A damp, cold gust surged out from the passage, carrying the strong briny smell of seawater and instantly filling the entire room.
The sharp chill made several people shiver, but the workers were clearly accustomed to it. They moved quickly, forming an orderly line.
The first person lifted a crate packed with booklets and passed it to the next. From there, the boxes traveled hand to hand, steadily disappearing into the hidden passage.
The tunnel served as a secret lifeline connecting the underground base directly to an abandoned dock three blocks away.
There, a rendezvous vessel disguised as an ordinary fishing boat was already waiting.
It would carry these unusual pieces of "cargo"—along with the hopes and mission they represented—far away from the capital.
Everything inside the bookstore continued in perfect order.
Then, without warning, a faint rhythmic vibration traveled through the floor.
At first, it was barely noticeable, like distant thunder rolling beneath the earth.
But within seconds, it became unmistakable.
This was no natural tremor.
The surveillance system installed upstairs had been triggered.
Someone suspicious was lingering nearby.
The moment everyone realized what that meant, all movement stopped.
Eyes met across the room.
No one spoke, but the message passing between them was obvious.
Danger.
The middle-aged man in black-rimmed glasses remained remarkably calm.
Without hesitation, he gave a short hand signal.
Everyone immediately reacted.
Several workers hurried toward different corners of the room and extinguished the unnecessary lamps.
One light after another went dark until the underground workshop was submerged in shadow, with only a few dim sources remaining to outline the room.
Others rushed to the printing press carrying containers filled with a specially prepared chemical solution.
They poured it directly over the machine.
Almost immediately, the metal began corroding.
The once-clean components became mottled with rust at a speed visible to the naked eye. Within moments, the sophisticated printing press looked like an abandoned relic that had been left untouched for years.
Five tense minutes passed.
Then the vibration stopped.
The alarm had cleared.
Whatever suspicious presence had been nearby was gone, at least for now.
Even so, the man with glasses did not relax.
His expression remained severe.
"Pick up the pace. We need to be completely gone before noon."
He looked around at the others.
"The situation is getting worse. We can't afford a single mistake."
His voice was quiet, but the weight behind it was enough to make everyone move faster.
Eventually, the final heavy crate of records disappeared into the dark tunnel.
Only then did the middle-aged man turn around.
For the last time, he looked over the underground base that had held seven years of his work and memories.
Every corner carried traces of what had happened here.
The stained walls bore the marks of age and countless hidden operations.
Shelves that had once been packed with documents, tools, and supplies were now almost completely empty.
His hands trembled faintly as he reached inside his clothes and removed a small, carefully sealed bottle.
In the dim light, the glass caught a faint gleam.
For him, it might as well have contained everything tying him to the last seven years.
He unscrewed the cap.
Then he slowly poured the liquid across an old filing cabinet in the corner.
The moment it touched the documents inside, pale blue smoke began curling upward.
Within seconds, the papers shriveled.
Blackened.
And collapsed into fine ash.
Years of confidential records disappeared without leaving anything that could be recovered.
Behind him, the secret passage began closing.
The enormous stone door slid into place with a deep rumble, almost like a final farewell to this chapter of their history.
Once it shut completely, nothing remained except an ordinary brick wall in the basement of an ordinary bookstore.
No outsider would ever have guessed that an entire hidden world had once existed behind it.
...
At the distant harbor, the first wooden crates marked DRIED SEAFOOD had already been loaded aboard the waiting fishing vessel.
The sea breeze tugged gently at the crew's clothing and carried the familiar salty scent of the ocean across the pier.
A long whistle sounded.
The fishing boat slowly pulled away from the dock.
With the rising sun before it and the morning tide beneath its hull, the vessel headed toward the open sea.
It carried an uncertain future with it—
along with the last secrets of the underground base.
...
Baltigo.
Dawn was torn apart by the deafening roar of machinery.
The first weak traces of morning light had barely appeared along the horizon when the metallic thunder overwhelmed the quiet landscape.
Five heavily modified giant sand-worm excavators stood inside the base like enormous mechanical beasts.
Their colossal bodies cast long shadows beneath the growing dawn.
At their fronts, massive rotating drills spun like rows of razor-sharp teeth, biting relentlessly into the hardest rock formations beneath the deepest section of the base.
Every turn of the drill sent clouds of dust and shattered stone spraying through the air.
It looked almost as though those machines were declaring war on ground that had slept undisturbed for thousands of years.
…
As the drills bored deeper, yellow sand poured down the specially constructed runoff channels like raging rivers, creating a spectacular yet unsettling sight.
Behind the cascading sand, steel structures buried for years gradually emerged into view. Interlocking beams and support columns stretched through the depths, silent remnants of everything this hidden base had once concealed.
Workers wearing heavy respirators hurried through the clouds of dust.
Their figures appeared and vanished amid the swirling sand as they moved around the central archive in tense but orderly coordination. Dust coated their clothes, and sweat mixed with grit as it ran down their faces, yet their concentration never wavered.
"Careful! Two more people on the left!"
"Pick up the pace!"
The orders came from a woman dressed in an engineer's uniform. A respirator covered most of her face, leaving only a pair of sharp eyes visible.
Her voice was almost swallowed by the deafening roar of the machinery, forcing her to shout at the top of her lungs just to make sure the workers could hear her.
Nearby, six men were using hydraulic equipment to carefully lift a group of sealed containers from their shockproof mounting platforms.
No one dared make a mistake.
Inside those containers were Vegapunk's early handwritten research notes on applications of the Lineage Factor.
Every page contained scientific knowledge of immeasurable value. The workers handled the hydraulic machinery with painstaking precision, moving slowly enough that the entire procedure resembled some solemn ritual.
Deeper inside the armory, the relocation effort was even more difficult.
Massive metal cylinders, each so thick that it would take three people joining hands to encircle one, were being treated as the highest-priority cargo.
The workers carefully loaded them into specially designed crates filled with cushioning gel.
Across the outside of each crate were the deliberately mundane words:
GEOLOGICAL SAMPLES
The label concealed what they truly contained.
When one worker accidentally allowed a crate to tilt slightly, the supervisor beside him immediately barked, "Steady! Not even the slightest mistake!"
Everyone there knew exactly why.
Inside were experimental weapons powerful enough to flatten an entire island.
One accident could wipe out everyone in the base before the enemy ever had a chance to find them.
The entire transfer operation felt like walking a tightrope. Every person remained tense, knowing that the smallest error could become catastrophic.
Then, without warning—
A piercing alarm screamed through the underground complex.
The shrill sound cut through the machinery and seemed to drill straight into everyone's skull.
"Sandstorm warning! This is not a naturally occurring sandstorm!"
A hoarse, urgent voice erupted from the control tower over the communications system.
"Attention! We're detecting highly abnormal airflow patterns to the southeast! Based on our current readings, there's a strong possibility that the World Government is using some kind of advanced reconnaissance method to probe our position!"
Every worker froze.
The frantic movement across the base stopped in an instant.
Only the giant excavators continued roaring, their heavy machinery grinding away without regard for the sudden tension gripping everyone around them.
Commander Dolas frowned.
He raised one hand and wiped the sand from his face, leaving streaks through the dust coating his skin.
Then he seized the communicator beside him.
"Activate the Mirage Protocol immediately!"
His voice rang out clearly over the machinery.
"Tell Excavators Three and Four to move to the eastern side of the base. I want maximum dust production. Build us a dense sandstorm screen and block their view completely!"
The order was carried out at once.
Two of the enormous excavators changed direction and rumbled toward the eastern perimeter.
Their tracks crushed across the ground, throwing clouds of dust behind them.
Then their massive buckets began working at full power.
Huge quantities of sand were ripped from the earth and hurled high into the air.
Within minutes, an even more violent artificial sandstorm began rising over the eastern side of the base.
Dust spiraled upward like an enormous dragon before spreading into a thick, impenetrable wall that obscured the base from outside observation.
Meanwhile, at the real transfer site, the pace became even more frantic.
Everyone understood how little time remained.
The workers who had previously moved with careful, measured steps were now almost running as they loaded equipment and supplies onto the waiting transports.
Sweat poured down their faces and soaked their clothes, but no one bothered wiping it away.
Only one thought mattered.
Finish the transfer.
As quickly as possible.
Deep inside the underground tunnel, an engineer stared intently at the instruments and displays in front of him, sweat gathering across his forehead.
Then his eyes widened.
He grabbed the communicator.
"Run the rails above maximum load!"
They no longer had the luxury of staying within normal operational limits.
A convoy of powered flatbed cars began racing silently along the underground tracks toward the coast.
Several specially reinforced containers were secured to every car.
To an outsider, they would have looked unremarkable.
In reality, they carried some of the Revolutionary Army's most important secrets—and perhaps part of its future.
The moment the final car disappeared into the tunnel, the demolition system at the entrance activated.
BOOOOM!
The rock formation collapsed under the violent explosion.
Huge slabs of stone crashed together as the ceiling and walls caved inward, sending dense clouds of dust rolling through the chamber.
Within moments, the passage was completely buried.
The underground lifeline that had taken ten full years to construct was sealed forever, erased so thoroughly that anyone arriving later might never realize it had existed at all.
For a decade, that tunnel had carried people, supplies, secrets, and hope through the hidden heart of Baltigo.
Now its final task was complete.
And with its destruction, another chapter of the Revolutionary Army's secret history disappeared beneath the earth.