Chapter 26: The Beast

Enraged by the burning craters blasted into its leathery mantle, the Kraken let out an ear-splitting, subsonic shriek that churned the surrounding sea into a violent whirlpool.

Three colossal tentacles, each thick enough to crush a stone tower, whipped out of the water. Dripping with black slime and bristling with razor-sharp barbed suckers, the massive appendages arched high into the sky, slamming down toward the destroyer’s superstructure in a bid to snap the steel warship in half.

"Close-in weapon systems, auto-engage!" the tactical action officer barked over the comms.

High above the bridge and aft deck, the white dome-topped 20mm Phalanx CIWS mounts spun violently to track the incoming limbs. Their thermal radar suites locked onto the descending flesh in milliseconds.

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

A deafening, mechanical roar ripped through the sea as the six-barrel M61A1 Vulcan rotary cannons spun up, spitting a blistering wall of 4,500 armor-piercing tungsten rounds per minute.

A solid stream of incandescent red tracer fire sliced through the sky like a laser beam. The high-density kinetic rounds struck the descending tentacles, obliterating muscle, tearing apart cartilage, and shredding the barbed suckers into a rain of pulverized, black-ichor mist. The massive limbs disintegrated mid-air before they could even brush the warship’s radar mast, collapsing limply back into the foaming brine.

"Warship One, finish it before it breaches the hull!" John commanded over the radio. "Launch Harpoons! Clear the deck!"

"Harpoon battery, fire!"

On the destroyer’s aft deck, the angled canister launchers ignited with a violent hiss.

WHOOSH—ROOOOAAAR!

Twin RGM-84 Harpoon anti-ship cruise missiles burst from their canisters, riding solid-fuel rocket boosters into the sky before banking down in a low, sea-skimming trajectory. Flying at high subsonic speeds just feet above the cresting waves, the twin missiles rocketed straight into the beast’s colossal mantle.

BOOOOOOOOOOM!

BOOOOOOOOOOM!

Double high-explosive penetration detonations tore through the Kraken’s core. Massive geysers of fire, black blood, and pulverized blubber blasted fifty feet into the air.

The ancient sea terror, overwhelmed by the incomprehensible fury of modern naval ballistics, completely lost its predatory drive. Terrified and grievously mutilated, the creature thrashed wildly, curling its remaining tentacles inward as its colossal bulk slipped beneath the foaming, blood-slicked surface in a desperate bid to dive back into the deep abyssal trenches.

"Target is submerging! Rapid depth descent, crossing three hundred meters!" the sonar operator reported through the audio link.

"Don’t let it crawl away," John said coldly into the mic. "Drop fish in the water."

"Surface vessel tube one and two, fire torpedoes!"

PNEU-CHUNKKK!

PNEU-CHUNKKK!

High-pressure pneumatic air blasted a pair of Mk 54 lightweight acoustic homing torpedoes out of the Mk 32 triple-tube mount on the ship’s starboard side. The torpedoes splashed into the churning ocean, their high-speed contra-rotating propellers whining to life beneath the waves.

Guided by active acoustic pinging, the torpedoes locked straight onto the massive, bleeding heat and sound signature of the fleeing leviathan. Diving at over forty knots, they ran down the wounded beast in the dark ocean depths.

THUUUUUUM.

THUUUUUUM.

Two deep, concussive underwater detonations echoed through the hydrophones, vibrating all the way to the destroyer’s hull. On the command center’s sonar waterfall display, the colossal red acoustic contact shattered into scattered, sinking fragments before fading into complete, silent nothingness.

The tension in the command deck began to ease, but John’s sharp gaze never left the tactical display.

Something didn’t feel right.

"Sonar, confirm kill," John ordered, his tone cold and steady. "Sweep the thermocline."

"Sweeping now, Comman—wait!" The sonar technician’s voice spiked with sudden, sharp panic. "Acoustic return re-emerging! Contact is NOT neutralized! It didn’t shatter—it released a massive mass of decoy flesh and deep ink! Target is still active!"

As expected, if they really killed it, he would have been notified by the system.

PING... PING... PING...

The rhythmic sonar pulses on the main screen began to warp violently. In the deep abyss at eight hundred meters, the sinking fragments suddenly converged. The scattered crimson dots fused back together, expanding into a massive, dense heat signature that began glowing with an ominous, surging mana spike.

"The Kraken’s Abyssal Regeneration..." she whispered, her pointed ears flattening against her silver hair. "Ancient calamities cannot be felled by mere physical destruction alone! It has entered its berserk phase!"

John looked at her, well perhaps she hasn’t completely forgotten about her memories after all.

Propelled by an unnatural burst of abyssal mana, the wounded, enraged leviathan surged upward through the dark ocean depths at over forty knots, heading on a direct collision intercept with the destroyer’s keel.

"Target is blowing through four hundred meters! Closing fast from directly underneath the hull!" the tactical action officer shouted through the blaring radio. "We cannot depress the main deck gun or CIWS beneath the keel!"

At this point, there’s nothing John could do but hope and pray that a modern destroyer would fell an ancient beast.