Clang!
With a dull, earth-shaking thud, the suspension of a heavy-duty hauler bottomed out. The massive tires compressed into the asphalt, groaning under a weight they were never designed to sustain.
But this was only the beginning.
As the frantic loading operation unfolded in a state of organized chaos, Silas Chen moved like a man whose soul had been momentarily misplaced. His feet carried him, unbidden, toward the dark maw of the tunnel entrance. He stood at the very edge of the vibrating conveyor, straining his eyes to see into the depths.
What he saw made his heart—which had only just begun to steady—hammer against his ribs with renewed violence.
Inside the tunnel, industrial floodlights flared at regular intervals, casting a harsh, sterile glow on the path. Under that light, an endless, shimmering spine of Gold, Iron, and Coal blocks extended back into the absolute darkness.
His gaze passed ten lights... twenty... fifty. At the furthest limit of his vision, the tunnel was still ablaze with that unnatural golden reflection. The conveyor belt seemed to have no origin point. It was as if a vein had been opened in the Earth itself, and the planet was bleeding pure wealth.
"This... there's too much," Silas whispered, his voice trembling.
He couldn't see the end. A terrifying realization gripped him: the dozens of specialized heavy trucks he had brought were a joke. They were teacups trying to scoop out an ocean. A drop in a bucket? No—not even a drop.
Silas snapped back to reality. With a speed that defied his age, he yanked the encrypted red phone from his pocket. His fingers shook as he dialed a number reserved for national emergencies.
The line clicked open after a single ring.
"Silas? What's got you calling me personally on a Tuesday?" a hearty, booming voice asked.
"Harrison," Silas cut him off, his tone a jagged edge of urgency. "Stop talking. Clear every freight line you have in the Northern Sector. I need a massive transport priority. Right now."
Harrison, the Director of the National Rail Command, went silent for a heartbeat. "What are you hauling that needs that kind of pull? Your fleet can't handle a local transfer? Why do you need the Rail Command to open dedicated arteries?"
"Don't ask what I'm transporting!" Silas snapped. "This is an SSS-level directive. You'll get the formal authorization from General Marcus Zhang within the hour. Just get the cars ready. Every heavy-freight car in the region. I'm afraid every truck I own combined won't be enough to move even a fraction of this."
Silas hung up before Harrison could argue. He leaned against a concrete pillar, gasping for air. He had thought he was prepared for "astonishing amounts," but the reality was a tidal wave.
Driving a truck to the nearest smelting center took twelve hours round-trip. Every truck that left the yard was one less unit of capacity in a line that showed zero signs of slowing. The trucks had to be used for short-range shuttling only—moving the blocks to the nearest rail hub so the nation's "Main Artery" could take over.
Where did it all come from?
His phone vibrated again. The ID: General Marcus Zhang. Silas answered on the first buzz.
"Silas," Marcus's voice boomed, sounding suspiciously cheerful. "You seeing the goods?"
"I'm seeing them," Silas said, his voice still ragged. "Marcus, where the hell did you find this? This defies every law of economics and geology."
"Top secret," Marcus replied concisely. "Listen, don't overthink it. Just keep the trucks moving. Oh, and I called to let you know the handlers down here were a bit slow, so I've deployed dozens more Ironclad units to speed up the loading. Expect the volume on the belt to triple in the next twenty minutes."
Silas didn't hear anything after that. His mind snagged on one phrase: The handlers were too slow.
He looked at the river of gold gushing out of the mountain and felt a chill. The bottleneck of this entire operation wasn't the supply, or the conveyor, or the loading... it was that the "people" putting things on the belt at the source weren't fast enough.
"Silas? You there? Silas!" Marcus's shouting pulled him back.
"I'm here," Silas gasped. "Marcus, listen—I don't have enough trucks. Not even close. You need to talk to the Rail Command. I'm diverting the fleet to the nearest freight station. We have to move this by train."
Marcus let out a deep, belly laugh. "Hahaha! Don't worry, Silas. Director Leland has already personally authorized the National Rail Command. The trains are already moving."
"Good. Because if they aren't... we're going to be buried in gold."
The call ended. Silas stood alone in the roar of engines and the hiss of hydraulics. Before him, the golden dragon continued to crawl out of the dark, endless and indifferent.
The Nexus Terminal
Ethan and Marcus stood side by side, watching the Iron Golems work. Behind them, the resource mountain was being "mined" by the golems and fed into the Arterial Line.
Marcus pocketed his phone, his face split by a grin of pure ecstasy.
"How is he holding up?" Ethan asked with a smirk.
"Silas?" Marcus slapped his thigh. "I think his soul nearly left his body. He couldn't even speak straight. He's screaming for more trucks."
Ethan nodded. He wasn't surprised. In the Astra Dimension, resources were measured in Stacks—sixty-four cubic meters per slot. He had hundreds of slots in his personal storage, and millions more in the base's chests. What he had manifested today was, in his eyes, just a bit of inventory management. To the world, it was the collapse of scarcity.
"Uncle Marcus," Ethan said, looking at the golems. "This is just the 'pocket change.' Wait until we bring back the materials from the Necro-Virus world. That's when things get interesting."