Chapter 0066 - Blackhoof Ambush

In the Blackhoof Clan Leader's bed chamber a large black Minotaur sat at the top of a pile of the skins from his fallen enemies. He was listening to one of his soldiers give the regular the reports. "Reports say that East District has five percent more ore than yesterday, the West District has had lower sales than regular. Also, the Northern District has completely stopped working today." The Actuary coughed gently, nodded and stood waiting to be scolded. Low worker production was seen as a sign of disrespect.

"What?" Blackhoof Clan made their living on kickbacks, as their Leader, Blackhoof was furious. "What do you mean it stopped working today?" His hand gripped

"We have several visitors from outside, since it is an extremely rare occurrence, many of them stopped everything they were doing to investigate. We have reports that a Jiao has come with the group that recently arrived, they are paying great attention to it. Sir." The underling swallowed and stood straight as an arrow, he didn't want to look weak and suffer the blame of incompetence.

Picking up a Pike that stood beside him, Blackhoof directed his Commanders to gather their forces. "A Jiao! Excellent, with it at my side, our people will have no choice but to follow."

"Sir. What are we going to do?" The Actuary really did need to know.

"Everyone in my way will perish, and the Jiao will be mine." Blackhoof took strides toward the door and issued a command. "GET READY FOR WAR!"

Blackhoof's voice echoed in the caverns, grunts followed.

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"I SAID DIE!!" Throwing pity aside, several Minaur were pestering Darkwing.

The serfs from the lower depths of the City were among the weakest of the Minaur people, the Minaur people as a whole were somewhat ordinary in general, not many stood out and there was a rather small genepool.

"Why do I have to die?" Darkwing laughted but he was mostly confused about what to do in the face of all the people who would just be Rabbits to a Wolf.

'Dammit!' Darkwing thought for a moment about whether Wu Hai would be upset for defending himself, the battle had only just started but his opponent was going for the throat. Darkwing dodged the Minaur's horn and punched another one in the face. He didn't infuse his energy, there was no need to kill them.

The Rabbits to the Wolf quote from a books that Wu Hai had read to him him, popped into Darkwing's mind while he artistically dodged. "Master, I understand now, people are fools in the presence of greed."

His eyes glowed with silver light, Darkwing's inner nature was beginning to win over his patience.

'A Wolf in a Herd of Cattle can still be trampled to death!' Another saying that couldn't escape his mind was the next to follow, he tensed up for only a second and the assault had started to attract attention. Evading the repeated assaults of the Minaurs, it was obvious that he was being driven into a corner. Darkwing's skills were superior in every way, evading their strikes were a joke but with so many, he was bound to be gored.

The Minaur guards were much stronger, their hacks and slashes broke apart the rockbed in the area, causing a cave-in to start. The Sounds of crushing rubble were heard everywhere, the entire passageway had begun it's collapse. The amount of debris and rubble was immense, people were being crushed in all directions.

There was no way to clear the tunnel to look for survivors. With the bedrock shattered in some places, the sands above were pouring down to fill the void. The collapse surrounded the battle for at least a hundred meter, the roof and stonework started to crash down from the excess weight. The underground sub-structures kept collapsing like a pile of Dominoes.

"!RUN!" The screams of Minaurs could be heard as the rest of the group arrived too late to see what had happened. It was like Karma, taking a stab a the Minaur people for their hostility, their achievements and a great portion of thier great underground city were falling apart because of infighting.

The entire northern zone was decaying in on itself.

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"BROTHER WU, YOU'RE UP! We can clear the debris but you dig fast. The Twins both looked over with a sense of haste in their eyes. Darkwing was a friend and they had been in several of the shops and bars that had been destroyed as a result of the cave-ins.

"I can dig but which way?" Wu Hai saw a lot more damage to the western districts as the rubble fell. The collapse had begun to spread as more of the sand came pouring through. After a moment of confusion about which direction to take, he set off.

Thinking to himself like before, Wu Hai drew out the abilities of black spot, two large black claws extended around his fists and across his feet. His body started to move very quickly and he tunneled through the rubble as fast as he could. Following behind him and picking up the debris with spacial rings to clear the path the others started their march down the new pathways that Wu Hai was clearing.

The liklihood of additional cave-ins when tunneling was extremely high. The Twin's had experienced it up close and personal, they were worried. "Mu!" Yu nodded to his brother, "Line this cavern with me. I hate being buried!" Voicing his opinion, Yu got Mu to help reinforce the tunnels passage as they were moving.

Khan Ni was growing impatient, she really hated underground, almost as much as Darkwing. Her skills were less useful while tunneling, she spent the time collecting the debris as fast as she could while the brothers focused on the tunnel behind them.

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"BULLSHIT for brains!" Darkwing was furious, he yelled as he stumbled in the dark. He really hated being underground to begin with, he had always had a fear of being buried alive. Looking around himself, he could smell the littered corpses of the thugs who had been attacking him among the rubble.

Apparently they were unable to withstand even the bit of debris, they were not buried deep at all. Crushed, they were already long dead and motionless. Darkwing's night vision was sort of terrible with the dust the was still falling, he constantly tripped over rocks and dead bodies.

Within the collapsed tunnel there were few places to go but all of them led further underground. Darkwing was unwilling to remain in the tunnels where he was but digging out was entirely out of the question. There was so much gravel-like debris that it would just spill in, creating even more collapse.

It was important that Darkwing move from the area and soon but there was really no way for him to know which direction would lead him out. His worst fears were being realized and the others not around. Further in he could only find a few tunnels that led to the right and two tunnels that led to the left.

'I can't choose randomly, Can I?' Flicking a broken shield down one of the tunnels, Darkwing heard water splashing, throwing a stone down another he heard nothing, there was only one tunnel that he heard passing air currents.

'Water? Where did the water come from?' Darkwing wasn't sure how the water was coming into the cave but it was a recipe for disaster.

Taking the tunnel that led to the moving air, Darkwing gathered a few of the luminous stones that fell from the walls to help him explore. Light projected outward from the stones but they were no good individually, Darkwing carried dozens of them in his arms and his path became a bit clearer.

'I hate this, I hate this, I hate this.' Darkwing kept repeating the words to himself, he was pissed off, buried and alone.

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"Stop!" Hearing something, one of the Twins called out.

After stopping, Wu Hai turned around and asked, "What is going on?"

Wu Hai frowned, he had been digging for 20 minutes but they hadn't even found another tunnel.

"I hear voices, I think they are above us. Maybe 30 feet to the right." Cheng Yu had a gut feeling and Wu Hai had no other options, they were blindly digging in one direction and uphill. Clearing a spot to the right and digging at an steep angle, they soon found a room on the verge of collapse with broken furniture and cooking utensils. They were clearly in the home of one of the Minaur families.

"Save us! Help!! My wife! She's trapped under a rock!" A Minaur in his prime was struggling to keep his sanity. "MY CHILDREN!, MY POOR POOR CHILDREN!" The sight was quite gruesome, on further inspection, there was no movement from the wife either. It was clear that he was the only survivor.

"They are all dead, if you don't feel like dying here, go back way we came." Khan Ni had little patience when people were screaming, something terrible had happened, it was something tremendous and the Minaur people were to blame. The group had survived the cave-in and now they had to directly deal with secondary issues. Their speed while excavating the tunnels was sporadic at best, they left the survivor with his grief and found the doorway that led to the main tunnel.

Finally on the other side of the collapse, the corpses of the shop owners and their goods were laying about.. there was no sign of Darkwing or his remains.

Calling out, the group started yelling his name as they walked deeper into the tunnels.

"DARKWING!" .., "!DARKWING!" .., "Brother Darkwing!"

The calls echoed throughout the tunnel system, but there was no response.

"He must have gone deeper, lets go, don't fall behind and keep reinforcing the sidewalls. I want a clear path to backtrack and then I want the hell out of here when we find Darkwing and Jiao Jiao." Wu Hai had completely lost his trust in the situation and knew it was time to leave. Gritting his teeth, he sunk the Black claws into the soil and started to tunnel randomly. He wasn't about to abandon Darkwing or the Jiao.

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Charging to the sound of moving air, Darkwing kept his hopes up. It was easier to see as he held the luminous stone in his hands. "Stupid Moo-ther fuckers! Stupid things, like this!'' Darkwing kicked a rock far into the distance. ''Why do I have to be in this stupid cave?! AHH!! I'm so DAMNED PISSED!" Darkwing's impatience was getting the better of himself, occasionally he called out for Wu Hai or the Twins.

Darkwing was cautions as he crept through the caves. The cave-in was a painful lesson, every so often he would change his route, the entire place was honeycomb of broken passages. Turning back, Darkwing rushed into the darkness trying to make his way to the surface. If he made it to the surface, he would eventually be reunited with Wu Hai.

Moving about and feeling like he was never in the same place twice, Darkwing did his best to keep calm himself and refocused on escaping the underground. He heard voices, it was a clumsy search.

The buildings were few and far between before and with the collapsing network of tunnels, the range of the damage was at an all time high and there was little to no hope for the City to recover to its former glory.

"This big of a collapse is not something that happened from my fight, right?" Darkwing kept hoping that Wu Hai wouldn't blame him, after all, the one that started the fight could no longer defend position.

Darkwing saw something moving in front of him, on closer inspection he found there was a man under the rubble. He was struggling desperately to stay awake and free himself. Darkwing couldn't help but wonder what was driving the man to continue, the scent of blood gave Darkwing all the information he needed..

A bulge under some rubble, a Minaur man was trying to stand up but had a lot of rubble on his back. The man fell silent when he turned around to see the devastation of his home. There were no lights in the area, except for the stones in Darkwing's arms.

Immediately the Minaur asked, "What happened?"

Seeming to have lost his mind, the Minaur got up from his knees and started digging frantically to see if he could find his family. His face kept changing, worry, fright and panic were the easiest to make out but it was clear, the man was in full blown grief.

Darkwing could tell that there was no life under the rubble but saying so was not for the best. Seeing this play out in front of him, he just keep his beak shut and helped clear the rubble.

Something about the man was better than the others Darkwing had encountered, so far. In the heart of the Minaur, Darkwing was looking to him like kin. Darkwing wanted someone to look for him with that passion. It was Obvious that the corpses beneath the rubble were important to the Minotaur man.

Storing debris in his ring, Darkwing helped clear rubble until they finally found the mangled bodies.

Mourning, the man looked up at Darkwing. He choked as he spoke, "My name is Genba of the Rock Clan." Extending his hand, Darkwing helped him to his feet.

"My name is Darkwing. Do you know your way out of these tunnels?" Darkwing was tired of wandering blindly. The scope of the damage was not limited to the spaces near the shops where he had fought. The whole city was coming down and there was nothing that either of them could do to stop it.

"Yes, help me bury my home. I'm never returning, I'll go with you. I owe you my life." Kneeling down in front of Darkwing, Genba committed himself with sincerity to Darkwing. He had lost everything and Darkwing was the one who had saved him.

Darkwing didn't want to say anything, Genba took his silence as acceptance and said, "You must ask Master."

Turning around and heading further down the tunnels the duo looked at all the dead as they passed, unsure of what to do.

"I have another ring, we can collect the bodies of your people for later." Darkwing wasn't interested in digging, he collected everything in the immediate area including the corpses and passed the ring over to Genba.

Knowing there was now a defeated man following him, Darkwing decided to leave the situation as it was, they could figure out the details later. Prying for details while they were trying to escape from certain death wasn't wise, distractions rarely were.

"The Qilins and Elf went this way." Genba sniffed at the air, then he pointed to a metal lined corridor.