Pickaxe No. 9527 in the Nuclear Wasteland
The fluorescent moss in Bloodrust Mine Shaft flickered like neon lanterns from Lu Jiuyuan's childhood New Year celebrations. He licked his cracked lips, swallowing back the radioactive phlegm lodged in his throat, as the pickaxe labeled "No. 9527" gnawed at the rockwall—literally gnawed.
"Quit being picky, you bastard!" Lu spat at the tool. The pickaxe was happily munching on a vein of black crystal while ignoring the adjacent copper ore. Since unearthing this belching tool three days ago in a collapsed tunnel, his mining efficiency had plummeted, while the whip scars from overseers multiplied daily.
Old Miner Qi Sanshao's crude joke echoed from deeper in the shaft: "Kid Lu, did your pickaxe develop a crush on Overseer Su's sword? Last night I saw it nibbling at the No. 3 pit's barrier array—" The voice cut off with a whip's sharp c***k.
Lu shoved the pickaxe into his belt and sprinted toward the noise, backup tungsten pick in hand. Rounding three bends, he found Qi crumpled in a cluster of glowing geodes. Overseer Su Yanxin's crimson serpent-whip coiled around the old man's leg, its barbed tip burrowing toward bone marrow.
"Overseer Su," Lu raised a radiation meter pulsing with blue light, "No. 3 pit's barrier did malfunction yesterday. If your whip digs half an inch deeper, Old Qi's ashes will exceed the new Corpse Disposal Regulations radiation threshold. You’re familiar with last month's revision, yes?"
Su's jade-green ocular implant flickered with binary code—the "Three-Second Clairvoyance" all Heavenly Sword Sect overseers bore. Legend claimed it could calculate every possibility within three seconds, but now it reflected Lu's pickaxe stealthily chewing her wanted poster on the wall behind him.
"Number 9527." Her voice dripped liquid nitrogen. "If that tool takes one more bite from the bulletin board, I'll melt it into a chamber pot."
Lu gripped the squirming pickaxe, his thumb brushing strange grooves on its handle—ancient seal scripts spelling "Devour," each stroke writhing like worms. When he looked up, Su had vanished, leaving only the fading tick-tock of silver bells woven into her hair.
"Kid, smell that?" Qi sniffed, the severed stub of his pinky finger oozing spirit-moth mucus. "A-Bao's digging."
A black-and-white blur exploded from an air vent. The mechanical glutton-panda A-Bao landed with a metallic clang, its claws caked in half-digested restriction talismans. It burped rust-flavored exhaust at Lu and spat out a broken sword hilt.
"Is this... the phoenix tassel from Overseer Su's sword?" Lu tweezed the bloodstained metal feather. A-Bao nuzzled his leg, its scales smeared with bioluminescent fungus. Lu suddenly realized the ore-obsessed creature hadn't left his side since he acquired the pickaxe.
The tool jerked violently, its "Devour" sigils slithering up Lu's arm like living tattoos. Qi grabbed his wrist, milky eyes reflecting bronze veins spreading under Lu's skin—identical to the pulsating ore veins snaking through the mine walls.
"Run, kid." Qi's voice rumbled like shifting tectonic plates. "To the magma boilers. Get undiluted coolant from Old Liu. Now!"
The shaft groaned like a colossal stomach. Luminescent ore veins contracted, squeezing light into frantic strobes. A-Bao growled, sparks dancing across its fur. At the tunnel's end, Pickaxe 9527 autonomously hammered stone, each strike convulsing the ore veins.
When Su's clairvoyant eye reactivated, Lu was already hauling Qi through collapsing tunnels. Behind them, falling rubble disintegrated mid-air—swallowed by a phantom bronze stomach materializing in the dust.
