Chapter 484: Popping Up From The Ground

Over by a lower alcove, the Princess was doing her absolute best to contribute.

Her royal upbringing had never prepared her for manual labor, but the twenty-five-year-old woman was determined not to be dead weight.

She knelt on the crystalline gravel, holding her runic chisel with both small hands while lightly tapping the end with a dwarven mallet.

Tap! Tap! Tap!

"Hnngh..." The Princess grunted softly, biting her lower lip in concentration.

With a satisfying pop, a loose, fist-sized cerulean diamond snapped free into her palms.

Her azure eyes lit up with radiant joy as she clutched the heavy glowing gem to her chest, beaming with pride before gingerly setting it atop the communal collection pile.

Gradually, the scattered harvesting converged into a massive central deposit in the center of the geode floor.

Hundreds upon hundreds of raw, uncut Mana Diamonds lay heaped together.

Cerulean blues, radiant emeralds, and deep royal amethysts pulsed and refracted the midday sunlight, casting a blinding multicolored glow across the cavern walls that made everyone’s shadows dance.

Thora stepped up to the edge of the glittering mountain of wealth, her clean-shaven face smudged with soot and dust.

She let out an appreciative whistle, planting her fists on her hips.

"Alright, that’s enough swinging for a moment, girls!" Thora barked, her raspy voice echoing off the limestone. "Hold your tools! The pile’s getting too tall to manage on foot! Let’s clear the floor before someone trips on a geode and breaks an ankle!"

The women lowered their pickaxes with collective relieved sighs, leaning against the walls to catch their breath and wipe the sweat from their brows.

Thora turned toward the narrow entrance fissure connecting the geode to the main outer cavern where the goblin settlement had once stood.

"Phase One Titan!" Thora shouted at the top of her lungs, channeling her mana into her voice. "Engage clearance protocol! Right arm through the gap! Scoop and load!"

KRRRRRR-GRIND!

Out in the main chamber, the colossal construct stirred.

The Phase 1 Titan Golem which had been resting flat on its belly in a low-power sleeping posture slowly flared its central amber optics.

A deep pneumatic hiss echoed through the rock as its hydraulic joints engaged.

SHRRRRR-CLANG.

From the narrow fissure, a shadow swallowed the light.

The massive right arm of the titan construct... forged from thick slabs of volcanic bedrock and banded with dark Deep-Earth Alloy snaked carefully through the stone opening.

Its articulated stone fingers, each as thick as a tree trunk, expanded with a mechanical hum.

With surprisingly delicate precision, the golem lowered its massive stone palm beneath the glittering pile of gems.

The fingers curled inward, scooping up hundreds of pounds of raw Mana Diamonds in a single effortless sweep, cleanly clearing the floorboards.

The arm slowly retracted through the limestone opening, sliding back out into the main chamber.

Outside, the golem didn’t even bother standing.

Maintaining its grounded, resting posture, the construct swung its massive arm overhead and tilted its palm over the expansive transport bins bolted across its back.

RATTLE-CLATTER-CRASH!

A glorious cascading waterfall of precious gems poured into the alloy bins with a thunderous roar.

Watching the volume of wealth effortlessly disappear into the construct’s payload, Thora couldn’t contain herself.

"GWAHAHAHAHAHA!"

The dwarven forge master threw her head back, letting out a wild cackle that made several of the recruits jump.

"Look at it! Just look at it!" Thora roared, slapping her thigh with glee. "That’s pure capital! We’re going to drown the world in high-tier mana! We’ll be forging runic cannons out of pure diamond by next week!"

Her manic laughter echoed off the high ceiling yet, slowly... one by one... the girls stopped paying attention to Thora.

The laughter, the chatter, the clinking of water canteens... it all gradually began to fade into a strange suffocating silence.

Thora blinked, her wild cackling abruptly cutting off as she looked around.

"What? Why’d you lot go quiet all of a—"

She followed their gazes.

At the far eastern wall of the geode, completely isolated from the rest of the group, Silas was still working.

The Lord hadn’t stopped as while everyone else had paused for the golem’s extraction, Silas remained in a steady rhythm.

Beside his boots lay his own massive personal haul of raw Mana Diamonds... a pristine mountain of deep cerulean and crimson-tinged stones that rivaled the entire squad’s combined efforts but nobody was looking at the gems.

Every single female eye in the cavern was locked directly onto his body.

Silas had unbuttoned the high collar of his mining shirt, letting the rough fabric part slightly at his chest.

The custom-tailored leather harness... the very one he had complained was far too tight earlier clung ruthlessly to his frame like a second skin.

With every swing, the broad chiseled expanse of his back flexed with terrifying sculpted power.

The dark straps cut deeply into the dense musculature of his shoulders and lats, defining every ridge and striation of his physique.

Sweat glistened across the back of his neck and ran in slow agonizingly hot rivulets down the center of his spine, soaking through the thin linen beneath the leather harness.

Tink!

His movements were hypnotic as there was no rushing and no wasted force.

He moved with the effortless breathtaking precision of a master martial artist as his wrists snapped with fluid whip-like perfection, the pickaxe striking the rock in a mesmerizing way that sent clean slabs of limestone sliding away to reveal flawless gems beneath.

The recruit maidens stood completely frozen, their lips parted and their cheeks burning with bright feverish flushes.

Brenda subconsciously swallowed hard, her fingers clutching the handle of her mallet so tightly her knuckles turned white.

Sarah’s eyes were practically glued to the dip of his waist where the leather cinched tight around his hips.

Even Aurelia stood transfixed, her delicate fingers resting against her lips, her golden eyes softening into a warm fascinated gaze that lingered on the rhythmic flex of his arms.

Beside her, the Princess’s face was a volcanic shade of crimson. She stared at Silas’s glistening, muscular back, her small hands trembling slightly as she subconsciously twisted the hem of her leather harness, completely captivated.

The only person in the entire cavern who wasn’t staring at Silas’s body was Thor.

The God of Thunder was sitting flat on a limestone boulder, leaning her chin heavily on her palm, staring blankly at the ceiling while her stomach let out a thunderous cavern-shaking rumble.

’Roasted boar...’ Thor mused in a daze with a thin line of drool pooling at the corner of her lips. ’Crispy skin... dipped in sweet mustard and washed down with five gallons of dark stout... Ah, by Odin’s beard, I could eat an entire herd of swine right now...’

Meanwhile, Silas drove his chisel into the rock one last time, dislodging a fist-sized emerald stone.

Tink!

Suddenly, a strange prickling sensation crawled up the back of his neck.

’What is that?’ Silas thought with his blue eyes narrowing sharply. ’The air feels... suffocating.’

It felt like dozens of microscopic lasers were boring straight through his back and burning into his skin.

Silas lowered his pickaxe and whipped around, his hand instinctively dropping toward the hilt of his golden sword as he swept his gaze across the geode.

SWOOSH.

In a single coordinated blur, all the women instantly snapped their heads back to the walls.

Tink! Tink! Tink! Bang! Clang!

The cavern immediately erupted into a deafening flurry of energetic mining.

"Keep swinging, girls! Great yield on this vein!" Helen shouted with unnatural strained enthusiasm, hammering a chisel into the rock so hard sparks flew.

"Yes, ma’am! Working hard!" Brenda squeaked, her face glowing red as she attacked a patch of limestone with desperate fury.

Aurelia was serenely examining an already-harvested amethyst with intense scholarly interest, while the Princess was vigorously polishing a diamond with her sleeve, her face buried so close to the stone she was practically kissing it.

Silas stood in the center of the alcove, holding his pickaxe, blinking in complete bewilderment.

He looked to the left and the girls were sweating and swinging.

He looked to the right and Thora was furiously scribbling nonsense numbers into her ledger.

He looked straight ahead and Thor was still drooling over imaginary pork.

Silas scratched the back of his neck, letting out a quiet confused breath.

’Weird...’ Silas thought, shaking his head as he turned back to the rock face. ’I could have sworn I was being watched just now.’

RUMBLE... KRRRR-CRUNCH!

The rhythmic chime of steel pickaxes striking limestone ceased in an instant.

Beneath Silas’s heavy mining boots, the solid bedrock of Cavern KB-22 gave a violent, sickening lurch.

The fine crystalline gravel danced, skipping across the floor as deep concussive seismic tremors tore through the cavern floor.

From the ceiling thirty feet above, shards of calcified rock and loose crystals rained down, shattering across the shale.

’A monster?’ Silas’s thoughts moved at terminal velocity. ’Did the vibrations of the Titan Golem’s extraction wake an ancient burrower?... An earth-drake? What tier?!’

"WEAPONS! CATCH, YOU LOT!"

Thora didn’t hesitate for a second.

The dwarven forge master kicked open the emergency alloy trunks with a thunderous bang, snatching armfuls of void-iron blades, spears, and sidearms and hurling them across the geode like spinning projectiles.

"Formation! Tighten the circle!" Helen barked, her hand snapping out to snatch her ash-wood spear from mid-air.

Sarah caught her void-iron arming sword with a crisp metallic slide, while Brenda grabbed her shield, planting her stance wide beside the Princess.

Aurelia glided backward with effortless grace, the pristine white orb of Argent Flame flaring around her fingertips.

Silas didn’t even have time to reach for his golden sword.

He remained locked in place, his fingers tightening around the heavy runic-forged dwarven pickaxe in his grip, ready to use the tool’s tempered spike to split the skull of whatever monstrosity broke through the floor.

The violent vibration wasn’t coming from the walls, they all knew that... it was coming directly from beneath them.

KRA-BOOOOOOOOM!

Right in the center of the geode floor, barely ten paces from Silas’s boots, the limestone violently ruptured outward in a geyser of pulverized rock and white chalk.

A jagged, human-sized hole blew open from below, jagged cracks spider-webbing across the foundation.

"STRIKE!" Brenda yelled, leveling her spear.

"Burn it to ash!" Sarah shouted with her blade flashing.

Every single woman drew back their weapons, mana flaring across the room in a deadly synchronized execution arc—

Except for Thor.

The God of Thunder remained comfortably perched on her limestone boulder, a finger casually picking her ear as she looked down at the hole with an amused half-bored squint.

POP!

Before a single blade could plunge into the dark opening, a figure shot straight up through the jagged crater like a cork bursting from an over-pressurized champagne bottle.

"GWAHAHAHAHAHA!"

The concussive boisterous laughter echoed off the crystalline walls with enough volume to rattle everyone’s eardrums.

Covered from head to toe in pulverized stone dust, dried black monster ichor, and tangled copper hair, Brida hauled herself out of the breach.

She planted her boots firmly onto the geode floor, casually tossing her massive Titan’s Cleaver over her shoulder while shaking chalk from her wild red locks like a dog shedding water.

The recruits froze mid-thrust, blinking in dumbfounded shock.

Silas stood with his pickaxe raised high, his eye twitching as he stared at the breathless brawler.

Brida didn’t look at the weapons pointed at her throat and she completely ignored Thora’s dropped jaw as well as Aurelia’s startled blink.

Her bright crimson eyes locked straight onto Silas.

Taking in his sweat-sheened chest, the tight leather harness cinched across his sculpted torso, and the breathtaking sight of her Lord in full mining attire, a grin split across her soot-stained face.

She marched straight up to him, puffing out her battered chestplate, and planted her armored hands on her hips.

"My Lord!" Brida announced proudly, her voice booming through the silent cavern with zero shame. "Pack up the picks! I just butchered an entire hive of shapeshifting parasites all by myself, shattered their four-armed alpha, and carved a three-mile trench straight to your doorstep!"

She leaned in, her eyes burning with hunger as she looked up into his face.

"I performed a feat so legendary it’s going to make you want to breed me all alone tonight!"