Evolution took millions of years to take life out of the water and put it on land. The Church of High Tide was trying to reverse that process in minutes.

  We emerged from the oily water of the settling pool, hiding behind supply crates marked with the symbol of a broken trident.

  The cavern beneath Corcovado was colossal. The stone ceiling vanished into darkness, supported by rusted steel beams and whale ribs. In the center, the hull of the Ark of Bones hovered, suspended by chains, like a dead leviathan being prepared for butchery.

  But what held my attention wasn't the ship. It was the glass tanks lining the dry dock.

  Inside them, people.

  Faithful. Pilgrims who had come seeking refuge.

  They were immersed in a translucent green liquid, connected to tubes pumping Leviathan Oil directly into their jugular veins.

  "Arthur..." Luna covered her mouth, horrified. "They're still conscious."

  I approached a tank. The man inside, an elderly gentleman, looked at me. His eyes were glazed, pupils dilated.

  But his body...

  The skin was becoming translucent. Gills tore open the sides of his neck, bleeding a bluish ichor. The fingers of his hands were fusing, creating webbing.

  [CLINICAL ANALYSIS: INDUCED MUTATION.]

  [AGENT: DEEP-SEA MUTAGEN.]

  [PROGNOSIS: HOST LOSES LUNG CAPACITY AND HIGHER BRAIN FUNCTION. BECOMES AN AQUATIC DRONE.]

  "It's not evolution," I whispered, feeling the cold disgust of my Parasite. "It's biological lobotomy. They are creating workers who don't need air and don't know how to question orders."

  "Silence, brothers," a deep voice, magically amplified, echoed through the cavern.

  We ran to the shadows.

  On the upper deck of the Ark, a figure appeared.

  He was tall, wearing a tunic made of jellyfish leather that glowed with purple bio-luminescence. Instead of a papal miter, he wore a hammerhead shark skull as a helmet.

  His staff was a gold harpoon studded with black pearls.

  Bishop Coelacanth. The regent of the South Zone.

  He raised his arms to the crowd of hybrids and cultists gathered on the dock below.

  "The surface has burned!" he shouted. "The sun is poison! The earth is ash! Only the Abyss is eternal!"

  "Glory to the Tide!" responded the cultists, their voices bubbling.

  "Today, we baptize the new children!" The Bishop pointed to a line of human prisoners, chained at the edge of the oil pool. "Drown the man! Free the fish!"

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  The guards—lobster hybrids with natural armor—pushed the first prisoner.

  The man screamed before falling into the toxic mix of monster blood and petroleum.

  He thrashed. His skin began to boil.

  "Valéria," I spoke low. "Where is the way up?"

  "There," she pointed to an industrial cargo elevator at the back of the cave, guarded by two octopus-guards. "It's the service elevator leading to the Christ's maintenance."

  "Gristle," I looked at the orc. "Can you throw something heavy in that direction without being seen?"

  Gristle looked around. She saw a metal barrel marked "Flammable."

  "I can hit the left octopus's head."

  "Not the head. The electrical panel behind him."

  Gristle smiled, showing her fangs. She picked up the barrel silently.

  With a torso rotation that would make an Olympic athlete envious, she launched the barrel.

  The object flew thirty meters through the air.

  CRASH!

  The barrel hit the power box on the wall.

  Sparks exploded. The dock lighting system shorted out. Half the cavern plunged into gloom.

  "Sabotage!" shouted Bishop Coelacanth from atop the Ark. "Protect the Sacrament! Release the Coral Hounds!"

  Chaos ensued.

  We took advantage of the confusion. We ran along the metal walkways, knocking down cultists that appeared in our path.

  Luna used short sonic pulses to disorient the hybrids, bursting their sensitive eardrums. Valéria fired modified tranquilizer darts.

  We reached the elevator guards. They were distracted by the explosion.

  I drew my scalpels.

  "Emergency surgery: amputation."

  I severed the right guard's tentacles before he could draw his harpoon gun. Gristle knocked out the left one with the hilt of her cleaver.

  Valéria hacked the elevator panel (which now ran on emergency battery).

  "Intruders in Sector 4!" the Bishop's voice roared. "Pray for their death!"

  The elevator doors opened. We entered.

  Before they closed, I saw something coming out of the pool water.

  They weren't dogs. They were Sharks with Legs.

  Genetic chimeras created to hunt on land and sea. They galloped on the concrete with four muscular legs and sharp fins.

  "Up! Up!" I shouted.

  Valéria punched the button. The steel doors closed with a CLANG seconds before a shark-dog crashed into them, denting the metal.

  The elevator began to ascend.

  We heard the beasts' claws scratching the door and the elevator shaft.

  "We're going up through the inside of the mountain," Valéria checked the diagram on the panel. "700 meters to the top."

  I leaned against the elevator wall, panting. The Parasite was agitated, analyzing the cave air sample.

  [DATA OBTAINED FROM ENVIRONMENT.]

  [THE "OIL" IS NOT JUST FUEL. IT IS LIQUEFIED DNA OF A LEVIATHAN-LEVEL CREATURE.]

  [THE "ARK" IS NOT A SHIP. IT IS A HOST BODY BEING BUILT.]

  "They aren't going to board the Ark," I realized, feeling a chill. "They are going to summon something into the Ark. The bone structure... is a skeleton for a new god."

  "Arthur," Luna called, looking at the elevator ceiling. "The Bishop... he said the sun is poison. Why would they build a Lighthouse up there if they hate the light?"

  "Because it's not light to illuminate," I replied, reloading my pneumatic injection syringe. "It's light to call."

  "Remember the Devourer King? He was attracted by a signal."

  "Whatever is at the bottom of the sea... needs a signal to rise. Christ the Redeemer has become a summoning beacon."

  The elevator stopped with a jolt.

  The panel lights indicated: LEVEL: STATUE BASE.

  "We've reached the top of the world," I said. "Get ready. The air out there must be thin and full of fanaticism."

  The doors opened.

  Not to the open sky.

  But to the hollow interior of the Christ statue.

  We were inside the soapstone chest. And the place pulsed with a red, organic light coming from the head, where the "Lighthouse" was installed.

  And blocking the spiral staircase leading to the head was a solitary figure.

  Not a monster.

  A woman.

  She wore an old diving suit, brass and leather, but without the helmet. Her skin was pale as the moon, and her hair floated as if underwater, even in the dry air.

  She held a trident humming with static electricity.

  "You came up too fast, little fish," she said, voice echoing off the stone walls. "Decompression is going to kill you."

  [BOSS ALERT: THE ELECTRIC SIREN.]

  [LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER.]

  "Valéria, Gristle," I pointed. "Keep her busy."

  "Luna, with me. Let's go up and turn off that light before it calls something we can't kill."

  The battle for the top of Rio de Janeiro had begun. And the view from up there promised to be terrifying.