The sound of savage growls and the sickening noise of flesh being ripped apart finally began to fade slowly. Kanos sat leaning heavily against a pile of rusted iron crates. His breathing was incredibly short. Cold sweat completely soaked his entire face and his linen shirt. His head throbbed so violently that his vision occasionally swayed out of focus. Creating five giant shadow wolves simultaneously to slaughter hundreds of monsters truly made his brain feel like it had just been boiled alive.
But the mining floor in front of him was now completely wiped clean of all threats. Clean in the most terrifying sense of the word.
Hundreds of blind gargoyle corpses were scattered absolutely everywhere. Their black blood made the sulfur smell in the giant cavern even more pungent. The five shadow wolves created by Kanos slowly faded into thin purple smoke, eventually vanishing as they were blown away by the underground wind. Kanos intentionally cut off his command flow to reduce the agonizing load on his brain. Only his black stone golem remained standing completely still in the middle of the sea of corpses, its body covered in the dried blood stains of its enemies.
Belida yanked his sword out from the chest of the last gargoyle still twitching near the train tracks. The giant knight let out a massive sigh of relief, then wiped the monster blood from his face using his sleeve. He did not exert much energy during that fight. The monsters heavily preferred to commit suicide by throwing their bodies against the black golem and Kanos’s shadow wolves, which delivered an absolutely merciless slaughter.
Papuyu appeared from behind a concrete pillar on the right side. The girl was dragging a thick cloth sack that looked fairly heavy. She walked casually past the mangled bodies and threw the sack down exactly in front of Kanos’s boots.
The sound of small stones clacking together echoed loudly from inside the sack.
"Massive harvest," Papuyu spoke flatly. She sat down on an empty wooden crate next to Kanos while casually checking the edges of her twin daggers. "These blind monsters do not have valuable loot like thick hides or precious metals. But their crystal cores are located inside their throats, not in their chests. I collected about seventy high grade crystal cores from the carcasses that were still intact."
Kanos forced his exhausted body to lean forward. He untied the sack slowly. The inside was completely filled with pale gray crystals the size of golf balls. There was no smoke coming out of the crystals, but Kanos could immediately feel a bizarre cold sensation the moment his fingers brushed against their surface.
"Mana sucking crystals," Sili suddenly popped up right next to Kanos. The skinny broker felt around the inside of the sack with his eyes sparkling with pure, unadulterated greed. His cracked glasses slipped down to the very tip of his nose. "Boss, do you even realize how insanely valuable this crazy stuff is in the upper market? If you grind these crystals into fine powder and coat your weapons with it, that weapon can pierce right through absolutely any magical shield."
Kanos picked up one crystal and held the stone right in front of his eyes. A thin, incredibly cold smile began to form on his pale face. The intense pain in his head seemingly vanished in an instant, entirely replaced by the pure euphoria of an artist who just discovered an ultra rare type of paint.
"We are not selling these stones, Sili," Kanos answered quietly. He gripped the crystal tightly in his fist. "These stones are going to be the base material for my next ink batch. I am going to craft brand new gear for all four of us using this stuff."
Belida walked closer to them. The knight looked around the incredibly vast mining area. Many of the brick building ruins and iron watchtowers were still standing intact, despite being heavily rusted here and there. This area was completely isolated, massive, and now one hundred percent safe.
"So, where do we want to build your base?" Belida asked while sliding his greatsword back into the sheath on his back. "This spot is way too open if we just sleep next to the train tracks."
Kanos stood up slowly. He pointed using his chin toward the far edge of the chasm on the left side. Over there, a giant concrete building was carved deeply into the stone cliff wall. Its door was a massively thick steel gate. It looked like it used to be a main storage warehouse or a mining foreman’s command post. Its position was highly strategic, only accessible through one incredibly narrow stone bridge.
"There," Kanos walked slowly heading toward the concrete building. "That is going to be my studio starting tonight."
The four of them walked together crossing the narrow stone bridge. Kanos’s black golem took the lead, effortlessly pushing the thick steel gate that had been jammed shut for centuries until its hinges snapped completely off.
The inside of the building turned out to be incredibly spacious. The ceiling was high, the air was far cleaner than outside, and most importantly, the stone floor was perfectly flat and dry. There were several leftover giant iron tables and empty old metal shelves lining the walls. Sili instantly ran in absolute joy, picking the table in the furthest corner to stack his mountain of stolen ancient books.
Papuyu did not waste a single second. The girl immediately walked back toward the entrance, pulling out a spool of ultra thin wire from her bag. She started setting up perimeter traps all along the stone bridge. It was the standard professional routine of a hitman securing a place to sleep.
Belida dragged several heavy old iron crates over, arranging them into an extra layer of barricade right behind the broken entrance.
Kanos walked slowly toward the center of the empty room. He wiped the thick dust off the cold surface of a giant iron table. He placed the sack full of dozens of mana sucking crystals on the table, then pulled the empty glass bottles and his leftover purple smoke ink from his cargo pockets.
He arranged everything perfectly in a neat row. Exactly matching his old habits back when he was grinding through design revisions in his cramped apartment room. The only difference was, the drawing tools he was using right now could easily change the fate of an entire city.
"Boss," Sili called out from his table, opening up a thick forbidden journal he stole from Chitala’s library. "The Sensor Bureau in the upper city must be panicking like crazy looking for us right now. What happens if they check the historical records and find some old indications about this Dead Zone?"
Kanos did not turn his head. His eyes remained hyper focused on the pale gray crystal in his hand. His brain had already started drafting the anatomical blueprints for a brand new type of golem. A golem that could suck enemy magic dry and summon automatic shields.
"Let them panic," Kanos answered flatly. His left finger slowly began tapping the iron table, exactly matching the rhythm of his heartbeat. "They should panic. This whole time they felt like they held absolute control over this world. They really thought they were gods who could erase anything that did not perfectly fit their little rules."
Kanos placed the crystal back down onto the table. He turned his head to look at Sili, Papuyu, and Belida who were all listening to him. Kanos’s gaze was incredibly sharp right now, a total opposite from the terrified guy who was thrown to the bottom of the abyss by Garrick weeks ago.
"Starting tonight, we are not just running and hiding anymore," Kanos spoke with a chilling tone that made the hairs on Sili’s arms stand straight up. "I need eight hours of sleep. Tomorrow morning, I will start drawing our first army. The moment this workshop is fully operational, we are going back up there to hand deliver some direct revisions right into those bureau executioners’ faces."
The anomaly’s workshop was finally officially open for business.