Chapter 197: Rescuing Thunder and Emma

Once the entirety of the miners had evacuated the extraction sector, Kei proceeded deeper into the tunnel alongside Kai.

The two of them dropped their initial disguises. Kei morphed into the shape of a skeleton, while Kai assumed the guise of Argus, the hunter they had just rescued.

Kai glanced downward at Kei’s skeletal frame, inquiring softly:

"Why did I turn into Argus, while you became a skeleton?"

Kei simply smiled.

"You’ll understand in a moment."

The tunnel wound tortuously onward, growing steadily hotter the deeper they pushed. A short while later, a blazing crimson firelight spilled outward from ahead, staining the rock walls a vivid blood-red. Kei halted his steps, staring into the cavern entrance opening up before them.

This was the place.

From within drifted the methodical, parched impact of hammers against metal. Beat by beat, neither too fast nor too slow, as though the individuals stationed there had labored to the point where they lacked even the energy left to complain.

Kei stepped inside first, with Kai tailing closely behind.

At the center of the cavern, Thunder and Emma stood stationed beside a smelting furnace, continuously slamming mallets against blocks of glowing Golden Mithril. Sweat cascaded down their temples, soaking their garments.

The pair looked dramatically more emaciated than the last time Kei laid eyes on them.

Their clothing was caked in grime, their features sunken, and minor burn scars mottled their arms. Yet the two of them were forced to press onward relentlessly. Each time a mallet fell, the metal rang out with a piercing shriek, as though lagging even a fraction of a beat would instantly summon the whips of the skeletal wardens.

Emma raised her mallet, only for her wrist to tremble violently. Gritting her teeth, she switched the tool to her opposite hand. Noting this, Thunder shifted subtly to shield her body with his own, though he didn’t dare halt his own labor for too long.

"Stop slacking off!" a skeleton barked. "Pick up the pace!"

It tapped the shaft of its whip against the stone flooring. The harsh sound prompted Emma to immediately bow her head and resume working.

At that exact moment, an alternate skeleton led a human into the cavern.

The two guards pivoted their heads. Catching sight of a human accompanying the skeleton, they dropped their jaws, emitting clicking *clack-clack* sounds.

"Why’d you drag a human in here?"

Kei narrowed his eyes slightly.

As expected, the skeletons guarding this inner sanctum differed fundamentally from the mindless foot soldiers outside. They possessed higher intellect and vastly superior combat potency. Allowing even a single slip-up to occur could instantly expose the fact that he wasn’t one of them.

Tilting his head, Kei replied in a clicking clack identical to theirs:

"This guy knows how to refine metal, too. I brought him along."

The two skeletons swept their gazes over Kai. One of them paced a circle around him, tapping its bony fingertips inquiringly against his shoulder as though appraising his muscle mass. Kai kept his head lowered, feigning fatigue and terror while suppressing every trace of irritation.

"He actually knows how to refine metal?" the skeleton inquired.

Kei nodded.

"He claims he used to work in a forge. Let him try. If he ruins the Golden Mithril, I’ll shatter him with my own hands."

The response appeared to satisfy them. The two guards exchanged glances, then pivoted back to supervise Thunder and Emma. They harbored zero desire to generate extra labor for themselves; an extra pair of hands working the lines suited them just fine.

Right this instant!

Kei flicked his wrist, and Kai lunged forward instantly.

The illusion clinging to his body dissolved mid-stride. Dragon claws hard as hardened steel lashed upward, smashing squarely down against the two golden skulls. A deafening clash echoed across the space. Both skeletons shattered instantly, shards of bone scattering across every corner of the stone floor.

A fragment of golden bone rolled right against Emma’s boots.

She stared downward at it, then lifted her gaze to meet Kai. The mallet remained clutched mid-air in her grip. Thunder stood frozen as well, his eyes blown wide, as though utterly incapable of grasping that the guards who had been tormenting them moments prior had been pulverized within the span of a single breath.

Kei raised a hand to signal silence.

"Keep your voices down."

The entire cavern plunged abruptly into a hush. Only the crackling of the furnace and the cooling blocks of Golden Mithril remained.

Kei surveyed his surroundings. The two sentries had been neutralized, yet further down an auxiliary side-tunnel opening along the outer rock wall, a suspicious yellowish-red luminescence flickered. Heat radiated outward in successive waves, carrying the acrid, heavy metallic reek intrinsic to Golden Mithril. Deep within, something was apparently shifting.

He couldn’t confirm whether the Golden Skeleton resided there or not. Yet if the commotion they had just kicked up carried too far, they possessed merely minutes before getting exposed by the Boss.

"Kei?" Thunder called out softly. His voice sounded raspy.

Kei turned his gaze toward him.

"It’s me. I’m getting the two of you out of here."

Emma tightened her grip around the mallet shaft. Elation flickered deep within her eyes, immediately overshadowed by mounting dread.

"Don’t rush." She glanced sideways toward the red tunnel. "Those freaks aren’t limited to just these two. The remaining golden skeletons could cycle back at any second. Besides..."

Emma hesitated, her gaze dropping back to the pile of refined Golden Mithril.

"What they’re after goes beyond mere ore. They’ve been hoarding every last ingot of refined Golden Mithril straight into that inner sanctum. I haven’t the foggiest what the Boss intends to use it for, but across these past few days, the required volume of Golden Mithril has kept scaling upward."

Kei tracked the vector she had just pointed toward. He perceived an indistinct resonance throbbing beyond the threshold of that side-tunnel. It fell short of registering as overt mana signatures, yet remained steady and heavy, mimicking the heartbeat of a colossal, slumbering entity.