BARRRRR-GH!

The massive explosion from the high-pressure charges planted by Aris violently shook the entire belly of the earth. The brutal tremors rippled wildly through the Arkian crystal cavern walls, snapping glowing blue crystal clusters anchored to the ceiling and showering the subterranean floor with razor-sharp stone shards.

"Argh! Cover your heads!" Captain Danu shouted, pitching forward onto the floor as the blast's shockwave slammed into his frame. At the end of the corridor, Aris had already vanished into the gloom, leaving catastrophic ruin in his wake.

In the cavern's main hall, total panic erupted instantly. The Arkian citizens who had previously held their ground scattered in a desperate bid for survival. The sounds of stifled screams, children weeping, and the piteous groans of injured victims trapped beneath crystal rubble echoed heart-wrenchingly amid the ongoing crossfire of corporate troops pressing their advance.

Zulfa, taking cover behind an altar pillar, sprang to his feet, his eyes widening in horror at the scene unfolding before him.

The cavern's primary support pillar—a colossal structure standing dozens of meters high woven from primordial stone and Aether crystals—had snapped cleanly in two down its center from the blast. A massive fissure gaped wide across the cavern ceiling, exposing giant boulders overhead that were slowly sliding downward, threatening to flatten the entire ancient mining sector and everything within it.

"The main pillar is collapsing! The cave's structural gravity is losing balance!" Zulfa shrieked at the top of his lungs over the roar of the cave-in. He whipped his head toward Naya, who was sprinting over to him with heaving breaths and a pale face. "Naya, are you alright?!"

"I-I'm fine, Zul! But look over there!" Naya screamed, pointing toward the left side of the mining hall.

A colossal crystal rock block weighing hundreds of tons broke free from the ceiling, hurtling straight down toward a group of Arkian citizens trapped beneath the rubble with no path to escape.

"Damn it!" Zulfa growled. Without a thought for his own safety, he bolted through the dense dust toward the trapped citizens.

Simultaneously, Kaelen the Arkian leader vaulted down from the elevated platform, landing on the opposite side of the snapped pillar. He drew his energy sword, plunging it into the floor's emergency console to trigger a makeshift Aether-Tech stabilization rig.

"Surface human! Help me brace this pillar's weight with crystal energy!" Kaelen roared, the veins in his neck bulging as he fought with all his might to hold back the collapsing giant boulder using a blue energy forcefield radiating from his palms.

Zulfa, having just successfully dragged two Arkian citizens out of the rock's impact path, sprinted over to Kaelen. He knew full well that pure physical strength could never match the million-ton burden of primordial stone. He had to channel the cosmic wave resonance he had practiced during yesterday's grueling training.

"Naya, grab the core module from my pack! Toss it here, fast!" Zulfa bellowed to Naya amid the groaning bedrock.

Naya wasted not a millisecond. She rummaged through Zulfa's pack, snatched a small glowing blue metal cylinder—an Aether-Tech energy amplifier module—and hurled it accurately toward Zulfa.

Zulfa leapt, snatching the metal cylinder out of the air before landing heavily beside Kaelen before the failing pillar. He drove the base of the cylinder into a stone floor fracture, then extended both palms upward, allowing the cosmic energy surging from within his body to merge with the stabilizing machine.

"Kaelen, sync the frequency to 8.4 mana waves, now!" Zulfa screamed, cold sweat pouring over his frame.

"Do it!" Kaelen roared back.

Bzzzt—Whoosh!

The combination of Kaelen's physical might and Zulfa's mechanical genius triggered an explosive burst of brilliant blue energy forming a massive forcefield shield. The shield stretched firmly beneath the collapsing ceiling, arresting the giant boulder's descent mere centimeters above the huddled citizens' heads.

"Hah... hosh..." Zulfa panted heavily, fresh blood leaking from the corner of his mouth as immense energy pressure hammered his internal organs. The muscles in his arms felt torn to shreds, yet he dared not slacken his focus for a fraction of a second.

Thanks to Zulfa and Kaelen's heroic effort, the pillar's collapse was held temporarily in check, buying vital time for the Arkian warriors and Captain Danu's squad to evacuate all casualties and civilians back into safer underground escape tunnels deeper within the cavern.

"Evacuation complete! Everyone's inside the tunnel!" Captain Danu yelled, sprinting up to Zulfa while supporting an injured Arkian citizen. "Zulfa, Kaelen, drop the braces! We have to fall back before this whole cave caves in completely!"

Kaelen glanced briefly at Zulfa. "Engineer Arditama, on three, cut the energy flow and leap back together!"

"One... two... THREE!" Zulfa commanded.

The two of them broke contact with the stabilization console simultaneously, leaping backward and rolling clear of the collapsing pillar zone.

BARRR-GH!

The moment the stabilizing energy was cut, the forcefield dissolved, and the hundred-ton boulder smashed into the floor of the ancient mining cavern, kicking up towering billows of thick dust and violent tremors radiating in every direction.

Yet the catastrophe triggered by the first pillar's collapse did not stop inside the crystal cavern.

Though Zulfa's group escaped safely into the secure tunnels, the destruction of the subterranean foundation's primary support pillar unleashed a high-energy underground tectonic shockwave that ripped rapidly upward through the earth's rock strata toward the surface.

On the city's surface, deep within the central commercial district choked with Aethel Corp's glass skyscrapers, the calm night abruptly warped into a nightmare.

Kr-r-ack!

Without a shred of prior warning, a micro-aftershock vastly larger and more violent than the previous day's slammed into the city's surface.

Pedestrians shrieked hysterically, collapsing onto violently vibrating sidewalks. Streetlamps flickered wildly before blacking out entirely. Hundreds of skyscraper window panes groaned horribly, shattering into millions of razor-sharp shards raining down onto the streets below.

Inside his top-floor executive suite, Vian Pratama—holding a crystal wine glass—was pitched onto the floor as his desk violently shifted from the violent tremor. The wine glass shattered, spilling red liquid across the expensive carpet.

Vian scrambled to his feet, sprinting toward the grand floor-to-ceiling office window to survey the scene outside.

The corporate director's typically calm and calculating face bleached white as bone. Before him, stretching from the distance straight into the heart of the city plaza, a massive ground fissure several meters wide split the primary thoroughfare, venting high-pressure steam from the earth's belly and threatening to swallow the corporation's central tower foundation in a heartbeat.

"Damn it...!" Vian Pratama snarled in fury, gripping the window frame hard. "The subterranean support pillars must have collapsed... Those rat bastards are actually trying to destroy everything!"