"I'm fine, Uncle Alundi." Amid the chaos, Ephrenia finally calmed her panicked heart and spoke to her worried companions.
Ephrenia's gaze also fell upon the golden amniotic chamber, which stood as tall as two people. At a single glance, the little girl was deeply drawn to it.
Its incomparably noble golden color, paired with the Aquila emblem symbolizing soaring wings, and the mysterious XIX symbol engraved upon it.
Before Ephrenia could examine the suddenly appeared golden giant any more closely, a sharp pain suddenly shot through her scalp.
"Ah!" The little girl only had time to cry out in pain before she was yanked up by her hair and viciously slapped across the face.
At some point, a squad of armed overseers had arrived in this mine tunnel. The moment they saw the Incubation Pod, which clearly was not a creation of Lycaeus or Kiavahr, their eyes filled with boundless greed.
If they handed this thing over, they might leap straight into becoming minor nobles on Lycaeus.
In Ephrenia's terrified eyes, both Uncle Alundi and the brothers who had dared to resist were sprawled crookedly across the ground. From their occasionally twitching limbs, Ephrenia knew that their lives were not in danger for the moment.
A single shot from the Stun Guns carried by the armed overseers was enough to rob them of their ability to move.
"A windfall from heaven." Zoe, the armed overseers' captain, lifted Ephrenia up, his eyes gleaming with bloodthirsty cruelty.
Then his other thick arm reached toward Ephrenia's head.
Such an opportunity naturally required a sacrifice to unlock it. Since this golden giant had failed to crush this lowly slave to death, there was no one more suitable than this little girl before him.
A mere slave did not deserve such a high-tech item that was clearly no ordinary object.
The merciless iron hand pressed down on Ephrenia's head without hesitation. No matter how she struggled, Zoe's thick, powerful arm restrained the girl's tiny body like a steel hoop.
"Crack..."
A crisp mechanical turning sound rang through the entire mine tunnel. Zoe, who had been about to exert force and crush the girl's head, stopped moving.
The hatch of the seamless golden object suddenly opened. A somewhat thin figure stepped out—a boy with waterfall-like black hair and snow-white skin.
"Let... her... go!!" In just three words, the boy's pronunciation went from awkward to fluent, swiftly changing into the language of Lycaeus.
"As you wish!" At his words, Zoe threw the little girl aside as if tossing away trash, then drew the long whip hanging at his waist.
"Stun Guns, prepare to fire!" Zoe issued his command to the other team members over his communication channel, while the whip in his hand lashed fiercely toward the strange boy who had emerged from within.
The long whip cut through the air, carrying a deathly howl as it struck viciously toward the seemingly frail boy. A cruel smile appeared on Zoe's lips.
He looked forward to the whip drinking the other's blood, to the splendid sight of torn flesh and spraying blood.
The next second, the mocking look in Zoe's eyes vanished, replaced by utter terror. The boy, so much frailer than himself, had disappeared.
"Ah—!!!"
An inhuman, shrill scream suddenly tore through the mine's silence.
The howl seemed to have been forcibly squeezed out of his internal organs, carrying the stench of bloody spittle as it crashed back and forth through the narrow mine tunnel. His vocal cords were torn to their limit, producing a piercing tremor like twisting metal, before the final note abruptly rose into a shriek almost like that of a dying beast.
In the blink of an eye, the little boy appeared directly before Zoe like a ghost. One hand firmly grabbed the arm wielding the whip, his pale palm effortlessly crushing the sturdy arm bones to powder as though squeezing tofu.
Zoe's howl was filled with pain and terror, like a sharp blade stabbing through the primarch's nerves. The young boy did not like this brutal enforcer.
"Rip..." With a slight frown, the boy tore off the man's head in one motion, then tossed the enforcer's body aside like garbage.
At the same time, the heads of the other armed overseers who had been preparing to raise their guns suddenly exploded, their brains splattering everywhere like juice from burst watermelons.
The boy walked toward Ephrenia with slightly heavy breaths. The workers mining among the crowd hurriedly moved away from him, whispering fearfully about what they had just witnessed.
The little girl smiled at the primarch, tears cutting through the grime on her face. The boy wanted to make her happy, wanted to tell her somehow that everything would be all right.
"What is your name?" the boy asked the girl.
"My name is Nasturi. Nasturi Eifurenia," the girl replied.
"Nineteen. I am Number Nineteen." The boy held out the enforcer's head and offered it to the girl.
The boy did not know what he was supposed to do. His subconscious told him that skulls seemed important, that they were the standard by which one judged whether someone was a pure human.
So the boy naturally assumed that she would like a human skull.
"Ephrenia, are you all right?" Sandman, who had received the message, hurried over while panting and saw the scene before him.
He did not understand it, and he was deeply shocked.
Who gave a girl a head as a gift, especially one that had just been torn off someone else?
Were gifts supposed to be given while they were still warm?
"Brother Sandman, we're fine. Number Nineteen saved me..."
"Brother, I'm sorry, I... I..." Ephrenia looked at Sandman awkwardly.
Her left hand was still holding Zoe's head, blood continuously dripping from it and gathering into a small pool in the mine tunnel.
She knew this had become a serious matter. Five armed overseers had died; the Tower would never let them go.
"You take Kora... Number Nineteen and hide first. Leave the rest to me." Sandman did not say much. The most important thing now was to hide Korax and evade the Tower's search.
"Little brother, follow Ephrenia and hide for a while. Things are a little troublesome," Sandman said to Korax, who had just arrived.
He needed to prepare to face the Tower's investigation.
"There's no need to hide from enemies at this level. I'll just kill however many come." The boy did not think anything was wrong. His instincts told him that these enemies posed no threat to him whatsoever.
As expected of a pure War Machine. When danger comes, killing is the best way to solve every problem, Sandman thought.
"Killing is a way to solve many problems, but it is not the only way. You need to use your extraordinary brain, assess the specific situation, and then make a decision. For now, hide first, all right?" Sandman looked into Korax's eyes and spoke seriously to the boy who only reached his waist.
Before you continue