The smoke drifting from the northern storehouses was greasy, thick, and black.
Through the watching slit, Lin Ke watched sixty thousand tons of high-grade hard coal burning in an uncontrolled underground fire beneath the mountain.
Even at this distance, the smell of charred thick tar and melting iron was strong enough to make the eyes water.
In the counting room beside the bunker, Elder Wu DeZheng had fully shattered.
*
The elder was on his knees amid a blizzard of shredded paper, wildly ripping supply order forms into tiny white confetti with trembling fingers.
“No coal... No coal...” Elder Wu whimpered, his glasses askew, spit bubbling on his trembling lower lip. “Form 44-D needs three hundred tons of fuel for daily barrier upkeep! Form 12-A needs twenty tons of spirit-iron for air-powered press seals! We’re out of rule-following! The ledger is dead! We’re all going to the void!”
Lin Ke didn’t look at the elder.
