Primordial Expanse: I have the Strongest Talent! - Chapter 434

Chapter 434: Mining operation
Alex’s descent into Gorath’s depths was quick and methodical.

The fissure he had created crackled with heat as he lowered himself deeper into the planet’s surface.

His armour, gleaming crimson in the dim light, was untouched by the molten rock and searing heat surrounding him.

It was far below the surface, farther than any of the bunkers he had obliterated in his rampage. The ground rumbled as his Phoenix fire worked its way through layers of bedrock, turning everything it touched to molten glass.

He could feel the pull of something large, something powerful, and it only fueled his anger. How had they managed to hide this from him?

But then again, they didn’t hide it from him, they hid it from his ship’s scanners.

He himself was actually the one to have found this hidden mining operation.

But he still couldn’t quite remove his curiosity of finding out just what was so important they had to sacrifice millions of lives to even try and keep it a secret.

Was it perhaps some ultra mega rare and powerful metal to build some new and indestructible ships?

Or was it something else entirely?

If he was honest, he was willing to step back a little from the slaughtering and investigate the goings on of down below before massacring the lot of them.

It would mean he’d have to spend more time down there, delaying his revenge and allowing the Red Demons throughout the rest of the Telorn system to prepare, and even meant leaving Mira alone for longer, but in Alex’s mind it would be worth it.

‘They’re like cockroaches…’

Alex thought bitterly.

‘Always burrowing deeper, always hiding. Yet there always seems to be more of them whenever you think you’ve exterminated the pests.’

But just like cockroaches, he would burn them out like he had with the rest.

After he was finished investigating just what exactly they were mining of course…

***

Alex’s descent continued, but with far more caution than before.

As he ventured deeper into Gorath’s crust, his fiery destruction gave way to a more measured approach.

Just straight up pounding the earth beneath him using his fists…

In essence, brute force paved the way for him when he reached past 90 kilometres below surface level.

He didn’t want to alert the Red Demons below to his presence, after all.

He couldn’t afford to cause too much of a disturbance — yet.

He was close now.

The life signatures he had detected from the surface were clearer with each passing kilometre.

Their patterns were unusual, densely clustered in one vast underground network, which just solidified the idea in his mind that this had to be for one big mining operation.

Whatever this operation was though, it was heavily guarded.

There was a much higher number of stronger Red Demon awakened hidden down here.

Multiple C tiers and even one B tier, though none of them were above Mutant class.

After a few more tense minutes of digging with his bare hands, Alex felt his spatial awareness brush up against a massive chamber.

It was nearly a hundred kilometres below the surface, hidden far deeper than any Red Demon bunker than he had destroyed before.

He slowed his descent further, pressing his awareness into the rock and earth surrounding him to detect any sentries or defences.

Rushing into this place wasn’t in his best interest right now.

When he finally emerged into the cavernous chamber, he found himself perched on a ledge overlooking an expansive mining operation.

‘As I thought, it really is mining.’

The scene below was abuzz with activity, and strangely reminded Alex of bees.

The Red Demons below acted like a hive mind.

There were no imperfect movements in any of them, and they all worked to their utmost efficiency, which was a huge contrast to the types of miners he saw back in his days as a miner himself.

Hundreds of thousands of Red Demons were scurrying about, operating heavy machinery, and those that didn’t took up pickaxes.

Gigantic drills and strange, spider-like contraptions did the majority of the heavy lifting, while the workers with pickaxes spilled out in droves like a water spillage whenever the huge drills stopped and made way for them.

But what Alex was truly interested in looking at was the huge black, perfectly circular, mass that just sat there in the middle of it all.

It was clearly the epicentre of this entire mining operation, but Alex had absolutely no clue what it was.

However, after inspecting one of the dig sites where a huge drill had just stopped and pulled away from, he was mesmerised by what he saw.

A Red Demon worker took up his pickaxe, struck down at the weakened part of the black circular mass, and out came something Alex had never expected to see…

Orbs.

Orbs were being extracted from the black mass.

And not just any orbs.

They looked disturbingly familiar to Alex.

Soul orbs.

Seeing this site not only shocked him deeply, as not even the Federation knew about such things, but it also reminded him of one very major thing.

The King class soul orb he had been forced to unwillingly absorb when his hidden ability activated to bring Mira back from the dead.

Which, in hindsight, he would definitely do again a million times over if he knew it was being used to save Mira.

However, that wasn’t the main point he was worried about.

Since the orb was absorbed due to his ability’s need for power, would he have received any benefits from it? Or did the entire thing go to bringing Mira back?

Whatever the case, Alex would check his details for any changes later on, as right now he was more concerned with the fact that the Red Demons were basically mining thousands of such soul orbs like some sort of mass production facility…

His breath hitched for a moment.

‘How is this possible? Soul orbs come from living beings — humans, beasts, whatever. But this is clearly coming from some sort of ore, just what the fuck is going on here?’

“Looks like we’ve hit another batch of them.”

However, a voice broke the silence and harmony of the hivemind-like activities of the mining operation.