Chương 164: 14. Legacy of the Past 3

"We split up." Ignicia set down the torpedo that had nearly compressed my spine into my pelvis, her tone as casual as someone assigning household chores.

"I'll handle the placement." She tilted her chin toward the passage leading deeper in.

"You find us a way out. A boat, an exit—anything that gets us clear before we go insane alongside these ancient relics." I looked from her to the two torpedoes and asked with complete sincerity:"Your Highness, before we proceed—could you clarify your definition of 'handle'? Are we talking calculated, precision demolition, or the dragon-school approach of 'this general area should produce spectacular results'?" She gave me a flat look.

"If you have enough energy for philosophical inquiry, I can hand one of these back to you and let you participate personally in the precision calculations."

"I fully support the division of labor." I shut my mouth, tightened the canvas bag full of ancient lethality against my back, and headed down the side passage. Objectively speaking, leaving her alone in the belly of Texas to figure out how to sink it was not a health-conscious decision. But it beat standing around waiting to die together. And if anyone here was qualified for ancient strategic demolition, it certainly wasn't the man whose understanding of the weapon at his hip still operated primarily on faith.

The side passage was narrower than the main corridor, and colder. The overhead lighting had long since died. Only my spare light cylinder cast any illumination—a pale beam that stretched my shadow thin along the curved bulkheads. Occasional door labels and arrows appeared, some markings hastily painted over in red—evidence that during the facility's final chaotic period, someone had desperately tried to maintain order. I hated that feeling. Because it insisted on reminding me that this hadn't always been a ruin.

It had been a workplace. Those people in the briefing room—who had said goodbye to families, broken down on camera, and finally said God bless America—they had walked these exact corridors, opened these doors, finished their last shifts, and died inside their own civilization. The thought made me swear quietly. The ancients' brilliance was truly staggering. So brilliant that even their method of escorting themselves to the grave was more sophisticated than anything their descendants could imagine.

At the passage's end stood a heavy door. Unlike the compartment hatches, this one was wider and lower—built for equipment rather than personnel. The control cluster beside it looked like a migraine given physical form: switches, levers, and something resembling a hand-crank. I stared at it for three heartbeats. Touched it. Then resigned myself to the time-honored method of trying things until something responded. I used to despise this approach.

As someone with proper education and family training, I'd always believed competent people should understand what they're doing before acting. But since meeting Ignicia, my life had repeatedly demonstrated that not knowing what you're doing rarely prevents tasks from being completed. It just makes the results less dignified. Left toggle: nothing. Longer lever on the right: a muffled mechanical engagement from within. Then I tried the half-rusted crank. It refused to move initially.

I gritted my teeth and forced it, half-expecting to tear the handle off entirely. Just as I was about to give up, resistance gave way. The mechanism began turning with deep, reluctant groaning. A low vibration shuddered through the deck. The heavy door began to rise. I swept the light inside immediately—and froze. Not a compartment. A miniature dry dock. More precisely, a concealed bay within the larger submarine, designed to cradle a smaller vessel.

The floor sloped toward what appeared to be a water channel leading seaward. Support frames and hoists lined the walls. At the far end rested a long, narrow craft—considerably smaller than the submarine outside, finally small enough that the word "boat" felt proportionate again. Its design bore no resemblance to Kingdom vessels. No sails. No mast. No oars.

Just a slim hull drawn tight along the sides, with a cluster of metal components at the stern—as though someone had grafted an iron heart onto spiral blades and bolted the assembly to the back. Several metal canisters sat neatly arranged nearby, stenciled with incomprehensible text and red hazard symbols. Standing in the doorway, my first reaction wasn't relief. It was bewilderment.

"... What exactly is this supposed to be?" No answer. Because Ignicia wasn't here. So I walked in alone, light sweeping as I went. Beside the craft was a half-overturned display panel covered in oil-stained diagrams. Not dense ancient text—more like a simplified flowchart for people in extreme hurry or of limited literacy. The sequence was clear: a canister pouring liquid into a port; a hand pulling a cord; the stern assembly rotating; the craft surging forward. Staring at those diagrams, I felt something shift.

Not I understand this completely. More like I think I'm beginning to see the logic. Ancient technology wasn't entirely powered by mystery and miracles. Sometimes the underlying principles were just buried deeper than we expected. I crouched, examining the canisters and the stern mechanism. The smell was sharp—nothing like sea wind, rust, or blood. Something acrid and dry that seemed to burn its way up my nasal passages. Combined with the flowchart, the conclusion assembled itself quickly.

The liquid in these canisters wasn't for drinking. It was for burning. Not the gentle burning of a hearth fire. It was meant to be fed into that iron heart at the stern, where it would rage and explode continuously, transferring that violent energy to the spiral blades and driving the craft forward. Put simply: This wasn't a boat at all. This was a waterborne iron steed, tamed by the ancients using nothing but controlled fire. Looking at that silent mechanical assembly, I felt a strange sort of awe. Not worship.

Not envy. The particular shock of realizing that humans could, through pure intellect, build things even dragons might not conceive of first. The ancients had created glowing spears. Steel leviathans that swam beneath the sea. Craft that needed no sail yet could race across water. Given all that, the fact they'd eventually burned their own world down somehow seemed entirely logical. Being too clever was, occasionally, a terminal disease.

I was still crouched by the engine, lost in thought, when footsteps sounded behind me. I turned to find Ignicia entering, light cylinder in hand, the other dusted with ash. How she'd set the charges, where she'd placed them, why she looked like she'd merely been organizing storage—I chose not to ask. Some knowledge only serves to shorten one's lifespan.

"Find something?" she asked.

"Something that looks like our only option for not drowning immediately." I stood and gestured toward the craft and canisters.

"I think I've worked out how to make it move." She came over and looked at the metal canisters. Then she crouched and opened one. The acrid smell intensified immediately. This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. I was about to mention that this substance probably wasn't meant for hospitality purposes—when she did exactly what she always did with suspicious liquids, medicines, and questionable substances. She leaned in for a sniff.

Then— She dipped her fingertip into the liquid and brought it to her lips. I watched this happen in real time, completely unable to intervene. The next instant, she went rigid. The instant after that—"Pfft—!" Ignicia spat the liquid out in a violent spray, followed by two harsh coughs. Her brow contracted into a vicious scowl, her expression identical to someone who had just been force-fed an entire barrel of rancid lamp oil.

I stood there for half a beat, then spent considerable effort forcing the laughter back down where it belonged.

"... Your Highness." She turned and fixed me with a look that communicated one message with absolute clarity: If you laugh, you drink next. I composed myself immediately.

"This humble servant has said absolutely nothing."

"It's written all over your face."

"That is simply the natural honesty of my bone structure, Your Highness." She stared at me without expression, the discomfort of whatever she'd just ingested still visibly present in her throat, before finally delivering her verdict in a tone of glacial contempt:"Why would the ancients store something like that in a container shaped like a wine cask?"

"Possibly to discourage Dragon Princesses from drinking it." Her eyes cooled by several degrees. I immediately course-corrected: "What this humble servant means is—we can now confirm with certainty. Not a beverage. Fuel." She was silent for a moment, visibly forcing herself to accept that she had just consumed a mouthful of engine fuel. In the end she produced a single low sound—something between dismissal and wounded dignity—clearly intending for this incident to be permanently struck from the historical record.

Unfortunately, I had already committed it to memory. And intended to keep it there for quite some time.

"Can the boat move?" she asked. I redirected my attention to the craft and walked her through the diagram and stern assembly.

"More or less figured it out. These canisters feed the mechanism. Once it's fed, the thing burns and detonates internally in a continuous cycle, which drives the propeller at the stern. Direction is controlled by the rudder assembly, and to start it—probably this pull-cord and these switches here." As I explained, pointing through each step, the absurdity kept deepening. A few hours ago I'd been in the royal palace worrying whether bringing a Fire Dragon Princess into the capital would get me immediately executed.

A few hours later, I was standing in the concealed dry dock of an ancient submarine, explaining internal combustion principles to a Fire Dragon Princess who had just sampled the fuel supply. If there were gods watching, I genuinely hoped they would acknowledge that my current job description had expanded considerably beyond its original scope. Ignicia listened without mocking my amateur analysis.

She looked at the craft, looked at the canisters, and arrived at her conclusion with characteristic economy: "Good enough."

"What's good enough?"

"You understanding that much is sufficient," she said.

"We're not crossing an ocean—we just need to get clear of the island before everything behind us goes under." That reminder brought me back to the immediate crisis.

"Your side?" She wiped the residue of acrid liquid from her mouth, her tone flat and cold.

"Done."

"Where exactly—""You don't need the specifics." She looked at me, one eyebrow lifting slightly.

"Unless you'd like to go back and inspect my work personally."

"No. This humble servant has just remembered that trusting one's partner is an essential virtue of the mature diplomat." The corner of her mouth moved almost imperceptibly. That probably counted as acceptance. Then, from somewhere distant, came a sharp metallic crack. Not the groaning of ancient infrastructure. The sound of something being forced open—deliberate destruction. We both turned simultaneously. The pursuers had arrived. Not necessarily on this level yet, but considerably closer.

The sound traveled through the hull structure like something tearing through a steel corpse layer by layer, hunting us in its belly.

"Out of time," I said quietly.

"We never had any." Ignicia was already releasing the craft's mooring lines.

"Get two of those canisters aboard—enough to get us moving. Leave the rest to accompany this place on its way down." I moved immediately. The canisters were heavy, though nowhere near the moral offense of the torpedoes. I dragged two alongside the craft, found the obvious fuel port, and began carefully pouring according to the diagram.

The acrid smell was thick enough to sting my eyes, but it clarified something: the ancients hadn't just tamed fire—they had imprisoned explosions inside containers and made them work on schedule. Unsettlingly brilliant. Ignicia worked faster. She released the dock cradle, then systematically tore down every support cable—ensuring that anyone following would find considerably less cooperative equipment.

"Get in," she said. I stepped aboard and nearly lost my balance, catching myself on the forward controls. The interior was cramped—two narrow rows of seating, a control yoke in the center, and the mechanical heart at the stern looming larger up close like coiled metal organs waiting for one mistake to send me to discuss engineering with the ancients personally. Ignicia dropped into the rear seat, the movement impossibly light compared to the woman who had been carrying torpedoes minutes ago.

She looked back toward the entrance, and her expression went cold.

"They're here." I followed her gaze. Light was moving at the far end of the passage—not ancient illumination, but the pursuers' own lamps. Footsteps, multiple, no longer bothering with stealth. They'd clearly decided the pretense of routine searching was no longer worth maintaining. I turned back to the controls and gritted my teeth. Diagram: this first, then that, then— I followed the sequence. Fuel valve open. Choke pushed to the marked position.

Then I grabbed the thick starter cord and pulled hard— Clk—clk— Nothing. Of course. Nothing ever worked on the first attempt. The footsteps were closer. Ignicia raised her hand, heat already gathering. She didn't look at me—just said calmly: "Again." I pulled every reserve of strength into my arms and wrenched the cord a second time. This time, the mechanical heart shuddered. Then— THOOM—thoom—thoom-thoom—! The entire craft lurched violently. I nearly pitched forward, barely catching the handles.

The propeller assembly erupted into furious rotation, filling the dock with continuous roar and vibration—a small steel beast waking up in a very bad mood. It was alive.

"It's running!" I nearly shouted.

"I have eyes," Ignicia replied, and sent a line of fire toward the entrance. Not at me—at the figures who had just appeared in the doorway. The flash scattered them instantly, shouts and commands erupting. I couldn't understand the words, but the tone of why is there a fire dragon and a boat was universal.

"Go!" I didn't need instruction. I shoved the control forward. The craft responded like something had kicked it from behind, launching down the slipway into the channel beyond. In that instant I understood why the ancients had terrorized their world with these machines. No negotiation. No time for regret. You thought you were starting it, and it had already delivered you into the next catastrophe. The exit channel was narrow—rock and broken metal on both sides.

As we burst through, the wake hammered the walls and rattled my teeth. I gripped the controls, fighting to keep us off the stone. Weapons fire erupted behind us. Ignicia half-knelt in the rear, one hand braced on the gunwale, the other sending precise fire back—not yesterday's overwhelming blaze, but targeted strikes at structural weak points. Metal shrieked and buckled. The pursuit stalled.

"Left!" she barked. Pure reflex—I threw the controls left. A search vessel slid out of the shadows ahead, cutting across our path. We scraped past its bow close enough for me to see the sea-dragon crew member's stunned expression.

"I hate this machine!" I shouted.

"You're operating it rather well!" she called back.

"Your Highness, I don't need encouragement right now, I need shore!" No shore forthcoming. Only open sea rushing up. We broke free of the channel into night air and wind. Outside was brighter—moonlight scattered across black water, the island's coast spread before us. Further out, two Blazing Summer vessels were turning to intercept.

"They've got the perimeter covered!" I gritted out.

"Break through." Her tone suggested this wasn't a meaningful obstacle. I wanted to point out that statement would sound criminally irresponsible from anyone but a Fire Dragon Princess. But complaints were a luxury. I drove the controls to their limit, letting the iron heart go completely berserk. The craft surged. Left vessel cutting to block us. Right side figures standing to throw something. Ignicia didn't turn—swept fire across the water's surface, forcing the right vessel back.

I timed the left vessel's sluggish turn and drove through the gap. The moment we cleared the blockade, the island lit up behind us. Not torchlight. Not moonlight. A tearing crimson-white fire that ripped out of the island's interior. I looked back on instinct. First: a concussion so deep it felt subterranean. Then larger—the entire rear cliff and dock entrance blown open simultaneously, fire and metal hurled outward.

The sea heaved as though struck from below, carrying stone, iron, and fragments from a nameless era. Then the reef began to collapse. Not simple detonation—like a tomb hollowed out too long, finally admitting it couldn't hold together now that the steel monster and ammunition were going mad inside. Fractures ran through the rock, the entrance caving in, seawater pouring through, fire and smoke twisting in the night—like someone had dragged a war dead for thousands of years briefly back to the surface.

I watched and forgot to breathe. The dock behind us. The ancient monstrosity called Texas. The soldiers who had wept in the briefing room. The words I understood yet didn't—God bless America. The light-spears that might have been aimed at this era. All of it returned to the dark together. Ignicia's hand came down on my shoulder, physically turning me forward.

"Watch where you're going, Cedric!" I snapped back, wrenching attention to the water ahead. I had nearly driven our escape craft into a reef. Excellent. We'd come within seconds of becoming the most embarrassing footnote in this disaster. Even if historians showed mercy, I'd die of shame first. I steadied the craft toward open water. The blockade behind had dissolved into chaos—vessels dodging debris, crews avoiding fire, voices shouting toward the collapsed dock. Nobody could pursue us immediately.

Sea wind hit us, cold enough to cut, but cleaner than anything in that underground tomb. I held the controls, palms drenched in sweat, only now realizing my shoulders and arms had gone from painful to numb. Ignicia had settled back, breathing heavier—the exertions had clearly pulled at her wound. But her expression was composed, in the particular way of someone who had just returned a multi-thousand-year-old military installation to the seafloor and didn't feel this warranted excessive commentary.

I stared ahead for a long time. Then, quietly: "Your Highness."

"Mm."

"Next time you're considering sampling ancient fuel, could you perhaps give me advance notice?" She turned, something distinctly dangerous in her eyes.

"You're bringing this up again."

"This humble servant only wants to be prepared—to have the antidote ready. Not," I added quickly, "my reaction ready. Absolutely not that." She held my gaze for two heartbeats. Then, instead of retribution, she made a cold sound and turned back to the island—now just smoke being swallowed by sea fog. I looked back too. Fire still burned. Sea still poured in. The entire rear face looked bitten off.

Beneath that, the ancients' brilliance, wars, despair—and the apocalypse that had nearly been aimed at this era—were buried again. For now. I turned back to open sea, and something had settled more clearly than when we'd first landed. This world doesn't stand on legends. It stands on the bones of people smarter than legends—clever enough to build anything, and clever enough to destroy everything, including themselves.

Right now, I was in an ancient craft beside a Fire Dragon Princess who had carried torpedoes, drunk engine fuel, and casually blown up a submarine dock—driving toward a tomorrow that hadn't decided which disaster to lead with. Objectively, this assignment had achieved comprehensive failure from every conceivable angle. And yet I didn't regret helping her put that tomb back in the sea. Because once you've seen certain things, you understand—leaving them in the world would be the real disaster.

From behind came one final sound of collapse. Like a coffin lid settling closed. We drove on without looking back, into the deeper dark of the open sea.