Pain. It felt as if ten thousand stinging wasps, their wings wreathed in flame, were burrowing into his marrow and gnawing at his bones.
When the jagged, dark-red ore was embedded into his left shoulder, it wasn't a simple transfer of energy. It carried a virulent, corrosive "Dark Order Pollution." This miasma was hungrily devouring Gu Hanzhou's remaining life force, but in doing so, it triggered the most primal, violent survival instinct of the [Reverse Scale of Eternal Night].
"ARGH—!"
Gu Hanzhou's body went into a violent spasm. His dark-gold Royal Blood and the ore's crimson energy locked in a brutal tug-of-war at the site of the wound, sending up plumes of foul-smelling white steam. His vision blurred until the world was nothing but shifting shapes of grey and red, but he gritted his teeth until they bled. His right hand, looking like a piece of gnarled driftwood, clawed at the refuse pile as he dragged himself inch by agonizing inch toward Gu Qingshan and Su Qingyue.
The blind old man squatted in the shadows nearby, idly fiddling with a shard of bone from an unknown beast. His voice was chillingly detached.
"Boy, don't waste your breath screaming. In this deep-mine refuse, there grows a 'Symbiotic Blue Fungus.' That is the only medicine that can stabilize your old man's fading spark. Fail to find it, and by the time your blood-melt is finished, he'll be nothing but a sack of rot."
Gu Hanzhou dug into the waste with animalistic desperation. His fingernails tore off, and the jagged mineral shards sliced his fingertips to the bone, yet he felt no pain—only a searing, singular purpose. Every time his hand struck the earth, it sent a tremor through the closed "Consciousness Shackle" in his mind, striking the gate like a battering ram and creating minute, microscopic cracks.
Finally, beneath a heated lead plate, he saw a glimmer of ghostly blue.
He grabbed the clump of bioluminescent fungus with a trembling hand, shoved it into his mouth to grind it into a pulp, and leaned over to press it into his father's mouth. Then, he fumbled for two relatively pure energy shards and pressed them into Su Qingyue's cold palms.
"Live... we have to live..."
Gu Hanzhou let out a low, guttural growl before collapsing into the slag pile. However, even as he lay motionless, the dark-gold radiance on his skin began to condense and solidify. His aura, which had bottomed out, was beginning a slow, heavy process of "Reverse Growth."
Meanwhile, less than a kilometer away at the abandoned sewage outlet...
The heavy thud of tactical boots breaking the ancient silence of the abyss signaled the arrival of the hunters.
A dozen members of a specialized search-and-capture squad advanced in a fan formation. Their high-powered searchlights cut the darkness into jagged fragments. At the front of the unit, a man stood still, his posture as cold and rigid as a marble statue.
Lin Xiu.
His pristine, moon-white commander's uniform was a jarring contrast to the filth and stench of the deep mines. The eye that Gu Hanzhou had nearly destroyed during the Black Prison riot had been replaced by a "Order-Prosthetic Eye" that pulsed with an eerie violet light, making him look more like a mechanical wraith than a man.
"Report. Impact crater located from the high-altitude fall. Initial assessment: probability of target survival is less than 10%," a soldier reported, pointing to the massive indentation in the slag.
Lin Xiu reached out with a gloved hand and wiped a trace of warmth from a piece of rubble.
"No. He isn't dead."
Lin Xiu brought the trace of blood to his nose, a cruel and excited smile curling his lips. Under the infrared thermal sensing of his prosthetic eye, he could see incredibly faint particles of dark-gold energy shimmering in the stagnant air.
"A monster with a life-force as stubborn as weeds... I won't be satisfied until I personally snap his neck."
Lin Xiu unsheathed his standard-issue longsword. Three prominent "Order-Traces" were engraved upon the steel—the unmistakable mark of a [Blood-Engraving Realm] master. Since Duke Mordent's demise, as the highest-ranking officer left in the Inquisition's local branch, he had seized temporary command.
"Fan out! Kill everything within a three-kilometer radius that shows a life-sign. Slaves, rats, it doesn't matter. Kill them all."
Lin Xiu's voice echoed through the hollow pits, carrying a distorted sense of pleasure.
"Gu Hanzhou, this time, there are no prison rules to protect you. Here in the lightless deep, I will show you the true meaning of 'Order.'"
Behind the trash mountain.
The blind old man's movements with the bone shard stilled. He turned his hollow, blackened eye sockets toward the direction of Lin Xiu's voice.
"Heh. The Inquisition's dogs have a sharp nose. Boy, your 'Blood-Melt' is only half-complete. If they find you now, you won't even be fit to serve as fertilizer."
The old man delivered a sharp kick to Gu Hanzhou's ribs, jolting him back from the brink of unconsciousness.
"Slaughter them all, or be turned into a specimen in their lab. Choose."
Gu Hanzhou opened his eyes amidst the agony.
He felt it—the approaching aura belonging to Lin Xiu, a wave of pure malice and killing intent. Deep in his sea of consciousness, the heavy shackle groaned under the external pressure, emitting sharp crack-crack sounds.
Gu Hanzhou slowly reached out and gripped the hilt of [Black Order]. The bloodied tip of the blade scraped against the ground, creating a trail of dark-gold sparks.
"Since they want to come down and see the scenery..."
Gu Hanzhou's voice was low, resonating like thunder from the depths of the earth. The dark-gold fire in his eyes burned with a newfound, tyrannical savagery.
"...then they can stay here forever, and serve as nourishment for my Royal Blood."