CHAPTER 17

Lÿarah and Alex had lost track of day and night. They had been following that tunnel for several hours. They moved in silence, alert to everything to avoid being discovered.

Finally, they saw a light at the end of the corridor. When they reached the end of that path, they beheld something magnificent—a cavern spanning kilometers in both length and height, from floor to ceiling. The entire place was filled with machines working incessantly.

Giant pipelines and furnaces. The heat was almost unbearable. And all this machinery was completely intertwined and entangled with the underground roots of Yggdrasil.

“What is this madness?” Asked Alex.

“Muspelheim. We’ve arrived.” Said Lÿarah.

They continued walking through that sea of pipes and machinery.

“This is... fascinating... Who built this? How many generations did it take to turn this into reality?” Lÿarah wondered to herself.

Narrow paths were visible among it all, surely created for human operators to move through. Along these routes, they would venture into the cave.

Unaware of their presence, countless non-humanoid automatons continued their work without stopping, questioning, or tiring.

“Look, all these machines. They have compartments to be filled with Yggdrasil roots. Just like the automaton I found on the ship you fell from.” Pointed out Lÿarah.

“That’s true. All of this seems to be powered by... Wait, but what energy is this?”

Alex saw the roots, intertwined with the machines and the walls, energize from time to time, in a greenish hue, releasing small sparks and flashes.

“These things... they are draining energy from Yggdrasil itself,” Lÿarah stated.

“A renewable and infinite energy source.”

“Really?” Lÿarah questioned. “Is that really the case? How much could all of this be harming the tree? Are they slowly killing it?”

“Do you believe that?” Alex asked worriedly.

“I can't say for sure, but could the icy cold that plagues the world be a result of Yggdrasil's exploitation? After all, it’s involved in the entire planet's ecosystem. Its roots are everywhere.” Lÿarah explained her theory.

“That makes no sense... pragmatically speaking... Why freeze the world to keep a single city warm? That’s absurd. It’s not rational. You use machines to cool the world and then the same machines to heat your city?”

“Yes, it doesn’t make sense, but, knowing the little I know about humans, I wouldn’t be surprised...” Lÿarah said, concerned.

“What... what are you doing here? Who are you?” A third voice echoed through the nearby corridors.

The couple turned toward the voice and saw a skinny young man in rags, terrified to see them there.

“Intruders... Intruders...” The young man stammered.

Lÿarah tried to tell him to stay quiet.

“Wait... don’t do that... don’t scream...”

But it was useless.

“INTRUDERS!!!” The young man shouted.

Before, where there seemed to be no one, others began to appear—young people, like the first, dressed in rags and covered in soot and grease. They were the workers who kept Muspelheim running.

In unison, everyone started shouting “intruder” at each other. As if they had rehearsed, they began to stomp their feet in sync.

“Surtr! Surtr! Surtr!” The ragged ones started shouting.

“Surtr? What is Surtr?” Alex wanted to know.

“Run, Alex. RUN!” Lÿarah shouted, grabbing her companion by the sleeve.

The two started running down one of the paved paths, jumping over pipes and dodging machinery. Behind them, they heard the threatening noise of something large approaching.

“WATCH OUT!” Lÿarah shouted, leaping to pull Alex out of the line of something huge.

A loud crash. Something very heavy fell exactly where Alex was, and if it weren’t for Lÿarah, he would have been crushed.

The impact sent a large cloud of dust and soot into the air, filling it and hiding whatever had fallen.

Both heard heavy footsteps approaching.

“What is that, Lÿarah?” Alex asked, scared.

“I don’t know!”

An imposing humanoid automaton about three meters tall emerged from the dark cloud. It was entirely made of steel, with elegant gold adornments.

It could even be considered a work of art, but above all, it was a weapon.

“That thing... that thing must be Surtr,” Alex said.

“An automaton? I... I never imagined one could exist... so large!”

The metal monster sheathed what looked like a heavy sword it drew from its back.

“Wait... is it going to try to cut us with that?”

The monster attacked, trying to strike Alex with its sword.

“[Execute: Ignition Loop]. Defensive magic. Wind wall! [Compile: Wind Parameter].”

Lÿarah stepped between his strike and Alex. She defended herself with her blade.

“How? How... did you manage to block... this monster’s attack?” Alex panted.

A strong gust enveloped them both.

“I used defensive magic. It created an air barrier between us. The problem is, it consumes too much mana!”

The monster shifted stance and tried to stab Lÿarah, but the wind wall repelled the attack.

“When did you learn to conjure such a powerful magic?” Alex shouted. “Didn’t you say it consumed too much mana?”

“Actually... I don’t know... this magic isn’t that powerful... for some reason I can’t explain, it became stronger than usual.”

“So, I believe we don’t need to worry for now,” Alex said, calming down.

“Not so fast! Even consuming all that mana—who knows where it’s coming from—the wall will dissolve in a few seconds. We need to wait about 90 seconds to reactivate it.”

“So... he’ll have a one-and-a-half-minute window to kill us, right?”

“Exactly. So run; hide among the pipes. He’s too big to follow us there.”

“Deal.”

“Alright then... on three. Let’s go... It’s one, it’s two, it’s...” Lÿarah started counting.

“Three! RUN!”

As the cyclone around them began to dissipate, they ran into the machinery area.

As soon as the wind wall finally dispersed, the machine rushed to catch them, but they managed to slip into the machinery, escaping through its cracks and tiny spaces between one machine and another.

Lÿarah crawled and snuck through these small spaces in the tangle of cables and pipes. Within seconds, she was covered in spider webs, grease, and dust that must have accumulated there for ages.

“Alex! Alex! Are you okay?” she shouted, calling out for her ally.

“I'm... I mean... more or less... At least I'm alive!” He responded from somewhere in that huge mess. “Don’t know for how long. Are we safe?”

“He wasn’t going to make the mistake of damaging the equipment that’s meant to protect.”

Alex positioned himself amid that chaos of cables and machines to get a glimpse of the monster. He managed to sneak a peek, then panicked.

“Lÿarah! Lÿarah! We need to get out of here, NOW!”

“[Protocol: Exterminate (intruders);].” Said the monster with a metallic voice.

The automaton began spewing flames from the ends of its limbs. Then it started setting the machinery on fire.

The servants in charge of caring for Muspelheim ran toward the automaton, shouting for it to stop.

“What are you doing? Don’t do that; you’re going to destroy the...” One of the ragged ones nearby shouted.

The steel colossus incinerated the individual without hesitation. It eliminated the inconvenience like someone stepping on a cockroach.

“Oh, shit! SHIT!” Yelled Alex.

Lÿarah noticed her blade starting to glow differently. A greenish hue enveloped it.

“I can't believe it... I think I understand. The mana of this place... the roots of Yggdrasil... everything here is soaked in mana... the concentration of power here is extremely high!”

“Lÿarah! He’s going to point that thing at us! What are we going to do?”

“Hide! Leave it to me.” She said confidently.

“[Execute: Ignition Loop]. Attack magic. Ice Storm! [Compile: First parameter: Wind, second parameter: Ice].”

“Ice? Ice? Where will you get water to turn into ice here in this hell?”

“Remember what I said about Gruoh hydrating with the roots of Yggdrasil? This place is already full of water, since the roots are everywhere.”

A powerful wind, loaded with ice stones, burst from the machinery like a whirlwind, throwing everything away.

“[Execute: Ignition Loop]. Combined attack and defense magic. Wind wall and Ice Storm! [Compile: First parameter: Wind, second parameter: Ice].” Shouted Lÿarah after performing the necessary movements to activate the command.

The automaton's flames couldn’t hurt the couple.

“Now you’re mine!” She rose from the debris that began orbiting her thanks to the gust.

“[Execute: Ignition Loop]. Physical order magic. Gravity! [Compile: Special Physical Parameter]”

As she said that, Lÿarah jumped, nearly 10 meters above the monster, lifted by the wind combined with gravitational force.

“Take this, you bastard!” As she said that, all the debris froze mid-air and was hurled at the automaton.

The mechanical warrior tried to dodge, but the debris was too much.

Lÿarah was already on the ground before he could detect her, moving with almost feline skill.

“[Execute: Ignition Loop]. I am fluid and free like water. [Compile: Fire Parameter]. [Execute: Ignition Loop]. The cutting wind. [Compile: Wind Parameter].”

By combining two magics, she melted all the ice she generated around them, then shaped it into a thin line of water. She used it as a whip, striking the monster’s legs.

The giant fell with its legs severed.

“GRAVITY!” Shouted Lÿarah, activating the magic again; since it was already charged, she just had to invoke it. The young woman jumped and, mid-air, conjured the magic that made her blade incandescent.

She landed right on the monster’s chest, hitting the compartment that probably held Yggdrasil’s root. As soon as she pierced it, she immediately jumped off.

Seconds later, the automaton exploded into dozens of pieces.

Lÿarah landed triumphantly and sheathed her now-extinguished blade.

“It’s done!”

Alex, covered in ice, approached her, trembling from the cold.

“I almost froze to death!” He protested. “But... what you did was incredible. I’ve never seen you fight like that!”

“Would you have preferred to have died burned?” She replied irritably.

“Either way, it would have been horrible!”

“Yeah, but he didn't die!”

“Oh, thank you then... ACHOO!”

As he wiped his nose with his shirt sleeve, Alex started, then looked at Lÿarah.

“See... you... you're glowing. You're green!”

“What? How so?”

A flash emanated from Lÿarah and struck the roots of Yggdrasil scattered around the place.

“What happened?” Alex wanted to know.

“It seems I accumulated a lot of mana in my body when I activated the spells. This energy returned to Yggdrasil... I think.”

The roots also started to glow.

“Wait... something very strange is happening.” Alex pointed to the roots.

“Damn! Damn! DAMN! They're going to explode.”

“How?”

“It looks like we've triggered a chain reaction. Let's run.”

They started running, and a series of explosions began to happen behind them. As they ran, the explosions seemed to get closer and closer.

They finally managed to cross a gate and escape the fireball behind them.

A sequence of explosions began to take over Muspelheim's machines.

“These explosions... are spreading. If they reach the main boilers... the city will lose heat and won't be able to withstand the cold.” Alex noted.

“Endure the cold? The cold will be the least of our problems. It looks like the roots are exploding, and it's spreading! The entire city could go up in flames!” Shouted Lÿarah.

“How can we stop this?”

“Stopping the energy flow from the tree to the machines... I think... it's a hypothesis... It's better to cling to that than nothing. I just have no idea how to do it.”

“Okay, but there's only one way to cut off the energy flow. Hvergelmir runs everything in the city.”

“Ah, the city’s mechanical brain. My dad talked about that thing.”

“But it won’t do any good to go to it if we don’t have permission to operate it.”

“I think this will give me the permission.” Lÿarah showed her pendant to Alex.

“So, you're telling me we have to go to the Temple of Exactness, break into Hvergelmir’s room, and shut it down?” Alex said, scared.

“Do you prefer to see the city in flames?”

“No... far from it... but that’s suicide!”

“This mission was suicidal from the start! And now that everything behind us is on fire, we can't turn back. The 'point of no return' is already behind us.”

“Okay... okay. Let's get out of here before the guards arrive. We need to hide to prepare and plan our entry into the temple.”

“Do you have any idea where we could go?” Asked Lÿarah.

“My house. Let's go there. Let's enter the city.” Said Alex, touching his partner's shoulder.

“Deal. We'll find a way to reach the surface.”