Chapter 145: Stabilization Serum
[Timeline: Time skip Year 4 ]
[Location: The Old Iron Mines – Sector 7]
The Old Iron Mines were supposed to be a tomb.
According to Imperial records, the veins had run dry fifty years ago, leaving behind nothing but rusted scaffolding and deep, unstable shafts buried beneath the permafrost of the Northern Wastes.
But as Lyra stood on a rusted ventilation grate overlooking the main shaft, the heat rising from below told a different story.
It wasn’t the warmth of the earth. It was the sickly, radioactive heat of processed mana.
Below her, the massive cavern had been hollowed out into a sprawling industrial hellscape. Magitech conveyor belts, rusted and squealing, snaked through the dark like the intestines of a metal beast.
Instantly she activated her [Nature Assimilation]. Her presence vanished from the magical spectrum, reducing her signature to that of the cold stone walls.
Dropping slowly, she didn’t need a rope.
She simply manipulated the air pressure around her body, slowing her descent until she landed silently on a high catwalk, fifty meters above the factory floor.
Creeping down the edge and looking down, a sudden smell hit her first, a thick, cloying stench of sulfur, formaldehyde, and rotting meat.
Then she saw the conveyor belts.