Chapter 33: Between a Rock and a Wolf
The Quarrelling Quarry
Due to Stone Claw City’s status as a mining zone, there were dozens upon dozens of abandoned mineshafts and quarries scattered about the place. While other places around the world tended to just return such places back to nature, allowing the beasts and plants to reclaim them, Stone Claw City sought to renovate. Many a shop, slum, neighborhood and even big estates bought up these emptied mineshafts and renovated them to be used for more residential purposes. One such renovated quarry was one that happened to be filled with Ever Marble, the same special rock that the local Big Four used for their own arenas.
After a good chunk of the easy to dig up Ever Marble was extracted, there was still a lot leftover that fell into that “not worth the effort” cost to profit ratio. Instead of leaving it alone or turning it into real estate, the city lord decided it’d be a better idea to turn into a colosseum to host events ranging from tournaments, duels and alchemy contests.
When the arena was first made, the name was originally going to be: The Eternal Earth Arena. However, this turned out to be a rather mouthful of a name so people started calling it…
“GOOOODD AFTERNOON LADIES AND GENTLEMEN AND WELCOME TO THE QUARRELING QUARRY! ARE YOU READY FOR SOME BLOODSHED?!,” an announcer shouted, using a voice amplifying aether tool. As the name implied, the entire arena was basically a renovated quarry with the main seats being the outer walls turned into seats while the bottom of the quarry was where the fighting actually took place.
The crowd roared as a sign of approval. A good chunk of them had been waiting all day for some action, violence or gambling, they didn’t care.
“Wooo! Let’s get this started!”
“I’m getting bored over here, start the fight already!”
“I got fifty silver on the little one winning!”
Standing on opposite sides of the arena were two proud looking young men with very different builds that radiated very different auras of equal strength. While to those in the arena who had a higher aether perception and could detect this aura felt that this was an equal fight, those who weren’t as gifted felt that this was going to be a one sided slaughter.
“In the blue corner, standing at one hundred and ninety centimeters, his arms can reach into the darkest pits of hell and pull up the shiniest of treasures, a star apprentice of the Diggers Union, give it up for Sullivan Quartz!”
“Wooo! Sullivan!”
“Show off that Digger pride!”
“Break that pretty boy’s mouth!”
Sullivan Quartz was a lanky yet muscular young man with surprisingly long arms and equally long legs. His unusual physique made him not only able to snake his body into cracks and crevices usually considered unaccessible by his peers and extract treasures and ores they’d otherwise miss, but it allowed him to launch attacks from unusual angles and keep many of his opponents at surprisingly far distances. While Sullivan wasn’t the prettiest bloke on the block, he did have this look of reliability to him and an aura of assuredness that seemed marred by this air of agitation.
“In the red corner, standing at one hundred and seventy centimeters, he is a scion of the venerated Wolfe Family, stand in attention for Donovan Wolfe!”
“Hooowwwlll!”
“Kyaaa! He’s so handsome!”
“Show him the power of the Wolfe!”
“I want his babies!”
Those cries of thirsty behavior weren’t entirely unwarranted. Not only did Donovan have the good fortune of being born to the well-to-do Wolfe Family, he also had been blessed with incredibly high innate talent and good looks that made some people want to bed him, while others wanted to punch his face in for how good looking he was. Combined that with an aloof yet proud demeanor and you have the perfect combination for the quintessential scion.
While these two up and coming fighters were getting ready to fight, up in the stands, Jin Fang and Zhen Liu were discussing about the aforementioned fighters and the circumstances for the fight. Mini was currently sitting in Jin Fang’s lap and looked relatively unenthused about the situation.
“Judging by the way they’re eyeing each other, this isn’t a simple exhibition match. I can practically feel the hatred and bloodlust radiating off of Sullivan,” Zhen Liu noted, “why are these two fighting exactly? I thought the Diggers and Wolfes didn’t have any bad blood.”
“You didn’t hear?”
“Been missing for a month, so no”
“Right…,” Jin Fang recalled embarrassedly before recovering her composure, “Well about two weeks ago, the Wolfe Family had expanded their territory again in some of the unclaimed badlands area and hired a few Diggers to do a survey of the land. ”
“As is Stone Claw tradition,” Zhen Liu commented, “Diggers get first crack at the land to see what they’ll have to dig up in the future and prepare accordingly even if there’s nothing to dig up.”
“Right. The Diggers were initially going to call it quits when they couldn’t find anything after three days of digging. But on the fourth day, they found something weird. A tunnel.”
“Like something made by Armored Ants or Mole Dragons?”
“Nuh-uh,” Jin Fang shook her head, “It was something ancient and man-made.”
“…oh.”
“The Diggers declared job well done after that and left the Wolfe Family to deal with their discovery on their own terms. They were originally going to mount an expedition with some Aether Masters and some high ringed Acolytes, but the young master down there got a little greedy,” Jin Fang sighed.
“Let me guess, he hired a couple of young Diggers that included Sullivan and accidentally went some place he shouldn’t have?,” Zhen Liu asked in an exasperated tone.
Jin Fang simply nodded in response. “Six Acolytes went down that tunnel. Only two came back to tell the tale.”
“And now Sullivan blames Donovan for everything that went wrong and the death of his fellow Diggers?,” Zhen Liu guessed.
“Yup,” Jin Fang nodded again, “Even says that he used them as sacrificial pawns to save himself.”
“Wonderful…”
