Chapter 68| What the Ocean Couldn’t Hold
The briefing room the following morning held considerably more people than Allen expected — representatives from a dozen nations, senior Association officials, and, seated near the front alongside Vice Commander Farrow, several of the S-rank Hunters they’d met at the previous week’s reception, including Rowan Vasquez’s easy, confident posture and Aldric Thorne’s characteristically severe attention.
Farrow opened the briefing without preamble, a detailed satellite map of Jenunl Island filling the room’s central display. "Five years ago," she began, "Jenunl Island became the first confirmed SSS-rank dungeon zone in recorded Association history. A routine dungeon survey team stumbled onto a rift formation of unprecedented scale, buried deep beneath the island’s central mountain range. By the time containment protocols activated, the rift had already stabilized into a permanent dungeon zone encompassing the island’s entire landmass."
The display shifted, grainy archival footage replacing the satellite map — chaotic, harrowing scenes of evacuation and combat that made the room fall into heavy, uncomfortable silence.
"The eradication operation launched eighteen months later," Farrow continued, voice carrying the particular flatness of someone reciting facts too painful to deliver with any other tone. "Approximately four thousand Hunters deployed, drawn from every major guild and several national defense forces. The operation failed catastrophically. We lost just over thirty percent of deployed personnel, including several of the era’s most decorated S-rank Hunters." Her gaze flickered briefly, almost imperceptibly, toward some private memory before she continued. "The island was declared unsalvageable and formally quarantined. Its native population — a species of massive, mutated centipedes possessing considerable individual combat capability — lacked any means of crossing open ocean. Containment, we believed, was permanent by simple virtue of geography."
"Until now," Allen said quietly.
"Until now," Farrow confirmed grimly. The display shifted again, revealing recent satellite imagery, thermal scans highlighting swarms of considerable size moving across open water toward the mainland. "Approximately six weeks ago, our monitoring satellites detected the first confirmed instances of centipede specimens successfully crossing open ocean. Subsequent analysis suggests recent, rapid mutation has granted the species both flight and amphibious capability previously entirely absent from their biological profile."
A ripple of uneasy murmuring passed through the assembled representatives, and Farrow continued without pause, clearly having anticipated exactly this reaction.
"Three coastal cities have already reported confirmed incursions," she said. "Casualties remain limited so far, thanks to rapid local response, but every projection our analysts have modeled suggests this trend will only accelerate. If left unaddressed, we project the mainland threat expanding exponentially within the next several months."
"What’s the plan?" Aldric Thorne asked, voice carrying the same clipped, severe efficiency Allen remembered from their brief introduction days earlier.
"A multinational extermination operation," Farrow said. "Considerably better prepared and better informed than the failed attempt five years ago. We now understand the dungeon zone’s internal structure far more thoroughly, thanks to accumulated surveillance data. Our objective is direct — locate and eliminate the central hive structure, along with whatever governing entity coordinates the colony’s behavior."
The display shifted once more, revealing a detailed schematic of the island’s interior, deep tunnel networks converging toward a massive, central chamber marked with stark, warning symbols.
"Preliminary reconnaissance suggests a singular dominant entity governs the colony’s coordinated behavior," Farrow continued. "Internal reports refer to it, informally, as the Queen. Eliminating this entity, along with several confirmed elite guardian-class specimens protecting the hive’s approach, represents our primary strategic objective."
Myria leaned forward, sharp attention fully engaged. "And the operation’s composition?"
"A combined strike force," Farrow said. "The United States contingent will include Party Fallen Crown, alongside three additional elite S-rank Hunters. Canada is contributing a considerably larger force, led personally by the head of their Stoneheart Guild, supported by their nation’s most accomplished assassin and seven further S-rank Hunters." She paused. "Additional nations are contributing support roles — reconnaissance, containment perimeter, medical evacuation. This will be, without exaggeration, one of the largest coordinated Hunter operations in this organization’s history."
Allen absorbed the scope of what was being described carefully, the weight of an operation considerably larger than anything Fallen Crown had previously undertaken settling heavily across his shoulders.
"When do we deploy?" he asked.
"Two weeks," Farrow said. "Sufficient time for final preparation, equipment allocation, and coordination between all participating nations’ forces." Her gaze swept the assembled room one final time, weight and old grief carrying clearly beneath her measured, professional delivery. "I will not pretend this operation carries minimal risk. Five years ago, this same objective claimed nearly a third of everyone who attempted it. I expect every party present to prepare accordingly, and to understand precisely what failure would cost, not just for those of us in this room, but for every coastal city currently within this threat’s expanding reach."
The briefing concluded with considerably more weight settling over the assembled representatives than had greeted its opening, and Allen found himself turning toward his wives, the accumulated gravity of everything ahead pressing steadily heavier against all of their shoulders.
"Two weeks," Myria said quietly, already beginning to mentally catalogue everything that preparation would require.
"Two weeks," Allen confirmed, and around him, his wives settled into the same quiet, focused resolve that had carried them through every impossible challenge since a cold car ride into Hegeville had first thrown five broken people together — because whatever waited on Jenunl Island, they intended to face it exactly the same way they’d faced everything else.
Together.
Rowan Vasquez caught up with them as the room emptied, his easy, confident demeanor tempered by the briefing’s sobering weight. "First real operation together, huh?" he said, falling into step beside Allen. "I fought alongside some of the survivors from the original attempt, years back. They still don’t talk about it easily, even now."
"Any advice?" Allen asked.
Rowan considered the question seriously, some of his usual casual charm giving way to genuine, weighted honesty. "Trust your team completely," he said. "That island doesn’t forgive hesitation, and it definitely doesn’t forgive anyone trying to be a hero alone. Whatever happens out there, lean on each other. That’s the only thing that actually got anyone out alive the first time."
"We intend to," Allen said, glancing back toward his wives, already deep in focused, strategic conversation with Myria about preparation logistics.
Rowan’s gaze followed his, something thoughtful crossing his expression. "Yeah," he said quietly. "I believe you will."
He departed with a firm clasp of Allen’s forearm, leaving Fallen Crown to make their own way back through the WHRIB complex’s winding corridors, the accumulated weight of two weeks’ worth of preparation now stretching ahead of them like a countdown neither side of the operation could afford to take lightly.