The air at the base of the ruins was growing thinner by the minute. Beyond the acrid scent of ozone and scorched earth, a thick, suffocating aura had begun to permeate the darkness—the stench of raw, unadulterated desperation.
Gu Hanzhou came to a halt beside the mangled remains of a collapsed medical pod. He had just scavenged half a tin of compressed rations from the cooling corpse of an Inquisition guard when he felt it: a dozen pairs of cold, predatory eyes locking onto him from the gloom.
In a small clearing ahead, a jagged pile of rubble had been rearranged into a crude fortification. Sitting around it were nearly twenty men clad in tattered, blood-stained prison jumpsuits. Some were missing limbs; others had faces melted into horrific masks of scar tissue by the blast. But the feral light in their eyes proved that every single one of them was a hardened monster who had crawled out of a mountain of corpses.
At their center stood a giant of a man, nearly seven feet tall. His massive arms were covered in intricate, thorny tattoos—the "Mark of Infamy" reserved for high-ranking military felons. At his feet lay two dead guards, their throats ripped open by bare hands.
"Heh, look at this." The giant stood up, his deep, resonant voice vibrating through the narrow gaps in the rubble with a cruel, mocking edge. "A little brat wearing an officer's skin, holding a decent-looking blade."
These men were once the most volatile elements of the Mid-Sector. Among them were rogue generals exiled for slaughtering civilians and black-market kingpins who once controlled the underground syndicates. Having survived the Inverted Tower's collapse through sheer physical grit and animalistic instinct, they had quickly coalesced into the most dangerous faction on this subterranean island.
"Leave the goods and crawl away," the giant said, licking his lips as his greedy eyes raked over the dark-gold sheen of [Black Order]. "Or, I'll chop you into pieces and have you for a midnight snack."
The surrounding convicts let out a low, guttural chorus of laughter, fanning out like a pack of vultures encircling a wounded calf.
Gu Hanzhou said nothing. His expression remained unnervingly calm as he tucked the rations into the inner lining of his tunic. Then, he slowly unbuckled [Black Order] from his waist.
In his dark-gold pupils, there was no anger, no fear—only the detached indifference of a man looking at a pile of inanimate stones.
"Pieces of trash like you..." Gu Hanzhou's voice was soft, yet it carried over the hiss of the magma. "Back in the mining pits, I used to bury ten of your kind every single day."
"Die, brat!"
The giant roared, his muscles bulging as a sickly, dark-purple "Blood-Ignition" glow erupted across his skin. He had once been a Legion Commander stationed at the mines; the power he unleashed now was enough to tear a fully grown mutated beast in half.
His massive, shovel-like hand swept through the air with a localized gale, aiming to crush Gu Hanzhou's skull like a grape.
SHRING—!
A streak of dark-gold light flashed through the darkness, disappearing as quickly as it had appeared.
It was fast. Too fast.
So fast that the watching convicts didn't even see the blade leave its scabbard.
The giant's momentum came to a jarring, unnatural halt. His hand, capable of crushing iron ore into dust, hung limply in the air just three centimeters from Gu Hanzhou's forehead.
Thud.
With a dull, heavy sound, the giant's massive head slid from his neck, rolling into a fissure of glowing magma below.
A geyser of crimson blood erupted from the stump, spraying onto the faces of the surrounding prisoners. The heat of the spray made them flinch, the reality of the situation finally piercing through their bravado.
Gu Hanzhou slowly sheathed his blade, the steel tracing a graceful arc in the air to flick away the residual blood. He didn't stop to admire his work; he simply continued walking toward the group.
"Next."
The silence was absolute.
The previously arrogant convicts looked like ducks being choked by an invisible hand. The frantic, murderous glints in their eyes were instantly replaced by a bone-chilling frost. Their strongest member—a former general—hadn't even lasted a single exchange. They hadn't even forced the boy to break a sweat.
"M-Mercy, Lord! Spare us!"
A quick-witted smuggler slammed his knees into the jagged rocks, throwing his hands high above his head. "We have supplies! We found a sealed crate blown out from Warehouse 3! It's filled with high-purity Order-Crystals!"
Gu Hanzhou stopped, looking down at them from his position of absolute dominance.
He didn't need followers, and he certainly didn't care for hypocritical loyalty. In this lawless abyss, the near-supernatural martial force he had just displayed was the only "truth" that mattered.
"You have ten seconds," Gu Hanzhou's voice was flat, devoid of emotion, yet it carried an undeniable weight of hegemony. "Move every usable resource to the entrance of the power-supply room."
He paused, his eyes narrowing. "Anyone who fails... dies."
The convicts scrambled as if they had been granted a divine pardon. In an instant, they were no longer tyrannical felons; they were a colony of frantic ants working for their lives.
Gu Hanzhou watched their busy shadows, a faint, cold light flickering in the depths of his eyes.
He needed these madmen.
Duke Mordent would undoubtedly have elite troops stationed in the upper levels. While he could kill his way through, he couldn't force a breakthrough in the complex, multi-layered circuitry of the Black Prison alone. These dregs of society were the poisoned bait he would throw at the Duke's feet.
"Suppression through force is merely a tool," he mused.
Feeling the Peak Blood-Ignition energy swirling within him, Gu Hanzhou felt a faint sense of control over the very air around him. It was as if he had merged with the ruins themselves.
He turned his head, looking toward the distant, red sensor lens that was still monitoring the area. A cruel, mocking curve tilted the corner of his mouth.
He raised his hand toward the camera and slowly drew his thumb across his throat.