CLANG—HISS.

The heavy metal blast door slammed shut behind them, sealing off the roar of the magma vents and the distant sounds of Brokk's team heading left.

Silence descended instantly.

Unlike the main shaft, which was alive with the sound of steam and monsters, the Old Sector was dead quiet. The air here was stale, smelling of rust, ozone, and ancient dust that hadn't been disturbed in centuries.

"Lumos," Hephaestus whispered, tapping a crystal on his shoulder.

A beam of pale yellow light cut through the absolute darkness, illuminating a long, cylindrical tunnel lined with rusted pipes and massive, dormant cables that hung like dead snakes from the ceiling.

"This way," the Prince whispered, his voice trembling slightly as he checked the map. "The Royal Vault is three kilometers deep. We have to follow the main conduit."

Damien walked beside him, his Shadow Sense fully expanded. The darkness here felt different, heavier, older.

"Relax, Prince," Damien said, his voice calm but low. "Your heart is beating so loud it's echoing off the walls. You're an Artificer, not a rogue. Panic is useless here."

"I can't help it," Hephaestus admitted, gripping his wrench until his knuckles turned white. "This place… it's a graveyard. My ancestors dug these tunnels during the Era of the Old Kings to mine Star-Metal. But they dug too deep. They found things… voids in the earth that drove miners mad."

Hephaestus shined his light on the wall. Deep claw marks, centuries old and etched into reinforced steel plating, were visible under the dust.

"That's why King Durin sealed this sector," Hephaestus swallowed hard. "And why he hid the Pantheon Sword here. He figured that if anyone was crazy enough to come down here to steal it, the tunnel ghosts would get them first."

"Ghosts don't scare me," Damien said, brushing his hand over the claw marks. "I'm more worried about the living."

He pointed to the floor.

Amidst the thick layer of dust, there were tracks. Fresh tracks.

They weren't footprints. They were deep grooves, like a heavy cart or a sled had been dragged through recently.

"Someone has been using this tunnel," Damien noted grimly. "And recently."

Hephaestus paled. "But… that's impossible. Only my father and Brokk had the keycard. Unless Thrain cracked the code…"

"Or unless he found a different way in," Damien said. "Let's move. Quietly."

…......

[The Runic Gate]

They moved deeper, navigating the maze of pipes.

Twenty minutes later, they reached a dead end. A massive circular door, made of solid Mithril and inscribed with thousands of complex, glowing runes, blocked the path.

There was no keyhole. Only a chaotic spinning interface of mana rings in the center.

"The Cipher Gate," Hephaestus breathed, stepping forward. "My father designed this lock himself. It creates a random mana equation every ten seconds. If you don't solve it in time… the door releases a mana-pulse that liquefies your brain."

Hephaestus pulled out the rusted iron keycard Brokk had given him. He tried to insert it into a slot on the side.

BZZZT.

Red light flashed. The gate didn't open. The mana rings spun faster, glowing an angry orange.

"It's not working!" Hephaestus panicked, fumbling with the card. "The code… the code has been changed! Thrain must have reset the sequence!"

"Time?" Damien asked, looking at the spinning rings.

"Twenty seconds!" Hephaestus stammered, sweat pouring down his grease-stained face. "I… I can't hack a Royal Cipher in twenty seconds! It takes a team of scribes days to calculate the variab—"

"You don't have days," Damien cut him off, placing a hand on the Prince's shoulder.

He didn't use force. He used King's Will.

A calm, heavy pressure washed over Hephaestus, suppressing his panic instinctively.

"Listen to me," Damien said, his voice absolute. "You are the Chief Artificer. You built the Neural Link. You built the Gundams. This is just a lock. You are smarter than the lock."

Damien pointed at the spinning rings.

"Don't calculate it. Feel it. Use your mana to find the friction point."

Hephaestus took a deep breath. The panic receded, replaced by the cold, analytical focus of an engineer.

"Friction point…" Hephaestus muttered. He closed his eyes. He placed his grease-stained hands on the Mithril surface.

He didn't try to do the math. He pushed his mana into the mechanism. He felt the flow. He felt the tumblers spinning against the mana current.

Click.

He found the rhythm.

"Gotcha," Hephaestus whispered.

He twisted his wrist, sending a precise pulse of mana counter-clockwise against the spin.

CLUNK—HISS.

The orange light turned green. The spinning rings locked into place. The massive door groaned and split down the middle, sliding open.

"I… I did it," Hephaestus gasped, wiping sweat from his eyes. "I bypassed a Royal Cipher."

"Good job," Damien patted his back. "Now, let's see what Thrain was hiding."

[The Transport Hub]

They stepped through the gate.

They expected to find a vault. Instead, they found themselves on a high maintenance balcony overlooking a massive, hollowed-out cavern.

And what they saw made Hephaestus freeze in horror.

Below them, suspended over a pit of churning violet mana, was a massive Magitech Rail System.

A train, black and jagged like a spine, was sitting on the tracks. But it wasn't carrying ore. It wasn't carrying weapons.

The cargo cars were open cages.

Inside them, huddled together in the cold dark, were hundreds of Dwarves. Not soldiers. Civilians.

Elderly dwarves with grey beards. Women clutching bundles of cloth. And children.

Dozens of children.

"No…" Hephaestus whispered, gripping the railing so hard the metal bent.

Among the children in the nearest cage, huddled against the bars, was a familiar face. The boy Damien had given a gold coin to in the alleyway. Thorn.

He was clutching his broken mechanical toy, shivering as a construct guard walked past the cage, banging its baton against the bars.

"What is this?" Hephaestus's voice cracked. "Where are they taking them?"

Damien looked at the far end of the track. The rails led into a massive, ominous machine that pulsed with a sickening purple light. It looked like a furnace, but instead of smoke, it vented screams.

The Soul Extractor.

"They aren't prisoners, Hephaestus," Damien said, his voice cold as the grave. "They are fuel."

Hephaestus stared at the machine. He stared at the children.

"Fuel?"

"The Guardians need souls to run without a pilot," Damien explained brutally. "If Thrain can't use you to calibrate the Neural Link… he's going to brute force it. By burning thousands of weak souls to mimic the power of one strong one."

Judging from the current situation and knowledge he had about cults, Damien had already deduced the current situation.

Thinking about it, he couldn't help but feel his stomach wretch

Hephaestus trembled. The wrench in his hand shook.

"He's… he's going to mulch them?"

WHOOSH.

Suddenly, the air in the cavern shimmered. A massive holographic projection flickered to life in the center of the loading platform below.

It was a giant, blue image of Regent Thrain, sitting on the throne in the Upper City. He looked bored, swirling a goblet of wine.

"Report," the Regent's amplified voice boomed through the cavern.

A Cultist on the platform bowed to the hologram. "Regent. The shipment is loaded. We have 300 units of... bio-fuel. Mostly elder stock and youth stock."

"Good," Thrain's hologram sneered, looking down at the cages with utter indifference. "Are the batteries ready? My Titan is hungry. These... volunteers... should provide enough soul power for the initial startup."

"Yes, My Lord," the Cultist replied. "The children yield the purest energy. Processing will begin in ten minutes."

"Excellent. Initiate the extraction sequence. I want the Iron Legion fully powered before the Coronation."

The hologram flickered off.

On the balcony, Hephaestus wasn't shaking anymore.

He stood up straight. He adjusted his goggles.

"Damien," Hephaestus said. His voice sounded different. The fear was gone.

"Yes?"

"The sword," Hephaestus said, looking at the distant door on the far side of the cavern where the Pantheon Sword was located. "If we go for the sword now… we can get it."

"Yes," Damien nodded slowly. "We can sneak past this. We can get the sword, escape, and win the war later."

"But if we do that," Hephaestus pointed his wrench at the train below. "That train leaves in ten minutes. Those kids die."

Damien looked at the Prince. He didn't answer. He waited.

Hephaestus looked at Damien.

"You said you're Voss, I doubt your father would allow such a thing happen in front of him."

Hephaestus slammed his visor down.

"And I am a Prince of the Ironclan, And I don't let my people become batteries."

Hephaestus turned away from the Vault door. He looked down at the platform teeming with Cultists and Cyborgs.

"Screw the sword," Hephaestus growled. "We're saving the kids."

Damien smiled. It was a genuine smile.

"I was hoping you'd say that."

Damien drew his sword he brought from the elf empire.

"Let's derail a train."

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