Chapter 87: The Abandoned Mine Pit

By the year 437 of the New Source Era, Purple Crystal Mining had completed its land enclosure. The vast molybdenum-iron deposit was named the Emberfield Mining Zone. Construction began three years later, the first phase was completed after five, and excavation started the same year.

By the year 476 of the New Source Era, Emberfield had been mined bare. Massive equipment began withdrawing from the site, and by 480, all demolition work was finished.

From that point on, the enormous pit that had supplied more than one fifth of Source Star’s molybdenum-iron output for nearly forty years became a breeding ground for abyss beasts. Over time, their numbers grew steadily, rising to a peak and forming a complete underground ecosystem.

The residents of the White Bone Valley Ruins had, over the course of a century, been drawn together here by the abyss beasts in the abandoned mine pit. Gradually they formed a vast settlement of wastelanders, eventually reaching a population of one hundred thousand, almost comparable to some small towns or county seats.

And because this settlement had never been registered with the Source Star Commerce Association, it did not even deserve a real name. People simply called it the Nameless City.

For a very long time, the Nameless City was the holy land in the hearts of Source Star’s wastelanders, and its fame spread to other continents.

Some wastelanders even looked on from afar and dreamed that one day they too might stand among the pioneers of the Nameless City, gather the strength of ten thousand in the wasteland, and build a city no less worthy than any citizen’s.

That shared illusion lasted until the calamity of destruction came.

Those pioneering wastelanders had surely never imagined that one day they themselves would replace the abandoned mine pit and become the fertilizer that sustained a better geomantic treasure ground in this region.

Or rather, even if they had imagined it, they had gone forward without hesitation and tried anyway; they had simply failed.

They were likely not the first to fail, nor would they be the last.

In any case, only decades after the disaster in White Bone Valley did Ember Town, named after Emberfield, finally rise from the surrounding land.

Ren Chong and the others parked the heavily reinforced combat-modified Thunderbolt vehicle at the edge of the abandoned pit.

Ren Chong leaped out first and stood at the rim, gazing into the abyss.

The immense impact hit him full in the face. All he felt was grandeur, immensity, magnificence, and an indescribable desolation rising in his heart.

The pit stretched beyond sight and plunged beyond sight.

Below, it seemed, there was a black hole devouring the light.

It was as though a meteorite weighing millions of tons had fallen from the sky and bitten a vast wound into the planet.

Yet this was the might of humankind, now reduced by abyss beasts, the embodiment of nature, back into something like nature itself.

Following the hemispherical outline downward, a ringed, terraced spiral structure wound its way into the depths, like terraced fields, like the shell of a snail.

Given the shape of this pit, it should long ago have become a giant lake under years and years of rain.

But it had not, because the cliff walls from top to bottom were riddled with countless tunnels, some the height of a man, others several men tall.

Those tunnels drained every drop of water away.

Beneath the pit there must surely be a surging subterranean river.

The rest stood behind Ren Chong.

At this moment, Ren Chong and Wen Lei were both wearing their exoskeletons.

The other four had donned combat suits of varying lightness and heaviness, with differing performance and quality, and all wore custom tactical helmets.

...

“Brother Ren, from the limited information I’ve gathered, there is a certain pattern to the distribution of abyss beasts in the abandoned pit. They grow stronger the deeper you go. Their density isn’t fixed, though, and the species are wildly varied.”

“The tunnel network was established by a rankless abyss beast called the Maze Cockroach. It’s the dominant species in the entire abandoned pit, present everywhere from top to bottom. Individual Maze Cockroaches range from first rank to fourth rank in strength. As for the other species, there are too many to count, at least dozens, maybe hundreds.”

“If we only operate in the first dozen or so spiral levels, then under normal circumstances we’ll encounter large numbers of second-rank beasts and a small number of third-rank ones. Unless...”

Ren Chong: “Unless what?”

Zheng Tian: “Unless we’re unlucky enough to run into a fourth-rank one.”

“Right, got it.” Ren Chong nodded.

He actually understood all of it in his heart.

He had more or less read the information Zheng Tian mentioned.

In truth, Ember Town was not the only place where semi-professional teams could force their way through second-rank beasts, but the reason the abandoned pit had become the second most dangerous place, where only professional teams dared venture, was precisely that the fourth-rank beasts here refused to obey the rules and often broke into the upper regions.

Whenever a semi-professional team encountered a fourth-rank beast, there had never been a survivor.

Zheng Tian’s phrase “unlucky enough” was in fact already conservative; it should have been “lucky enough” not to run into a fourth-rank beast.

“Check all your equipment. Focus on the night-vision gear, infrared sensors, ultrasonic reflection projectors, and the other newly installed devices. Then get ready to enter the tunnels. Because we have to go into the tunnel network, and each round trip takes too long, Chen Hanyu has to go in with us. Chen Hanyu has no ability to protect herself at all, so we must make every detail perfect.”

With a sweeping motion, Ren Chong announced the official start of today’s hunt.

The reactions of the people under his command varied.

Wen Lei and Ouyouning wore expressions of somewhat ignorant excitement and anticipation.

Chen Hanyu showed little change at all.

Bai Feng was the same.

A flicker of doubt crossed Zheng Tian’s face and vanished.

But in the end, all of them followed Ren Chong into the cave.

They had barely gone a few steps before the light abruptly dimmed.

A simulated visual field, composed of data from the night-vision device, infrared sensors, and ultrasonic reflection projector, appeared on each person’s helmet visor, constructing an image almost identical to real sight apart from color.

The others felt a slight discomfort and needed a moment to adjust, but Ren Chong felt as if he had come home.

It was seven or eight parts similar to the visual experience he had in virtual reality.

“Wen Lei, Bai Feng, the two of you are responsible for Chen Hanyu’s safety. Ouyouning, stay right behind me. Whenever I call for a bomb, prepare it immediately. Zheng Tian, you stay in the middle. Keep an eye on what’s behind us at all times, and focus on covering the rear. You don’t need to worry much about the front.”

As he gave the orders, Ren Chong activated the high-performance geomagnetic sensor and vibration detector specially installed in his exoskeleton.

The group walked several hundred meters farther in when Ren Chong lowered his voice through the communicator. “Everyone, fall back fifteen meters!”

The words had barely left his mouth when the other five immediately turned and retreated without hesitation.

Ren Chong drew his rank-two shock dagger into his right hand. With a flick of his left wrist, a small round shield, about the size of a scooter wheel hub, slid down from the forearm armor and was caught in his hand.

With a faint buzz, the media engine on Ren Chong’s back burst forth with a gale. In an instant, he had already appeared with the shock dagger in hand at the spot where Ouyouning had stood moments before.

The shock dagger flashed with cold light as it stabbed straight ahead.

Almost at the same time, mud and dust suddenly sloughed off the wall above the pit, and a steel-sheathed earthworm, a full foot in diameter and of unknowable length, violently burst out.

This second-rank steel-sheathed earthworm had a round head and body, its segmented form resembling the exhaust duct of a range hood.

It had originally been coiling around to lunge at Ren Chong, but Ren Chong had predicted its move and stabbed it hard in the forehead.

The shock dagger screeched like a saw as it cut forward.

Sparks erupted from the earthworm’s forehead, and a huge gash was forcibly torn open.

The dagger slashed downward again, ripping a wound nearly a foot long at astonishing speed.

Agonized, the steel-sheathed earthworm began to withdraw, as though trying to flee.

But Ren Chong’s shield-bearing left hand followed through with a heavy punch, driving both shield and fist brutally into the earthworm’s head.

Around the shield, dozens of linked steel cables instantly spread outward, stabbing into its body.

The cables intertwined with one another, extending deep into the worm’s body from the head, growing nearly four meters long.

The cables gave a slight tremor, and barbs extended from every link.

It was bound fast, utterly entangled.

Ren Chong planted both feet and, using the amplifier, rapidly increased the armor’s output, attempting to force the creature back.

Once the armor output exceeded 189 kilowatts, the steel-sheathed earthworm began to be dragged down from the top of the pit by Ren Chong, like an eel being hauled out of a hole.

Ten seconds later, the worm’s eight-meter-long, pythonlike body had been fully dragged free.

Ren Chong let go of the shield with his left hand, disengaging it.

With his right hand still gripping the dagger, he sprinted back again, the blade in his grasp slicing along the worm’s body like a fishmonger’s knife.

Two minutes later.

Chen Hanyu removed the crystal chip from the middle of the steel-sheathed earthworm’s body and placed it into the storage box.

As for the corpse, they left it behind.

The team had made an auspicious opening, and everything had gone smoothly.

...

At noon, the group leaped out from a pit on the inner spiral cliff wall of the third level of the abandoned mine.

Chen Hanyu was the first to jump, rolling once on the ground before steadying herself again.

Wen Lei and Bai Feng followed after.

Then came Ouyouning and Zheng Tian.

Ouyouning was especially flustered. As he jumped, his toe snagged on a stone at the edge of the opening, and he pitched backward toward the floor two meters below.

Had he hit, he might not have died on the spot, but a twisted neck was all but certain.

Fortunately, Wen Lei darted sideways in time and caught him in a princess carry, sparing the fellow from disaster.

Zheng Tian, by contrast, sprang up lightly and landed with ease.

The last to emerge was Ren Chong.

There were several corrosion pits across the surface of his armor, and the shock dagger and small steel-cable shield, together worth 300 points, were already gone.

“Brother Ren, did that thing come after us?” Zheng Tian asked hurriedly.

Ren Chong shook his head. “No. Let’s head back first.”

On the way, the group tallied their gains.

In just one morning, they had obtained twenty-seven second-rank crystal chips and nine third-rank ones. It was an explosive windfall.

But it was not all good news.

One who often walks by the river will, after all, get wet.

Ten minutes earlier, deep in the pit, they had suddenly encountered a fourth-rank abyss beast called the Crystallized Pangolin.

This creature was not large, only as tall as a person, but both offense and defense were excellent, and its strength was formidable. It fed on ordinary ants, second-rank copper-molybdenum ant swarms, steel-sheathed earthworms, and the like.

Beyond its nearly indestructible scales, it also possessed a tongue that could extend five meters when spat out, with highly corrosive mucus at the tip.

The group decisively fled.

Ren Chong still took the rear while the others withdrew first.

They fought as they ran, and just as they were nearly out of the cave and about to see daylight again, the Crystallized Pangolin finally abandoned the prey before it and hurried back.

Ren Chong was still fine, but the others were already somewhat rattled.

Although it was still early, Ren Chong’s equipment had been damaged, so they could only return to town first.

On the way back, Zheng Tian cautiously suggested, “We’ve already done very well today. How about... we come again tomorrow?”

Ren Chong shook his head. “No, I only need to replace the outer plates on my armor. It’ll be repaired quickly. Once we get back, we’ll buy new equipment from Ju Qingmeng and take a break. You all should remember to restock ammo and supplies too. This time I’ll get a few more matching pieces, prepare some new things, and then we’ll come back to trouble the Crystallized Pangolin again.”

“Huh?” Zheng Tian was shocked. “No! That’s a fourth-rank abyss beast! It’s already good enough that we escaped. Are we... are we really going back?”

Ren Chong smiled. “When I used to work, I handled things like this. First I’d force my way through headlong. If I hit a wall, I’d stop, touch my forehead, and see how badly I’d been hurt and what scars I’d been left with. Then, based on the scars on my body, I’d try to figure out what the problem truly looked like. Once I knew its shape, I could turn around and find a way to overcome it. That is how all things in this world work. Every abyss beast that fails to kill me on first contact will, in the end, become my prey.”

He added silently in his heart:

In truth, the abyss beasts that killed me on first contact still ended up as my prey in the end.

Zheng Tian: “Huh?”

Ouyouning swallowed nervously and struggled to say, “Brother, I know you’ve got a lot of ideas. But even if we take down the Crystallized Pangolin, the crystal chip stripped out by force would lose a lot of value, wouldn’t it? That’s such a waste. Why don’t we wait until we’ve built up a little more strength? You said it yourself, brother: stockpile grain, build high walls, and proclaim yourself king only when the time is right.”

Ren Chong shook his head. “You’re underestimating Chen Hanyu.”

As he spoke, he patted Chen Hanyu on the shoulder in the front passenger seat.

“You can do it, can’t you?”

Chen Hanyu’s face turned red, and she lowered her head.

“I... I’ll do my best and try. But there is still hope for a perfect dissection.”