"Okay, I'll take you."
The slave boy led the way, walking with the Avenger to the back of the Draco estate—toward a hidden entrance to the underground.
Ignyr couldn't help but feel a strange familiarity with the boy. It was like looking at his ten-year-old self. And despite the boy's worn clothes and guarded expression, there was something about Ignyr that made him feel safe, like an older brother who had returned after a long absence.
He didn't know whether others—especially those clothed like Draco—would ever believe such a thing. But somehow, he thought this might be what he himself would've looked like, had his future taken a different path.
As they walked in silence, the boy kept glancing up at Ignyr. Though words were scarce, he saw a familiar pain behind his quiet eyes—something that made the boy instinctively trust him.
By the time they reached the rusted iron door, no further words were needed. The boy already trusted him completely.
"This is where my mother used to trade her labor for rations."
The two stood at the threshold, one tall and worn by time, the other small and wide-eyed. Ignyr didn't immediately move. Instead, he stared at the door, his thoughts drifting.
The old secret passage reminded him of the cellar where he'd once been imprisoned. Memories surged forward, unbidden.
A childhood spent in the shadows—eating, sleeping, and reading in a space fit for no living thing. Every day felt like watching the same broken film on repeat. His mother would labor like a beast in chains just to bring home scraps for him to survive.
That life had stretched on endlessly, until the day Thorn appeared. Ignyr had been ten.
He thought it was a turning point—a promise that things would change.
Instead, overnight, the woman who had loved him more than life was dead. He himself had fallen into the sea, reborn as a spirit of vengeance.
"It's right here."
The slave boy's voice broke through his reverie. Ignyr pulled himself back to the present, forcing the memories down. The sorrow in his heart remained hidden beneath the mask of a gentle older brother.
This humble door marked the line between two worlds—the world of the all-powerful Celestial Dragons, and the world of the slaves, whose lives were treated like dust.
"Let's go."
The boy descended first, down a narrow stairway wide enough for two. The walls on either side were aged stone, stained yellow and streaked with moisture.
Slippery green moss coated the steps, and every footfall felt precarious. One careless movement could mean a fall.
The deeper they went, the darker it grew. It felt less like a staircase and more like a descent into hell.
As they descended, Ignyr's mind painted scenes he could never forget.
He imagined the once-dignified princess, reduced to crawling in filthy rags, dragging her body up these same stairs after a day of inhuman labor. She would stumble often on the slick ground, her body failing her, but her spirit never breaking.
She would force herself to smile before entering the cellar—cheerful and soft, as if nothing had happened. She would hand her son the food she earned with blood and sweat, never letting him see the pain.
"We're almost there."
At the bottom of the stairs, tens of meters deep, they arrived at what was called the "slave residence."
It was nothing more than a sprawling, dark workshop.
A massive U-shaped promenade stretched before them. Along the outer edge, slaves lay sprawled across the floor in various states of exhaustion.
And in that chaos, Ignyr's vision flickered again. He saw his mother, huddled with a group of men who reeked of rot, quietly napping amid the filth.
Even in rags, her beauty had never gone unnoticed. Overseers, drawn to her delicate features, would approach her under the pretense of casual talk. Their intentions were never pure.
For ten years, she endured their leering stares, their unwanted hands. Day after day of humiliation, all for her son's survival.
One night, she returned to the cellar with her usual gentle smile—but Ignyr had seen it then. The disheveled clothes, the faint black trails of tears down her cheeks.
"This way, brother."
The boy's innocent voice pulled Ignyr forward. He followed, eyes scanning the crude, hellish corridor.
Countless thick hemp ropes hung from the ceiling, stretching far into the darkness above. When Ignyr looked up, he saw they reached the top and vanished.
The ropes were too many to count—tens of thousands, stained with dried red patches. Like the ghosts of hanged slaves still clinging to the ceiling.
At the center of the promenade stood a square enclosure, surrounded by steel walls. Whatever was inside, it was heavily sealed.
"When you come here, big brother, you'll live in this place too."
The boy stopped in front of a spot indistinguishable from the rest.
It wasn't a home. It wasn't even a cell. It was just a corner with a bit more space than the others.
To anyone else, it was squalor. To the boy, it was everything.
Ignyr looked down at the small space and couldn't help but smile bitterly. Compared to his childhood, this boy had it slightly better. There was room to breathe. Others to talk to.
But his blood-stained clothes and calloused knuckles told a different story.
Regardless of age or gender, slaves here were used up like tools. Beaten. Worked beyond exhaustion. Forced to endure humiliation whenever it suited the Dracos.
Ignyr's eyes returned to the ropes. Every path led upward. It connected to the noble's moving roads above—the ones that seemed to glide effortlessly, like magic.
But they weren't magic.
The truth struck him like a bolt of lightning.
In the comics, the nobles were shown standing on pathways that moved without them walking. But beneath those steel tracks—buried underground—were slaves like these, pulling the roads by hand, like beasts.
Looking up, he saw the massive gears and parts attached to the ceiling, interlocking above the corridor.
This was the engine room of noble privilege. A moving platform above, dragged by tens of thousands of nameless, suffering slaves below.
Looking again at the blood-stained ropes, Ignyr understood.
This was his mother's job.
In a place where women were worked like men and children were treated like beasts, she had bent her thin body to pull those ropes with bleeding hands.
Her soft fingers had been hardened by calluses. Her shoulders rubbed raw by coarse fibers. And all of it under the lash of a whip.
She had been a princess once—loved and revered by her people.
Now, ten years later, she had worked like a mule, with no regret. Not even bitterness.
"Brother, please… get us out."
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