Time in the Long Night was not measured in hours or days. It was measured in "shifts."
One shift was eight hours. Four hours of fighting the gap. Two hours of processing carcasses. Two hours of comatose sleep while Lin Qinghe watched the fire.
According to the scratches on the soot-stained wall, thirty days had passed. One month of darkness.
The Granite Tunnel had transformed. It no longer looked like a mine; it looked like the gut of a beast. The walls were coated in a thick, greasy layer of soot from the burning beetle shells. The air was a haze of acrid blue smoke and the sickly-sweet smell of roasting insect meat.
Ji Han stood at the bottom of the ramp, his silhouette backlit by the green-orange fire above. He looked less human than ever. His hair was matted with blue blood. His skin was pale, almost translucent, stretched tight over cables of muscle that twitched with restless Qi.
He was Qi Condensation Level 2 (Peak).
Scritch. Scritch.
The sound from the other side of the granite slab was constant. The swarm never slept. They just rotated.
"Ready," Ji Han croaked. His voice was a grinding of stones.
"Fuel reserves are high," Lin Qinghe called down. She sat by the fire, looking like a witch in her leathers, her face smeared with ash. "But the oxygen is thin. The fire is eating the air faster than the draft replaces it."
"Open the vent," Ji Han ordered.
He kicked the granite slab. He didn't pull it back six inches this time. He pulled it back a foot.
The gap yawned. Cold air rushed in, feeding the fire above.
A black shape lunged through the darkness.
WHAM.
Ji Han didn't even look. He swung the Frost-Iron Cleaver in a practiced arc. The blade caught the beetle mid-air, bisecting it lengthwise. He kicked the halves aside before they hit the floor.
Another one.
WHAM.
It was monotonous. It was industrial.
But then, the rhythm broke.
The third shape didn't lunge. It plodded.
A massive, armored leg hooked over the threshold. Then another. A creature forced its way through the widened gap, scraping sparks against the granite.
It wasn't a scavenger beetle. It was a tank.
It was broad, flat, and covered in heavy, plated armor that shimmered like oil. Its head was shielded by a thick, shovel-like prow.
[System Notification: Enemy Detected.] [Heavy-Shell Isopod (Level 1).] [Attribute: High Defense / Crushing.]
"Elite," Ji Han hissed.
He swung the cleaver, aiming for the head.
CLANG.
The weapon bounced off. The frost-iron edge chipped. The Isopod didn't even flinch. It tucked its head and rolled forward, curling into a ball of armored destruction.
It hit Ji Han like a bowling ball.
"Oof!"
The impact knocked the wind out of him. Ji Han slid backward across the slick floor, his boots carving grooves in the stone. The Isopod uncurled and snapped its mandibles—not sharp pincers, but crushing rollers.
"It's heavily armored!" Lin Qinghe shouted, standing up. "Blades are useless! Percussive force!"
Ji Han scrambled to his feet. The beast charged again.
"Percussive," Ji Han grunted.
He flipped the Frost-Iron Cleaver in his hand. He didn't use the blue bone edge. He used the flat of the heavy Black Iron spine.
He channeled his Qi. He didn't make it sharp; he made it heavy.
"Sit. Down."
As the Isopod lunged, Ji Han stepped inside its guard. He swung the cleaver like a sledgehammer.
BOOM.
The spine of the weapon slammed into the center of the Isopod's back plates.
The armor didn't cut. It cracked. A spiderweb fracture appeared on the glossy shell. The beast screeched, its legs buckling under the weight of the blow.
Ji Han didn't stop.
BOOM.
He hit it again. The shell caved in. Blue ichor oozed from the cracks.
BOOM.
The third strike flattened the creature against the floor.
Ji Han stood over the twitching mess, breathing hard. He looked at his cleaver. The Black Iron spine was dented, but intact. The bone edge on the other side was chipped.
"Evolution," Ji Han muttered, staring at the corpse. "They are sending the heavy infantry."
He dragged the carcass up the ramp. It was heavy—easily a hundred kilograms of dense meat and shell.
Lin Qinghe inspected it.
"This shell..." She tapped the cracked armor. "It is not flammable like the beetles. It is fire-resistant. But..."
She peeled a fragment of the plating off. It was incredibly dense.
"It is ablative," she said. "It absorbs force. Ji Han, your weapon is failing. The bone edge is brittle against armor."
Ji Han looked at the chipped blue edge of his cleaver. The Centipede mandible was sharp, but fragile.
"I need a hammer," Ji Han said. "Or a pickaxe."
"No," Lin Qinghe said, her eyes gleaming with a tactical idea. "We don't need a new weapon. We need a new defense."
She pointed to the Isopod's massive, shovel-like head plate.
"The slab is taking damage," she noted. "The granite is cracking from the constant impacts. If the door fails, we die."
She looked at the pile of Isopod carcasses they would likely accumulate.
"We reinforce the door," she planned. "We clad the granite slab in Isopod armor. We turn the seal into a shield."
Ji Han looked at the dead tank. Then he looked at the door.
"And my weapon?"
"We modify it," she said. "Strip the damaged bone edge. Replace it with the Isopod's crushing rollers or... wait."
She looked at the Isopod's legs. They ended in heavy, hooked spikes designed for digging through rock.
"War Pick," she suggested. "Fuse the digging spike to the back of your cleaver. One side for flesh, one side for armor."
Ji Han nodded slowly. The cycle continued. The enemy provided the problem, and the enemy provided the solution.
"I'll take the next shift," Ji Han said, grabbing a piece of raw meat. "You start stripping the armor. We have a door to upgrade."