Chapter 54: A Treasure Vault

Axe’s POV

The air rushed out of Axe’s lungs before he even hit the bottom.

It was like an endless fall.

But also not a fall.

It felt like he was in a strange wheel of air where he was falling, yet going upward.

Like being trapped inside a massive, invisible wheel of churning air, falling downward only to be hurled back up the moment momentum gathered.

A muffled groan echoed through the dark void nearby.

"Ugh..."

"Fuck!"

"What is this shit?"

"Damn, I am not falling."

Oshan’s curses spun through the air as the hunter tumbled head over heels, caught in the same endless updraft.

After a few moments of puzzlement, Axe finally reacted. A cruel smile spread across his face, making him look like an evil monarch.

"Stop struggling, mate. This is a magnetic diagram. The more you resist, the more you will spin in a wheel."

He remembered reading about it in the manual his mother gave them.

An extreme Yang metal magnetic field could do these things. And since they were currently being forced to move like this, there must be some extreme Yang metal underneath.

Axe’s blood boiled with excitement.

He really wanted to know what it was.

"Hey, old Buzzard," Axe called softly.

His deep, rough voice always carried his nonchalant yet dangerous tone. "You want to stay spinning like a fly, or do you want to go down?"

"Oh, young Hound," Oshan snapped in a raspy voice.

A wheeze of air cut through his words mid-flight, making him sound like a broken recorder. "Can you sniff what’s underneath?"

"Drop your irons and relax. You will be able to eat your shit soon," Axe said.

Axe didn’t wait for Oshan to argue.

He unbuckled his own heavy steel-plated bracers and let them go.

After some hesitation, he let go of his iron machete too. His only hope now was that he could grow an iron nail from his own inner power, which wasn’t considered an outer metal.

The moment the iron left his skin, it didn’t float—it shot straight down into the darkness with a heavy thud.

Axe grinned.

He had expected as much.

There must be an Extreme Yang Metal Magnetic Array underneath. It was precisely designed to leave them unarmed and catch them in their weakest point.

Such an evil array for fighters like them. A weapon was their right hand, their bosom friend—and the trap just had to take it away first.

Knowing full well it was a trap, he didn’t try to resist the fall. Axe relaxed his muscles, and his body fell straight down, following the path of his weapons.

Oshan cursed loudly, but he ripped all his daggers, hidden nails, and heavy iron crossbow hooks from his belt as Axe told.

He threw down every piece of metal he had.

Just like Axe’s bracers, the metal plunged instantly.

The spinning air lost its grip.

The upward draft gave out with a hollow whoosh, and they plummeted straight down through the dark.

BAM.

Axe landed hard on his back. His breath was knocked out for a few moments as dust exploded around his body.

Beside him, Oshan hit the ground with a rough roll, groaning as he dragged himself up onto his elbows. His arm was scraped, and blood was seeping from the wound.

Axe didn’t look at him. His eyes were already fixed on the chamber ahead.

The whole place was glowing.

It wasn’t earth or mud waiting at the bottom of the drop. It was a plain ironstone plate, inscribed with a massive array.

The area was easily large enough to hold a manor house.

A chamber of pure Yang metal hidden inside a cave.

Axe lay still for a moment before sitting up, or more accurately, crawling up. It was hard ironstone underneath, and he swore he had heard a few bone-cracking sounds.

His machete and other gear were nowhere to be seen. As he stood up, his gaze traveled around the massive place.

The glow was coming from a distant rock wall that looked more like a treasury vault. Shiny armor and weapons were hanging along the stone. In the very middle stood a tall, powerful, and massive statue of a soldier.

Axe assumed it was a high marshal general, if not an emperor himself.

The statue was the source of the glow lighting up the entire chamber. But what surprised him was that the metal was not gold, not silver, and not any common metal he knew.

It was dark, yet it brilliantly illuminated the space. Glassy and highly polished.

Oshan stood up beside Axe.

His knee joint was badly sprained, causing him to lean slightly bent. But his surprised voice was kept soft, as if he was afraid of waking the statue.

"Holy Mother! It’s a Nightshade Gold statue!" Oshan looked around and concluded, "We struck it rich, mate. This is not a natural cave. There must be some ancient elder general residing here."

He whistled playfully, utterly clueless about how pathetic he currently looked.

"Yoho! Who would have thought the Black Sea Gorge was hiding such a thing for thousands of centuries?"

"Shut up," Axe whispered.

"Huh?" Oshan was confused for a second, then the hairs on his neck stood up.

He noticed it too.

The anomaly.

The statue’s eyes—they weren’t made of metal; they were real. They were looking straight at them like two giant pools of red blood.

Then, a slow but steady hissing sound echoed through the air.

Axe moved first.

He jumped sideways a split second before the ground divided into two. Oshan was not so lucky, almost tumbling straight into the opening fissure.

"Fuck you, traitor! At least take me with you!" Oshan cursed as he fell on his back, scrambling backward to avoid the gaping maw in the floor.

The gap had split right where they had just been standing.

Slowly, the statue’s platform rose higher, and a round, fine crack spread neatly around it.

Oshan had no way to cross the chasm and reach Axe on the opposite side. He could only crawl backward as the platform continued its ascent.

Axe was horrified, yet his eyes glowed with raw excitement. He loved this kind of anomaly. Most importantly, he knew he was about to face a devastating war god.

Oshan was not nearly as happy.

He didn’t possess an iron grip like Axe. His only skills lay in his hunter techniques, and his stealthy shadow-traversing methods required actual shadows—which he couldn’t find anywhere here.

This was strange.

A cave should have been his most joyful environment, a playground of shadows, yet there were none.

"It’s all this damn Nightshade Gold’s fault," Oshan swore.

Suddenly, thick black shackles shot out from the four corners of the separated rising platform, binding Oshan tightly.

The searing, hot pressure instantly sizzled against his skin.

Axe looked at the crack. Now it looked like a pool surrounding the platform.

Thick black liquid was flowing gently within it. He knew what it was.

Molten Blood Iridium.

Very precious.

Normal iridium was already rare, but this was the rarest variant. It was born exclusively from a bloodbath.

The nails on his hands slowly showed their peaks. They broke out of their skin shells, growing into ten razor-sharp metal blades.

Axe heard a soft, metallic chuckle. It vibrated throughout the massive, vault-like cavern.

The statue suddenly turned its head slightly.

"Brave one. I have waited for you long enough."