Chapter 126 - Chapter 126: The Under-Grid Odyssey

The air inside the lower salt-mines did not circulate; it sat heavy, ancient, and thick with a crystalline salinity that dried the throat within three breaths. The walls were not the smooth, poured concrete of the upper exchange flues, but jagged, glittering faces of solid rock salt, carved out by the generation that had cleared the delta before the first iron rails were forged. Every footstep left a dull, muffled crunch in the white crust covering the floorboards, a sound that seemed to be instantly swallowed by the absolute, dead density of the earth.