Chapter 161: The Ruined City
Tactical lights flickered on, cutting through the gloom. From above, the distant
screams of less fortunate explorers still echoed through the vertical shaft, but
Golem had already assumed the lead.
The mech kicked open the rotting wooden doors of a suite. The impact sent up a
massive cloud of ancient dust.
Ronin silently pulled a gas mask from his pouch and strapped it on.
There was no chatter. The Golem stomped into the corridor, its heavy metallic
gait shaking the floor. The mercenaries followed, rifles raised, scanning every
shadow.
The beams of their tactical lights swept the hallway. Everything was covered in
thick layers of grime and cobwebs, but no immediate threats were visible. The
Golem marched toward the stairwell.
They had only taken a few steps when a chorus of shrill screeches and the sound
of rapid, rhythmic footsteps erupted from below. Something had been stirred by
their arrival.
"Ready for contact!"
Muherr drew a pair of customized revolvers and barked the order.
Vanessa blurred, her silhouette vanishing from the physical plane. Ronin watched
closely this time; she had literally submerged herself into Mashur's shadow.
Mashur, meanwhile, dropped back to cover the rear.
Ronin stayed at Muherr's side. Through his En, he sensed several high-speed life
signatures breaching his twenty-meter radius, charging up the stairs toward
them.
Judging by their movement patterns, they reminded him of the Xenomorphs from the
movies of his past life.
Rat-a-tat-tat!
Gunfire erupted. The first monster burst through the stairwell door. Ronin
adjusted his assessment—it wasn't quite an Alien. It was a sleek, reptilian
predator with a streamlined body, resembling a prehistoric raptor but with a
grey, chitinous hide.
The Golem raised its right arm. A heavy Gatling Gun manifested instantly. The
barrels spun with a high-pitched whine before unleashing a literal waterfall of
lead.
The raptors were shredded mid-lunge. They didn't even have time to shriek before
the sheer volume of fire reduced them to a slurry of ichor and bone.
Three minutes passed.
The screeches stopped. The wall behind the stairwell had been completely
obliterated by the Golem's barrage, exposing the pitch-black void of the cavern
and the distant, ghost-like silhouettes of other skyscrapers.
The wind howled through the new gap in the building. The Emitter seated on the
Golem's left shoulder stood up and leaped down, looking drained. Another
specialist immediately climbed up to take his place.
The first Emitter was moved into the center of the defensive formation. He
quickly pulled a specialized ration from his pack and began eating.
Ronin noticed the food was glowing faintly with Nen. It was likely a Conjured or
Transmuted product designed for rapid aura recovery—the trademark of a
high-level logistical Emitter.
The new Emitter on the Golem's shoulder triggered a transformation. The Gatling
gun dissolved, replaced by a massive warhammer. In its left hand, the Golem
manifested a heavy tower shield.
With a rhythmic clank-clank, the Golem stepped over the pile of raptor corpses
and began the descent down the stairs.
Ronin's group followed.
The screams from outside the building had ceased. Looking through the shattered
wall into the empty air, Ronin saw dozens of thick white cocoons hanging from
the cavern ceiling.
Some of those silk bags were definitely the other explorers.
Ronin felt zero urge to play the hero. He retracted his gaze and followed the
Golem.
The gas mask filtered out the metallic stench of the raptor blood. His En
remained clear of threats, though he noted several structural collapses in the
floors below.
Ten minutes later, the team reached the ground floor.
Stepping out of the tower, they found themselves on a wide, desolate street.
Derelict buildings loomed over them, and in the middle of the road sat the
rusted, overturned remains of a monorail train.
"This is..." Ronin felt a wave of cognitive dissonance.
The intel said the Mahavi Ruins were over 2,000 years old. How could an ancient
civilization have skyscrapers and rail transit?
"Surprised?" Muherr's voice carried a hint of amusement. "I had the same
reaction during my first deep-level run."
"To understand why this place exists, you have to understand a secret—a fact
that 99% of the world's population will never know."
Muherr paused, looking at Ronin with a weight of newfound respect.
"The world is much larger than the maps say, Ronin. Humanity lives on a cluster
of small islands in the middle of a lake. Beyond the horizon lies a gargantuan
continent known as the Dark Continent."
"And that continent is where our ancestors originally came from."
Muherr stopped walking, gesturing to the ruined city around them. "Not all ruins
are equal. When the V5 was established, they classified sites like this. Any
ruin that hints at the technology of the Dark Continent is designated a
Forbidden Zone."
Ronin nodded. He knew the lore, but hearing a legendary mercenary confirm it was
different.
Still, something felt off. Muherr was sharing "Level 1" classified secrets very
freely.
He's baiting me. He wants to see if I already knew.
"If ancient humans had access to this level of technology," Ronin asked, playing
the part of the curious outsider, "why did our modern society regress? Why
aren't we this advanced?"
Muherr gave him an appreciative look. "Because every high-tech ruin we find is
missing the one thing that made this civilization possible: The Power Source."
Ronin tilted his head.
The unit began making camp in the ground-floor lobby of a nearby tower. They
needed to regroup before pushing into the "Outer Ring."
One tower held a swarm of raptors; the open city was likely a death trap of
unknown proportions.
Muherr used the rest time to continue his lesson.
"Ancient technology wasn't based on fossil fuels or electricity as we know it.
Their entire society was fueled by resources gathered from the Dark Continent."
Muherr pointed toward the overturned monorail.
"That train doesn't have an engine. It doesn't have batteries. It was powered by
a specific type of ore."
Following Muherr's description, Ronin's mind immediately supplied a name: The
Unmanned Rock.
It was one of the legendary treasures of the Dark Continent—a stone that
generated 20,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per day just by being submerged
in water. One pebble could power a modern household for a decade.
So that's what this is, Ronin realized. An outpost built on the spoils of the
Forbidden Continent.
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