The Christ the Redeemer statue is hollow. It's a soapstone shell over a reinforced concrete structure.

  But now, that shell was full of veins.

  While Valéria and Gristle formed the defensive line at the heart level, Luna and I ran for the spiral staircase climbing up the statue's neck.

  Behind us, the sound of static electricity exploding against metal echoed.

  "You cannot desecrate the Vision!" screamed the Guardian, firing a lightning arc from her trident.

  "Valéria! Faraday Cage!" I shouted, without looking back.

  I heard the sound of a portable generator activating and the hum of an electromagnetic force field absorbing the bolt.

  "Move it, Doctor!" Valéria roared, firing her shotgun. "This electric eel in high heels is fast!"

  We climbed.

  The interior of the statue was hot and humid. The concrete walls sweated a viscous, reddish liquid.

  It wasn't condensation. It was Vitreous Humor.

  The entire statue was becoming a giant sensory organ.

  "Arthur," Luna gasped, right behind me. The space on the stairs was tight. "I feel pressure in my ears. Like we're descending into the sea, but we're going up."

  "It's the mana density," I explained, checking my meter. "The 'Lighthouse' up there is compressing the magical atmosphere. It's creating a high-pressure zone to simulate the ocean floor. They want whatever comes from the sky to feel at home."

  We reached the neck level.

  The staircase ended at a round hatch, resembling a camera iris.

  It pulsed, opening and closing in a biological rhythm.

  "It's alive," Luna recoiled.

  "It's a muscular sphincter." I drew my scalpel and a vial of Concentrated Muscle Relaxant (pufferfish toxin). "Let's force dilation."

  I poured the liquid onto the hatch rim. The muscle tissue shuddered, turned purple, and relaxed, opening the passage.

  The smell that came out was unbearable. Rotten sea breeze and concentrated iodine.

  We climbed into the head.

  The inside of Christ the Redeemer's head should have been an empty maintenance space.

  Instead, it was a meat chamber.

  The walls were lined with gray, pulsating brain tissue, connected by fiber optic cables running down the neck (the nervous system of the Ark below).

  And in the center, occupying the place where the statue's eyes should be, was the Eye.

  It wasn't a machine. It was a colossal biological eye, two meters in diameter, floating in a tank of amniotic suspension.

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  It had no eyelids. The pupil was a vertical slit, like a reptile's or a primitive shark's.

  It glowed with an intense red light that pierced the soapstone (which had become translucent in that area) and swept the bay outside.

  [ORGAN ANALYSIS: ABYSSAL KRAKEN EYE.]

  [STATE: GRAFTED AND MAGICALLY ENLARGED.]

  [FUNCTION: PSIONIC SIGNAL PROJECTOR.]

  "They ripped the eye out of a sea monster and put it in Jesus's head," Luna said, incredulous. "That's... creative. And blasphemous."

  "It's functional." I walked to the tank. The Eye swiveled to face me. The pupil contracted.

  I felt a sharp stab in my head. A voice, not human, but made of sonar clicks and echoes, invaded my mind.

  WHO... ARE... YOU...?

  THE... TIDE... RISES...

  The Eye wasn't just seeing. It was transmitting my location to everything living in the water within a hundred-kilometer radius.

  "Luna," I said, taking off my gloves. "I need you to blind this thing."

  "How? Poke it?"

  "No. If you poke it, the aqueous humor will leak and flood the room with digestive acid.

  "I need you to use light.

  "A Kraken's Eye is made for the total darkness of the abyss. It is hypersensitive to light."

  I pulled a Military Magnesium Flare from my pack.

  "If we light this in here, we'll overload its retina. It'll cause an 'optical heart attack'.

  "But it will try to defend itself. It will launch a psychic attack. You need to sing a counter-frequency to protect our brains while I make the incision to insert the flare inside the optic nerve."

  "Eye surgery with fireworks," Luna gripped her baton tightly. "Okay. I'm ready."

  "Now!"

  I lit the flare.

  The blinding white light, burning at 3000 degrees, illuminated the meat chamber.

  The Eye reacted instantly. The pupil closed, but not fast enough.

  The creature screamed psychically.

  PAIN! LIGHT! BURN!

  I felt my nose bleed from the mental pressure. The Parasite formed a bone helmet to protect my cortex.

  I advanced.

  With the Mithril scalpel in my right hand and the flare in my left, I jumped onto the tank.

  The Eye tried to fire a beam of red mana.

  "Sonic Shield!" Luna shouted, creating a vibrating barrier that deflected the beam to the ceiling.

  I landed on top of the gelatinous Eye. My boots scorched the membrane.

  "Say cheese!" I shouted.

  I drove the scalpel into the side of the optic nerve, opening a slit.

  I shoved the burning magnesium flare inside the eyeball.

  I leaped back, landing beside Luna.

  "Cover your eyes!"

  FLASH.

  The Eye glowed from within. Intense white light leaked through the pupil, the sclera, and the veins.

  The organ boiled.

  There was a wet popping sound: PLOP.

  The Eye exploded in a shower of white jelly and smoke.

  The red light of the Lighthouse outside went out instantly.

  Rio de Janeiro plunged into darkness.

  Down below, at the base of the statue, the Siren Guardian's scream echoed up the elevator shaft.

  "NOOOO! THE VIGIL IS BROKEN!"

  The floor of the statue shook violently.

  "What was that?" Luna asked, wiping eye slime off her dress.

  "The connection was cut." I looked at the smoking remains of the Eye. "But the signal stopped suddenly. That's a warning."

  Suddenly, Valéria's radio crackled in my ear.

  "Arthur! Get out of there! Now!"

  "What happened, Valéria? Did you kill the Siren?"

  "She ran! She jumped down the elevator shaft! But that's not it..." Valéria sounded terrified. "The water in the Bay... it receded."

  I ran to the opening where the statue's eye was. I looked down.

  Valéria was right.

  Guanabara Bay was drying up. The water was being sucked away from the coast, revealing the muddy bed full of shipwrecks and bones.

  A Reverse Tsunami.

  "It's not a natural tsunami," I said, feeling the air turn freezing cold. "Something is inhaling the water."

  On the horizon, where the sea met the sky, a mountain of water began to rise.

  But it wasn't a wave.

  It was a shape.

  A creature that made the Ark of Bones look like a toy boat.

  It had scales that shone like the moon and tentacles that touched the clouds.

  "The Leviathan," I whispered. "He didn't need the lighthouse to find his way. He needed the lighthouse to know when dinner was ready."

  The Eye we destroyed wasn't a "come here" beacon. It was a "wait a minute" beacon.

  It was a containment signal. The Church of High Tide was keeping the monster asleep with the ritual.

  By destroying the Eye... we woke up the alarm clock.

  "I hate reverse theology," I cursed. "Luna, let's go down. Fast."

  "To fight?" she asked, pale.

  "No. To run." I started running down the stairs. "Valéria! Prep the truck! Forget the Ark! Forget the Church! We're leaving the city before that 500-meter wave hits the coast!"

  Rio de Janeiro survived a lot. But the sea god was coming to collect rent.

  And we had just evicted the tenants.