The voice of the person in front of him reverberated through the walls of Liu Hanbing's skull, slow and deep. It stood in stark contrast to the shrill screams and sharp thuds of the tumult beside them. His cold gaze paralyzed him.
"Fourty-Nine told me you were in pretty good shape after your fight with Eleven," he said after seeing the boy didn't respond to his question. "Can you understand me?" he asked.
Liu Hanbing understood; it was beginning. He had to be careful. He touched his throat and gave a slight nod while muttering, "Aijg." He meant to say "yes" in this world's tongue, the little he'd managed to decipher. His pronunciation was terrible, but Stone Thirty-Eight seemed to get it. He wanted to come across as a bit mentally limited, suggesting the fight had left some lasting effects—perhaps they'd take pity on him, or at least underestimate him.
"Are you the last slave brought here, aren't you? Stone Fifty, Little Stone…" he said. "You're a kid, but you probably remember something…"
The man paused, turned his gaze back to the stone, gripped his pickaxe, and struck again, reminding Liu Hanbing that the uproar beside them was dying down. The screams now came from the miners being subdued by slave drivers and their wooden strikes.
But the conversation, unexpectedly, continued: "I can still feel the heat of the forge ovens in my hands. The weight of the raw iron bar in my grip, still warm from the fire my father kept alive…" said Stone Thirty-Eight, his voice turning distant as they both kept hacking at the stone. "You know? I was just a boy when I started learning to shape metal. When I close my eyes, sometimes before sleep, I still hear the clinks of hot iron against the anvil. The sighs of my mother coming home, the whimpers of my sister when she pricked her fingers learning to sew…" Liu Hanbing had just finished a strike on the stone while listening and waited for his partner's turn. The strike didn't come. Glancing at Thirty-Eight, he saw him staring at the wall with a vacant look, continuing his discourse:
"It was all good. The king's war weapon orders kept our stomachs full all year, my mother had another child on the way, we were happy…" His eyes narrowed, his forehead wrinkled, and a faint expression of anger formed on his face. "Until those damned, filthy, wild rats flattened the settlement where we lived. These rebels, they call themselves the 'Ancestral Resistance,' say they fight for us, for our ancestors." A grimace of contempt flashed across his face, quick and hard to catch. He swiftly returned to his usual coldness and fixed his gaze on the boy beside him. Liu Hanbing felt suffocated by that stare. The faint cave light seemed to dim even more.
"And you, kid, do you remember what your life was like before this place?" Liu Hanbing lowered his gaze, feeling the air grow heavier between them. Thirty-Eight's stare pierced him like an invisible blade, so icy and still it seemed to strip his thoughts bare. A shiver ran down his spine. "This man suspects something," he thought.
Liu Hanbing panicked. "What do I do?" he thought. He set his pickaxe aside on the ground, leaning it against his leg, looked at the floor, and rehearsed his most convincing look of despair. He spread his arms, his hands trembling, and with forced blinks as if holding back tears, tried to speak with a voice broken by feigned sadness and exaggerated difficulty, stringing together nonsensical words in the Kanem language he'd picked up.
"¡Kareus du dsa, indus! ¡Ia!"
Liu Hanbing lowered his gaze, feeling the air grow heavier between them. Thirty-Eight's stare pierced him like an invisible blade, so icy and still it seemed to strip his thoughts bare. A shiver ran down his spine, and for a moment, he feared the silence might reveal something. "What do you want?" he wondered to himself.
"True… you can't speak," Thirty-Eight didn't respond. He only clenched his jaw, gripped the pickaxe with a force that made the handle creak under his fingers, and turned his gaze back to the stone in front of him. For a moment, his shadow tensed against the wall, and then the strike resounded with a deep, echoing thud that vibrated the air within the tunnel. Liu Hanbing felt his chest deflate with relief, his legs trembling as if he'd just escaped an invisible danger. That man's gaze, so empty yet brimming with contained fury, lingered in his mind. He swallowed hard, picked up his own pickaxe with still-trembling hands, lifted it to continue, struck the stone, and then… nothing. When he glanced back at his partner: "Thud!" a dull sound rang out, like a rock against flesh. Liu Hanbing's body lurched forward before he could process it; Thirty-Eight's fist had slammed into his stomach. The air escaped him in a dry groan, and a sharp pain shot through his ribs as if fire ignited within. He stumbled two clumsy steps back, doubling over, desperately trying to catch his breath. His mind couldn't grasp it—he hadn't provoked anything, hadn't said anything—only Thirty-Eight's fixed, expressionless gaze watched him, as if measuring how much he could endure before breaking.
Liu tried to straighten up, staggering. His hand still clutched the pickaxe handle, but his fingers felt like lead. Barely lifting his gaze, another blow came—a direct hit to his right cheekbone—that sent him crashing against the stone wall. He tasted the metallic tang of blood rising in his mouth, the impact's echo reverberating in his skull. Thirty-Eight didn't shout, didn't breathe heavily; his movements were precise, almost mechanical, as if he weren't fighting but executing a task he knew too well.
The boy raised his arm just in time to block when the third strike descended as a hook. The impact still tore through, shattering his weak guard and spinning him around. The pickaxe fell from his hands, clanging against the ground and landing between them. Liu could barely make out his attacker's figure; he moved too fast, his feet barely kicking up dust, his body seeming to vanish into the mine's shadows between each strike.
He tried to retaliate, throwing a clumsy punch forward, but Thirty-Eight dodged with a slight tilt of his head and returned a sharp jab to the chin. The boy's vision blurred instantly. Everything turned into a swirl of trembling lights, his ragged breathing mixing with the smell of sweat and damp stone. The ground shifted beneath his feet. Still, he forced himself to stay upright, arms raised, panting like a cornered animal.
The fifth blow was different: a quick knee to the side, straight to the ribs. Liu felt something crack, a stabbing pain that doubled him over again, forcing a choked groan. His body reacted on instinct—trying to push the man back, gain some distance—but Thirty-Eight barely budged; his torso was a wall. The giant's eyes remained fixed, devoid of hate or emotion, as if he weren't seeing Liu Hanbing but a ghost from his past.
Liu staggered back, hitting the rock. Each breath was a knife in his chest. His legs trembled, his hands scrabbled for the pickaxe on the ground, but Thirty-Eight had already stepped forward, planting his foot firmly on the handle. The boy looked up and saw the coldness in those eyes.
"Why…?" Liu managed to murmur before another strike—a flat-handed slap to the face—sent him sprawling sideways. He fell onto the wet gravel, rolling, coughing blood, his chest burning and his throat tightening. His breathing turned into an uneven wheeze. He tried to rise to his knees, but his body wouldn't respond.
Thirty-Eight stood still, watching him from above. The flickering lamp light outlined him like a blackened statue, sweat trickling down his neck. There was no satisfaction in his gaze, no rage; only a thick, heavy silence, as if that burst of violence had been inevitable, a reflection of something far deeper the boy couldn't comprehend.
Liu Hanbing, trembling, heard the distant thud of other pickaxes striking stone in the tunnel's darkness. The world moved on, indifferent. He swallowed with difficulty and pressed his hands to the ground to rise, unsure if the next blow would come or if this hell had ended. But no, it hadn't ended—a fist was already on its way.
The air split with the roar of wind from Thirty-Eight's punch. Liu Hanbing could barely track its path. He knew: if that strike hit, his body would be reduced to a rag of flesh.
The sound of breaking air was deafening. In that instant—when death was a breath away—something stirred within him. Liu Hanbing knew it was time to test his only hope. From the ground, he threw a punch aimed to meet the clenched fist coming down, while reaching for that dormant thing in his mind. It was as if an instinctive reflex surged from the depths of his soul, an impulse not from his mind or body but from something deeper, a place he'd never touched before.
The syllables. The same syllables he'd felt that day when he traded for that thing with two coins in the shop. He couldn't recall them, but he didn't need to. They rose like a primal echo, as if the universe itself whispered a forbidden, fleeting word.
His heart beat once, heavy. Then again, slower. And in that gap between beats, Liu Hanbing exhaled.
It wasn't a shout or a roar. It was a mere murmur, a broken breath that dissolved into the dust. But the syllables… the syllables carried weight. They weren't sounds: they were commands. They defined something.
"…Strength…"
Thirty-Eight halted mid-motion. For a moment, his gaze tightened, sensing something strange. The air compressed. An invisible pressure formed around Liu Hanbing, as if gravity itself had bent to the sound from his throat.
Thirty-Eight's fist finally struck, but when it met what seemed the frail hand of the child slave beneath him, it didn't go as expected. The clash was dry, violent. The ground fractured under them.
For a moment, silence. Then, an explosion.
The impact rippled outward in concentric waves, hurling dust and stone fragments in all directions. Thirty-Eight felt his arm stop abruptly, as if he'd hit an invisible wall. The vibration shot up his forearm to his shoulder, and a burning sting lodged in his muscles. He had to step back.
Liu Hanbing's body sank slightly into the ground, leaving marks. His breathing was uneven, his legs trembling, but that was all. The dust settled slowly.
Liu's fist remained extended, shaking. The skin on his forearm was torn, a thin line of blood trickling to his wrist, but… he had endured. He had blocked the strike.
Liu Hanbing's chest burned. It wasn't just physical pain—or not only that—but a deep emptiness, as if something had been ripped from within and consumed by uttering those syllables. His soul ached. Literally.
But there was also something else: a pulse within his body, a primal, brutal energy that filled him to the brink of bursting.
Thirty-Eight lowered his arm slowly. His face remained impassive, but a shadow flickered briefly in his eyes. He rotated his wrist. The crack was faint, but his brow twitched for an instant. The pain was there, though he buried it beneath his calm mask.
Liu Hanbing saw it. And he understood: he had managed to hurt him.
Liu Hanbing struggled to his feet. He felt that if he tried to say more, the air itself would shatter in his throat. The echo of those syllables still vibrated in his mind, fading like smoke slipping through his fingers.
Then, the sensation faded. The world returned to its normal rhythm. But the dust hadn't fully settled, and both knew something had changed.
Thirty-Eight looked at the ground where the impact had occurred. Then he raised his gaze to Liu. For the first time, his expression shifted slightly. It wasn't anger, nor fear. It was interest.
Liu Hanbing took a deep breath, fighting not to collapse. The weight of the word still pressed from within, but alongside that burden was something new: a flame he'd never felt before.
"Much better than I expected…" murmured Thirty-Eight, almost to himself.
His words hung between them, suspended like a leaf that wouldn't fall. Liu Hanbing didn't know whether to respond, attack, or simply run. He could still feel that strange pulse in his body, that resonance refusing to fully die out.
Suddenly, Thirty-Eight stretched. His spine cracked slightly, and he turned his neck with a sharp motion. Then, as if the fight's tension had been a minor exercise, he shook out his arms, loosening his muscles, and turned his gaze from Liu.
The boy remained still, body still on guard. His mind screamed that none of this made sense.
Then, Thirty-Eight began to walk. He passed by without a glance, heading to the mine's uneven wall, and bent to pick up the pickaxe leaning against a rock.
The metallic clang of iron against stone filled the tunnel again. Clang… clang… It was the same monotonous, endless sound, but after what had just happened, it felt almost surreal.
Liu Hanbing watched, confused, his chest still heaving with effort. Every fiber of his body urged him to stay alert, but his opponent… had simply returned to work.
"Has it been a while since you last ate, hasn't it, kid?" Thirty-Eight's voice broke the silence without turning, deep and resonant, as if rising from the stone itself.
Hanbing didn't respond. The question threw him completely off. Eat? After that?
Thirty-Eight kept striking. Sparks flew briefly before fading into the gloom.
"Looks like you've also found a drop of hope in this place…" he said, without pausing between strikes. "Maybe they saw something in you too."
Liu frowned. "They?" he thought. For a moment, only the pickaxe's strikes and the distant rumble of deeper galleries were heard. Then, suddenly, Thirty-Eight stopped.
He fixed his gaze on a dark crevice in the wall, took a deep breath, and thrust his hand into the stones. His fingers sank into the rock with inhuman strength. A sharp crack echoed as the stone split.
With a controlled motion, he pulled back. From the crevice emerged a crystal.
It was the size of a walnut, transparent, with a faint blue glow that seemed to pulse like a sleeping heart. But within, floating at its center, was a black spot, a stain that didn't move yet seemed to absorb the surrounding light.
Liu Hanbing felt a shiver run down his spine. He didn't know why, but that spot triggered an instinctive repulsion, as if his body recognized something his mind hadn't yet grasped.
Thirty-Eight held it in his hand for a moment, observing it in silence. The blue glow reflected in his unyielding eyes. Then he turned.
The crystal arced through the air in a smooth trajectory and landed before Liu Hanbing's feet, rolling through the dust until it stopped.
"Take this," said Thirty-Eight, his voice neutral. "You'll need it."
Hanbing stared at it, unmoving. "Give it to those rats. Eat well and heal your wounds."
Thirty-Eight paused. And then, something almost unthinkable happened: a faint, ghostly smile crossed his stony face.
"Or use it as you see fit."
For a moment, the silence between them was absolute. Only the faint hum of the crystal seemed to fill the space, as if the stone itself were breathing.
Then, a different sound began to filter in from the side tunnels. Clack… clack… clack… The sound of wooden rods striking the ground, accompanied by harsh shouts drawing closer.
"Scum! Time to return!" bellowed a voice laden with authority and contempt. "Drop your pickaxes on the ground and form up in the main passageway!"
The overseers' footsteps grew louder, their echo multiplying their presence until it was deafening.
Liu Hanbing looked at the crystal before him, then at Thirty-Eight. The man had already resumed striking the stone, as if nothing had happened, indifferent to the approaching chaos.
Liu swallowed hard. He knew he had to move, but he couldn't tear his eyes from the object. That blue glow seemed to call him, while the black spot within repelled him with equal force.
The shouts drew nearer. The mine's reality returned with all its weight.
Liu Hanbing took a deep breath, slowly crouched, and closed his hand over the crystal.
The object's cold pierced his palm like a needle. And for a moment, he felt… that something within it had recognized him. He blinked hard, recalling something, and focused on the glowing letters in his vision:
[You have called a name for the first time, congratulations!]
[You have acquired an experience point!]
[You have acquired an experience point!]
[You have acquired an experience point!]
[You have acquired an experience point!]
[You have acquired an experience point!]
[You have acquired an experience point!]
[You have acquired an experience point!]
[You have acquired an experience point!]
[You have acquired an experience point!]
[You have acquired an experience point!]
[You have acquired an experience point!]
[You have acquired an experience point!]
[You have acquired an experience point!]
[You have acquired an experience point!]
[You have acquired an experience point!]
[You have acquired an experience point!]
[You have obtained a Contaminated Small Ice Crystal].
[Do you want to consume it?]
[Yes] [No].
[Do you want to consume the Erosion?]
[Yes] [No].