White mist had already crested the second step.
The first to collapse was a slave who had just come out of the beast pens.
He coughed twice against the wall, his knees suddenly giving out as he fell face-first into the mist.
Someone nearby reached out to help, but as soon as his hand extended, he too clutched his throat.
By the time Angron arrived, the third person had already begun to convulse.
“Lift them up!” He bent down, grabbed the bottommost man by the collar, hauled him out of the white mist, and handed him to the war-slaves behind him.
“Everyone out of the lower level!” Karrus caught up with his mouth and nose covered by his sleeve.
“I’ll take some men down with you.” “What are you going down for?” Angron shot him a look.
Karrus opened his mouth to speak.
The white mist crept up another step.
The sweet odor grew stronger.
An itch began in the back of their throats.
Karrus coughed, his face turning dark immediately.
Angron raised his hand and pointed upward.
“Take the people and go.” “But you—” “I won’t die.” Angron paused, looking at the slaves being carried up.
“They will.” Karrus gripped his shock-spear, his knuckles turning white.
In the end, he turned, kicking aside an iron rack blocking the stairs.
“Everyone up!” “Don’t crowd the way!” “Carry the wounded!
Hurry!” The crowd began to fall back.
Some tried to carry away the weapons they had just been handed, but Karrus slapped a stub-gun out of one man’s hands.
“You’re about to lose your life, why are you still clinging to a gun?” Angron didn’t look back at them.
He turned and stepped into the white mist.
The toxic gas quickly surged past his knees.
Further down, the mist was so thick the steps were invisible.
The entrance to the East Well was hidden in the lowest level of the Bloody Sand Arena.
It was once a place for washing out blood channels and draining corpse fluid.
The walls were damp and cold year-round, covered in indelible dark brown stains.
Angron’s shoulders scraped against the walls on both sides.
This place had been built for ordinary humans.
He was now nearly five meters tall; walking inside was like forcing a boulder through a pipe.
With every step, his shoulder plates knocked off a layer of wall dust.
Footsteps echoed from behind.
The scrawny tech-slave, clutching a sub-console, came stumbling down after him.
He held a wet cloth over his face, leaving only a pair of reddened eyes exposed.
Angron turned around.
“What did you come down here for?” “There are six main pipes in the East Well.” The tech-slave coughed so hard he couldn’t straighten his back.
“If I don’t tell you which one carries the poison gas and you smash them all…
the water and exhaust gas from above will pour down together.” Angron looked at him.
“How long can you last?” The tech-slave glanced down at the sub-console.
The characters on the screen were already starting to double in his vision.
“A few dozen breaths.” “Say what you need to say, then get out.” The tech-slave nodded, but his feet didn’t move.
The two continued downward.
The closer they got to the bottom of the well, the thicker the toxic gas became.
Individual swirls of white mist were no longer visible.
Everything around them was solid milky white, and even the walls were reduced to vague shadows.
When Angron took his first breath, it felt as though a handful of scorching iron sand had been poured into his lungs.
His trachea instantly swelled up.
The mucous membranes inside his chest began to ulcerate, blood leaking from the corners of his mouth.
His steps faltered for a second.
The lingering remnants of the Butcher’s Nails in his brain flared up in response, magnifying every trace of pain savagely through his nerves.
Angron swallowed the blood in his throat.
Fine.
Keep going.
Beneath his dark green skin, veins bulged one after another.
Just as the wounds in his lungs tore open, new flesh began to sprout.
The poison gas continued to corrode while his body continued to repair—two forces tearing repeatedly at his chest.
It hurt like hell.
But pain like this wasn’t enough to stop him.
The tech-slave behind him, however, could no longer hold out.
The man stumbled, his knees slamming into a step.
The sub-console slipped from his hands, dropping into the white mist.
Angron turned back and scooped him up.
The tech-slave’s face had already turned purple, his lips opening and closing without drawing air.
“Left…” He pointed toward the bottom of the well, his voice reduced to a faint whisper.
“Third one…” Angron looked in the direction he pointed.
Six thick pipes pierced through the well wall.
Each was thicker than an adult’s body, stamped with different maintenance serial numbers.
The third main pipe was vibrating.
White mist sprayed continuously from its seams.
“The control station…
is outside…” The tech-slave coughed up another mouthful of blood.
“They’re pressurizing the pipe.” Angron carried him two steps back, lifted his hand, and tossed the man toward the upper level.
Karrus was still guarding the edge of the poison mist.
He lunged forward to catch the tech-slave, the impact knocking him onto his rear.
“Take him up.” Angron’s voice echoed out from the mist.
Before Karrus could shout anything back, Angron was nowhere to be seen.
Only heavy footsteps remained, echoing all the way down.
At the bottom of the well lay half a meter of stagnant wastewater.
When Angron dropped into it, black water splashed against the walls.
The toxic gas main pipe was right in front of him.
A layer of white frost coated its metal surface, while high-pressure gas surged against the pipe walls inside, producing a continuous low hum.
In the center of the main pipe sat a round master valve.
The valve was locked by a mechanical closure device.
The adjacent control screen was still illuminated.
[Local Authority Cut] [Remote Pressurization Ongoing] [Purification Zone: Bloody Sand Arena – Lower Level] Purification.
Angron stared at those two words.
Those people wouldn’t even write “kill” when slaughtering slaves.
They wrote “purification.” As if the ones dying below weren’t human beings, but merely a layer of filth that needed to be washed away.
The pipe vibrated again.
More white mist spewed out from the well wall.
Voices from above could no longer be heard.
They should have all evacuated.
But there were still too many people on the lower level of the Bloody Sand Arena.
The injured.
Those who couldn’t walk.
Those who had just been dragged from their cages.
He could stand here and slowly search for a switch.
They couldn’t wait.
Angron grabbed the master valve.
On his first attempt, the circular valve wheel didn’t budge.
The locking mechanism bit down hard on the gears.
He applied more force.
The metal beneath his palm began to deform.
The locking mechanism emitted a sharp alarm.
[Manual Operation Prohibited] Angron bared his teeth in a snarl.
“Then sound your alarm.” The muscles in his arms suddenly bulged.
*Crack!* One gear tooth of the lock sheared off.
Then a second.
A third.
He forced the entire master valve through half a turn by sheer brute force.
A muffled explosion echoed inside the pipe.
The pressure didn’t drop.
The remote control station was still pumping in pressure.
Angron looked in the direction the main pipe extended.
It passed through the well wall, leading toward the eastern district of the Bloody Sand Arena.
In that direction was likely the control station responsible for pumping the gas.
It couldn’t be too far.
But he had no time to take the long way around.
Angron reached out and dug his hands into the seam where the main pipe met the well wall.
Ten fingers plunged into the metal gap.
Sharp edges sliced open his flesh, green blood flowing down the pipe wall.
He pulled outward.
The coupling ring let out a shrill groan.
The entire East Well trembled in response.
First pull: the pipe only cracked a single fissure.
High-pressure toxic gas blasted him right in the face.
Angron’s face and chest were instantly swallowed by white mist.
The surface of his eyeballs began to burn.
His vision blurred into a hazy green.
He did not close his eyes.
Second pull.
The rivets securing the pipe sheared off one after another.
The main pipe was yanked half a meter out of the well wall.
Third pull.
*Boom!* The entire pipe tore free from the coupling.
High-pressure poison gas burst from the broken opening like a giant white python.
The blast shoved Angron backward, sliding through the water.
A massive wave of black wastewater churned beneath his feet.
He planted both feet into the bottom of the well, seized the shattered pipe mouth, and forcefully twisted it toward the opposite wall.
There was a thinner return pipe on the well wall.
The tech-slave had said earlier that the control station was outside.
A city grid couldn’t possibly have only a one-way line.
There had to be backpressure and drain lines.
Angron didn’t understand this system.
But he recognized arrows.
An outward-pointing mark was stamped on the return pipe.
He smashed the casing of the return pipe with a kick and jammed the broken toxic gas main pipe directly into it.
The pipe openings didn’t fit.
So he crushed them together with his hands.
The metal caved inward under his grip.
The two pipes were forcibly shoved into one.
The direction of the toxic gas changed.
The white mist that had been pouring into the Bloody Sand Arena began surging into the return line instead.
The values on the control screen flickered wildly.
[Abnormal Backpressure] [External Control Station Pressure Rising] [WARNING] [WARNING] Angron opened his hands.
The white mist was still spewing.
But it was no longer flowing toward the lower level of the Bloody Sand Arena.
It surged down the return line, pouring en masse toward the control station outside.
Angron leaned against the well wall, gasping for air.
His lungs were filled with the metallic taste of blood.
His newly grown trachea was still fragile; every breath felt like someone raking a rasp inside his chest.
However, the white mist above began to thin.
He could see the steps.
And he could hear sounds in the distance.
Not from the people in the Bloody Sand Arena.
From the other side of the well wall.
First came alarms.
Then coughing.
Someone was shouting to shut down the main pump.
Someone was pounding on a door.
Someone else was screaming that there weren’t enough gas masks.
Angron raised his head.
He had found the location of the control station.
He felt along the wall where the toxic gas main pipe passed through.
There was a cavity behind the wall.
It was very close.
Angron stepped back.
He lowered his shoulder.
*Boom!* The wall caved inward.
On the second hit, cracks spiderwebbed across the entire well wall.
On the third hit, he smashed through the wall structure, tearing through with broken pipe lines and crashing into the eastern control station.
Inside, chaos had already erupted.
Several operators in gray hazmat suits lay on the ground, clutching their throats and convulsing.
Two High Rider guards wearing masks were scrambling for the sole sealed door.
The vents on the walls were continuously venting white mist inside.
When they saw Angron walk out from behind the wall, their movements froze.
Broken pipe lines still hung from Angron’s body.
His skin was pockmarked with chemical burns from the gas.
Green blood leaked from the corners of his eyes.
Yet those wounds were closing right before their eyes.
One guard raised a gun.
Angron grabbed a section of broken pipe and swept it sideways.
No gunshot rang out.
Both guards crashed into the control console together, their metal face masks and skulls caving in at the same time.
The remaining survivors tried to run toward the sealed door.
Angron didn’t give chase.
He walked over to the main pump.
The machine was still running at full speed.
Its massive impeller forced poison gas into the pipe network, its outer casing glowing red with heat.
Angron raised his foot.
With a single stomp, the main pump collapsed inward.
A second stomp, and the impeller and motor exploded together.
The lights throughout the entire control station went out instantly.
The toxic gas stopped flowing.
Angron stood in the darkness, listening as the pipe behind him let out a final low moan.
Then, absolute silence.
He bent down and picked up the auxiliary control terminal that had dropped to the floor.
Half the screen was shattered, but the grid map surrounding the East Well was still visible.
The Bloody Sand Arena was merely a tiny dot on the map.
A maintenance line extended outward from the control station.
Outer Labor Sector.
Underground Transport Well.
City Relay Tower Outer Maintenance Layer.
Angron stared at the map for a few breaths.
These High Riders had used pipes to pump poison into the Bloody Sand Arena.
And in doing so, they had conveniently drawn him a path to the outside.
Footsteps sounded behind him.
Karrus stepped into the control station, leaning against the wall with a filter mask pried off a guard’s corpse strapped across his face.
He looked at the corpses strewn across the floor, then at the stomped-to-rubble main pump.
“Plugged it?” Angron tossed the terminal to him.
“Have the tech-slave look at it.” Karrus caught the terminal.
On the screen, a cluster of red dots was flashing urgently.
Their location was right in the Outer Labor Sector.
Some of the red dots had already turned black.
The smile faded from Karrus’s face.
“This is…” “The collars.” Angron turned and walked back toward the wall breach he had smashed open.
The wounds on his body had not yet fully healed.
The back of his head was still throbbing with pain.
Yet his stride did not break.
“Lead the way.”