The eastern crust-sink shelf plunged into a darkness so deep that even the glowing aetheric lichen grew sparse, replaced by crusted deposits of black sulfur and iron pyrite.
Here, bolted into the trembling bedrock, were the first three Seismic Cavitation Pods.
Each pod was a monstrous tube-shaped drill, fifteen feet long and six feet in width, forged from dark heavy dark metal-hardened carbon-iron alloys. Their helical flutes were churning into the land-wide dark rock with steady, rhythmic thuds. It sent low-hum ground-shaking shakes deep into the mantle. Connected to the pods were thick, pulsating bio-clockwork channels that siphoned underground steam from nearby hot-water chimneys to power their internal air-powered hammers.
Arthur Vance dropped toward the ledge, his tether anchored directly to the ventral mooring ring beneath Titus’s forward belly shell.
Above him, the sixteen-ton living bathysphere glided with eerie, majestic stillness through the dense hadal water. Titus didn’t swim with wild effort. His massive, spade-like flippers moved with slow, deliberate power. He used the floating lift gradients created by his porous, pressure-sparking bone marrow. He drifted over the ledge. Then, four high-pressure anchoring spikes extended from his lower shell with a sharp metal clatter, punching deep into the dark rock to secure his huge mass against the underground down-currents.
