Mansuren was drowned and not just flooded in the Sixth world. Nobody took the rain into account, the flooding was clear. Pjetro was a practical engineer working in a half underwater diamond cloth factory created from harvested algals. Instead of allowing the super alga growth, that came by the climate jump along with the end of national order exchanged by blunt pure chaos, to kill all live in the Polish Lake Districts waters the new cathlic rising protected by religious warriors having united against Police and Military had build another parallel world without permission, but heavily armed and by superior use of tactics and strategies.
He was no monk, but than he was. He had a wife and his fives kid was on the way. They lived based on a variety of the Catechism close to church service and a lot of work. A very lot of work that fulfilled him and his family and convent with pleasure and satisfaction.
He was in charge of the high tech lab operating it and remained despite his mutations that had turned him into a horned troll with horns of the most calm manner all natural with no implants. Trolls were actually smarter, but packed with muscles. He loved playing the Crusaders that protected the convent against military grade level attacks coming for the hyper strong high tech materials being the base of the moon mining campaign and robotic space expansion on their own online simulations operating a drone with a classic keyboard and mouse, but was not up for facing the battle heat.
---
**Excerpt: The Breathing Walls of Nowogród**
Rain hammered the reinforced biodome of *Klasztor Świętej Algii* (Monastery of Saint Algae) like a million tiny fists. Not the gentle drizzle of the old data-feeds Pjetro sometimes watched for nostalgia, but the *Sixth World Rain* – relentless, acidic, and heavy with the metallic tang of industrial fallout and accelerated atmospheric decay. It blurred the outside world into a smudge of greys and toxic greens, but within the vast, humid cathedral of the algal vats, the rain was a constant, rhythmic heartbeat. *Nobody took the rain into account,* Pjetro thought, his broad, grey-skinned hand resting on the cool composite of a primary reactor column. They’d planned for flooding, yes. But not this drowning. Mansuren hadn't just flooded; it had *dissolved*, swallowed by water that didn’t retreat, only rose and festered.
Pjetro Gorski inhaled deeply. The air here was thick, warm, and vibrantly alive – a complex perfume of damp earth, ozone from the purification grids, the faint sweetness of multiplying carbohydrates, and the underlying, briny tang of concentrated life. It was the smell of survival, of defiance. His horns, thick spirals of bone erupting from his temples and curling back over his close-cropped hair, brushed against a hanging cluster of nutrient feed lines as he moved. The mutation – UGE they’d called it, before the Chaos – had gifted him immense strength, resilience, and a troll’s intimidating frame, packed with dense muscle beneath his simple, durable work tunic. It had also, contrary to old-world trid stereotypes, sharpened his mind, particularly for spatial reasoning and the intricate dance of biochemical processes unfolding around him. He was smarter *because* of the horns, not in spite of them. Natural. No chrome, no wires. Just Pjetro.
Below his gantry walkway, the main production lagoon stretched into the misty distance, a luminous expanse of churning emerald. *Chlorella vulgaris* strain NGX-7, bio-engineered for hyper-efficiency and lipid yield. Three years ago, this lagoon was a crisis. The Masurian Lakes, just beyond the monastery’s fortified perimeter, were dying. Eutrophication had hit like a runaway train after the climate jump – algal biomass doubling every 36 months, choking the life from the water, creating dead zones where only anaerobic bacteria thrived. Eight major lakes, ecological corpses. The old Polish state, fragmenting under the weight of 2.5 million climate refugees crowding inland settlements (flood-vulnerability spiking 18% in a year), couldn't cope. The police retreated, the military fractured. Chaos, pure and blunt, filled the vacuum.
Then came the Sisters of the Living Waters. Then came Brother Marek and his *Wojownicy Krzyża* – Warriors of the Cross. Not sanctioned by any crumbling state or distant Vatican remnant. They saw the algae not just as a killer, but as a resource, a divine challenge. They saw the flooded ruins, the submerged docks (60% gone, the navigation channels a dredger's nightmare), and envisioned sanctuary. They seized the crumbling infrastructure of a defunct biotech facility near Nowogród, armed themselves with faith, scavenged tech, and sheer tactical brilliance, and built *this*. A parallel world. Heavily armed. Operating without permission, under the banner of a radical, pragmatic Catholicism focused on creation stewardship and communal survival. And Pjetro, the calm horned troll with a knack for bioreactor harmonics, became one of its key engineers.
"Pressure steady in Quadrant Gamma, Brother Pjetro?" Sister Anya's voice crackled in his earpiece, cutting through the low hum of pumps and the gurgle of aeration lines.
"Solid as the faith, Sister," Pjetro rumbled, his voice a deep vibration in his chest. He tapped the screen embedded in the reactor column. Biomass density, nutrient uptake, lipid accumulation – streams of data flowed like a hymn. "Lipids pushing 62%. On target for the NourishCycle run." *NourishCycle* was their primary market: high-grade omega-3 concentrates and base oils for infant formula, a lifeline for the refugee settlements huddled on the "safe" high ground. The DSM patents were dust in the wind now. Their algae, grown in repurposed vats fed by the very floodwaters and filtered lake effluent, was purer, more potent. A divine irony.
His gaze drifted towards the far end of the lagoon, where the water deepened and the glow intensified. There, beneath specially calibrated LED suns, grew the *other* strain. NGX-D. The Diamond Cloth algae. His domain. Harvested not for its biochemical components directly, but for the intricate, silica-laced nanocellulose structures it meticulously built within its cell walls under intense pressure and specific electromagnetic fields. Harvesting NGX-D wasn't about crushing and extraction; it was about *careful dissolution* and *guided reassembly*. The factory floor below the gantries wasn't wet; it was a forest of gleaming, pressurized chambers and humming molecular assemblers, half-submerged in coolant baths, transforming the harvested micro-skeletons into threads of near-pure, organically structured carbon – diamond cloth. Stronger than graphene, lighter than silk, capable of dissipating incredible heat and energy. Vital for the heat shields of the convent's audacious, scrap-built lunar landers. Vital enough to attract corporate wolves and remnant military scavengers.
A soft chime echoed in his ear – the private family channel. A holographic icon, a simple stylized flower, pulsed gently in the corner of his vision. His stern expression softened instantly. Elżbieta.
"*Kochanie?*" Her voice was warm, slightly breathless. "Just checking. The little crusader is practicing their siege tactics again." Meaning the baby was kicking. Hard. Their fifth. Due in eight weeks.
Pjetro chuckled, a sound like stones grinding pleasantly. "Tell the warrior to save their strength. The real battles come later. How are you?"
"Tired. Blessed. Sister Helena brought more of that nettle tea. Helps." A pause. "Will you be home for Vespers?"
He looked down at the reactor readouts, then towards the Diamond Cloth sector. A pressure alarm flickered briefly on Chamber 7 before stabilizing. "Should be. Just need to oversee the NGX-D harvest in Sector Sigma. Brother Jarek is running the extractors, wants a second set of eyes." Jarek was brilliant but impulsive. Pjetro was the steady hand. The calm center. "Kiss the little warriors for me."
"Always. *Bóg zapłać.*"
"*Bóg zapłać,* Ela." God reward you. The connection closed, leaving a warm residue in his chest amidst the industrial symphony. Home. The simple quarters he shared with Ela and their four children within the monastery's fortified walls. The shared meals. The evening prayers resonant in the chapel carved from salvaged fusion-containment vessel plating. The deep satisfaction of work that mattered, that protected, that built. It filled him, this life, this purpose. It was harder than anything in his pre-Chaos corporate engineering job, but infinitely more fulfilling. No soul-crushing quarterly reports, just the tangible results of keeping his family, his brothers and sisters, alive and reaching for the stars, literally.
He turned from the main lagoon, his massive frame moving with surprising grace along the narrow gantry. Below, in the transition zone, the harvesters were at work for the main lagoon. Massive, silent drones, looking like skeletal dragonflies forged from salvaged ceramite and carbon fiber, skimmed the surface. Their mandibles, humming with sonic shears, delicately skimmed the densest algal mats. This biomass would go through centrifuges, cell disrupters, and fractionation columns – separating precious lipids for nutraceuticals, proteins for fortified feed cakes distributed to the refugee settlements, carbohydrates destined for the bioplastics extruders that made their tools and building components. Even the inorganic ash (5-40%, depending on the strain and nutrient bath) was captured. Biochar for the small aeroponics gardens that supplemented their diet; biosorbents to scrub heavy metals from their intake water; research ongoing into calcined structures for battery anodes. Nothing wasted. A sacred cycle.
He descended a spiral staircase, the metal steps groaning slightly under his weight but holding firm – another testament to their engineering. The air grew cooler, drier, as he entered the Diamond Cloth Sanctum. Here, the dominant sound was the deep thrum of immense pressure vessels and the high-pitched whine of nanoscale assemblers. The glow was different too – not the vibrant green of the main lagoon, but a cooler, diamond-like scintillation from the growth chambers. Brother Jarek, a wiry human with eyes magnified by thick optic implants and fingers dancing over a holographic control sphere, looked up.
"Pjetro! Perfect timing. Sigma-9 batch is entering critical phase. Look at the lattice formation!" Jarek's voice was tight with excitement. He flicked data to Pjetro's internal display. Microscopic imagery showed the NGX-D cells, stressed by precisely calibrated pressures mimicking deep oceanic trenches, excreting and weaving intricate lattices of silica and carbon nanotubes. It was breathtakingly complex, a product of billions of years of evolution turbocharged by their bio-engineering and the unique pressures of their flooded world.
"Beautiful," Pjetro murmured, his trollish eyes rapidly scanning the structural integrity metrics. "But watch the EM field harmonics in Chamber 7. It flickered. Could induce microfractures in the nanocellulose matrix."
Jarek winced. "Saw it. Adjusted the dampeners. Should be stable now. Ready for dissolution sequence initiation?"
Pjetro leaned over the console, his horns casting long shadows on the glowing schematics. His large finger, surprisingly deft, traced a pressure curve. "Initiate, but ramp pressure down 0.5% per minute instead of 1%. Gentler. We need perfect crystal alignment for the lander shrouds. No room for error." The moon mining consortium – their own barely-legal, faith-driven operation – demanded perfection. A single flaw in the diamond cloth heat shield during re-entry meant vaporized hope and precious minerals.
As Jarek implemented the change, Pjetro felt the familiar, deep-seated calm of problem-solving settle over him. This was his element. The intricate dance of pressure, chemistry, and biology. Turning a plague into a resource, death into a ladder towards the stars. He wasn't a warrior-monk like Brother Marek, leading raids on corporate salvage teams or repelling drone incursions with blessed rocket launchers and tactical prayer. He couldn't stomach the raw heat of battle, the screams, the smell of cordite and burnt flesh. His combat was here, in the humming quiet of the Sanctum, ensuring the lattice formed perfectly, the assemblers didn't jam, the pressure didn't spike. His battlefield was the reactor core, his weapons diagnostics and calibrated adjustments.
Later, in the communal refectory after Vespers, the weight of the rain still drumming on the biodome, Pjetro sat surrounded by his family. Ela, radiant despite her fatigue, gently rocking their youngest. Tomasz and Kasia, their faces smeared with protein-rich algae paste, argued good-naturedly about the best Crusader knight in their sims. Little Jan slept against Pjetro's broad arm, a warm weight. Across the table, Brothers and Sisters discussed the day's challenges – a clogged filtration intake from lake debris, progress on the new aquaponics module using algal byproducts, intelligence whispers of increased Knight Errant patrols near their exclusion zone. The Warriors of the Cross, led by the fierce Sister Captain Zosia, ate quickly, their faces grim, checking comms.
Pjetro listened, offering a quiet technical insight here and there, but mostly he soaked in the warmth, the shared purpose. He played the Crusader sims with Tomasz later, hunched over a terminal in their small quarters, his massive fingers surprisingly agile on the keyboard and mouse, maneuvering a drone gunship through virtual canyons, protecting digital brethren. He was good at it. Tactical, patient. But it was just light on a screen. Noise in headphones. Controllable.
He kissed his children goodnight, lingering with Ela in the soft gloom of their room, his hand resting on the swell of her belly, feeling the tiny "siege engine" kick against his palm. "Another strong warrior," he whispered.
"Or a wise engineer," Ela smiled, leaning into him.
He prayed silently then. Not just the rote prayers, but a deep, wordless gratitude for this refuge, this work, this family forged in the drowning world. And a plea for continued strength, for the calm to hold, for the pressure vessels not to fail, for the harvest to be bountiful, for the Warriors of the Cross to keep the wolves at bay.
He didn't pray for the battle heat to leave him. He knew his place. He was the calm within the algal storm, the engineer in the half-submerged factory, building diamonds from desperation while the Sixth World rained down outside. That was his service. That was his shield.
Little did he know the heat he dreaded was already moving through the drowned forests towards *Klasztor Świętej Algii*, drawn by the diamond shimmer in the depths. The real test of his calm was coming, and it wouldn't be fought with a keyboard and mouse.
...at another day....
**The Shadow in the Chapel: The DeathHeads**
They weren't monks. They weren't even strictly *of* the convent, though their three Marauder Mechs stood like iron gargoyles in the deepest, most heavily shielded hangar bay – a bay *beneath* the flooded levels, accessible only through pressure-locked tunnels. The **DeathHeads**.
Resurrected from fragments of pre-Chaos special forces, intelligence operatives, and even disillusioned corporate security who had all *heard the Calling* – a visceral, undeniable imperative to protect specific holy sites or knowledge against the rising tide of annihilation. Faiths blurred within their ranks: a grizzled Orthodox Cossack jacked next to a former French Foreign Legion Muslim, synced with a former Swiss Guard Catholic. Their unity wasn't in doctrine, but in purpose and the crushing neural load of their machines. They called themselves **Wolves**.
"Not the mangy curs scavenging in the ruins," Brother Marek had explained to Pjetro once, his voice tight with a mix of awe and unease. "Nor the devils whispered of in frightened sermons. Think... archangels of retribution. Michael with a fusion lance. Their savagery is surgical. Purposeful. They *end* threats. Utterly. They believe fear, true paralysing terror, is the purest form of mercy – it prevents futile battles, saves lives on both sides. An avoided war is their greatest victory. But if you *make* them fight..."
Pjetro had seen the Marauders move once, during a drill. Not walk. *Flow*. Thirty-foot titans of woven diamond cloth laminate, ceramite, and salvaged starship armor, powered by humming micro-fusion cores. They moved with the uncanny silence of predators, their weapon pods – sonic disruptors, rapid-fire railguns, plasma casters – shifting like muscle beneath armored skin. The neural interface required was monstrous. It didn't just control the machine; it *merged* with the pilot, amplifying their aggression, reflexes, and tactical processing to superhuman levels, but at a cost. The ego-boost was legendary, a psychic high bordering on deification, followed by crushing neural fatigue. Few minds could withstand it without shattering. Only 300 such pilots existed worldwide. Three lived here, beneath the algae vats.
Their insignia: a stylized wolf's skull, polished bone-white, emblazoned on their mechs' chests. Their presence was a cold weight, a deterrent whispered about in refugee camps and corporate boardrooms alike. *Do not wake the Wolves. Especially the DeathHeads.*
**The Attack: When Rats Gnaw at the Wolf's Den**
The Aztechnology wetwork team was good. Elite. They’d mapped the submerged approaches, bypassed the convent’s outer sonic fences by crawling through the literal sludge of the dead lakebed, and detonated shaped charges on the eastern floodwall precisely where sensor coverage was thinnest. They came with monofilament nets, EMP grenades, and neural-disruptor rifles – tools for theft, not annihilation. Their intel said the local "religious militia" (the Warriors of the Cross) were tough but low-tech. They expected resistance. They did *not* expect the Wolves.
The initial breach was chaos. Sister Captain Zosia and her Warriors fought with desperate fury from gantries and fortified bulkheads. Pjetro, down in the Sanctum, was battling his own crisis: the coolant sabotage threatening to rupture Vat 7 and destroy the Sigma-9 batch. He’d just frozen his hands raw sealing the main leak when the first two Aztech cyborgs, gill-grafts flaring, burst through a submerged service hatch, monofilament nets whining towards the central dissolution array.
Pjetro roared, snatching up a fallen support strut. He moved with terrifying speed for his size, shattering the knee joint of the first infiltrator with a blow that echoed like a gunshot. The second fired a neural-disruptor pulse. It washed over Pjetro – a searing headache, a stumble – but his troll physiology and innate calm blunted the worst. He lunged, grabbing the cyborg's arm, intending to slam him into the vat controls.
Then the world *screamed*.
It wasn't sound. It was pure, weaponized terror vibrating through the bones, the air, the very fluid in Pjetro's inner ear. **The Howl.** It dropped the second cyborg like a puppet with cut strings, whimpering, clawing at his helmet. Pjetro staggered, the primal fear instinct warring with his focused calm. He looked up.
Above the Sanctum's main entrance, a section of the heavy biodome plating *ripped open* like foil. Framed against the lashing Sixth World Rain stood **Marauder *Vox Dei*** (Voice of God). Rain sizzled on its white-hot plasma vents. Its optical sensors, glowing a pitiless amber, scanned the room. The sonic emitter array on its shoulders pulsed.
A synthesized voice, cold and devoid of inflection, boomed through the Sanctum, overriding all comms: **"SANCTUM BREACHED. AZTECHNOLOGY IDENTIFIED. THREAT LEVEL: EXTERMINATION. DEATHHEADS ENGAGING. FEAR THE LORD'S JUDGEMENT."**
*Vox Dei* didn't step into the Sanctum. It *pounced*. One moment it was at the breach, the next it was *among* the infiltrators near the vats. A massive clawed hand (diamond cloth talons gleaming) snatched the cyborg Pjetro had been grappling with. There was a sickening *crunch*, a shower of sparks from severed cybernetics, and the mangled remains were discarded like trash. Its railgun pods swiveled with inhuman speed, stitching hyper-velocity rounds through the other Aztech operatives with terrifying precision, turning them into crimson mist against the algae-stained walls. No warning. No quarter. Pure, annihilating efficiency.
**The Wolf Pack Hunts**
Two more amber glows pierced the rain through other breaches. *Lux Ferre* (Light-Bearer) and *Ignis Gehennae* (Gehenna's Fire). They moved through the larger convent spaces like avenging gods. Sister Zosia's Warriors ducked for cover, awestruck and horrified. A squad of Aztech commandos fortified behind a bulkhead? *Lux Ferre* unleashed its sonic howitzer – the bulkhead crumpled like paper, the men behind it reduced to twitching, hemorrhaging ruin, their nervous systems scrambled. A hover-extractor trying to flee across the main lagoon? *Ignis Gehennae* raised its arm-mounted plasma caster. A searing blue-white lance vaporized the craft and the top meter of the lagoon water in an explosion of steam and superheated biomass. The sonic fear-pulse washed over the remaining attackers, breaking them before the Wolves even closed in. Men dropped weapons, screamed, ran blindly into flooded corridors or leapt into the churning algae vats to escape the sheer, soul-crushing dread.
**No Runs Off**
Pjetro watched, frozen near the now-stabilized Vat 7, as *Vox Dei* methodically cleared the Sanctum. It wasn't fighting. It was *sanitizing*. A wounded Aztech operative tried to crawl towards a submerged duct. The Marauder's foot came down. Once. The whimpering stopped. Another, hiding behind a coolant pump, was located by thermal sensors. A single, precise railgun round punched through the pump housing and the man's skull. The DeathHeads didn't capture. They didn't interrogate. They *erased*. Their doctrine was absolute: leave no witness, no survivor who could report tactics, weaknesses, or even the *manner* of the DeathHead's defense. Fear needed mystery. Reputation was their shield. They were the Wolves; let the rats only know they were gone.
Within ten minutes of the Howl, the attack was over. Not repelled. *Extinguished*. The Aztechnology force ceased to exist. The DeathHeads didn't celebrate. They scanned. *Vox Dei*'s amber gaze swept over Pjetro, Jarek (barely conscious), and the vital vats. The synthesized voice echoed again: **"PRIMARY ASSET: SECURE. SANCTUM: CLEANSED. WITHDRAWING."**
The three Marauders turned, as one, and vanished back through the rents they'd torn in the biodome, disappearing into the storm as quickly as they'd arrived. The only sounds left were the drumming rain, the gurgle of the vats, the hiss of steam from plasma-scorched walls, the moans of the wounded, and Jarek's ragged breathing.
**Aftermath: Blood, Frost, and the Cold Weight of Wolves**
The cost was immense, but different. The Warriors of the Cross had losses, but far fewer than if the DeathHeads hadn't intervened. The Sanctum was scarred but intact; the Sigma-9 batch, miraculously, had stabilized under Pjetro's care during the chaos and was now showing *enhanced* lattice resilience – diamonds forged under the pressure of literal hellfire. Jarek would live, thanks to convent medics, but his legs were pulp below the knees.
Pjetro sat on the cold floor, leaning against a humming pressure vessel, cradling his frostbitten hands. The adrenaline was fading, leaving a profound exhaustion and a deep, unsettling cold that had nothing to do with liquid nitrogen. He’d faced the heat of battle, found his ferocity, and defended his sanctum. But he’d also witnessed the Wolves.
Brother Marek approached, his face grim, his armor dented and scorched. He looked at the carnage – the mangled cyborgs, the walls painted in shades of crimson and char. "God's teeth," he breathed, crossing himself. "They... they leave nothing, do they?"
"Nothing," Pjetro rumbled, his voice hoarse. He looked at his ruined hands, then towards the gaping hole where *Vox Dei* had entered. "They are the storm we unleash. The final argument. They protect... but their price is written in blood and silence." He understood their logic – fear *was* a weapon, and reputation a shield. But the utter *finality* of it chilled him deeper than any cryo-fluid. He had killed today, out of necessity, defending life. The DeathHeads killed to erase.
Later, in the infirmary, Ela found him. She didn't flinch at his bandaged hands or the haunted look in his trollish eyes. She simply pressed her forehead against his, her hand resting on his horn. "You held the Sanctum," she whispered. "Jarek lives. The children are safe."
Pjetro closed his eyes, leaning into her warmth. "Safe," he echoed. Because the Wolves had hunted. Because the DeathHeads had deemed their asset worth protecting. Because fear of their retribution would now be the convent's most potent outer defense.
Outside, the Sixth World Rain fell, washing the blood from the biodome's outer hull. Inside the deepest hangar, three Marauder Mechs stood silent once more, their fusion cores humming a low, predatory song. The Wolves slept. But the convent, and Pjetro, now lived in the shadow of their fangs. The diamond cloth they produced shielded lunar landers... and armored the avenging angels who ensured its creation. It was a hard peace, bought with terror. But in the drowned world, peace, any peace, was a miracle. Pjetro would learn to live with the Wolves. He had to. They were the teeth bared against the darkness, and the darkness was vast. He held Ela tighter, the tiny warrior kicking fiercely against his side, a promise of life amidst the echoes of the Howl.
