Chapter 51: Divine Hand

Chapter 51: Divine Hand

The dwarves walked away with grimaces. They had no interest in bloody scenes. Under Master Goldshield's lead, they gathered around the Adamant Colossus that had been reduced to scrap metal. Compared to the execution ground over there, they were far more interested in this marvelously crafted iron giant.

Shi Mao's body remained in the cockpit. Even in death, the natives didn't dare move him.

Lyman emerged from the shadows, drifting over to the Colossus, studying this invention that was ahead of its time with quiet reverence.

"I really want to take this thing apart," Harald said seriously.

Dwarin and Tove nodded in shared sentiment. Even though Shi Mao wasn't a great guy, his inventions were indeed remarkable. Even people who hated his guts had to admit it.

"Hey, Master, if Shi Mao could invent something this incredible, why'd he get kicked out of the City of Earthfire?" Harald asked. "You said he made a mistake—what exactly happened?"

Goldshield let out a sigh. "That was over thirty years back. Relf Stone Spear killed a young apprentice during an experiment..."

"Was it an accident?" Tove asked.

Goldshield shook his head. "Actually, even back then, he'd already dreamed up the prototype for the Colossus. But there was one problem he could never crack—the power source. Without power, this thing was just a useless hunk of metal."

Lyman nodded. He couldn't figure out how the thing worked either. There's no way this era had electricity, and you obviously can't run a machine that big on coal alone.

"Relf consulted many ancient texts, even traveled to human nations to study. Eventually, he came up with a way to power it—namely—

"Draining life energy from the human body."

The dwarves were horrified. "Life energy? Can you even do that?"

Lyman thought back to what happened under Cape Prison: that skeleton came back to life, sucked the life force out of Diego, and made his arm shrivel up. So yeah, there really was some kind of energy flowing through people, and it could be transferred from one person to another.

Goldshield said, "The smarter the creature, the more energy it's got inside. As long as that energy could be extracted, it could be converted into mechanical power. To test it out, Relf grabbed an apprentice for an experiment. In the end, the experiment worked, but the apprentice died from having his life force sucked dry. Relf got hurt in the process too, and ended up losing the use of both legs."

"Shouldn't that be a death sentence?!"

Goldshield smiled bitterly. "The Earthfire Council thought the same thing back then. But here's the thing—the apprentice volunteered to be his guinea pig. He signed a contract with Relf and even left a note saying he was okay with dying, that he wanted his life to be a stepping stone for knowledge.

"Plus, Relf's invention was seriously impressive, so the Council split into two camps: one side said Relf's crime was unforgivable and he should die; the other said his tech was groundbreaking and he should keep working on it.

"They argued forever and finally settled on a compromise: Relf would burn all his research notes, 'voluntarily' leave the City of Earthfire, and the Council would drop the whole matter.

"The Council originally wanted to strip his Master title too, but I begged them to let him keep it and talked them into it. I figured life out there wouldn't be easy for Relf—with that title, at least he could scrape by in human lands..."

Tove suddenly got it. "So after that, he came to New Saint Paraso, hooked up with the Holy Nation's governor, and built the Colossus with the governor's money."

"Exactly. The Colossus is stronger than a superhuman. If you could mass-produce these things, they'd be a nightmare on the battlefield. Maybe that's exactly why the governor kept him around—for his own selfish reasons."

Tove felt sick to her stomach. Relf Stone Spear always said his inventions were meant to help the disabled, but really, they were just for killing people...

Lyman asked, "So this Colossus runs on life energy too? But I didn't see anyone feeding it..."

Goldshield frowned. "Flip it over and pop open its back panel."

The Colossus weighed tons—no way anyone could lift it by hand. So Lyman used the Blade of Revelation to chop off the Colossus's limbs and strip its armor to lighten it, then got Pachak and his guys to help. After a hell of a lot of effort, they finally flipped the thing over.

There was a hump on its back, covered in mithril plating. The dwarves pried the plates off together, revealing a compartment. It sat right behind Shi Mao's cockpit but was way smaller—even a dwarf couldn't squeeze into a space that tight.

But there was a person crammed in there.

It was a native who'd been dead for a long time. He was small, and all four limbs had been chopped off—the only way he'd fit in that little space.

Everyone gasped. Once it sank in what this meant, a bunch of them scrambled off the Colossus and went somewhere to puke.

Tove went pale. "Did I kill him? I thought it was just Shi Mao in there..."

"Dwarven friend, this ain't your fault," Pachak said, walking over. "You couldn't have known. Besides, for this brother of mine, death was a release."

Tove choked back a sob, hung her head, and walked off to sit on a rock with her back to everyone. Harald wanted to go comfort her, but Dwarin grabbed his arm, shook his head, and mouthed, "Give her some space."

Pachak stood there quiet, staring at the body. Lyman drifted over and said, "You don't seem surprised."

Pachak looked at this shadowy superhuman whose face he couldn't quite make out. "When I was a kid, I saw it with my own eyes."

"Witnessed what?"

"People taken away by Shi Mao, coming back as dried-up corpses. Everyone whispered that Shi Mao practiced dark magic, that he fed human flesh and souls to that mechanical monster to make it move.

"I was scared out of my mind, so once I got a little older, I found a chance and ran. My best friend died covering my escape—the pursuers got him. He was the Elder Matriarch's grandson."

Pachak went quiet for a second, then climbed up on the Colossus, lifted the dead native out, cradled him like a baby, and laid him down gentle next to the others who'd died in the uprising.

Lyman looked up at the sun. It was already afternoon; this day had felt extraordinarily long. He was lingering in New Saint Paraso through Spirit Wandering, and wondered how his body was faring in the prison. He wanted to finish matters here quickly and return to the prison to avoid arousing suspicion.

He drifted to Tove's side and said to the dejected dwarven girl, "You still have unfinished business, don't you?"

"Huh?"

"The natives down in the abyss."

Tove jumped up and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "Right! How could I forget! Time to go get them!"

She forced a faint smile and ran off to inform Goldshield and the others, as well as Pachak, about the natives below. Once she threw herself into work, her dejection was easily cast aside.

She rode flames down into the Mouth of the Earth, and Lyman merged into the shadow cast by the fire, descending with her. Along the way, they saw every catwalk and workstation packed with people. Miners surged out of the dark tunnels, scrambling onto the lift platforms to reunite with family and friends on the surface.

Perhaps for the first time in a millennium, genuine laughter echoed through the Mouth of the Earth.

***

At the bottom of the abyss, a single warm light flickered.

Amo and the others huddled together, holding the never-extinguishing lantern left by Grandpa Tata, gazing up into the darkness above.

After the dwarven friend had left, the Mouth of the Earth had erupted like a boiling cauldron—the commotion above reaching all the way down like thunderclaps, with corpses occasionally falling. The people were deeply unsettled, not daring to move an inch.

Below ground, day and night were indistinguishable. They waited for what felt like an eternity—perhaps only a quarter of an hour, perhaps centuries—until finally, the darkness that had accumulated for a thousand years above them was dispelled once more.

Tove Stone Flame lived up to her name, descending on a blaze of fire. Within the shadow cast by her light, a silhouette like the very essence of darkness—the Shadow—took form.

"Everyone, sorry for the wait! We've won! You can all come out now!" Tove announced loudly.

The people stared at her in a daze, unable to believe what they had heard. It wasn't until Tove repeated herself that they snapped back to reality.

"We... we can go home!"

They laughed and sobbed at once, tears washing away the grime on their faces.

Tove tied the natives to herself with ropes and carried them up into the air. She made several trips, finally transporting the vast majority back to the surface.

In the end, only Amo remained below. Clutching the lantern, he chose his words carefully. "Once the light is gone, the corpses will rise again. What should we do?"

Lyman said, "Don't worry. Once the Divine Hand is taken, all the anomalies below will vanish. No more corpses will rise."

“Will the moonlight salt disappear too?”

“Of course. Why, do you want the moonlight salt to stick around?”

Amo nodded at first, then shook his head hard. “I figured, moonlight salt’s pricey, and without the Governor, maybe we could make a decent living off it. But then I thought, it’s brought so much sorrow and despair, maybe it’s better off gone. Even without it, we can still make a decent living with our own two hands.”

Lyman smiled beneath the Shadow Play, pointing at the lantern. “Can I hold onto this?”

Amo hesitated, glancing at Tove to see what she thought. The dwarven girl nodded, and only then did he hand the lantern to Lyman, albeit reluctantly.

“Please take good care of it. It’s Grandpa Tata’s… keepsake.”

Amo gave the lantern one last wistful look, then turned and strapped himself to Tove, flying up into the sky with her.

Lyman watched them go, and soon, the only light left in the depths was the lantern in his hand.

That light wasn’t as fierce as the flames that burst from Tove’s hands, nor as bright as the sun high in the sky. In the endless darkness below, it was like a lone star adorning the night sky.

Yet, stars that shine in the night sky are themselves distant suns. Who’s to say they can’t light up the world below?

Tove came back quickly. They exchanged a knowing look, and with Lyman holding the lantern, they headed toward the cave where the natives were hiding.

“By the way, Mr. Shadow, I still don’t know the god’s name,” Tove interrupted Lyman’s thoughts. “Now that it’s just us, you should tell me.”

“Uh…”

Lyman suddenly felt super awkward, like he was about to reveal his cringey online username to a friend in real life.

“My master has a lot of titles. Some call Him the ‘Evil God,’ others the ‘Lord of the Abyss.’ He doesn’t care. Call Him whatever you want.”

Tove thought for a moment. “Calling Him ‘God’ all the time is a pain. Well, we dwarves respect our teachers and honor the Way, and the most respected person is a ‘Mentor.’ So, I’ll call Him ‘Shadow Mentor’!”

She looked a little pleased with herself. “Now I’ve got two mentors!”

They passed the dazzling moonlight salt, past Grandpa Tata’s body, now turned to crystal, and squeezed into the last cave.

The god’s arm was frozen in pure, flawless crystal.

Together, they stared up in awe at the colossal arm. Standing before it, anyone would feel tiny. Lyman felt with absolute certainty that this wasn’t something made by humans, nor something that should exist in this world.

“Once we take this hand away, all the weird stuff will disappear,” Tove said softly. “Grandpa Tata was waiting for someone to end all this. At the time, I thought he meant me. But later, I thought more carefully—was that really the case?”

Lyman looked down at the dwarven girl. “What do you mean?”

“The person Grandpa Tata was waiting for must be someone who can shatter these crystals, right? Because that’s what the ‘God’ told him. A deity couldn’t possibly get something like that wrong, could they?”

Tove bent her fingers and tapped the crystal. “But these crystals are ancient and extremely hard. Even we dwarves, with tools like diamond drills, couldn’t easily break them. So, was the person Grandpa Tata spoke of really me?”

“But at that time, only you fell down.”

“Besides me, weren’t there others?” Tove said. “Xiaoqi was with me then! Of course, it was just a phantom, but if Xiaoqi was there, then the Shadow Mentor was there too.”

She turned toward the immense Divine Hand. “Perhaps Grandpa Tata wasn’t waiting for me, but for the Shadow Mentor behind us.

“This is a god, speaking through a mortal’s mouth, to another god.”