Chapter 62: Breaking the Prison (1)

Night is forever the paradise of conspirators.

When the blood-red moon in the sky rose once more, the darkness-shrouded heaven brought a thick aura of slaughter hidden within the stillness.

Spark Prison was as silent as ever. The soldiers loyally guarded their posts, and the light of work still burned in the warden's office.

Deep within the disciplinary ward, inside the Thirteenth Dark Cell, Chris Bolan opened his profound eyes.

He pressed his ear against the floor to listen for a while, confirming that the guards in the corridor outside had all departed. Then, Bolan's right hand twitched slightly, and three peculiar little beetles appeared in his palm.

"Come on, darlings, it's time to work. Let me see if you are truly as useful as your master claimed," Bolan muttered softly.

Gold-eaters, one of the exceptionally rare demonic insects in the Fengming Continent.

They naturally favored devouring metal, and after absorbing the components they needed from it, they would rapidly excrete the waste from their bodies. The resulting droppings were the continent's renowned rare metal, Black Star Iron. Magic puppets crafted from this metal vastly surpassed ordinary ones in material quality. Even for forging weaponry, they were absolute masterpieces.

In that era of alchemical frenzy, gold-eaters were hunted madly, serving as the foundation for raw material production. However, with the degradation of the environment, the gold-eaters—whose reproductive capacity was already weak—faced a crisis of extinction. Three hundred years ago, during the Battle of the Gold-Eating Sea, the final habitat of the gold-eaters was completely destroyed. At least thirty forbidden-level spells completely erased the Ironwood Forest with a radius of three hundred miles from the map. Ever since then, gold-eaters had vanished from the world.

Although people believed a small number of gold-eaters would always survive, very few people had encountered this demonic insect by the present day. Yet today, they appeared in Bolan's hands. Without a doubt, these were originally stolen by Huey from Purgatory Island.

Chanting an incantation, the three previously dormant gold-eaters fluttered their wings sharply, beginning to voraciously chew on the shackles made of specially crafted synthetic metal, producing an unpleasant metallic grinding sound.

Under the devouring of the gold-eaters, the shackles rapidly fractured into several segments. Bolan's crippled body sat up, and his cold gaze emitted a scorching radiance.

Carefully putting away the gold-eaters, Bolan fixed his gaze on the heavy door of the dark cell.

The cell door in the disciplinary ward was not locked; instead, it was sealed by a magic array and could only be opened from the outside. Anyone attempting to forcefully break the door down would trigger the defensive magic spells upon it.

A few crystalline powders emitting an eerie blue glow were scattered by Bolan onto the iron door.

The blue light on the powder flickered incessantly, growing brighter and brighter.

Energy powder, a special powder specifically used to absorb the energy of crystal stones. It was the same energy supply device used on the laboratory door of Electra back then. It was precisely these tiny objects capable of automatically adsorbing energy that allowed Electra's magic array to persist for a century.

If Electra was a genius of creation, then Huey Greyle was a genius of application. He sensitively realized that energy powder could actually play a much greater role, rather than merely serving as a simple energy supply hub for a constant magic array.

The vast majority of alchemical mechanisms in this world, no matter how exquisitely designed, shared one most basic commonality: they all required energy crystals as their source of power. Without energy crystal power, all mechanisms would automatically fail.

Compared to mana-stimulating potions, it was safer, more practical, and lower in cost.

The energy on the iron door was quickly sucked completely clean by the blue powder.

Without the imprisonment array, the prison cell door could no longer prevent anyone from entering or leaving.

Watching the door leading to freedom about to open, even the toughest man could not help but feel excited.

Although Huey Greyle had repeatedly assured him that these items would definitely play their proper role, it was only at this very moment that Bolan finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Every single one of the bizarre alchemical products possessed by that mysterious alchemical youth exceeded his expectations.

However, this was merely the beginning.

More peculiar little objects appeared in Bolan's hand once again.

Spot-winged butterflies, a type of flying alchemical product recorded in Electra's notebook, listed alongside reconnaissance bees. Unlike reconnaissance bees, spot-winged butterflies did not possess scouting capabilities; they were multifunctional miniature magic puppets. Their wings carried a powder capable of releasing an anesthetic gas. Scattering this powder during flight could cause people to fall into unconsciousness, and their multifunctional feet could also be used for other tasks.

In the pitch-black corridor, several spot-winged butterflies flew out through the gaps in the cell doors. They fluttered gracefully, arriving in front of other dark cells, flapping their wings and scattering energy powder.

The blue powder exerted its effect once more, and the energy crystals embedded in each magic array gradually grew dim under the adsorption of the powder.

On the ground, several gold-eaters rustled as they crawled out of the cell, drilling toward other cell doors.

Watching all this proceed smoothly, a rich smile appeared in Bolan's eyes.

Time ticked away second by second, and Bolan waited silently until those gold-eaters returned to his side.

He raised his severed right arm and struck heavily against the wall of the cell.

A dull impact began to echo inside the iron cell.

"Bang!"

"Bang bang!!"

"Bang bang bang!!!"

Bolan struck the wall blow after blow. As if encouraged by something, the prisoners in the dark cells elsewhere also issued similar responses.

Throughout the entire disciplinary ward, the sounds of dark cell prisoners striking their cells rang out one after another, growing louder and gathering momentum like distant, muffled thunder rolling across the sky, echoing within this prison.

"Ooh!" Some prisoners even let out fanatical, wolf-like howls, shocking all the guards so much that their faces drained of color.

In a flash, this language belonging exclusively to prisoners spread throughout the entire Spark Prison, echoing across the skies of this region.

The carriage stopped at the entrance of Spark Prison.

A pair of slender hands stretched out from the carriage window, holding a pass document.

After inspecting the document and confirming it was correct, the guards granted passage.

The carriage then clopped its way into the prison.

Arriving in front of the small white building, Huey stepped out of the carriage, adjusted the gold-rimmed glasses on his face, and walked toward the warden's office.

Count Stryas was currently working in his office.

As the empire's largest and most secure prison, it held the most dangerous and troublesome criminals.

Spark Prison experienced several riots every year, with criminals perpetually attempting to break out of this massive cage, yearning for the free world outside.

Facing such situations, the empire had never shown any mercy in its suppression.

Every spring, due to the material trade fair, was Royou City's most bustling month, and bandits grew all the more rampant during this time. Some organized large-scale bandit groups would even collectively assault Spark Prison.

They did not look like they were breaking someone out of prison; rather, it resembled a form of suicidal attack.

However, over the past two years, this phenomenon had eased considerably. The bandits of the Bilias Mountains were trending toward more covert raiding methods. They no longer easily appeared under the guise of large bandit groups; instead, they gathered more in scattered groups, yet organized themselves in the form of alliances at necessary moments.

This practice of dispersing into parts and gathering into a whole at any time made the work of suppressing bandits in the mountainous region increasingly difficult.

The superiors wanted him to produce a situational report on the mountain bandits, which made the Count extremely furious.

In his view, his job was to watch over the bandits inside the cages, not to understand the bandits outside the cages. Having a warden perform evaluation work and situational reports on mountain bandits—such an assignment was simply absurd.

Count Stryas could easily imagine that this must be another masterpiece created through the infighting among high-level bigwigs.

This kind of situational report involved many levels. The empire's future deployment of troops or lack thereof, and how resources would be allocated, would likely stem from this aspect. There must be many people scrambling to take on the task and then producing the situational analysis most favorable to themselves.

Yet the end result was that they handed all of this over to a warden to accomplish.

Absurdities did not stop at just one. The arrival of the Seventh-Tier Mage Abraham Malit gave the Count an even worse headache.

Count Stryas had always believed that the existence of high-tier powerhouses was in itself the greatest disruption to social order.

Aside from possessing sufficient destructive capacity, their existence contributed almost nothing to society.

They would not formulate policies based on local people's livelihood, would not observe grassroots conditions, would not resolve right-and-wrong conflicts, and their administrative capabilities were practically zero. They made no developmental contributions to society or the country; on the contrary, due to their supreme martial might and special status, they became violators of the system, destroyers of order, and to a certain extent, even the gravediggers of a nation.

History was not lacking in events where foolish crimes committed by certain powerhouses led to hostility and war between nations, ultimately resulting in tens of millions of bleeding casualties and the demise of nations.

Aside from warfare, slaughter, and combat, these powerhouses could be utterly useless, yet precisely because of their formidable abilities, they could not be ignored. They undermined the essential foundation required for a nation's survival and development, yet were relied upon by those in power as towering trees. This was the fundamental problem of the magical world.

Warriors were somewhat better. Due to the code of chivalry, the vast majority of warriors took pride in belonging to and obeying the empire. But those proud mages were each and every one of them trouble. They obeyed the Magic Association far more than they obeyed the nation, yet they still drew stipends from the empire. These old men shouted about the nobility of magic every day, but their actual behavior was utterly shameless.

Seventh-Tier Mage Abraham Malit was the epitome of such an existence.

As one of the empire's four great mages, he received astronomical annual tributes from the empire while contributing almost nothing to it. On the contrary, he possessed the leisurely elegance to tour Spark Prison every year, using his illustrious status to arbitrarily interrogate and torture prisoners.

Spark Prison had its own rules and regulations, and here, Stryas was the sole authority. But the arrival of a mage always changed all of that. Malit completely disregarded Stryas's authority, perpetually barking orders at him with an arrogant demeanor.

And this year, this hateful, loathsome mage was coming again to interrogate prisoners.

Accompanying this detestable piece of news was another equally loathsome update—word had it that a bandit group had appeared on the outskirts of Royou City. The city lord's mansion demanded the deployment of the Dark Scaled Beast troop. If the news proved accurate, they were to be eradicated on the spot.

"Spark Prison is simply a storage locker for powerhouses' possessions; they arrest and release at will. I am myself an innocent casualty of combat, reduced to a laborer in the power struggles of political scheming, to the point where even my men have become a troop they can boss around at whim!"

Count Stryas gnashed his teeth in furious complaint, yet could only helplessly accept this assignment.

The Dark Scaled Beast troop was not merely Spark Prison's defensive force; it existed primarily as a pursuing force.

"Report, Lord Warden."

"What is it?" Stryas asked irritably.

"Young Master Cicer Dadanier requests an audience."

Count Stryas was slightly startled: "So late, what is he here to see me for?"

This question could obviously only be answered by the person himself. The Count commanded: "Let him enter."

The door was suddenly pushed open, and a youth strode in.

It was precisely Huey.

"Glad to see you, Count Stryas. Disturbing you at this late hour, I hope you don't mind," Huey said politely.

What surprised Count Stryas was that today's Cicer Dadanier seemed somewhat different in appearance from the past, though he could not immediately tell where the difference lay.

Yet out of politeness, he still laughed, left his seat, and opened his arms to welcome Huey:

"Oh, I'm delighted to see you, my friend. Ever since we parted that day, I have missed you constantly, but never had the chance to see you again. Well, Cicer, tell me what brings you to see me now? I can tell you seem to have something you need my help with."

"Indeed so, Lord Count Stryas."

"Speak, what is it? I am more than happy to render my services."

"A prison break, my lord," Huey replied.

A longsword swiftly pierced into the Count's neck...

Even a single comment from you will become the driving force for the author's creation. Please strive to cheer the author on!