The war ended quickly, with their ancestors crushed. Blood turned Glimmer City red, and the Goddess of Light was tied to a thorn tree—left to bleed for three full days before she finally died.
As he spoke, Uguwa tugged the metal pendant at his throat for Little White to see. It showed a woman bound to a thorn-covered tree. The symbol of the Illumination Order. Every believer wore one.
The survivors fled to the farthest corners of the Gloom Warren. They refused to believe the Goddess could truly be gone. A prophet rose among them, founded the Illumination Order, and promised that the Goddess would keep guiding them through dreams.
Uguwa’s spine straightened as if the story itself gave him strength.
“Every prophet has said it. Every hymn records it. One day the Goddess of Light will return. She’ll slaughter the demons and lead us out of this hell.”
Bululu let out a snort. “Leaders always say things like that.”
Uguwa whipped around. “How can you say that? That’s blasphemy!”
“Blasphemy doesn’t make it false,” Bululu shot back.
Uguwa’s ears quivered with anger. “Then explain the miracles! People get lost in the maze. They pray. The Goddess comes to them in a dream and shows them the way. People find their lost parents. When we’re starving, we find water and food. How is that not the Goddess?”
Bululu’s expression twisted like he’d bitten something bitter. “Because you only remember the times it worked. Not the times it didn’t.”
Uguwa opened his mouth, but Bululu barreled on.
“When you’re desperate, you dream about what you want. Then you wake up and you look harder. You notice small things you would’ve ignored. You call it a miracle. It’s just a mind trying to survive.”
Uguwa’s voice dropped, stubborn and raw. “And the Blood Dawn? The Goddess warns us about it. The hymns teach us how to live through it. Anyone who disobeys dies.”
Bululu barked a humorless laugh. “Or they die because they did something stupid in the dark. Don’t give credit to a god you’ve never seen.”
Little White had been listening in silence, watching their strange faces in the oil lamp’s weak circle. At last she said carefully, “Maybe… there was a ‘Goddess’ once. But not a real god. Maybe she was just… someone.”
Uguwa stared at her like she’d spoken in a foreign tongue. Bululu, on the other hand, nodded once—grimly.
“That’s the only way it makes sense,” Bululu said. “Either she was human… or she was a machine. Humans don’t live for a thousand years. Machines can last longer, but not without maintenance. And if she was killed, she doesn’t ‘resurrect.’”
Uguwa clenched his jaw. “She still comes to us in dreams.”
“Hope comes to you in dreams,” Bululu said softly. “Not gods.”
Little White exhaled. The argument felt older than the cave itself. She didn’t want to get trapped in it.
“Okay,” she said, switching tracks. “You said the world outside is paradise. Have you ever tried to leave?”
Uguwa’s eyes lit up at once—then dimmed.
“Many times. Many tribes tried. The last great attempt…” He hesitated, as if tasting the words. “That’s why there’s a camp up ahead.”
“A camp?” Little White repeated.
Bululu’s voice went flat. “A graveyard that refuses to admit it’s dead.”
Uguwa shot him a warning look and continued anyway, as if he couldn’t stop once the story started.
After the war, the demons kept Glimmer City for themselves. They drove the surviving humans deeper into the Gloom Warren and told them the same lie they’d always told: that the surface was fire and poison. That the darkness was mercy.
But a few people never believed them.
For generations, small groups tried to find a way out. Most failed long before they ever reached an exit. Some were wiped out by beasts. Some vanished into the maze. And some—those were the worst—ran into the blood-eyed hunters.
Little White’s fingers tightened around her blades. “So that camp… was from the last attempt?”
Uguwa nodded. “It was the most hopeful era. A hero rose in the Illumination Order. His name was Yuankai.”
Little White blinked. “Yuankai?”
“He was fearless,” Uguwa said, reverent. “The Goddess blessed him. He received an omen and dared to do what no one had done: he slipped into demon-held Glimmer City.”
Bululu gave a short, disgusted sound. “He didn’t slip in. He crawled into hell.”
Uguwa ignored him. “He found the city dead. No living humans. Only demons walking the streets. He avoided their eyes and entered a tower no one had ever returned from.”
Little White leaned in despite herself. “What did he see?”
“Metal coffins,” Uguwa said, voice shaking. “Countless metal coffins. Human corpses inside—stacked and stored.”
Bululu’s face tightened. “That wasn’t even the worst of it. There were… people with scales and long tails, like lizards. Floating in glass tanks.”
Uguwa swallowed hard. “And hearts beating without bodies. Hands that could change shape. Animals cut in half that were still alive… Things you couldn’t imagine, even in a nightmare.”
Bululu sighed, eyes hollow. “Those fools. They really believed demon promises.”
“But Yuankai found something else,” Uguwa said quickly, as if he needed to cling to the point. “A map. A map of the Gloom Warren. It marked an exit.”
Bululu took over, pride sneaking into his voice despite everything. “The map was carved into a wall. Yuankai memorized it. Then he came back and—by sheer will—climbed a rock face thousands of meters high to reach the spot.”
Little White’s mouth fell open. “That’s…”
“He brought back proof from near the exit,” Bululu said. “Proof that the outside was real. He visited every tribe. Every prophet. Every Mother. He showed them what he’d taken.”
Uguwa’s eyes shone with a fierce, aching longing. “In the Goddess’s name, he called us all to unite. He ordered two hundred ringed steel anchor bolts to be forged, and a two-thousand-meter rope ladder to be woven. With that, he believed he could lead everyone out.”
Little White made a strangled sound that was half amazement, half horror.
“Shh,” Bululu warned, glancing into the darkness. “Lower your voice.”
Uguwa didn’t even notice. “All the tribes answered him. We spent two years making everything. Then he spent half a year installing it. When it was done, every tribe sent pioneers. He led them up the cliff…”
Uguwa’s voice drifted into wistful silence, like he could see that lost era hanging in the air.
Then Bululu’s expression changed.
He twisted the oil lamp’s wick down until it died, plunging them into darkness, and began making frantic hand signs. Uguwa understood instantly and smothered his own light.
Little White barely had time to react before the world vanished into black.
Bululu and Uguwa pressed their ears to the ground. Little White did the same, listening.
A few seconds later, through the silence, something began to tap—a steady, hollow cadence.
Tap… tap… tap… tap…
Footsteps.
They were faint at first, then clearer, coming straight toward them. Little White squinted into the dark, but her night vision only gave her shifting tree shadows.
A hand tugged lightly at her sleeve. Uguwa and Bululu were already hugging tree trunks, climbing soundlessly.
Little White followed, scrambling up the nearest tree.
She’d climbed about three meters when a tiny red dot appeared below—sweeping left and right across the spot where they’d been standing.
The tapping grew louder.
This time, when Little White looked, she finally saw movement: a blocky shadow sliding between the trees, heading toward her.
It had four legs, about the height of a person, moving with a spider’s gait. At the front was a single red eye that rotated constantly. The red dot on the ground moved with it.
So that’s a blood-eyed hunter, she thought.
She glanced up. Bululu and Uguwa were clinging to their trees, faces buried in their arms, trembling.
Little White, meanwhile, felt her curiosity ballooning until it almost hurt. Hide? Turn on a hovering light? Or just kill it?
She was still weighing it when the machine reached the base of her tree and began scanning.
Then the branch under her foot gave a tiny, traitorous crack.
In the absolute silence, it might as well have been a gunshot.
The shadow snapped its head up.
At the same instant, Little White yanked both blades from her lower back and dropped.
Clang!
Her strike landed with a dull metallic thud. Even with the plasma cutting lasers flaring along her blades, they only bit in a fraction of an inch.
Little White’s eyes widened.
Armor. A mech?
The machine pivoted fast. Its red eye locked onto her, and now she could see it clearly—beside the glowing optic was a black gun barrel.
Little White threw her head sideways.
Bang!
The round tore past her ear.
Oddly, that calmed her. A machine was familiar territory. Years of fighting meant her brain didn’t have to think—her body simply moved.
She sprang like a cat, landing behind the mech in a blur. Blue arcs snapped along her blades as she triggered an electromagnetic pulse. Before the gun could swing back toward her, she slashed once and drove the other blade in.
Sparks exploded.
Five seconds later, the fight was over.
Little White snapped a hovering light on and finally got a good look at what had attacked them.
It resembled a miniature Bloodthirster unit—only about two meters long and wide. Its central turret had been severed at the joint and lay on its side, still spitting bright, angry sparks.
“Bululu! Uguwa!” Little White called. “Come look. Is this what you meant by a… blood-eyed demon?”
The two old men had watched the entire fight from the trees, frozen in terror. It took them a long moment to climb down. They shuffled up to the wreck, circling it on shaking legs.
When Bululu saw the red eye still glowing, he started trembling even harder.
“It… looks like it,” he stammered. “Probably. Maybe. I think so.”
Uguwa’s excitement flared—and then turned into outright panic. “Goddess of Light above. You… you killed a demon. That… that… it can’t… We’re finished.”
Little White blinked. “Finished? Killing it’s good, isn’t it?”
A sound like a ship’s foghorn rolled through the distance.
It lasted more than ten seconds, low and brutal.
And then—like sunrise—red-orange light began to rise from the horizon of the cavern. Shadows stretched long across the trees. The entire forest flooded with an eerie crimson glow.
Little White stared, fascinated and uneasy at once.
Bululu and Uguwa looked like they were staring into their own graves.
“Goddess above…” Uguwa collapsed to his knees, facing the light. “The hymns were true. If a demon falls, the Blood Dawn comes at once. Then demons will come in swarms and execute every living thing caught under the light… Even if the Goddess is reborn, she still can’t save us…”
Bululu lunged for him. “Run, you idiot! Now is not the time to pray!”
Uguwa broke down, sobbing. “We’re finished… We’re finished!”
Bululu yanked him upright by sheer force, and the two of them staggered away into the red-lit woods.
Little White was left standing alone, frozen in place, watching the Blood Dawn climb.