Chapter 70: Cauterizing the Pain

"Keep your eyes on the stone, not on the wound," Arung snarled through clenched teeth, his entire body trembling violently as he dragged his shattered, half-frozen frame toward the jagged mouth of the thermal vent. "If you look at the bone, you’ll start screaming. And if you start screaming, the corporate search teams won't even need their thermal optics to find us."

"I am not looking at the bone," Arung muttered to himself, his voice a hoarse, rattling rasp that barely carried over the steady, ominous subterranean hiss of superheated steam. "I am looking at the exit. Just... looking... at the exit."

The narrow crevice in the volcanic rock face poured a continuous, blistering wave of geothermal heat directly out into the freezing alpine air. It was a brutal, merciless salvation—a deep-earth artery exposed by the relentless tectonic grinding of the mountain's awakening. Every breath Arung took felt like inhaling pulverized glass and boiling water, burning his throat from the inside out, but he forced himself forward, clawing at the icy scree with blood-caked fingernails. His right leg trailed behind him at an unnatural, sickening angle, completely useless, a heavy dead weight dragging through the mud and slush.

"Come on, you stubborn bastard," Arung growled, his knuckles slamming hard against a jagged projection of basalt as he hauled his torso another agonizing inch closer to the venting fissure. "Just a little further. Don't pass out on me now. Not after surviving that icy trap."

He reached out with a trembling, blackened hand, plunging his arm directly into the roaring plume of rising steam.

The heat hit him like a physical blow, a wall of pure, blistering agony that instantly scorched the raw, frostbitten meat of his leg. Arung’s back arched violently off the ground, his mouth flying open in a silent, jaw-cracking scream of pure torment. Veins bulged along his neck like thick, blue ropes, threatening to burst as white-hot pain lanced straight up his spine and exploded behind his eyes. His vision swam with violent flashes of crimson and blinding white, the edges of his consciousness fraying into nothingness.

No! Stay awake! Burn it closed or you bleed out in five minutes!

With a desperate, animalistic grunt, Arung slammed his thigh directly against the glowing, super-heated lip of the iron-rich vent pipe protruding from the rock face. The sickening smell of scorched skin, burning denim, and melting flesh instantly filled the cramped alcove, thick and cloying. He bit down so hard on his own lower lip that the metallic taste of fresh blood flooded his mouth, anchoring him to reality as the searing heat cauterized the arterial tear in his thigh, sealing the catastrophic wound shut with a agonizing layer of charred, blistering scab-tissue.

"Hah... hah... hah..."

Arung collapsed forward into the dirt, his chest heaving in rapid, shallow gasps as cool, sweat-soaked tremors wracked his frame. He lay there for a long, agonizing minute, staring blankly at the dark, glistening rock inches from his face, listening to the frantic, ragged rhythm of his own heartbeat hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.

"That... that actually worked," he whispered, a hysterical, breathless chuckle bubbling up through the pain. "I'm still breathing. The mountain didn't take me today."

"I wouldn't celebrate just yet, Arung. The mountain has a very long memory."

Arung froze, every muscle in his battered body instantly locking up at the sound of the cold, mechanical voice echoing from the shadows of the ascending tunnel. He forced his heavy head up, squinting through the hazy, steam-filled air toward the narrow mouth of the cave.

Stepping out from behind a thick curtain of hyper-accelerated, pulsing fungal vines, a heavily armored corporate security operative lowered the barrel of a customized tactical assault rifle, the weapon's integrated laser sight painting a bright, unblinking red dot directly between Arung's eyes. Behind the operative, two more guards moved in from the flanks, their heavy boots crunching loudly against the frozen gravel, cutting off any possibility of retreat.

"Director Thorne sends his regards," the lead guard said flatly, his finger tightening slightly on the trigger. "He said if we couldn't bring you back to the platform alive, a charred corpse would save him the paperwork."

Arung didn't flinch. Despite the blinding pain tearing through his cauterized leg, a grim, defiant smile touched the corners of his blood-stained lips. He slowly slid his right hand behind his back, his fingers wrapping firmly around the cold, metallic casing of the tracker he had hidden back on the ridge.

"Tell Thorne," Arung rasped, his voice steadying as defiance overrode the agony, "that he's standing on top of a powder keg, and I just lit the fuse."

Before the guard could process the warning, Arung jammed his thumb down hard on the emergency override switch of the hidden tracker, instantly broadcasting a high-frequency, unencrypted detonation signal directly into the heart of the mountain's volatile seismic grid.

A deep, deafening roar shook the cavern walls from foundation to ceiling, the ground beneath the guards' feet violently buckling upward as the entire mountain answered the call.