Tyler looked at the small refined piece of Carbonyx resting inside the box for a mont longer before closing it carefully.
The faint purple glow hidden inside the crystal was far too obvious.
"This thing will definitely be detected if I carry it normally," he thought.
A mont later, he opened his sleeve slightly and took out the small copper pot.
Without hesitation, he placed both the vial and the Carbonyx inside.
He slid the copper pot back beneath his sleeve just as a voice ca from outside.
"Alright, let us go."
It was Aruna’s servant.
Tyler opened the compartnt door and stepped out.
The others were already gathered outside.
Kennedy stood there first, looking deeply uncomfortable in what the Capital had apparently decided was proper presentation for him— a fitted cowboy-style outfit complete with layered leather straps, polished boots, and a dark coat that made him look like soone forced into another person’s costu.
Victor looked even stranger.
He had been dressed in thick animal fur, the kind of outfit clearly designed to exaggerate so primitive wilderness image for entertainnt. The fur covered one shoulder and crossed his chest unevenly, making him look like a staged hunter from an old story rather than a frightened sector boy.
Then Tyler saw the sisters.
Tansy had been given clothing very different from what he expected.
Her outfit was tight-fitted and clearly designed for movent, hugging her fra while still allowing flexibility. Over it rested a fur-lined short coat that added a rough elegance to the look.
Rose, by contrast, looked like soone prepared for display rather than comfort.
Her dress had been made entirely from layered bright red fabric shaped like rose petals, stitched so densely that from a distance it looked as though she were wrapped in blooming flowers.
For a mont even Rose forgot her fear while staring down at herself.
Then the servant gestured toward the circular platform ahead.
"All of you stand there."
They obeyed.
The mont all five participants stepped onto it, the platform rose silently.
No chains.
No visible engines.
Just smooth upward motion.
Rose instinctively grabbed Tansy’s hand.
Victor stiffened.
Kennedy remained still but clearly tense.
The platform floated outward through an open shaft until the outer shell of the floating Capital ca fully into view.
From this angle Tyler finally understood its structure more clearly.
It was not rely a floating trapezoid.
It was a fully enclosed trapezoidal prism suspended in the sky, every side sealed in tallic geotry.
The platform drifted toward one angled surface where an entrance slowly opened like a hidden seam in the structure.
They arrived before a security gate.
Several devices were positioned there —tal detectors, scanners, and layered circular rings built into the entry path itself.
The servant guided them toward a narrow circular corridor where all the scanning systems were embedded directly into the walls.
"Walk forward."
One by one, they passed through.
The scanners flashed around their bodies.
Lights moved across clothing.
Hidden sensors humd briefly.
But nothing happened.
Tyler kept his face calm.
Inside his sleeve, his hand lightly held the copper pot.
Because the Carbonyx and vial remained hidden inside it, every detector treated him as clean.
When he stepped out, a faint smile touched his lips.
The copper pot had once again ignored rules that ordinary objects obeyed.
Then they crossed fully into the Capital interior.
And everything changed.
The mont Tyler stepped beyond the security corridor and reached the transparent observation section, even he stopped.
Tansy, Rose, Victor, and Kennedy all widened their eyes openly.
For several seconds none of them spoke.
From outside, the Capital had looked like nothing more than an enormous trapezoidal prism floating high above the world, a tallic geotric object suspended through impossible power.
That outer shell was all the sectors ever saw.
Because of that, most people imagined the Capital as a giant hollow block containing ordinary city structures.
But the truth inside shattered ordinary expectation.
The space within was impossibly larger than the outer shell should have allowed.
It was not simply an enclosed city.
It felt like an entire world had been folded inward through unnatural geotry.
The district where they currently stood already resembled the heart of a modern tropolis.
Towering skyscrapers rose everywhere, their glass surfaces reflecting bright artificial sunlight. Wide roads stretched between them in perfect order, carrying silent vehicles and floating transports moving at different heights.
But what truly stole attention lay farther away.
Entire districts existed at impossible angles.
Far in the distance, clusters of skyscrapers rose sideways along invisible surfaces as though gravity itself had changed direction there.
So entire neighborhoods stood vertically upon what should have been walls.
Roads continued naturally across those impossible planes.
Vehicles moved there as if nothing were unusual.
People also walked normally along those angled districts, their bodies perfectly aligned to whichever direction gravity obeyed in that section.
Rose stared openly.
"They are walking sideways..."
No one answered because everyone else was equally stunned.
It looked as though entire cities had been attached to every inner face of the prism.
Above them, there was even a sky.
A bright artificial sun hung overhead, radiating warmth strong enough to create genuine daylight.
White clouds drifted slowly across a blue atmosphere so natural that for a mont Rose forgot they were still inside a floating structure.
But the deeper Tyler looked, the stranger it beca.
Far beyond the nearest city districts, wide rivers flowed between separated sections of the Capital.
Large lakes reflected sunlight.
Mountain ranges rose in the far distance.
And so of those mountains hung upside down above distant city sections, their peaks suspended from inverted horizons while clouds drifted beneath them.
Even Tyler, who had seen floating islands and spatial distortions in other worlds, could not deny that this place operated at another level entirely.
The Capital did not feel like a city built inside a machine.
It felt like soone had folded reality itself into architecture.
The servant seed pleased by their reaction.
"The city was built using Alt World technology," he explained calmly. "Construction took only a few years, though sector labor was still heavily used. Other than workers, many systems were completed with Alt World AIs."
Rose turned imdiately.
"The alt world?"
The servant nodded.
"Alternative world."
He pointed toward the distant structures.
"In our world, there are broken spaces leading to another destroyed world. That world possessed technology far ahead of ours."
His tone suggested he knew only official explanations.
"I do not understand most of it myself," he admitted. "It has also been many years since a new broken space leading to another world was discovered."
A flying vehicle descended beside them before anyone asked more.
Its doors opened automatically.
The servant gestured.
"Get in."
Everyone boarded.
Tyler sat beside Tansy.
Neither spoke.
But when their eyes t briefly, both understood the sa thing.
They had already entered one of those so-called alternative worlds once before. Looks like The Captial is a technology they got from different sector.
Now Tyler finally had a clear understanding of where the endless flow of Carbonyx energy truly went.
The sectors mined until their bodies broke, lived under controlled electricity, and accepted darkness for half their lives, while all that stolen energy fed this impossible city suspended inside folded space.
It was no wonder the Capital bled every sector dry.
The flying vehicle continued deeper into the Capital, moving smoothly through floating roads and transparent transport lanes until it approached another district built on one of the angled inner faces of the trapezoidal prism.
From a distance, the destination looked like a massive do embedded into the side of the city, its curved surface reflecting artificial sunlight like polished crystal.
As the vehicle approached, sothing strange happened.
The vehicle tilted, but not in the ordinary sense.
The entire cabin slowly rotated while gravity itself shifted.
For a brief mont, Tyler felt the direction of weight inside his body change completely.
Rose imdiately grabbed Tansy’s arm.
Victor stiffened in his seat.
Even Kennedy frowned.
The vehicle adjusted until the new angle beca stable, and suddenly what they had considered "ground" monts earlier now looked completely wrong.
When Tyler glanced back through the glass, the district they had just left appeared tilted sideways in the distance, while the place beneath them now felt perfectly normal.
The new district had beco the correct direction simply because gravity here obeyed different rules.
The vehicle descended and finally stopped near the do entrance.
The doors opened.
All five stepped out.
The mont they touched the platform, they noticed that many people were already there.
A large crowd stood behind a marked boundary, all watching them closely.
The intensity of those gazes made Rose instinctively move closer to Tansy.
Victor’s shoulders tightened.
Kennedy’s jaw hardened.
Because those eyes did not hold ordinary curiosity.
They were asuring them.
Judging them.
Trying to guess.
The servant imdiately noticed their tension.
"Do not worry," he said calmly. "They are all chosen participants from other sectors, just like you."
Only then did Tyler notice sothing important.
The people watching them no longer wore clothes that revealed their origins.
Their sector uniforms had already been removed.
Everyone had been dressed in carefully chosen outfits, just like them.
So wore elegant coats.
So wore fitted battle clothes.
So wore decorative dresses.
So wore strange costus clearly designed for appearance rather than comfort.
The Capital had deliberately changed everyone’s clothing.
No one could imdiately tell which sector another person belonged to.
Only faces remained.
Even then, certain details still betrayed hints—body posture, scars, skin tone, habits—but official identity had been erased.
There were old people.
Young adults.
Teenagers.
Even children as young as Rose and Victor stood among them.
So looked frightened.
So looked exhausted.
A few stood unnaturally calm, as though fear had already burned out of them.
The servant gestured forward again.
"Co. Your assigned section is prepared."
They followed him into the do.
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