Chapter 481: Mine XVIT [II]

The jagged ceiling of Mine XVIT did not simply crumble like the bird expected at all... it unwove under the crushing pressure of primordial wood.

High above the mountain rift, perched upon a frost-bitten pinnacle of basalt that jutted like a broken fang against the bruised gray clouds of the Umbral Basin, the watcher bird clung to the stone.

Its talons, hard and black as cold-forged iron, bit into the slick permafrost.

It did not shudder against the sub-zero squall that whipped down from the northern ridges as its obsidian feathers, razor-edged and dark as dried blood, lay flat against its narrow aerodynamic frame.

Its beady black eyes, unnervingly lucid and lacking any sort of animal stupidity, remained locked onto the gaping wound in the mountain’s crest.

The creature understood the geology of this frozen basin far better than the two-legged mortals who had set up their noisy palisades at the southern gates.

For centuries, Mine XVIT had been an anomaly among anomalies... a cursed pocket of petrified impenetrable dark alloy that swallowed pickaxes and turned the blades of mountain ogres into blunt iron spoons.

It was a seamless tomb of cold ore that laughed at force.

Nothing short of the ancient earth-dragons or the apocalyptic breath of a high-tier calamity was supposed to leave so much as a hairline groove upon its skin.

Yet now, the entire peak was groaning.

KRRRRRR-GRIND!

Deep within the fracture colossal roots as thick as the ancient watchtowers of imperial citadels twisted and bunched like the flexing pythons of an ancient forest god.

They were not mundane pine or rot-resistant cedar... they glowed with a breathtaking emerald fire that bled clean through the snow-mist, illuminating the jagged rock face in an unearthly midsummer twilight.

The bird’s scythe-curved beak clicked open slightly.

A strange ratcheting noise like the grinding of copper gears rattled deep in its throat.

Through a jagged split where the mountain’s crust had parted beneath the swelling timber, the avian caught sight of the figures standing inside the cavern vault.

There was the woman in emerald green.

She did not sweat, nor did she strain her back against the bedrock as she merely stood with one slender hand resting against a smooth wooden staff, her long moss-tinted hair billowing lazily in an ethereal draft that had no right existing fifty yards underground.

The mana pouring off her slender shoulders was not the aggressive aura of a martial artist, nor was it the volatile flame of a common basin mage... it was deep and vast as an ocean of living sap.

It possessed the slow terrifying inevitability of tectonic drift.

’She is...’ The bird’s crested head tilted sharply to the left, its black pupils contracting to pinpoint specks. ’She is stronger than the Lord.’

It had observed Silas Graves.

It had watched the black-haired Lord on multiple occasions but this woman... this green-clad pillar of vitality wasn’t merely wielding power.

She was the power, an ancient, primordial spirit wrapped in mortal skin.

Next to her stood another female... a tall warrior wrapped in dark furs and salt-worn leather with a weapon resting against her hip.

That one looked strange; her cheeks were violently flushed an indignant crimson, her boots stomping the ground as she barked at the green woman with her jaw tight and her fists clenched like an embarrassed child.

Yet beneath that ridiculous undignified display of flushed cheeks and fluttering fury, the bird could smell the iron in her blood.

’...Strong.’

They were both monsters as they possessed more than enough raw conceptual weight to shatter the impenetrable.

’The ice...’

The bird’s thoughts raced with frantic clarity.

Down in the lightless absolute-zero depths of the northern trench, where the ancient glacier refused to yield even a single millimeter, its master was still waiting.

She was frozen to her collarbone, coughing up bitter frost, and threatening to turn every feather on its wings into roasted skewers if it didn’t return with salvation.

The Lord with the golden blade had an army, and that army smelled of sharp steel, suspicion, and arrows that would pin a curious bird to a pine trunk before it could utter three squawks but this woman? This woman made of nature?

Surely a being of nature would understand the language of beasts!

Surely she wouldn’t immediately loose a volley of arrows at a messenger!

’I will tell her,’ the bird resolved, its wings trembling with renewed urgency. ’I will fly through the crack, land upon that wooden staff, and screech the coordinates until she follows...’

SNAP!

The bird kicked off from the basalt ledge, its dark, blade-like wings catching the howling updraft with a muted hiss.

It folded its plumage tight, diving like a black dart through the falling snow, aiming straight for the gaping fissure in the ceiling of Mine XVIT.

Thirty yards... Twenty yards...

The fragrant scent of crushed pine blasted upward from the cavern throat.

The bird opened its scythe-beak, drawing freezing air into its hollow chest to loose its desperate high-pitched plea.

’Squaaaa—’

It never got the chance.

Far down within the bowels of the alloy cavern, the emerald roots encountered a stubborn node.

Deep within the eastern foundation of the mountain, a colossal pillar of hyper-compressed star-ore resisted the spiritual intrusion.

The root didn’t yield... it constricted, surging with an apocalyptic burst of divine vitality that violently bypassed the material threshold.

KRA-BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

The collision detonated an atmospheric shockwave of pure pressure!

FWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!

A concussive column of pressurized air, pulverized granite dust, and screaming emerald mana erupted upward through the roof fracture like the exhaust of an imperial siege cannon.

"SKREEEEEEEEEEEK?!"

The obsidian bird was caught dead in the center of the vertical gale.

The concussive force slapped it out of the sky before its vocal cords could finish a single syllable.

Its feathers ruffled violently, its scythe-curved beak was forced shut by three hundred pounds of atmospheric thrust, and its beady eyes rolled backward in panic.

WHOOOOOOSH... ZOOOOOM!

Like a pebble skipped off a catapult arm, the bird was launched backward through the blizzard at supersonic velocity.

It tumbled end-over-end through the bruised clouds, shrieking silently as the jagged terrain of the outer basin blurred into a white streak beneath its tailfeathers.

It was hurled miles to the north, screaming through the sky on a trajectory that carried it straight back toward the suffocating, frozen canyons from whence it had flown.

Down in the illuminated belly of Mine XVIT, the emerald light finally began to settle.

The air was dense with the warm rich fragrance of crushed pine needles...

Where there had once been a dark, impenetrable dome of seamless slate-gray alloy, there was now open, yawning space.

"Step back toward the threshold, girls," Eluned’s voice chimed with effortless serenity, carrying over the muffled thud of falling pebbles. "Bring the construct out to the approach ramp and mind the shale."

The ten women who formed the extraction detachment scrambled toward the entrance, their boots slipping slightly on the pulverized dust.

Walking in their midst with heavy, earth-trembling steps was the colossal Phase 1 Titan Golem.

The four-legged stone behemoth, tall as an imperial watchtower, navigated the widening mouth of the cave, its massive amber optics pulsing with a dull compliant hum as it positioned its expansive alloy bins just outside the main chamber.

Once the last boot had cleared the interior perimeter, Eluned gently raised the tip of her wooden staff.

CRRR-CRUNCH!

The emerald roots tightened in a final majestic contraction.

Like a thousand living wooden fingers peeling an orange, the massive roots methodically crushed the remaining structural shell of the cavern but it was not mindless devastation.

The divine mana guided the fracture lines, breaking the impenetrable slate-gray alloy into clean, uniform rectangular blocks roughly the size of travel trunks.

Then, with an eerie weightless grace that defied every law of physics, the glowing roots shifted.

They scooped through the rubble, cradling hundreds of tons of high-density ore, and lifted them smoothly through the cracked ceiling.

THUD! CLANG! RATTLE!

One after another, the massive slabs of virgin alloy were neatly deposited directly into the reinforced transport bins bolted across the Phase 1 Titan Golem’s back.

The heavy-duty suspension of the construct hissed, venting plumes of pressurized steam as the bins rapidly filled with millions of credits’ worth of pristine unmarred ore.

Within three minutes, the roots unraveled.

They shrank back into the earth with a soft, rustling sigh, leaving behind a perfectly hollowed-out, clean-swept rock bed.

Not a single pebble of the mysterious alloy remained...

The entire deposit had been extracted, cataloged by spiritual force, and stacked into the golem’s bins without a single pickaxe striking the rock.

Eluned turned around, a serene radiant smile gracing her porcelain features as she smoothed the emerald folds of her dress.

"There," Eluned announced softly, her hands folding neatly over her staff. "A most efficient extraction... The mountain has yielded its bounty to Blessed Land."

She paused as the cavern threshold was dead silent.

Standing beside the laden golem, Bodil the dwarven miner was staring at the empty cavern floor with her jaw hanging so slack it nearly brushed the leather collar of her harness.

Her master-forged steel pickaxe dangled limply from her calloused hand, completely forgotten.

Behind her, the other women stood in frozen unblinking rows.

Their leather straps were still pristine and their hands were completely free of rock dust.

Their sweat hadn’t even begun to warm the steel-mesh fabric clinging to their skin and beside them stood Morwenna.

The Pirate Queen slowly lowered the hand that had been resting on her weapon, her amber eyes widening before narrowing into a look of delight.

A slow wicked grin spread across her face, revealing sharp gleaming teeth.

"Uh... Miss Eluned?" Bodil squeaked, her raspy dwarven voice cracking slightly in the cold air.

"Yes, Bodil?" Eluned tilted her head, maintaining her tranquil saintly composure.

"You... you did it all," Bodil stammered, gesturing with the blunt end of her pickaxe toward the immaculate, empty pit. "Every scrap... The whole bloody node..."

A tall blonde woman stepped forward, her eyebrows furrowing as a look of soul-deep panic began to dawn on her youthful face.

"Wait..." the recruit muttered, looking down at her spotless hands, and then looking up at the filled bins on the golem’s back. "If you just... ripped the whole mine out with your roots in two minutes... what about the ledger?"

"The ledger?" another girl gasped, her eyes widening in horror. "The Lord’s morning decree! He said the reward goes to whoever mines the most! Whoever sweats for the territory!"

"We didn’t swing a single pick!" a third woman shouted, her voice rising into an anxious wail. "We haven’t logged a single pound of ore under our names! How are we supposed to win the Lord’s reward if the Goddess just solod the entire damn mountain?!"

"I wanted to earn that reward!"

"I bought this new lavender oil from the apothecary just for tonight!"

"Miss Eluned, that’s completely unfair!"

A cacophony of bitter heartbroken complaints erupted from the vanguard ranks.

The girls stomped their boots, waving their unchipped chisels and glaring at the World Spirit with betrayed tearful pouts.

Eluned’s serene smile froze.

A tiny imperceptible bead of cold sweat formed at her temple, sliding slowly down her cheek.

She reached up, her slender fingers delicately clenching around the collar of her robes, her breath hitching in her throat.

’I’m... I’m an idiot,’ Eluned screamed inwardly, her divine mind screeching to a violent mortified halt. ’I completely forgot! Silas didn’t send them out here just to haul rocks... this was supposed to be a morale-building team exercise! He set up that ridiculous competition to motivate them! If I steal all the credit and leave their ledgers blank, these girls are going to despise me! They’ll look at me like an overbearing monster who ruined their chances with our Lord!’

Beside the trembling goddess, Morwenna’s grin was practically splitting her face in two.

The Pirate Queen crossed her arms over her chest, leaning her hip against the side of the Titan Golem, fairly vibrating with malicious satisfaction.

"Oh, look at that," Morwenna drawled, her voice dripping with venomous amusement. "The grand Goddess... so eager to show off her pretty green branches that she forgot basic crew management. Look at them, Eluned. You just broke their little hearts. What are you going to do now? Weave them some pretty little daisy chains to wipe their tears?"

Eluned’s emerald eyes flared.

’Think, Eluned,’ she told herself, her heart fluttering beneath her ribs. ’You are an ancient divine entity and you have governed ecosystems for a long time so surely you can talk your way out of a pack of sulking women!’

Suddenly, her gaze locked onto the leather satchel hanging from Bodil’s hip.

With the terrifying effortless speed of a high spirit, Eluned’s hand blurred.

SWOOSH.

"Oi!" Bodil yelped as the thick map of the Umbral Basin was neatly plucked from her belt before she could even blink.

Eluned unrolled the map with a dramatic authoritative snap of her wrists, holding it high so that every single woman in the squad could clearly see the markings.

Her expression instantly shifted, returning to the radiant and confident composure of a wise benevolent elder sister.

"Calm yourselves, my lovely warriors," Eluned announced, her voice ringing out like silver chimes and instantly cutting through the grumbling. "Do you truly think I would rob you of your glory? Do you take me for a callous thief of your rightful rewards?"