Ethan had no intention of wasting words with it.
Whether it could redirect attacks or not, Elira’s condition was still a question mark.
"We’re going in."
He looked around at the others.
"Elira’s status is unknown. End this fast."
With that, Ethan pressed an energy sphere into his own body.
Black particles shed from the edges of his form.
The most direct way to solve a problem was to kill the one who wrote the test.
Whoever made all of this deserved the punishment.
Before leaving, Ethan pulled Auri, Idra, Nysera, and Anya back into himself. Four different-colored lights slipped into his chest one after another, and his white lightning surged stronger in response.
Particle-state Ethan rose upward.
He’d already checked underground.
It had been completely hollowed out—nothing left but an empty shell propping up the pyramid’s outer shape.
If the target wasn’t below, then it could only be above.
Down below, everyone kept their eyes on the towering mechanical Andona.
In Kaelira’s hands, Ataneya’s, Seraphine’s—energy spheres swelled larger and larger.
They’d already tested attacks one by one.
Fire, ice, darkness, golden blades—anything that truly hit the mechanical Andona vanished on contact.
As if it had been transferred.
As if it had been absorbed.
Normal attacks were useless.
So they’d make one big enough.
You dared to kidnap Elira?
Die.
The mechanical Andona didn’t speak again.
It raised an arm. Liquid metal flowed outward along it, stretching into a scepter as tall as its own body.
It looked almost identical to the golden scepter from before.
The only difference was that its surface didn’t have those disgusting mouths.
Mechanical Andona gripped the scepter with both hands, lifted it high, then brought it down toward the pale-gold barrier Seraphine and Andona were maintaining together.
The scepter cut through the air, pressing out a transparent shock layer.
Boom!
The shaft smashed squarely into the shield.
The barrier caved inward—then, a heartbeat later, kicked back with a violent rebound.
Golden ripples surged up the scepter, ran through the mechanical arms, and slammed into its chest cavity. The entire body rocked hard. Cracks burst across its shell, like it was a hair away from being shattered by its own strike.
It paused.
Then turned and ran.
No second attack.
No threats.
Nothing.
Everyone stood behind the shield, staring as it fled at full speed.
Hit once and run?
What was that supposed to mean?
But its escape speed was insane.
A narrow spatial opening peeled open in front of it. Its huge body rapidly compressed, shrinking down to a size that could fit—then it dove straight in.
The spatial corridor snapped shut.
It was gone.
Andona watched the mechanical version of herself bolt so cleanly, and even behind her mask, there was a faint, awkward stiffness to her expression.
After a brief silence, she turned to the others.
"Do we... go after Ethan?"
Everyone nodded at once.
They unfolded wings and power and flew up through the ripped-open roof.
But no matter how high they flew, the sky didn’t get any closer.
They were clearly rising, yet the ruins beneath them stayed the same size. Sunlight still fell on their faces. The scenery didn’t shift at all.
They couldn’t get out.
No matter how they flew, they couldn’t leave this place.
As they stopped to reassess, what hung above finally showed its true form.
It wasn’t a normal shield.
It was a massive formation—countless people linked together into an array that covered the entire sky.
Shoulder to shoulder, arms and legs hooked into each other, they used living bodies to form a barrier that blotted out the sun.
There were too many to count.
The crowd swallowed the group whole.
And they were laughing.
Some were howling with it.
Some wore helpless, unwilling smiles—corners of their mouths dragged upward anyway.
The laughter didn’t travel through air.
It went straight into everyone’s mind.
Kaelira struck first.
The energy sphere left her fingertips, broke the sound barrier almost instantly, and streaked forward in a purple-red blaze, accelerating through the gaps between the human-shaped links of the formation.
It punched into the center.
Boom!
Flame and impact exploded together.
The people forming the shield were erased from the middle outward—their bodies and the connecting structure vanishing with them. Sunlight spilled through the hole again, and the array lost its integrity.
But the true "mother" at the center noticed them.
This was an array made of living people.
Every single body in it radiated a hunger for death.
Seraphine looked at those who maintained the barrier willingly, and her breathing stalled for a fraction of a second. Her holy light could feel that they were still alive—and it could also feel that their longing for death was almost instinctive.
At the center of the array was a mechanical spider.
It had a huge abdomen and multiple long metal legs, sitting quietly in a place the group still couldn’t fully see.
It was like a mother.
Its metal limbs supported the people around it with an eerie gentleness, adjusting each "child’s" posture, repairing broken links between them.
The spider’s mechanical head rotated slowly.
Little by little, it turned toward them.
And when sunlight caught that head, everyone finally saw what it looked like.
That head was also—
Seraphine’s light rose first.
Deep-gold radiance swept over the shattered array and fell onto the people who craved death. It didn’t destroy their bodies outright. Instead, it drove out whatever was binding their minds.
And then—death’s salvation arrived.
A heavy, solemn presence spread along the path Seraphine’s holy light had laid down, taking each life that was still trapped in the formation, one by one.
The laughter thinned.
Manic cackling faded into silence.
The forced, helpless smiles slipped off face after face.
The people making up the array finally stopped holding their positions.
They—along with the mechanical spider—faded in light and death together.
Redeemed by Seraphine.
And redeemed by death.
In the end, both the group and the array forgot this scene.
A complete "ascension."
Sunlight returned to their faces.
Warm. Bright.
As if they’d agreed beforehand, everyone tilted their heads up slightly and closed their eyes in the sun.
That brief peace only lasted a moment.
They all opened their eyes at once.
The sun above was gone.
In its place was a blinding laboratory lamp.
White light poured down from directly overhead, too harsh to look into. They were no longer floating above the pyramid, either—they were standing in the center of a massive laboratory.
All around them, space-wormholes packed the room like a swarm.
Behind each wormhole was a different connected area, and from within them, instruments, mechanical limbs, and observation rigs kept extending outward.
One scan-beam after another swept across their bodies.
On nearby screens, huge streams of changing data appeared instantly.
They weren’t intruders anymore.
They were test subjects.
In a corner of the lab so subtle it was almost impossible to notice, a small brain floated quietly in midair.
It made no sound.
But its surface wriggled slowly with every new line of experimental data.
It watched everything.
And it controlled everything.
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