"Everyone here? Have you all eaten?" Sandman, only half full himself, walked out somewhat dejectedly. He casually pulled over a stone stool, leaned against its back, and greeted everyone.
The moment Sandman said that, he regretted it.
"Boss, we ate, but we're nowhere near full. Those damned overseers are way too stingy." An rubbed his belly, which was only a third full, and kept complaining to Sandman.
"An, nobody's full..." Agapito said to An.
"Enough complaining. Starting tomorrow, you can collect an extra half ration." Sandman looked at An's massive build as he spoke.
He finally understood how much food someone built like An needed. One ration was enough to leave an adult miner about half full, but for someone of An's size, getting a third full was already decent.
"Thank you, Boss! Long live the Boss!" An's burly body lunged at Sandman like a brown bear, intending to give his beloved boss an enthusiastic hug.
"Get the hell away from me! With your size, aren't you afraid you'll crush me to death?" Sandman sprang up at once when he saw An move.
He had no desire to end up with several broken ribs.
"Boss, we found Adamantite Ore. The question is, what do we do next? Mine it, or keep the news hidden for now?" Agapito asked Sandman.
The discovery of an Adamantite Ore deposit often brought countless variables. Just because the people of Lycaeus could raise the Raven King did not mean this was a Pure Land.
Quite the opposite. Hunger destroyed all reason and drove people to do all sorts of unimaginable things. And besides the exiled political prisoners, Lycaeus was home to every kind of vicious criminal.
Before Korax grew up, there had even been gangs that made their living by plundering other miners.
"That's right. My instincts tell me there's a ninety percent chance we've struck Adamantite Ore. As for what we do? Naturally, we mine it. Why leave it there to gather dust?" Sandman countered.
"Boss, if this news gets out, we may not be able to defend it with our current strength." Branni was considering The Saviors' present circumstances. It would still be difficult for them to hold onto the Adamantite Ore deposit.
The Saviors were the largest miner organization in this area. Apart from miner groups of every size in the surrounding region, there were also raider organizations formed by vicious exiled criminals.
These parasites, clinging to the miners of Lycaeus and sucking their blood, cast an even darker shadow over the already miserable fate of the miners.
From time to time, weaker miner organizations would be invaded by these parasites and robbed of the ore or living supplies they had painstakingly accumulated. In the end, unable to meet the quotas set by the overseers, they could only starve to death. Become slaves? Sorry, Lycaeus had no need for more slaves.
"Don't worry. Mine the Adamantite Ore at full capacity. If those bloodsuckers dare come, I'll make sure none of them leave alive!" Sandman's calm words carried an incomparably intense Killing Intent.
For the first time, several leaders of The Saviors felt bone-chilling Killing Intent from their usually laughing, joking boss.
"An, take some men tomorrow and exchange all this ore for living supplies. Agapito, send some men with An. Everyone else will come with me to mine the Adamantite Ore. Nothing else—go back and rest." Sandman quickly finished making the arrangements and dismissed the brief meeting.
On Lycaeus, rest was equally precious.
When food was scarce, lying down could save a great deal of unnecessary energy expenditure...
Dim rays of light fell over the principal leaders of The Saviors after the meeting. In the afterglow of the setting sun, several long shadows stretched behind them.
After a busy day, the people could finally have a few precious hours of rest. Their weary figures soon disappeared one after another into different areas.
Lycaeus had no true concept of a sun. All miners lived beneath the dome built by the Mechanicus Guild. As a pure mining planet, Lycaeus had no atmosphere, and every aspect of the miners' lives could only take place beneath this dome, which was as vast as an entire continent.
From birth to death, they remained under the dome.
The sunrise and sunset here were controlled by artificial light sources atop the dome. To ensure the miners did not reverse day and night or lose track of them, the Mechanicus Guild synchronized Lycaeus's passage of time with Kiavahr's.
Of course, this was not because the slave masters had suddenly grown kindhearted. It was because an environment that let the slaves thrown here readjust their biological clocks would allow them to mine more effectively.
Night gradually enveloped Lycaeus, shrouded in darkness. The miners, exhausted from a day of labor, propped themselves against their pickaxes and fell into sleep...
Just as dawn began to brighten the dome of Lycaeus, a Warp Rift silently opened outside it, revealing the world on the other side of the Material Universe.
It was an incomparably magnificent world, filled with every kind of dazzling color, like the breathtaking cosmic nebulae humanity had seen when it first began exploring outer space.
An amniotic pod wrapped in four colors suddenly appeared above the dome without warning. Red, blue, green, and purple light intertwined around it.
Four colors—no, five. Looking closer, at the very core of the four-colored radiance was an amniotic pod enveloped in golden light, which guarded it tightly.
On the amniotic pod, an Aquila poised to spread its wings radiated an overwhelming aura of conquering the cosmos. Beneath the imposing Aquila was an inscription unlike any script found on Kiavahr or Lycaeus: "XIX," carved into the front of the amniotic pod as if it were one with it.
A human infant lay asleep within the amniotic pod, submerged in transparent liquid. Through the clear glass at the front, the child's handsome features were clearly visible—hair dark as midnight, skin white as snow.
After tearing open a gap between the Warp and the Material Universe, the four-colored light seemed to have completed its mission and dissipated completely. Only the golden radiance remained, wrapping the amniotic pod as it plunged openly and directly toward Lycaeus's dome.
The Augur Arrays on both Kiavahr and Lycaeus were blind to this sudden uninvited guest and showed no reaction whatsoever. Clearly, the technology of this incubation pod far surpassed that of Kiavahr's slave masters.
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