The cataclysmic roar of the Inverted Tower's explosion did not bring the absolute annihilation many had expected.
Duke Mordent, after all, was an intensely greedy and pragmatic politician. The self-destruct sequence he had initiated was a surgical strike—a desperate move to vaporize the evidence of his failed "Subject One" experiments and bury the scandal of a slave uprising. As the deafening echoes of the blast finally faded, the air deep within the earth's crust became thick with the ozone tang of ionization and the scorched, metallic scent of burnt carbon.
Gu Hanzhou knelt on one knee amidst the jagged debris. The tip of [Black Order] was driven deep into a fissure in the bedrock, serving as a cold, unyielding crutch for his depleted body.
Due to the immense structural integrity of the subterranean anti-shock bulkheads, the base of the tower hadn't been completely crushed. Instead, massive alloy support beams had twisted and locked against one another during the collapse, creating a hollow, triangular sanctuary—a ribcage of steel beneath the earth. Above them lay millions of tons of pulverized stone and toxic silt; below, the magma currents of the planetary core hissed and glowed a hellish red. Here, in the belly of the world, they had found themselves on a lonely, floating island of ruins.
"Hanzhou... don't waste your effort."
Gu Qingshan leaned against a shattered fragment of the incubation chamber. Three sensor-tubes still protruded from his chest, their jagged ends flickering with a sinister, pulsing red light. Every few seconds, they emitted a faint, high-pitched hum—a mechanical heartbeat marking the countdown to his demise.
"Mordent... he planted a 'Biological Lock' into my spine," Gu Qingshan's voice was a dry rasp, each syllable a visible struggle for his lungs. "If I move beyond the signal field of this prison... or if he chooses to sever the connection from above... the pressure-controller in my heart will detonate. I am a walking bomb, son."
Gu Hanzhou said nothing. His expression was a mask of cold granite. He reached into his tattered officer's tunic and pulled out several vials of premium Blood-Ignition serum he had scavenged from the Mid-Sector. With a sharp flick of his thumb, he snapped the seals, pouring the viscous, glowing liquid into the raw wounds on his father's back.
"I haven't given you permission to die," Gu Hanzhou said, his voice dropping to a terrifyingly calm whisper. "Without my nod, not even the gates of hell will open for you."
It was a statement of absolute, arrogant resolve—the kind of grit forged in the lightless pits of the mining zones, where hope was a luxury and ruthlessness was the only currency.
He turned his gaze toward the shadows beneath a collapsed support beam. Su Qingyue was crouched there, her face ashen and her violet eyes wide with a frantic, flickering light. She gestured toward the ceiling, where several red pinpricks of light still winked through the drifting dust.
"Mordent is alive," she whispered, her voice trembling. "He's hiding in a high-level bunker, watching us through the auxiliary sensors. He's like a spectator watching beasts in a pit. The only reason he hasn't triggered the lock on your father yet is because he's waiting... he wants to see you crawl. He wants to see you beg for his mercy."
Gu Hanzhou snapped his head up. His golden eyes pierced through the settling soot, locking onto a crimson sensor lens for a heavy, silent second.
He didn't beg. He didn't scream.
Slowly, with the deliberate grace of a predator, he stood up and wrenched [Black Order] from the stone.
"He's waiting for me to climb up and kneel at his feet," Gu Hanzhou muttered, the blade letting out a low, thirsty hum. "But he's about to realize that leaving me alive in the ruins of his prison was the last and greatest mistake of his life."
Gu Hanzhou's heightened senses caught the sound of movement. Shuffling, heavy footsteps were echoing through the darkness beyond their "island."
They were the "Discarded"—convicts who had survived the blast and been driven mad by the isolation, and perhaps the Inquisition's "Suicide Squads" sent down to sanitize the site. In this lawless vacuum, resources were more precious than gold. To the scavengers in the dark, a man with a legendary blade, a wounded veteran, and a rare Primal-Blood female were the ultimate prizes.
"Su Qingyue, take my father to the corner of the power-supply room. It's a blind spot for the sensors," Gu Hanzhou commanded, his silhouette beginning to dissolve into the grey haze.
"Since the law has died in this place, we'll negotiate using the rules of the ruins."
His eyes were no longer filled with the confusion of a slave or the desperation of a fugitive. There was only the cold, calculating logic of a King. Mordent believed that trapping him in the abyss was a death sentence, but for a man who had spent ten years digging through the lightless veins of the earth, the darkness wasn't a prison—it was his home turf.
Thirty seconds later.
A blood-curdling shriek ripped through the darkness, followed by the heavy, wet thud of a body hitting the floor.
An Inquisition guard, armed with a high-tension Order-Crossbow, was hoisted into the air by his throat. Gu Hanzhou's hand was like a hydraulic vice, crushing the man's windpipe before he could even register the shadow that had emerged from the dust. With clinical detachment, Gu Hanzhou stripped the corpse of its supplies and snatched a bronze Tier-2 authorization badge from its chest.
He looked up at the jagged, vertical ventilation shaft—the only path leading back to the world above.
The night of the Iron City was far from over.
From this moment on, this island of scrap and bone beneath the earth was no longer Duke Mordent's laboratory. It was the vanguard station for Gu Hanzhou's counter-invasion.
He wasn't escaping the Black Prison anymore. He was going to dismantle it, stone by stone, until the sun finally rose over the ruins.