At midnight, the acid rain stopped and was replaced by an even thicker fog that smelt metallic and rusty.
Aaryan hadn't slept at all that night. He had hidden the broken skeleton of the royal wing in the sustenance box beneath the floorboards, but the faint scent of blood seemed to penetrate the wooden planks and seep into his nostrils like a silent alarm. In the underbelly of the Maya district, secrets were often deadlier than poison.
At five in the morning, the factory's massive whistle roared precisely on time, sounding like a dying beast. Aaryan buttoned up his work clothes, concealing the suppression bracelet deep in his cuff, and once again entered the infernal factory known as 'Iron Jaw'. The atmosphere in the factory was unusual today.
The deafening roar of the large steam pistons striking the ground, which usually filled the air, was now barely audible; all the machinery seemed to have entered a low-frequency, creeping state. Even more bizarrely, the usually humble and taciturn demon-race workers were now eerily silent. They stood in an almost mechanically ordered line, heads bowed and arms hanging limply at their sides, their movements synchronised to a shocking degree.
'Hey, Old Lei?' Aaryan asked in a low voice as she passed a familiar worker.
There was no response. The burly demon-race man known as Old Lei stiffly turned his head, the bones in his neck making a dry grinding sound. Aaryan's pupils instantly contracted — Old Lei's normally cloudy brown eyes were veiled with a faint, pure blue halo.
This wasn't a healthy fluctuation of spiritual energy, but rather a parasitic mutation similar to the effect of high-pressure ether infusion.
"That's the frequency of the 'swarm'."
The cold voice within him echoed again, tinged with wariness. 'Ancient texts of the Celestial Vein Royal Family record that certain high-ranking Celestial Vein guilds used a technology called "Oracle Electromagnetic Waves" to forcibly synchronise the brainwaves of lower-ranking races, transforming them into tireless, painless "swarm soldiers".'
"Hurry up! You useless embers!'
A piercing explosion rang out from the high platform. A supervisor in a black inquisitor's robe looked down at the labourers below. His electromagnetic whip no longer lashed out indiscriminately, but instead drew precise geometric arcs in the air. Each arc sparked a trail of blue-purple electricity.
Aaryan walked to his post, the No. 3 Scrap Shredder.
Just then, he saw the boy from yesterday.
The boy was huddled in the shadows, with a pile of discarded cooling pipes, weighing hundreds of pounds, lying before him. His hands trembled and a bluish-white fluid seeped from between his fingers, dripping onto the scorching metal plate and emitting acrid white smoke. His body was almost petrified; with each breath, the sound of ore grinding against ore could be heard in his chest.
"Damn it! You cripple! You're delaying the gears!'
The overseer leapt from the platform, his steam boots blasting out a cloud of white, scorching smoke as they hit the ground and cracked it instantly. He swung his whip, aiming straight for the boy's spine.
In that instant, Aaryan felt his heart pound violently.
Images of the severed wing from the previous night and the arrogant faces of the Holy Blood Council nobles flashed through his mind. Reason told him to endure and not expose himself, but his bloodline roared: The king cannot be insulted!
It was a restrained tug-of-war.
"Crack!"
The expected sound of the boy's skin tearing did not occur.
Aaryan gripped the end of the electromagnetic whip firmly, a high-voltage current instantly coursing through his arm. This current was powerful enough to cause cardiac arrest in an ordinary person and triggered a frenzied backlash from his purple-gold bloodline.
The suppression bracelet turned crimson and almost embedded itself in his wrist bone.
'What are you doing, number 9527?' The overseer's voice was icy cold. He tried to pull back the whip but found the other's hand was like a steel clamp welded to a railway track.
'Sir,' said Aaryan, lowering his head. His veins bulged on his forehead and sweat trickled down his deep features, obscuring the almost burning holy light in his eyes. 'His body has already crystallised. If we kill him now, the remaining ether in the cooling pipes will trigger a chain reaction of explosions due to his blood, which will affect the factory's progress.'
The overseer narrowed his eyes, scrutinising the usually taciturn labourer.
'Are you teaching me how to do things?'
'No, I'm just thinking of you.' Aaryan slowly released his grip; his palm was already charred black. However, the other side didn't stop because of this 'loyalty'. On the contrary, a cruel thrill flashed in the overseer's eyes.
'Since you like playing the hero so much, take the hit for him.'
Before he had finished speaking, the electromagnetic whip transformed into a flurry of afterimages.
'First lash.' There was the dull thud of flesh tearing as it ripped through the thin work clothes on Aaryan's back.
'Second lash.' The current surged through his spine and into his neurons, causing an excruciating pain that seemed to tear his soul apart and almost made him collapse to his knees. But he didn't utter a sound. He just stared intently at the ground and the worker ants struggling in the acid rain.
An inner monologue echoed in his mind, booming like a bell:
'Look at this. This is what they call order. Forging ladders with pain and lubricating gears with blood. You call yourselves gods, yet you lack the courage to even look a mortal in the eye.'
The surrounding workers, 'swarmed' by the system, continued their mechanical movements. Only in the depths of the boy's blue eyes did a faint human sorrow seem to flicker.
Amidst wave after wave of lashes, Aaryan could feel that the suppressed royal ether within him was undergoing a qualitative change. The once peaceful power was becoming violent and sharp, like a broken sword honed for millennia and thirsting for the blood of its enemies.
The suppression bracelet cracked, showing signs of damage.
In that instant, an invisible pressure rippled outwards from Aaryan, causing the steam pressure gauges in Workshop 3 to spike and all the red lights to flash wildly.
The overseer's hand froze in mid-air. For a moment, he had a strange feeling: the person standing before him was not a labourer waiting to die, but a volcano about to erupt; a god capable of crushing him to dust in an instant.
'What's going on?' The overseer took a step back, his hand on the distress call device at his waist.
'The pressure valve overheated, sir.' Aaryan slowly raised her head, her gaze still humble. But the chill in her eyes sent a shiver down the overseer's spine. 'You see, I was right; the ether here is very unstable.'
In the billowing white steam, Aaryan's figure appeared aloof and imposing.
No one noticed the girl in a white priestess's robe hanging upside down from a rope in the shadows of the intricate brass pipes on the ceiling, her azure eyes fixed on Aaryan.
She parted her lips slightly and silently uttered a single word:
'Royal brother?'
The hissing of steam drowned out the sound of flesh tearing.
Kneeling on the damp, cold iron bars, Aaryan let waves of burning pain assault his nerves. Yet his consciousness drifted, strangely detached from his body, immersed in a state of deep stillness, like an icy sea.
He could hear:
The foreman's rapid, excited breathing; the rhythmic groans of the massive crankshaft in the next workshop, as its pistons churned; and even the sounds of his fellow workers' ethereal cores operating at overload.
"Had enough?"
His voice, barely audible amidst the violent mechanical roar, seemed to explode in Aaryan's ear.
The foreman's electromagnetic whip rose again, the bluish-purple afterimage of its tip tearing an arc of light through the dim workshop. This time, he was aiming for the back of Aaryan's head. According to the industrial regulations of the Maya District, killing a 'scrap labourer' who defied their superiors only required the completion of a form, and the compensation wouldn't even buy half a high-performance magical battery.
'Enough.'
Aaryan's eyes, hidden beneath his dishevelled hair, snapped open.
In that instant, the suppression bracelet on his wrist emitted a desperate wail. 'Buzz!'
An invisible force field called 'Royal Domain' erupted from him instantly. Although it lasted only a second and its range was no more than three metres, during that brief moment, it seemed as if the surrounding air had been sucked away and all the steam jets had frozen in mid-air.
'Crack.'
This was the sound of the etheric circuit inside the electromagnetic whip being forcibly reversed.
The overseer felt a jolt in his right hand and an extremely powerful suction force came from the whip handle. He was horrified to discover that this lowly labourer was frantically plundering the meagre spiritual power within his body.
'What did you do?' The overseer staggered back, his face turning ashen. However, Aaryan instantly concealed his presence, reverting to his timid labourer self. He slowly rose, supporting himself on his knees. The bleeding from his back wound had stopped, and the royal purple-gold energy within him was frantically absorbing the dissipated energy in the air in order to repair his body.
"Sir, the pressure valve… it's really going to explode."
He pointed to Boiler No. 3 behind him. Sure enough, the pressure gauge on the boiler had already pierced the dangerous dark red zone due to the impact of that oppressive force.
"Damn it! Alarm! Evacuate everyone!" Disregarding Aaryan's strange behaviour, the foreman frantically pressed the alarm on his chest. He knew that if the boiler exploded, he and all the upper management of Workshop No. 3 would face court-martial.
Amidst the chaotic red flashes and piercing alarms, the 'swarm of workers' finally moved.
But it wasn't an evacuation; it was a synchronised movement.
They all turned to face the boiler in perfect unison and emitted a low buzzing sound, as if tens of thousands of wasps were flapping their wings simultaneously. Aaryan was horrified to discover that the ether within their bodies was being forcibly extracted and that their bodies were beginning to crystallise rapidly, with pale blue crystal nuclei rising from their skin.
'They're using their lives as a sealant?'
Aaryan's nails dug deeply into his flesh. The Holy Blood Council had developed such heinous witchcraft, turning labourers into expendable resources and using their flesh and blood to fill cracks caused by mechanical malfunctions.
He saw the boy.
The boy was staggering towards the scalding steam pipe; the blue light in his eyes had robbed him of his last shred of humanity.
'Come back!'
Aaryan stepped forward, trying to grab the boy. But a cold hand descended from the ventilation duct above and gripped his shoulder precisely.
'Don't go if you don't want to disturb the old monster's projection.'
A clear, slightly soft female voice sounded in his ear.
Aaryan froze, his purple-gold bloodline nearly bursting forth — those who could approach him silently, bypassing his senses, were few and far between in the Maya District.
He looked up, following the force of the impact.
In the gaps between the crisscrossing, oil-dripping brass pipes, a ghostly girl sat, dressed in an incongruous white shrine maiden's robe emblazoned with ancient runes. The hem of her skirt was worn and tattered from acid rain, yet this only enhanced her decadent beauty.
Her hair was a pure silver white, shimmering like pearls in the dim industrial light.
'Who are you?' Aaryan asked in a low voice, each word seemingly squeezed out from between his teeth.
The girl didn't answer. Instead, she took an antique-style, wind-up pendant out of a brocade pouch at her waist. At its centre was a red gemstone that flickered with an irregular frequency of light, like a cat's eye.
'Thump, thump, thump.'
The rhythm was exactly the same as that of the 'wind-up core' that Aaryan had hidden in the rented room.
'I'm the one who can keep you alive.' The girl's azure eyes stared at him, and then she gracefully flipped and landed. The moment she landed, the space around her seemed to fold, rendering her completely undetectable to the distant overseer.
'Let's get to know each other again.' She extended her slender hand to him, an old train ticket bearing the year '1969' lying in her palm. 'My name is Dahlia, brother. Long time no see.'
Hook: A Glimmer of Light in a Deadly Situation
Before Aaryan could process the word 'brother', there was a loud explosion in the boiler room in the distance.
But it wasn't an explosion.
The supposedly indestructible boiler lid had been ripped open from the inside by a gigantic blue rock hand.
A twisted figure slowly emerged from the furnace, its entire body covered in crystalline aether. Its formerly human features had disappeared, replaced by a wildly spinning mechanical gear engraved with the insignia of the Holy Blood Council on its chest.
'Experiment A-03 is awakening.'
'Eliminate all witnesses.' A cold, distorted male voice boomed from the workshop's loudspeaker.
It was Overseer Vane's voice.
Aaryan looked at the monster called 'Experiment A-03', then at the girl who called herself his sister. He knew that his three years of painstakingly cultivating a life as a 'mediocre labourer' were utterly shattered from this moment on.
'Put this on.' Daria handed him a black cloak with stealth runes embroidered on the inside.
'Where to?'
'To the entrance to hell.' She pointed to the bottomless waste disposal ditch below the factory. 'To see those who are truly alive.'