The deeper the mine tunnel went, the narrower it became.
The timber supports stood closer and closer together, and the rock overhead grew lower and lower. In some places, Black Owl had to stoop slightly to pass.
The air smelled of sulfur, mixed with some indescribable, pungent odor like heated metal. More and more ore studded the walls, some glowing blue, some red, like pairs of eyes peering out of the darkness.
Black Owl stopped and reached out to touch a crack in the wall.
Wrong.
A storm-triggered landslide could certainly collapse a mine tunnel, but it would not cause damage on this scale. The broken supports, twisted rails, and pulverized rock walls he had seen along the way did not look as though a mudslide had struck them. They looked more like some immense force had burst them apart from within.
As though-something had squeezed out from deep inside the mine, forcibly stretching the entire tunnel open.
King Ghidorah's interest was piqued.
He made Black Owl quicken his pace and head deeper into the mine. The avatar's sensory systems ran at full capacity: thermal detection, magical fluctuations, sonar echoes. Every stream of data poured into his consciousness, combining into an increasingly clear image in his mind.
At the end of the tunnel was an enormous pit.
Black Owl stood at its edge and looked down.
There was no bottom in sight.
The beam from the avatar's lighting system plunged straight into the darkness, with no reflection and no echo, as though some invisible force had swallowed it.
The pit was at least a hundred meters across, its edges jagged, as though something had taken a vicious bite out of it from underground. Rough stone and ore crystals covered its walls. In places, beads of water still clung to them, dripping steadily down.
King Ghidorah made Black Owl crouch and press his palm against the ground at the pit's edge.
A faint vibration.
Not an earthquake, nor falling rubble, but something deeper, more regular-a pulse like a heartbeat. Very slow, very heavy, with several seconds between each vibration, but unmistakably there.
"There's quite a big fellow down there."
Black Owl stood, his sealed faceplate facing that bottomless darkness.
Back in the valley, King Ghidorah's main body narrowed his golden, slit-pupiled eyes slightly.
He recalled what Apekus had said-most of those ancient behemoths slept in rifts in the world, abysses at the planet's core, and undersea volcanoes, isolated from the world, not waking for thousands or tens of thousands of years.
They were far weaker than Apekus, but that was relative. To the humans of this world, the awakening of any ancient behemoth was enough to unleash a nation-destroying catastrophe.
And one of them happened to be sleeping beneath this mine.
Not a coincidence.
The storm wasn't a coincidence. The landslide wasn't a coincidence. Neither was the tunnel collapse.
That superstorm, which had covered half the continent, had not only destroyed human cities but also shaken the ancient beings sleeping deep underground. Rock strata cracked, seals loosened, and those things that should have slept for tens or hundreds of thousands more years were being awakened, little by little.
King Ghidorah thought it over and found it rather interesting.
But he had no intention of releasing the fellow in this pit just yet.
It was not time yet.
He wanted to see how far Nuoyaji, this "protagonist," could go, what those black-robed people were really looking for, and what expressions the humans of this world would wear when faced with a true ancient calamity.
"Consider it a little extra difficulty for you."
Black Owl took one last look at the bottomless pit, then turned and headed back along the tunnel the way he had come.
His footsteps gradually faded into the darkness.
At the mine entrance.
A sufficiently large opening had been dug through the rubble. The dust gradually dispersed, and sunlight poured through the gap, illuminating the cramped space heaped with broken stone and earth.
A dozen or so miners lay there, some unconscious, some semiconscious, and some with their eyes open but unable to utter a word. One by one, they were carried out of the rubble, placed on makeshift stretchers, and taken to the clearing nearby. The guards and mercenaries were sweating with exertion. Some gave them water, others bandaged wounds, and others ran to fetch more stretchers and waterskins.
Nuoyaji crouched beside a young miner, helping him keep pressure on a wound on his arm that was still seeping blood. The miner was barely in his early twenties, his face covered in dust and blood, his lips cracked and peeling. His eyes were half closed, and he was muttering something too quietly to make out.
"Don't talk. Save your strength," Nuoyaji said softly. He took a clean strip of cloth from someone nearby, wrapped it around the miner's wound, and tied it tight. The miner gave a muffled groan of pain but did not struggle.
"All right, all right. Carry him away." Nuoyaji stood, stretched his legs, which had gone numb from crouching, and turned to the next person.
Yimulei stood a short distance away with his hands on his hips, watching the miners being carried out. At last, a hint of a smile appeared on his face. It was not a broad, happy smile, but a weary one of relief, tinged with bitterness.
"Good..." he said quietly, as though talking to himself. "Finally, some good news."
Ever since the storm, bad news had come one piece after another, weighing on him until he could barely breathe. The mine had collapsed, the grain supply routes had been cut off, grain prices had risen, the empire was demanding taxes, and the financial consortiums were taking advantage of the crisis. Each problem was another stone piled onto him. He had thought he was close to breaking, that Luoweida was close to breaking.
But now, these miners had been rescued.
At least some people were still alive.
Yimulei drew a deep breath, turned, and looked at Nuoyaji.
"Thank you." His voice was not loud, but his tone carried such weight that every word seemed squeezed from the depths of his heart.
Nuoyaji was wiping the blood off his hands with his sleeve. Hearing this, he looked up at him and shook his head.
"It wasn't just my doing."
Yimulei said no more on the subject. He was not someone who liked to keep voicing his gratitude, but he remembered it. Whoever this man was, whatever his purpose, he had done Luoweida a great service today. He would remember this favor.
"Once things are settled here, I'll take you to see the viscount," Yimulei said.
Nuoyaji nodded, shifting his gaze from Yimulei to the excavated rubble.
Something caught the corner of his eye.
Not the rubble, the miners, or the busy guards. Farther away-at the edge of the mine, in that sparse stand of trees left leaning every which way by the storm.
A black shadow flashed past.
Too fast. So fast he could not even be sure his eyes had not played tricks on him. The dark shape flickered between the trunks, like a tree's shadow stirred by the wind, or the panicked movement of something deliberately hiding.
Nuoyaji's body reacted faster than his mind.
He whirled and charged toward the trees.
"Hey-" Yimulei called behind him, his voice carrying confusion and a trace of tension. "Nuoyaji?"
Nuoyaji did not answer. He ran fast, his boots clattering over rubble and mud. He crossed the trampled clearing at the edge of the mine and rushed into the trees, his gaze sweeping rapidly between the trunks.
Nothing.
Tree shadows lay dappled across the ground. Sunlight leaked through gaps in the foliage, casting irregular patches of light below. The wind rustled through the treetops, and a few birds flew overhead, chirping. There were no footsteps, no breathing, none of that hair-raising sensation of someone staring at his back.
Nothing.
Nuoyaji stood beneath a thick oak, panting heavily, and scanned his surroundings once more, unwilling to give up.
No one. No shadow. Nothing unusual.
What exactly was that black shadow I just saw?
*Not Black Owl-*he had seen Black Owl once at the inn. Though he had only seen his back, that pitch-black, cold, faceless silhouette was impossible to forget after a single glance. The shadow just now had been smaller and thinner than Black Owl, like a humanoid figure wearing a cloak.
Nuoyaji's brows knitted tightly.
He had a very bad feeling.
After his rebirth, he had believed his greatest advantage was his knowledge of the future. But the storm had changed everything. The Silence Society had appeared ahead of time, the disaster in Luoweida was several times worse than in his previous life, and even the way the mine tunnel had collapsed was wrong-he still could not work out whose footsteps he had heard earlier in front of the rubble. Those miners did not even have the strength to speak. How could they possibly have been walking through the tunnel?
And now another black shadow had appeared, flashing past.
Things were developing in a direction he knew absolutely nothing about.
Nuoyaji stood among the trees for a long time. Only when Yimulei's calls reached him from afar did he turn, leave the trees, and walk back to the mine.
His expression had returned to calm, but the gravity in his eyes was deeper than when he had arrived.
Meanwhile, somewhere outside Luoweida City.
Several black-robed figures gathered at the edge of a storm-ravaged field. All the crops had fallen, and the standing water had yet to fully drain. Rotten stalks and dead leaves floated on its murky surface. There were no people, no livestock; even birds stayed away.
The black-robed figure at the front stood with his hood pulled low, his face hidden. With his back to the others, he faced the distant, gray horizon, motionless, as though waiting for something.
Behind him, another black-robed figure stepped forward and bowed slightly.
"Confirmed?"
The figure at the front did not turn. His voice was low and hoarse, like sandpaper scraping wood.
"Confirmed. It isn't the place we're looking for."
The black-robed figure behind him fell silent for a moment, then nodded and stepped back.
"Then only that place remains," a third black-robed figure said. His voice sounded somewhat younger, and a trace of uncertainty crept into his tone. "My lord, the seal there... with our current strength, I'm afraid..."
"Afraid of what?"
At last, the black-robed figure at the front turned.
Shadows concealed most of the face beneath his hood, leaving only a pale chin and a pair of gray-white, pupilless eyes visible. Those eyes held no light, no warmth, none of the emotions a human should have. They were like two dried-up wells, bottomless.
"I'm afraid we can't open it." The young black-robed man lowered his head, his voice growing quieter.
Silence.
The wind swept across the fields, lifting a few dead leaves and sending them spinning over the ground. It raised the hems of the black robes, revealing dark red linings beneath, like congealed blood.
"Not open it," the figure at the front finally said, his voice lower and deeper than before. "Awaken."
He raised a hand. Gray-white fingers emerged from his sleeve, their tips an unhealthy, almost translucent pallor.
"The seal has already loosened. The storm wasn't merely a natural disaster. It was Their breathing before They awaken. We don't need to open the seal. We only need to find Them, and then... wait."
No one spoke again.
The black-robed figures turned and headed southeast. Their steps were light, leaving no footprints on the muddy field ridges.
Soon, their figures disappeared into the mist.
Only the abandoned field remained, along with the hazy outline of Luoweida City in the distance.