"Everyone's here. Has everyone eaten?" Swain, still only half-full, walked out somewhat dejectedly. He casually pulled up a stone stool, leaned back, and greeted everyone.
But Swain regretted his words as soon as they left his mouth.
"Swain, we've eaten, but we're not full! These damn overseers are too harsh," Medan, the burly figure, complained incessantly to Swain, rubbing his stomach, which was only a third full.
"Medan, no one's full..." Agapito interjected.
"Alright, stop complaining. Starting tomorrow, you'll get an extra half portion," Swain said, looking at Medan's imposing physique. He finally understood Medan's perpetual hunger. One portion was enough to fill an adult miner to about five-tenths capacity, but for someone of Medan's build, being a third full was considered good.
"Thank you, Swain! Long live the boss!" Medan immediately lunged forward, his burly body like a brown bear pouncing on Swain, eager to give his beloved boss a bear hug.
"Don't come over here..." Swain, who had been leisurely sitting with his legs crossed, saw the approaching shadow and tried to stop Medan, but it was too late. His crossed legs barely had time to uncross before Medan's enthusiastic embrace arrived.
"Thud..." The dull sound of flesh hitting the hard floor, mixed with Swain's cries, echoed throughout the hall.
"Cough, cough, cough... You're crushing me."
"Medan, I'm warning you, if there's a next time, you'll be punished with two days without food!" Swain, who had been helped up with great difficulty by everyone, kept rubbing his lower back and warned him very seriously. Caught off guard, Swain had been tackled to the ground by Medan, and unfortunately, his lower back had hit the uneven floor hard.
"Swain, no!!!" Medan immediately wailed. Cutting off his food for two days was even worse than killing him.
The humorous interlude in the hall quickly ended with Medan's protests, and under Agapito's guidance, they soon returned to the main topic.
"Swain, we should be digging into the adamantium vein soon. The question is, what do we do next? Mine it, or temporarily conceal the news?" Agapito asked Swain. The discovery of an adamantium vein often brought many complications.
It was a mistake to think that just because the people on Lycaeus could raise the Crow King, this place was a pure land. On the contrary, hunger could destroy all human reason, driving people to do all sorts of unbelievable things, especially since Lycaeus, besides political exiles, also harbored various heinous criminals. Before Corax grew up, there were even gangster organizations that specialized in plundering other miners for a living.
"That's right, my intuition tells me that we're very likely to hit the adamantium. As for what to do? Of course, we dig it. Why leave it there to gather dust if we don't dig it?" Swain retorted.
"Swain, if this news gets out, our current strength might not be enough to hold it," Blaney considered, finding it quite difficult for the Saviors to secure the adamantium given their current situation. The Saviors miner organization was the largest in this area.
Besides various smaller miner groups, there was also a raider organization called the Wild Wolf Gang, composed of those heinous exiled criminals. These parasites, feeding on the Lycaeus miners, cast a tragic shadow over the already suffering fate of these people. From time to time, some weaker miner organizations would be invaded by these parasites, who would steal their hard-earned accumulated ores or living supplies.
Their ultimate fate would then be to starve to death because they couldn't meet the tasks assigned by the overseers. As for becoming slaves? Lycaeus didn't need more slaves.
"Don't worry, we'll fully mine the adamantium. If these vampires dare to come, I'll make sure they come and never return!" Swain's calm words carried an unexpected weight. For the first time, the leaders of the Saviors organization felt a cold, oppressive presence from their usually cheerful boss.
"An, tomorrow, take people to exchange all these ores for living supplies. Agapito, you all assign a portion of your manpower to Medan. The rest of you will mine the adamantium with me. There's nothing else, everyone go back and rest."
Swain quickly completed the deployment and adjourned the brief meeting. On Lycaeus, rest time was incredibly precious. When food was scarce, lying down could save a lot of unnecessary energy consumption...
Streaks of dim light fell, illuminating the main leaders of the Saviors organization who had adjourned the meeting. The afterglow of the setting sun cast long shadows, and people who had been busy all day could finally get a few hours of precious rest. Their tired figures quickly disappeared into different areas.
On Lycaeus, there wasn't really a concept of a 'sun.' All the miners actually lived under domes built by the Tech Guild. As a purely mining planet, Lycaeus had no atmosphere, and all miner activities could only take place under this continent-sized dome. The sunrises and sunsets here were also controlled by artificial light sources on the dome.
To ensure that the miners didn't mix up day and night, the Tech Guild synchronized the time on Lycaeus with the time on Kiavahr. Of course, this wasn't out of the slave owners' benevolence, but rather to allow the slaves thrown onto the planet to re-adapt to the biological clock environment, so that they could mine better.
Night gradually enveloped Lycaeus, which was shrouded in darkness. Miners, exhausted from a day's labor, leaned on their power picks and fell into a deep sleep...
Just as the light of dawn began to appear outside the Lycaeus dome, a Warp rift suddenly opened silently, revealing a world on the other side of physical reality.
It was an incredibly magnificent place, filled with various colorful hues, much like the astonishing cosmic nebulae humans saw when they first explored outer space. An amniotic pod, enveloped by four colors, suddenly appeared without warning above the dome. Red, blue, green, and purple lights intertwined.
Four, no, five colors. Upon closer inspection, at the innermost layer of the four-colored light was an amniotic pod enveloped in golden light. The golden light firmly protected this amniotic pod. On the amniotic pod, a two-headed eagle, poised to spread its wings and soar, exuded a powerful aura of conquering mountains and rivers, dominating the universe. Below this majestic two-headed eagle was the inscription "XIX," a writing system unlike any on Kiavahr or Lycaeus, seamlessly engraved on the front of the amniotic pod. A human infant, immersed in a transparent liquid, was currently sleeping in the amniotic pod. Through the transparent glass on the front, one could clearly see the handsome appearance of this infant with hair like midnight and skin as white as snow.
The four-colored light, having merely torn a gap between the Warp and physical reality, completely dissipated as if its mission was accomplished, leaving only the golden light enveloping the amniotic pod, which then fell straight down towards the Lycaeus dome without any concealment. Neither the bird-catching arrays on Kiavahr nor on Lycaeus reacted at all to this sudden uninvited guest, as if they were blind. Clearly, the technological level of this birthing pod far exceeded that of the slave owners of Kiavahr.