Chapter 242

Accompanied by the crisp sound of metal clashing and high-pitched shouts, the slaves who had long been curled up in the darkness appeared very dazed when they first left the prison carriage. Thor was no exception; his expression remained somewhat dull, and even the pain could not make him emit any more sound.

A Sakaaran overseer, just as large as the red brute, brandished a massive iron whip to lash the slaves, forcing them into a line to walk into the mine.

Thor moved slowly forward in the line. In front of him was a green-skinned person, small and thin, looking like a member of the Dwarf race, while behind him was a tire-headed creature with four arms and a lower body like a centipede.

In this line, there were all sorts of strange and bizarre aliens. Many of the creatures clearly could not have evolved in this galaxy; evidently, they too had been thrown onto this garbage heap from distant galaxies millions of light-years away.

Races with the ability to travel across galaxies already possessed quite advanced civilizations. Many of these alien creatures had evolved into pure intellectual beings that did not engage in production, and most of them had lived in luxury within their own tribes; such torture was unbearable for them.

The green-skinned person walking in front of Thor complained in a low voice. His language sounded like the gurgling of a drowning person, making it hard to understand, but from his tone, one could tell he was not saying anything pleasant.

When passing a Sakaaran overseer, his mouth still did not stop. The strong Sakaaran lashed his back with a whip, causing the green-skinned person to roll on the ground in pain.

Several Sakaaran overseers laughed heartily. They kicked the green-skinned person in the stomach, watched him vomit fresh blood, and then lie motionless on the ground.

One of the Sakaarans grumbled with some dissatisfaction, picked up the green-skinned person, and walked to the side. Then, just like throwing a sandbag, he tossed the green-skinned person into the air, where he landed on a sharpened log stake, being skewered just like a piece of meat.

Thor's lips trembled, and his arms moved, but in the end, he turned his head back and did not act.

However, those few Sakaaran overseers turned their attention to him, because among this group of aliens, Thor's physique was considered very strong.

Xiaoshuting

A whip lashed onto Thor's body. Thor staggered, fell down, and sat on the ground groaning, but did not speak.

Those few Sakaarans cursed a few times and kicked him with their feet, but he still made no sound. This kind of prey that would not resist and toy that would not make a sound could not satisfy the violent and bloodthirsty moods of this group of Sakaarans. They simply grabbed the iron chain Thor carried on his shoulder and pulled him up.

Thor was like a sandbag attached to the end of a rope, dragged along the ground, then staggered to his feet and returned to the line.

From beginning to end, Thor remained silent. Those eyes were shrouded beneath deep brow ridges, his face was covered in mud and ash, and that brilliant golden hair had been ruined by sludge, sticking to the side of his face in clumps. The wound on his shoulder began to scab, but before it could heal, it was rubbed open again by the sharp spikes he had been pierced through with, causing fresh blood to flow.

The pain forced him to hunch his body. With every step he took, the iron chain would slide along the ground, making a "clatter" sound.

The long line stretched all the way outside the Red Ring Mine, and those in front moved forward one by one, walking into the mine's gloomy cave as if swallowed by a giant abyss. Those who walked in did not make any more sound, and perhaps they would never have the chance to make a sound again.

Tiny specks of dust flew up at the edges of footprints, fresh blood dripped onto the ground, and the sound of the iron chain constantly echoed. Thor, walking to the entrance of the mine, raised his head slightly. He saw a Sakaaran, who looked somewhat thin compared to those overseers, standing above the mine cave.

He looked at the slaves lining up to enter the mine below, his eyes filled with deep mockery and malice. Thor heard him say in the common language of the Celestial Furnace galaxy: "I have given you trash a chance at rebirth... I am your god, thank me..."

Then, Thor's back was also swallowed by the shadows of the cave. At the last moment before stepping into the darkness, he looked back at the massive planet floating on the horizon outside the mine, its planetary rings drifting, hazy and mysterious.

His gaze seemed to pierce through the universe of billions of light-years, looking toward Asgard, toward his former home, carrying a sense of determination and sorrow.

And Loki, outside the screen, fell silent.

Loki pursed his lips and did not speak, his eyes also motionless, staring straight at that magical screen.

Although Sakaar was known as the universe's garbage dump, precisely because many high-level interstellar civilizations threw their trash there, after their technology was collected by the Sakaarans, a unique school of technology was born, which could be called "Frankenstein" or "secondary utilization of garbage."

In short, Sakaar had a decent level of technology, at least higher than that of humans, but the reason they still needed to pick up "garbage" as slaves and have them mine by hand was that the minerals in the Sakaar mines were very special and could not be extracted using machinery.

The Red Ring Mine was a large mine in the south of Sakaar, belonging to the ruler of Sakaar, the "Red King." It was rich in a special mineral called "Sakaar Rock." The peculiarity of this mineral was that it only appeared when observed by a real living being; otherwise, it was nothingness.

Without the gaze of intelligent life, it would not appear. Therefore, many slaves were needed to enter the dangerous mine to stare at these minerals with the observer effect. After processing, Sakaar Rock became the core material for the stealth fields favored by many high-level interstellar civilizations and had good sales in the interstellar market.

Because of this, Sakaar had a fairly mature industrial chain. Trash dump owners like Red Wing specialized in squatting in places where aliens often dumped trash, collecting various garbage, and also collecting the aliens who fell along with the trash.

And those like the red brute were equivalent to long-haul truck drivers; they were responsible for transporting these alien slaves out of the trash dump and pulling them to the mine to work.

After these slaves entered the mine, although they did not have to perform extremely harsh physical labor, this did not mean the work here was easy. In fact, it could be said that if one had the chance to be picked by these long-haul drivers and sent to the arena to fight various terrifying alien monsters, that was already very lucky, because once entering the mine, the mortality rate of slaves was one hundred percent.

Because the mining of Sakaar Rock was not in a mine cave in the physical sense, but in a collapsed dimension fragment. Once it involved the shattering of space and the collapse of dimensions, the degree of danger could be imagined.

After Thor was brought into the mine cave, he was assigned to the South District. The leading Sakaaran overseer said: "You are lucky, trash. This is a mining point favored by His Majesty the Emperor, so we will let you live a little longer. If you figure out the terrain here, you might even have a chance to become an old miner and survive here."

Accompanied by his narration, after Thor walked through the cave, what appeared before him was not the kind of mine he had seen before, but a massive abyss filled with endless star rivers. In the abyss, some diamond-shaped fragments like mirrors floated and crossed, and there were quite a few dazzling rays of light attacking these fragments.

Among the intricate fragments, there were scaffolds built with wood carved with special patterns. Walking slowly downward along a circular staircase attached to the wall, Thor saw various aliens lying on these scaffolds, staring fixedly in one direction.

The one closest to him was a humanoid creature, only its legs and arms were longer. Because its limbs were slender, it had an advantage; it used its long limbs to hug the log carved with patterns.

Then, Thor saw that when a fragment suddenly lit up, the alien pressed a button embedded in the scaffold, a laser shot out, the fragment scattered into starry light, and was then collected by a magical light orb, floating toward the other side.

The miner further away from Thor was not so lucky. It was also a fragment flashing, and after he pressed the button, the laser shot out, but it did not shatter the fragment; instead, it refracted many tiny lasers. The lasers flew out, and many of them hit the wooden scaffolds where many miners lived. Instantly, cursing sounds erupted.

Afterward, a long tentacle grabbed the failed miner and pulled him off the wooden scaffold he was clutching tightly. Then, Thor saw that in the direction the tentacle reached, there was a giant fish mouth. The tentacle rolled the miner and threw him into the fish mouth. He could not even let out a scream before he completely disappeared.

"You must work hard." The Sakaaran overseer's voice came: "Otherwise, he will treat you as food."

Thor was driven by the overseer to the lowest wooden scaffold and was lashed with a whip. After he stepped onto that log, he chose a scaffold to stand on, but at this height, the glowing fragments were very few.

"You must press the button when the star rock glows. Remember, it must be when the light is brightest. If it is too early or too late, the mining laser cannot shatter the star rock to mine the ore, and the laser will destroy the scaffold beneath you. Once you fall, of course, you will lose your life."

The overseer sneered twice and said: "Of course, don't think that being lazy is useful. If you don't succeed even once a day, wait to be turned into food at night..."

When he said this, the entire scaffold suddenly shook. A massive "rumbling" sound came from the bottom of the starry sky. The strong overseer staggered, and an alien who had just stood on the scaffold was directly shaken off. The old miners above used their respective physical advantages to hold onto the scaffold tightly.

"In the shattered dimension, tremors are a very common thing. If you don't want to die, hold on tight."

Thor also almost fell off. He only now discovered that the red brute who transported him here carried deep malice, because he had inserted the spikes and chains into one of Thor's shoulders, causing one of Thor's arms to be completely unable to exert force. Under these circumstances, it was impossible for him to persist on the scaffold for too long.

But Thor did not have much of a reaction. His gaze remained somewhat dull, and his movements were very slow. He had just stabilized his figure when another tremor came. He had been shaken to the edge of the scaffold, yet he had no intention of adjusting his posture at all.

At this time, Loki, lying on the hospital bed, was recovering his body at a fast speed, or rather, Venom's work was quite efficient. Half of his body had gradually recovered from the phantom state. Then, Schiller saw that the moment the tremor came from the mine cave on the magical screen, one of Loki's hands grabbed the guardrail fiercely.

Strange also saw this action, and he and Schiller looked at each other.

Schiller said in a low voice: "Someone is about to be unable to sit still... but I won't say who."