It's dark, there are only a few light sources coming from spotlights hooked on the walls, but that doesn't help since everything in that cave is made of a pitch black stone that consumes the light generated by the spotlights, to fix that issue it was build on the ground a wooden path to help workers not get lost at work, this path of the cave looks like a wooden bridge over a void of darkness, which makes it easy for veteran miners to use said appearance to throw newbies out of the way into thinking they're going to die falling into the void, ending with veterans laughing at the newbies' screams of terror, but still that doesn't change the fact that even the people that had been working there for years still don't know the real size of each one of the paths of the cave, they have a rough idea about the width but not the height of the many cave paths, the only thing they know is that they have to follow the wooden path to not get lost.

Now that wooden path is being used again by the workers, but this time, instead of workers going to their regular working post, they are running away of the soldiers chasing them down, the in front of them opens and in the other side there are other workers telling them to get in the room, without a second thought the workers quickly sprint into the room, with the gates closed behind them, they start their efforts to block the door while the soldiers on the other side try to enter the room, they pile up mining carts loaded with black stone to block the door, the sounds on the other side of the door abruptly stops, and a voice sounds on the other side of the door:

"Surrender, you have nowhere to go"

"Fuck off" a worker suddenly replies

"No one wants to do this, no matter what you try, we will get in that room anyway"

"We would like to see you try"

"You have 10 minutes till we break this door, I hope you have reconsidered your situation once we come in"

After that, the voice becomes silent, not before giving some unknown orders.

Among the workers 1 man raises himself asking for everyone's attention, this man is Jonathan Forcecyan, the man that coordinated the riot, he looks like a skinny man, but still he managed to organize the entire riot so well that forced the army to take part in the operations to stop the riot.

"Brothers, everything is going as planned, while they waste time with us, the real threat is right behind them, and they are unable to see it, we just need to keep distracting them a bit more and the victory will be ours"

The speech helped increase the morale, and they immediately started to search for any valuable tool they could find to keep them busy for more time. The room they were in was bigger than expected, they quickly find out that this was the storage depot of the expansion Corp, the special unit whose work is to keep killing monsters and expanding the mining operations, it looked like a small city, with many buildings in there where the explorers live, it also has some taverns, but mainly, they were mostly storage buildings with maps and information gathered from the expeditions, there were many towers around the underground city, each tower looks like a cannon pointing down and armored plugs under those cannons, there are also many gates made of black metal, one of the strongest material in the world, and all of them seemed to be sealed.

[Pum]

That sound was heard in the entire room, the soldiers on the other side were quickly in bringing equipment to destroy the gate.

[Pum]

The fact that they have imprisoned all the members of the expansion Corp didn't stop them before when they intervened to stop the riot, and they are not going to stop now.The workers knew what they had to do next, and with the leadership of Jonathan they started building barricades, a simple barricades would not stop them, but the idea was not to stop them, it was to get more time.

[Pum] [TLAN]

This sound was different, the first one was the soldier surely using a ram to open the gate, which was made of wood reinforcements with metal bars, but this other sound was hard to describe, it was similar to the presses used in the metallurgical factories of their city.

[Pum] [TLAN] [TLAN]

That sound definitely sounded like when a metallurgical press is dropped on a piece of glowing metal at high speed, which has to be forced into shape because the usual method doesn't work, and then stops dead in its tracks with a loud bang. But that make the workers ask their selves, who/what could be doing that sound.

[TLAN][TLAN][TLAN][TLAN]

They still have to gain time and keep building the barricade, but that sound was increasing in volume and in frequency, Jonathan decided to try to discover the source of said sound, so he rallied some men and go to investigate the underground city, he divided his men in groups, each assigned to a different part of the city, Jonathan also participated in the search and joined the search party that will be investigating the machinery area of the city, so he and his started their search in that area.

[TLAN][TLAN][TLAN][TLAN][TLAN][TLAN][TLAN][TLAN]

But the sound wasn't coming from the machine area, there were other workers investigating the rest of the city, and the only answer he received was the same, "we didn't found the source of the sound",

but the men that go to the outskirts of the city returned with a different answer, "We should surrender to the soldiers and leave"

[TLAN][TLAN][TLAN][TLAN][TLAN][TLAN][TLAN][TLAN][TLAN][TLAN][TLAN][TLAN][TLAN][TLAN][TLAN][TLAN][TLAN][TLAN]

They have expressions of pure fear in their faces, Jonathan tried to calm them down but it wasn't working, he then asked about what they found and one of the men was able to articulate some words, "the source of the sound.....didn't come from this floor.....it came from behind that....."

[BUM]

"......gate........"

The faces of everyone present paled and started looking at the destroyed gate, the gate was made of black metal, the same one they used in the gates of their city walls, everyone believed that black metal was indestructible, but the black metal gate was there, before their eyes, destroyed.

No one moved a muscle, the only thought on the minds of everyone present was fear of whatever it was that destroyed the black iron gate. No one wanted to investigate, whatever destroyed the gate was surely still there, and no one wanted to become its dinner.

In the dark void, where the gate was before, there was only a deadly silence, surely whatever destroyed the door was still there, but why didn't it enter the room yet?, Jonathan then ordered some of his men to bring some of the spotlights they found in the machinery area before, and so they did.

The only audible sound in the entire room was just the sound of the soldiers trying to enter and the sound of the workers moving the spotlights to position, once in position, the back of the spotlights was open to then introduce the processed magic crystals to give the spotlights power, once the crystals were introduced the spotlights turned on and started pointing at the void where the black iron gate was before, just to be greeted with the light being absorbed by the darkness.

This is impossible Jonathan thought, and he was right, those spotlights were designed to illuminate even the darkest places, no mater what, the spotlights always managed to illuminate any room or place no matter how dark it was, but the light wasn't lighting the hallway that was supposed to be behind the gate, they were lighting the monster that destroyed the gate, and the moment they realized that the gate the soldiers were trying to destroy collapsed and they entered the room, as well as the monster.