slammed into the barrier. Blast waves rippled through the flooded canyon in violent nested rings, shattering ancient stalactites from the cave ceiling above and sending stone spikes crashing into the black water. The Iron Ark shuddered, but its chassis remained pinned to the shelf as unmoving as an ancient mountain peak.
