The tower was getting closer.
Bit, Merc, and Little White sat inside a driverless maglev cab as it carried them forward—fast, smooth, steady—straight toward the base of that glowing pillar. At this speed, they’d be under it soon.
Twenty minutes earlier, they’d learned from Uguwa—right before he died—that the glowing tower was Edean.
Little White had given Bit and Merc a stripped-down version of everything that had happened: the Osha elders, the blood-eyed hunter, the sudden Blood Dawn, and the machine swarm that had nearly buried her.
Merc’s first instinct had been to return to the surface and report the discovery to Lord Julian.
Bit wanted to press forward and see what Edean actually was.
Little White had still been weighing the options…
…when an ancient, battered, unmanned maglev cab rolled up as if it had been scheduled.
It stopped right in front of them.
The doors opened.
And on the roof, the glowing letters T A X I flickered twice, like a polite reminder.
Your ride has arrived.
The three of them stared at each other.
This model of cab had been everywhere in the human era. You could see them on the street corners of almost every Plando city.
Seeing one here—under miles of rock, in a world of demons and legends—felt unreal.
“Wow,” Little White said, circling it with bright, almost giddy curiosity. “A taxi. It’s been forever. Think we’ve to pay?”
Bit narrowed his eyes. “And what is this supposed to be?”
“It means someone down here wants to meet us,” Merc said quietly.
Bit didn’t look reassured. “It also tried to kill us five minutes ago. This could be a trap.”
Merc crouched and scanned under the chassis. Bit checked the front and rear, looking for explosives or obvious sabotage.
Nothing.
Little White tilted her head. “So… do we go?”
“Why not?” Bit hopped into the front seat like this was a normal commute. “Get in. The three of us together? We’d storm Phantom Forge’s doorstep if we had to. One ‘mysterious tower’ doesn’t scare me.”
Little White couldn’t deny it—curiosity burned too hard. “Fine. I want to know what Edean’s hiding.”
Merc hesitated for a few seconds longer, then climbed in as well.
The doors shut.
The cab pivoted and sped toward the tower.
They shot out of the forest into open ground scattered with boulders. Under the Blood Dawn, the light really did resemble predawn brightness. Aside from a few focused beams thrown out by the tower, the far edges of their vision still faded into a boundary of darkness.
After ten minutes, the terrain flattened.
A huge bubble-shaped structure appeared by the roadside—transparent, inflated like a dome. Inside it, green life thrived: a wide patch of plants growing in thick, healthy mats.
One of the tower’s beams was aimed directly at the dome. The bubble then diffused that light evenly, bathing the plants inside.
Through the thin film, Bit could make out several slender robots moving among the rows—working.
“Is that… Wuji grass?” Bit asked, squinting. “Or longleaf algae?”
“It looks like a hybrid,” Little White said after watching for a moment. “If Wyatt saw this, he’d be thrilled.”
Merc’s gaze tracked the beam. “Now I get it. The light is for photosynthesis. That’s where the oxygen in this cavern comes from.”
As the cab continued, more bubble domes appeared—scattered at first, then more frequent, and denser the closer they got to the tower. Each dome held different plants. The three of them realized, with a kind of stunned disbelief, that most of the species from the human era seemed to exist here.
Some were even decorative—flowers and ornamental varieties.
Luxury, in the middle of the apocalypse.
And Merc’s guess proved right. Every dome was assigned its own beam from the tower.
“So the Blood Dawn isn’t… aimed at those tribes at all,” Little White murmured. “It’s just feeding the plants?”
“Seems like it,” Bit said. “Those guys didn’t exactly look like the sharpest tools in the box.”
“But the spiders still slaughtered them,” Little White said.
Bit had no answer for that. “…Yeah.”
Between the domes, mechanical spiders patrolled the open ground. Occasionally one would fire a burst—killing or scaring off beasts that came scavenging for food. But when the maglev cab approached, the spider units simply parted and let it pass.
Bit gave a low whistle. “Ahh. Now we’re VIPs.”
“Whoever runs Edean—good or evil,” Merc said, “they’ve done more to preserve species than most of the world.”
The cab slowed.
Their attention returned to the tower. Up close, the light wasn’t as blinding, which made the structure feel even larger—more imposing. The steel column rose like a pillar holding up the underground sky.
As the cab drew nearer, their view was suddenly cut off by a wall—seven or eight meters tall.
A wide gate was set into it. And on that gate, a huge circular emblem was raised in relief.
When the cab reached the entrance, the gate slid open on its own. The vehicle glided through and onto a straight road leading toward the tower.
Inside the wall, the space opened wide.
And all three of them went still.
There weren’t one or two roads leading to the tower.
There were eight.
Eight straight causeways, evenly spaced like spokes around a wheel, reaching from the tower outward to eight gates in the circular wall. Together, the wall enclosed the tower and the roads in a massive ring.
But what stole their attention wasn’t the tower.
It was what lay below the roads.
Only now did they realize the causeways were bridges.
And beneath them…
There was a human city.
It wasn’t huge. It dipped only about forty meters down from the bridge level, with a radius of roughly 2.5 kilometers. The buildings were low—none rising above the bridges—but densely packed. Shops. Restaurants. Schools. Apartment blocks. Everything you’d expect in a city, arranged in neat rings along circular streets.
The entire place sat under the tower’s glow.
And yet…
It looked dead.
No people. No movement. Every window was dark.
Merc’s voice was flat. “Now this looks like Edean.”
“But where is everyone?” Bit muttered, staring down. “Those domes outside are still running. Someone should be here.”
He turned toward Little White—then paused.
“Little White? …Hey. What’s wrong?”
Little White didn’t answer.
Her face had gone blank, eyes unfocused, staring straight ahead. The lively spark from earlier was gone, replaced by something cold and heavy.
Bit asked again. No response.
He’d known Little White for centuries. He’d never seen her like this.
Confused, Bit pinged Merc privately.
What’s wrong with her? She was fine a minute ago.
Merc replied almost at once.
No idea. She changed the moment we passed the gate.
Bit stared at the emblem again, replaying it in memory.
The shape was abstract, but clear enough: a serpent coiled around a crescent moon.
Merc added another message.
I think it’s the symbol. When I first met her, she had a tattoo like that on her forehead. She had Lord Julian remove it soon after.
Bit’s systems hiccuped in surprise.
She had that? Since when?
But they didn’t have time to unpack it.
The cab reached the end of the bridge and rolled into a small ring-shaped plaza at the base of the tower. The doors opened.
Bit and Merc stepped out and looked up.
The tower dominated everything.
A steel giant, hollow within, with faint blue-orange halos flickering along its surface. From certain seams, unknown gas seeped out in slow breaths. In the surrounding dark, it felt mysterious—solemn—almost holy.
They lowered their gaze, searching for an entrance.
That was when a hoarse, deep voice called out from somewhere near the tower’s base.
“The door’s over here, buddies! Welcome… Tower Clan awakeners.”
Bit and Merc turned.
A human man—male, at least—walked toward them.
He was tall—nearly Bit’s height—and built like a wall. A black training suit clung to muscles that looked ready to burst through the fabric. His neck was thicker than his head. Scar lines twisted across his face like old lightning strikes.
He clapped as he approached, stopping about ten meters away.
And on his forehead—
The serpent-and-crescent tattoo.
Bit hesitated. “Are you… human?”
“He isn’t,” Little White said.
She exhaled slowly, as if letting pressure out of her chest, and finally stepped out of the cab.
“Like me,” she added, eyes locked on the man. “He’s a modified biohuman.”
The man’s mouth curled. With the scars, the expression didn’t look like a smile so much as something feral.
“Woooow,” he drawled. “Look who I’m seeing.”
“Vengeance Goddess, Shackle-Breaking Angel, White-Winged Killer, God of the Arena, Twin-Blade Demon King, Destroyer of the Seven Isles, Tyrant of Evil Desire…”
He tilted his head as if counting.
“How many titles did you collect again?”
Little White’s voice was ice. “Garrick. I didn’t think you were still alive.”
Garrick shrugged. “Clearly not as comfortably as you.”
“As Soren Dalton’s dog,” Little White said. “If you’re here, he’s here too. And—let me guess—this is his place, right?”
“Mm-hmm.” Garrick’s eyes gleamed.
Little White’s next words hit like a blade being drawn.
“Then Barnett Thurso…”
She paused on the name. Her whole expression hardened until it looked carved from stone.
“He’s in this tower too. Isn’t he?”
Garrick chuckled, like he’d been expecting it. “Knew it. Look, Little White—haven’t you killed enough people? It’s been a long time. And Mr. Barnett… he’s done a hell of a lot for humanity’s survival. Can’t you just—”
“Evil men live forever,” Little White cut in, voice sharp with hatred. “Spare me the lectures. Take me to him.”
“Easy.” Garrick lifted a hand as if calming a wild animal. “Lord Dalton knows you’re here. He’s thrilled. He sent the cab because he wants a civilized talk. Don’t ruin his mood.”
Little White’s hands shook. Her eyes reddened with fury.
“I’ll say it one more time,” she hissed. “Take me to Barnett Thurso. Or I tear this tower down.”
Garrick’s smile finally vanished. “Don’t look down on me just because Lord Julian backs you. I’m still a champion.”
Little White gave a short, cold laugh. “Champion? Evil Desire Island is ashes. And you still call yourself a gladiator… Fine.”
She stepped toward him.
For a heartbeat, Bit and Merc both tensed—ready for her to explode.
Instead, Little White drew a throwing knife and flicked it down.
The blade spun once and stabbed into the ground at Garrick’s feet.
“I don’t have an Evil Moon Beast fang,” Little White said, meeting his eyes, each word dragged out like a vow. “So this will have to do.”
She straightened.
“I—Little White—challenge the last champion of the Evil Desire Arena… Garrick the Thunderhammer.”
Her voice rose, ringing across the plaza.
“Challenge!”