When James woke up, the first thing he felt was the sharp rust and rotten dampness filling his lungs. He tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids were stuck together due to dried blood and pus.
His body… His body ached as if it had been crushed in a press machine, then its parts sewn back in the wrong places.
"What did that old bastard say to the guard? The moment that damn sphere started glowing, I felt a terrible pain…"
His mind was working like a shattered computer, freezing as it processed. He tried to feel the regenerative and mind-clearing power called 'aura' in Weldan's body again. But no, that "void" feeling inside suppressed everything.
James slowly tried to sit up. The rusty sound of the shackles echoed off the metal walls of the wagon he was in. At that moment, an image flashed through the depths of his mind like a film strip:
His bow before the Supreme Judge… His shouts of "Thank you, thank you"…
James's head was confused. He muttered to himself: "I… what did I thank him for? That old man… He spoke so kindly, why did he order them to suppress my aura?"
At that moment, a coarse laugh rose from behind the iron bars of the cell. It was the previous guard; but now he wore a more armored, dust-covered uniform.
"Hehehe, look at our 'grateful' devil. Finally awake. The journey was long, kid—we've reached the foothills of Copper Sword Mountain."
James swallowed with difficulty. His throat ached as if filled with glass shards. "Mine… free… aren't I?" he whispered with his broken words in the local language.
The guard kicked the bars hard. "Free? Hahahah! You've really lost it. The Supreme Judge gave you 50 years of shackled mine punishment! He sealed your cultivation so much that you're weaker than a field mouse now. You'll mine that copper with your bare hands for 50 years, then they'll skin you alive! And you… you kissed that old man's feet for it! It was the funniest execution verdict I've ever seen. Hahahah!"
James froze.
At that moment, it felt as if all the air in the cell had been sucked out. As an engineer, he liked error margins, but this… this wasn't a mistake. This was absolute destruction.
"50 years… Dig… Execution…"
He started cursing in his native language. "You lowly, fossilized old bastard! You manipulative scum! I… I prostrated before him. I offered gratitude to my executioner!"
James wanted to punch the walls out of anger and shame, but he didn't have the strength to lift his arms. His head started aching. Weldan's consciousness in his mind seemed to be laughing mockingly at this weakness.
Weldan's dark, violence-filled urges had been sealed but not completely erased.
James felt that "seal" point on his chest. It was as if there was a black hole right above his heart, sucking his soul. Even his own "Blood Agony Physique" had been crushed under this seal, turning James into a living dead.
"Stop…" James said to himself. "Analyze. Shut off emotions. Form hypotheses."
* Physical Condition: Muscle mass is rapidly wasting away. The seal is feeding my metabolism only enough to survive.
* Environment: This is a mountain, and various smells are coming in—likely a large mining operation on this mountain. If this is a mine, there are chemical elements. Copper, sulfur, perhaps sulfuric acid synthesis?
* Possible Escape Route: Releasing Weldan's sealed energy again, but if I do that, I fear Weldan's consciousness will assimilate with mine.
At that moment, the wagon jolted to a stop. The doors opened with a loud noise. Outside, the shadow of a massive mountain loomed over the dungeon like it had collapsed upon it. The sky was painted gray due to the smoke from the mine.
When James was ruthlessly dragged out, he saw hundreds of prisoners around him. All had the same lifeless look in their eyes. Hundreds of people who didn't know what or who they were living for… None had any desire about whether they'd see the sun rise tomorrow morning. Living dead.
But James was different. In his eyes, hidden beneath that "desire to return home," a demonic spark flashed, ready to endure any hardship to achieve its goal.
"You gave me 50 years…" James muttered as he dragged his shackles toward the mine entrance.
"But for an engineer, 50 years is enough time to destroy a mine and rebuild it. Before drinking that old man's flirtatious scribe's blood… I'll blow this mountain to smithereens."
For the first time, James felt his own "survival instinct" merging with Weldan's perverse "blood-drinking" desire. He didn't feel disturbed by it. That scribe and the old monster called Supreme were sinners who had seized his freedom in his eyes.
As they were about to enter the mine entrance with the chains the guard had put around his neck, the mine master shouted:
"You've come to the wrong place. Copper Sword Mountain is 35 Zind northeast, right above the wine-flowing river hills. This is a gold mine. We don't employ slaves who committed crimes here—gold is too valuable."
The guard grumbled for a while, then wanted to set off again to reach the destination. He started pulling James's chain leash.
James tried to resist. He couldn't endure this much humiliation anymore.
"You damned slave! Didn't you hear what happens when slaves defy their masters? Learn it well then!"
Saying this, he drew his whip from his belt and started whipping James.
The guard swung the knotted leather whip in the air with a heavy arc, the whistle it made heralding the approaching disaster. Before James could even understand what was happening, the first blow to his back darkened his world.
CRACK!
The pain spread not like an explosion, but like hot oil poured on his back. His white shirt tore like paper; the skin split down to the living flesh beneath. James's soul from civilization froze in the face of this savagery. He had seen many tortures until that moment, but never one this brutal.
CRACK! CRACK!
As the blows continued in a rhythmic tempo, James's screams turned into empty echoes resounding in the mine tunnels. By the 50th lash, his back no longer looked like a human part; it had turned into a minced, raw mass of meat. The flowing blood mixed with the rusty dust on the ground and muddied, while James felt a bit more air being drawn from his lungs with each blow.
"Please… stop…" he could only whisper. But his voice was crushed under the guard's sadistic laughter.
When the whip struck, James's consciousness had already severed its connection with his body. His vision blurred, everything around him enveloped in a red mist. That pacifist modern man who wouldn't even harm an ant was dying a little more with each blow; making way for a being sharpened by the coldness of pain, filled with hatred.
The ordinary slaves around paid no attention to this situation and minded their own business. This was a familiar occurrence. The existence of slaves killed by being whipped or beaten with sticks by their master was something everyone knew.
James wanted this to stop, but he could do nothing. He had bowed his head once with the hope of going home. A second would make him feel like he was just a fly.
The guard continued his work with pleasure. He had the authority to punish James if he rebelled. He was pleased with this situation.
After a while, he got bored of it. His arm was tired. James still refused to obey.
"So that's how it is…" With a sly smile, he looked behind him and saw a rock.
He picked up the rock and came to James's head.
"Will you obey?" He asked indifferently.
No sound came from James.
"Then see your day!" Saying this, he slammed the rock on James's head.
James immediately fainted again. Lately, he was constantly fainting.
"Tsk, they dumped all the work on me. Hey, slave! Come here and help me carry this slave."
Using the slaves he found around, they loaded James onto the wagon-like horse cart they came with.
"Drive." He ordered the cart driver.
***
When James woke up, the first emotion he felt was not physical pain, but a massive shame embedded deep in his mind. His subconscious was replaying over and over his bow like a dog before that "Supreme Judge" old man, his gratitude as if kissing his executioner's hand. The honor of a modern man had been shattered on the rusty floor of a medieval dungeon.
His mind was working as if behind a thick layer of fog. That yellow glowing sphere, namely the "Peak Seal," hadn't just blocked the energy channels but also slowed down the nerve transmission speed. James scanned his own body. The glucose level in his blood was low, the pain receptors desensitized due to overload.
His body was shaking inside a "wagon." The sounds coming from outside, the friction of metal on metal and distant whip cracks, proved this was a transportation route.
When the wagon stopped, the heavy iron doors opened with a loud noise. The air filling in smelled of sulfur, copper oxide, and burned skin rather than oxygen. When James was dragged out ruthlessly, the scene before him looked like it had leaped out of a Dante inferno.
Copper Sword Mountain was a massive mass of reddish-brown rocks tearing the sky like a blade. The slopes of the mountain had been riddled with holes by the pickaxe blows of thousands of prisoners. The black smoke from the chimneys had condemned the sky to a permanent twilight.
"Get down, scum!"
The guard's boot landed on James's back. James realized once again how weak his sealed body was. Normally, he wouldn't even feel this blow, but now his bones ached as if made of glass. When he fell face-first into the mud, he heard the whispers of the prisoners beside him.
"Is that him? Rick Feodor's son?"
"Look at him… There's no trace left of his demonic aura. He just looks like a fancy victim."
"The Supreme Judge exiled him to the mine. He won't last a week here."
James lifted his head. The red light in his eyes had faded, but that ice-cold, analytical gaze was still there. He examined the prisoners around him. All were suffering from muscle wasting, their lungs probably filled with harmful gases.
James was given a heavy pickaxe and pushed into a dark tunnel called "Zone 4." The guard next to him grinned as he looked at the glowing blue shackles on James's wrists.
"These shackles don't just bind you, kid. Every time you swing the pickaxe, they absorb your spiritual energy and feed the mine's lamps. So as you work, the mine shines. When you stop, you're left in darkness. And in the darkness, the mine spirits get hungry."
When James entered the dark tunnel, he began examining the ores on the walls. Copper, sulfur deposits… Chalcopyrite and malachite… But not just those. There was a glowing purple liquid flowing vein-like between the rocks.
"What is this liquid?" James sighed inwardly. Everything was extraordinary.
He dropped the pickaxe to the ground. His hands were trembling. As a pacifist in the modern world who wouldn't even harm ants, James was now face to face with a monster's legacy. However, a scream coming from the depths of the mine caused him to push his conscience aside. A prisoner had been trapped under rocks due to a cave-in, and the guards were just laughing at the man instead of helping.
"This world…" said James, his voice ice-cold.
"A biological evolution mistake. Here, morality is an obstacle in front of survival."