“Something happened to Sienna.”

The chaos‌⁠⁠‍⁠‍​⁠‌‌‍‍⁠‌‍‌‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍ reaction halted, but the spatial disorder in the Polar Sky didn’t subside. Beneath the gloomy sky, space became distorted and chaotic. Billy carefully piloted the plane under An Yu’s guidance, sweat of beads rolling down his neck.

Bo sat leaning against the hatch door. His wings were simply bandaged yet horribly damaged. The slightest movement caused piercing pain, making it impossible to transform back into human arms. He withdrew his gaze from the sky and looked at the sleeping young man lying beside him.

An Ning.

That burst of golden butterflies had repeatedly penetrated An Yu’s chest. No one knew what An Yu did, or if he did anything at all. After the butterfly formation dissipated, only a deeply sleeping young man lay on the glacier.

At first, Bo struggled to look around for another figure, until An Yu walked over, placed his hand on the deepest wound on his wing, and said, “Don’t look anymore. They have become one. In a sense, entropy reduction.”

Those two young men, separated since he had known them, had suddenly turned back into the same person.

“Zhao Ran also underwent entropy reduction.” An Yu, sitting in the cockpit, suddenly spoke. “But that was because Commander Flame absorbed his chaos before heading towards heat death. It’s not quite the same as An Ning’s situation. An Ning—”

An Yu didn’t continue. He lowered his head and looked at his hands, seemingly lost in thought.

Bo didn’t probe into whether An Ning’s entropy reduction had anything to do with An Yu. He just stared out the window in a daze for a good while before asking softly, “So Commander Flame has left too?”

An Yu nodded. “In the Swamp, he made the same choice as Xi De.”

“Oh.”

The cabin fell silent, leaving only the white noise of the machinery operating.

After a long while, An Yu suddenly heard Bo let out a soft, breathy chuckle. Bo said in a low, slightly self-mocking voice, “We juniors, probably none of us expected there would really be a day when we became reserves for the high-level officers. As expected, only enjoying the care and tolerance of the Commanders without bearing any responsibility… Where in the world is there such a pure good thing?”

An Yu’s heart trembled. He turned to look at him, but only saw him staring blankly at the sky outside the window.

“An Yu, if one day Law also—”

“In District 99, the Commander already made the same choice. Perhaps every high-level officer is like this.”

Bo’s gaze trembled slightly. He turned his head back, only to see those golden eyes in front of him as tranquil as ever, but no longer as vacant as in his memory.

A familiar steadiness and sharpness were rapidly nourishing in An Yu.

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Bo was stunned for a long time. He wanted to ask then how did you stop him, but the words stuck in his throat. Although An Yu at this moment wasn’t as terrifying as when the Grim Reaper descended in District 53, he had a powerful and detached aura that allowed no probing.

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“Spatial folding,” An Yu turned back to explain to him. “I folded a small piece of space here. He is still here, you just can’t see him. So no need to worry about a wild aberrant tearing at him. No one can find him.”

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“Yes, but not now.” An Yu paused. “Sorry, I don’t know how far I can actually go either. The situation here is different from District 99 and the Swamp. Time and space here are still chaotic and haven’t been repaired. Intuition tells me that leaving him in a place with distorted time and space might not necessarily be a bad thing.”

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Bo came back to his senses, looking at An Yu’s back in the cabin.

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An Yu smiled soundlessly. Gazing at the clouds outside the window, he recalled in a trance when he first came to the Main City, Qin Zhilu took him to the Spire’s monthly meeting. That day, Xi De smilingly coaxed Bo with a can of soda, saying, “Who says our Bo isn’t decisive? Looking around the Spire, besides the Commanders, our Bo is the most decisive.”

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“Weird.” Billy repeatedly pressed those call buttons. “The signal should have been sent, and the receiver is fine. Why isn’t Black Tower replying at all?”

An Yu paused. “Try contacting Brain.”

“Brain? Why contact those guys?” Billy mumbled, but still obediently called another frequency.

Still no response.

An Yu frowned tightly. Thinking of those researchers who suddenly appeared at the Spire before departure, a bad premonition surged in his heart again. He sent two messages to Codex. This time the messages were sent successfully, but the friend who usually replied instantly gave no response.

“Connect to the Spire.” An Yu said, “Call Commander Tang Feng.”

Over ten seconds later, the communication finally connected.

Tang Feng sounded like he was running, panting heavily as he asked, “An Yu? How is the situation in the Polar Region?”

“The chaos reaction has ended.” An Yu didn’t explain much. “What happened in the Main City?”

“Are you on your way back?” Tang Feng’s tone was hesitant and urgent. His footsteps stopped, seeming to dodge into a relatively quiet corner, lowering his voice. “Come back quickly. Something happened.”

An Yu gripped the terminal tightly. “Main City? Or the Spire?”

“Something happened to Sienna.” Tang Feng paused. “No, that’s not important. What’s important is Law… He needs you.”

The plane returned at full speed, violating the Dome’s ban and flying directly into the Main City’s airspace.

When altitude decreased, An Yu already saw the anomaly in the Main City.

The towering Black Tower and White Tower were the most eye-catching buildings in the Main City, separated only by a street. But at this moment, the positions of the Black Tower and White Tower had actually swapped. Rebars peeled off and slid down from the building bodies. The ground was densely packed with people. The earth had cracked open. It seemed something was dormant underground. From high above, it looked like a half-dead giant buried deep underground. With each of its breaths, the earth trembled, and the fissures grew deeper.

Before the plane lowered its altitude, An Yu used the flight assist device and jumped down directly.

Looking down from the biting high altitude, the military had surrounded the nearby area layer by layer. Protectors hadn’t received orders to enter the Main City yet; only Tang Feng and Grape were on the scene. Tang Feng was trapped in a fissure in the earth, one leg entangled by something. Grape vines inserted themselves through the gaps to fight for him, struggling to pull him out.

The thing pulling him looked like coiling intestines, writhing tortuous things. Mucus had already corroded his special combat suit. The mucus was still spreading outward on the ground. Even though humans resisted with all their might, piling up whatever technology they had, the corroded Brain and Black Tower were still rapidly collapsing.

An Yu hovered high in the air, looking at the thing underground in horror.

—Until he saw those huge, terrifying organs clearly, did he realize belatedly what “something happened to Sienna” meant.