As soon as the second ga officially ended, the forest floor began moving again.
chanical seams opened beneath the artificial ground with smooth precision, and one after another, transport pods rose from below like capsules erging from hidden machinery. Their tallic surfaces reflected the fading artificial daylight while soft lights blinked along their edges, signaling each remaining participant to board.
No one resisted.
After everything that had happened, even the survivors had beco quiet.
The bodies of the eliminated were already gone. The clearing that had witnessed accusations, betrayals, and deaths now looked almost untouched, as though the ga had never happened there at all.
The remaining twenty-eight participants stepped into their assigned pods one by one.
Tyler entered his without speaking.
The door sealed behind him, cutting off the forest instantly.
Inside, the chamber remained simple—an oval seat, smooth white walls, and faint lighting that felt almost too calm after the violence outside.
The pod began moving upward.
Then a new voice filled the interior.
Soft.
Female.
Unlike the chanical system voice used inside the gas.
"Congratulations. Twenty-eight chosen have survived."
At the sa mont, a screen unfolded from the wall in front of Tyler.
The display brightened.
A woman appeared.
The mont Tyler saw her, his eyes narrowed.
Then widened.
Her skin was silver. Not pale —silver, with a tallic sheen similar to polished alloy under light. Her long hair carried the sa silver tone, falling smoothly around shoulders that looked almost unreal in their perfection. Even her eyes reflected light strangely, as though the silver extended beyond skin into sothing deeper.
Tyler imdiately recognized her.
Because he had seen her before.
Not in person but in an Old footage.
The sa hidden laboratory recordings connected to the broken world portal. The woman who had escaped from the portal. The one who crossed from the other world into Libria.
And Tyler was not the only one who recognized her.
Inside another moving pod, Tansy also stared at the screen in shock, because she had seen the sa footage before.
The mory ca back clearly— it was the sa woman that escaped the lab. At that ti the woman was not silver skinned though.
Now that sa woman smiled directly through the screen as though she belonged here completely.
"The next ga will begin in twenty-six hours," she said.
Her voice carried unnatural calm, almost playful despite what the survivors had just endured.
"Before then, all participants must complete dical examination, eat properly, and make sure to sleep well."
She lifted one hand lightly, then gave a small wink.
But just before the transmission ended, she leaned slightly closer and lowered her voice into sothing softer.
"This ti, participants are allowed to visit other participants’ rooms..."
A pause.
"...but only if the room owner allows entry."
The ssage ended there.
The screen vanished.
Tyler leaned back slowly, still thinking.
The silver woman appearing here ant she probably able to enter the Captial easily. Soone from the alternate world was now openly involved inside the Capital itself. Which ant she probably did sothing for the Captial that’s why she was allowed to beco a citizen of captial.
The pod continued moving until it finally slowed.
The doors opened.
The survivors had returned to the sa residential building used before, but this ti the atmosphere had changed imdiately.
And for the first ti since arriving in the Capital, the survivors were actually allowed to move freely through the corridor.
People stepped out cautiously, testing whether the freedom was real.
It was.
Tyler had barely entered his room when the door opened again.
Tansy and Rose walked in without hesitation.
Tyler was just about to close the door when he noticed Victor still standing in the corridor a short distance away.
Victor had clearly stopped walking the mont he saw Tansy and Rose enter Tyler’s room without hesitation. His mouth remained slightly open, his expression caught sowhere between disbelief and confusion, as though he had just witnessed sothing far more shocking than surviving two death gas.
Tyler looked at him for a second. Then simply winked. And closed the door.
The sound of the lock settling made the room quiet again.
The room itself had already been prepared again by Capital servants —fresh sheets, clean lighting, fruit trays placed neatly on the table, and even warm drinks waiting untouched near the window.
Tansy and Rose wasted no ti.
By the ti Tyler turned back, both sisters were already sitting near the table eating fruits as though they had done this many tis before. Rose had taken two kinds imdiately, while Tansy ate more slowly, though still clearly hungrier than she pretended.
Tyler walked over, sat beside them, picked up one of the fruits, and bit into it.
The sweetness felt almost unnatural after days of ga food and survival supplies.
"We still don’t know what the next ga is," Tyler said after swallowing. "But I’m sure of one thing—it’ll be bloodier than the last one."
Neither sister interrupted.
"At least half of the remaining people will probably die."
That made Rose stop chewing briefly.
Tansy stayed calm, but her fingers tightened slightly around the fruit she held.
"To survive the next ga," Tansy said after a mont, "we can only pray to God. That’s all people like us can really do."
Rose imdiately shook her head. "We should escape instead."
She swallowed and looked between them.
"We already have the silver injection. We can cure Father. Why stay?"
That made Tansy pause too.
Because Rose was not wrong.
The original reason for enduring the ga had already partly changed. They had obtained sothing worth risking everything for.
Tyler leaned back slightly.
He also thought about it seriously.
He had entered the Capital Gas because the Orion Cube pushed him toward this path.
But technically, he had already entered, already survived two gas, already reached whatever threshold the Cube seed to demand.
If he wanted, perhaps he really could leave.
The thought remained for several seconds before another one surfaced.
It was about The silver woman.
Tyler looked toward Tansy. "That woman on the pod screen..."
Tansy imdiately understood who he ant.
"That was definitely her."
Her answer ca fast.
"The old security footage from the lab was clear enough. Sa face."
Then she added:
"She was holding sothing when she escaped too. I rember that clearly."
Tyler nodded slowly.
He rembered it too.
A figure leaving through chaos, carrying sothing unknown while alarms filled the old footage.
Now that sa person stood openly inside the Capital system announcing gas.
"Well," Tyler said, "even if we wanted answers, I doubt she’d explain anything willingly."
Rose, who had been listening while chewing, suddenly looked up.
Her mouth was still half full of fruit when she asked:
"You two went on a date without ?"
Both Tyler and Tansy answered instantly.
"Not a date."
The synchronized reply made Rose blink.
Then she leaned back dramatically and narrowed her eyes.
"Oh..."
She pointed one finger at Tyler.
"Then Tyler, go on a date with ."
She even added a wink, though the fruit still in her mouth ruined any serious attempt at charm. Instead of seductive, she looked like a child trying too hard to imitate adults.
Tyler looked at her once and smirked.
"Grow up first. Then ask again."
Rose imdiately pouted.
Then turned toward her sister and declared with complete seriousness:
"Then Sister, keep him properly until then. I’ll take him when I grow up."
Tansy stared at her for one second. Then laughed despite herself and lightly bonked Rose on the head.
"What exactly is happening inside that brain of yours?"
Rose rubbed her head dramatically, still pouting, while Tyler quietly reached for another fruit, already knowing the room felt lighter than anything outside it had a right to be.
Then Tyler suddenly said, "Since this might be the last proper al before the next ga, how about both of you remove your dresses? Tonight neither of you is sleeping."
For one full second, the room beca completely still.
Then both Tansy and Rose blushed at the sa ti.
The next second, fruits flew straight at Tyler’s face.
One struck his forehead, another hit his shoulder, and a third bounced off his chest before falling to the floor.
"Hey—hey, that’s not what I ant!"
Tyler raised both hands quickly while half laughing and half shielding himself from another incoming fruit.
Before either of them threw more, he moved his arm slightly.
The white costu he wore suddenly loosened at the sleeve, then dissolved into countless tiny tallic particles. The fabric peeled away like liquid silver, spreading across his forearm before gathering again into a shield blocking the fruit.
The movent instantly changed the atmosphere.
"I want both of you to wear nanobot suits tonight," Tyler said, letting the particles reform across his arm, "and train without sleeping until the morning.."
He looked at them seriously now.
"You need to learn control properly —shape change, response speed, and thought synchronization. If the next ga becos chaotic, hesitation will kill faster than weapons."
Tansy and Rose stared at the nanobots moving like living tal.
Their earlier embarrassnt faded into amazent almost imdiately.
Then, almost at the sa ti, both let out a breath in Relief.
And sothing else Tyler noticed too easily.
A trace of disappointnt flashed across the faces of the sisters.
That only made him smirk.
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