In the undercity, time is marked only by clocks. The steel-plated sky holds neither artificial sunlight nor the starry projections of the upper city.

  Cracked streetlights and flickering fluorescents cast dim pools of darkness on the streets, where the weak slink to avoid the strong. Clad in ragged shirts, they carve organs from corpses strewn on the roadside—a scene befitting ghouls.

  In this upper crust of hell’s corner, the border city, Eve strides, glancing at men leering at her. A rifle shot from a building is deflected by her silver wings, the bullet shattering a drug buyer’s head and embedding in a concrete wall.

  That’s the fifth shot. Just walking draws gunfire, an environment primed to kill—this is the undercity’s order. Sighing, pressing her forehead, Eve collided with a boy who dashed off like a startled rabbit, clutching a stolen silver wing feather, laughing wildly.

  She should’ve let go. Before she could speak, high-voltage current from the feather seared the boy’s skin, melted his flesh, and turned his bones to ash. Literally reduced to dust, the feather floated back to Eve’s wing as she sighed again.

  When walking with Danang, no one dared approach her. His intimidating aura and vigilance cowed those with malice, and any fool who tried was killed by him.

  “…”

  Gazing at the steel sky, Eve spread her silver wings, leaping effortlessly to a rooftop, her shimmering silver hair trailing in the dark.

  Her hair arced, sparkling with electronic particles like stars, her porcelain skin a white cloud reflecting them. Dancing through the sky, Eve stood on the rooftop’s iron railing, plucking a cigarette caught in her wing and gazing at the distant neon sea.

  Her father smoked often. She’d scolded him—smoking was harmful—but he’d light up with a sheepish look. She never liked it. Her sister, Canaan, loved the smell, but Eve couldn’t fathom why.

  Why shorten your life? Knowing it’s unhealthy, smoking was irrational, devoid of reason. Called rigid or stubborn, Eve couldn’t grasp why humans followed instincts, sometimes discarding reason.

  Tossing the cigarette, she shifted her gaze to the gate leading to the ruins. Leaping between buildings, she sliced an incoming rocket warhead in half.

  A deafening blast and flames erupted. Regaining balance mid-air, Eve landed on the main street, facing a crowd in white robes flanked by two quadruped war machines. Their hooded eyes, barely visible, pulsed with bloodshot veins, pupils unnaturally constricted.

  “As the Prophet foretold! The white holy angel has vanquished the evil flower of man’s creation and descended before us! Brethren, welcome our savior’s other half!” a voice boomed.

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  Cheers shook the air, scrap metal clanging. Over a hundred men, women, and children swarmed Eve, chanting a hymn of invented words.

  “…Who are you people?” Eve asked.

  “Haha! White holy angel, we are lost lambs revering the Nameless Prophet, praising you and the savior…” a man replied.

  A new cult? Noting the emblem on the war machines—a serpent coiling around a giant brain with gears—Eve eyed a man in matching embroidered robes, spreading her silver wings and aiming a feather at his throat.

  “Back off. I’ve got business,” she said.

  In an instant, the man impaled his throat on her wing, blood spraying. His white robes stained crimson, he gurgled, collapsing with an ecstatic expression, dead.

  “Wh—what?” Eve stammered.

  “Oh! The white holy angel has granted our priest salvation!” another cried. “Holy Emperor, grant me salvation! Free my soul through death!”

  “Move! I’m first! Holy Emperor, save this wretched lamb!” a man shouted.

  “Don’t push! I’m pregnant!” a woman pleaded. “Holy angel, save my baby and me!”

  Like a flood, the crowd surged, offering their lives. Some trampled children or shoved elders; others, resigned, shot a pregnant woman’s head, screaming, “To our trembling god, the savior, the white holy angel, the Prophet—glory!” before shooting their own necks.

  A cascade of death, apostles of fanaticism, a tsunami of madness. Clutching her wings, the zealots slashed their arteries, soaking Eve in crimson, taking their lives one after another. Consuming young and old, the fevered devotees bathed in others’ blood, begging her for salvation through death.

  Mob mentality twisted their view of life and death, mistaking warped instincts for rationality, convinced their actions were just. Incomprehensible madness bred fear, fear halted thought, binding Eve’s body and mind with invisible ropes. Her body stiffened, and she screamed unknowingly.

  “Stop, no, someone—help!”

  As the crowd nearly engulfed her, a flash blinded her, a supersonic blast piercing her eardrums.

  A young man in a flapping coat drove Heres’s blade into a quadruped war machine’s control system armor. Swiftly disabling the second machine, he plugged a hack cable from his mechanical arm into its main system, hijacking its combat functions, then aimed an assault rifle at the crowd.

  “Dana—n?” Eve gasped.

  “Eve, cover your ears, close your eyes. When you hear the shot, run right. Got it?” Danang ordered.

  Amid chaos and screams, the assault rifle roared, bullets flying. The hacked war machine fired rockets, blasting the zealots apart.

  “Holy Emperor! Your salvation is the ultimate death! Don’t grant us mere mortal ends!” a zealot wailed.

  “Die on your own,” Danang spat coldly, yanking the hack cable, stowing it in his arm, and chasing Eve into an alley.

  Explosions echoed through the main street. Gangsters and Flesh Crucible grunts, drawn by the commotion, laughed maniacally, rushing in. They crushed and slaughtered surviving zealots, collaring usable ones with explosive restraints.

  At the peak of the brawl, riot suppression machines operated by security forces thundered in, unleashing overwhelming violence. Blood and flesh rained, pooling into massive puddles, followed by mechanical cleanup. In five minutes, over a hundred died, with five hundred more injured. Even in the murder-riddled undercity, such chaos was rare.

  Carrying a choking Eve under his arm, Danang escaped the pandemonium, kicking open an abandoned building’s door to hide in a dark room.

  “…”

  “…”

  Setting Eve beside him, Danang sat on cracked tiles, pulling a fresh cigarette pack from his coat. He peeled the film, tore the wrapper, and lit one.

  “…Why?” Eve whispered, face down, clutching her knees, voice trembling.

  “Why’d you come after me?”

  “You looked like you were crying,” Danang said.

  “Me…?”

  Lighting his cigarette, Danang exhaled purple smoke, nodding slightly.

  “My old man once said: Lend a hand to a woman crying without tears. So I decided to help. That’s it.”

  The cigarette’s ember smoldered.