The pop-up appeared just as SeTa leaned back against the cool stone wall of his temporary room on Floor 10.
> [Congratulations, Climber SeTa. Due to your exceptional performance in Trials 1–10, you have been granted 6 Earth-Hours of Return Time.]
[Standard allocation: 3 hours | Adjusted: 6 hours]
[Do you wish to initiate your Earth Return now?]
[Y/N]
He stared at it. A long silence.
The thought of Earth stirred nothing in him. No joy. No dread. Just... stillness.
Y.
Light fractured around him.
The teleportation was smooth, clinical. One moment surrounded by stone and silence—next, the sharp smell of smoke and metal. Dust in the air. Heat, not from sun, but fire. A siren wailing far off, hollow and tired.
He stood in the middle of Lusaka. Or what used to be it.
Buildings half-eaten by vines and war. Roads torn open like wounded flesh. People moved in clumps—survivors clinging to old order. Overhead, a gray sky pressed low, like even the heavens were watching in mourning.
System text hovered near his vision:
> [Earth Status: Grade D Stability]
[UN Ascension Division present]
[You are undetectable unless you initiate contact.]
A flicker of movement. Ahead, a convoy of UN-marked trucks passed—soldiers, not in blue helmets, but black combat gear. On the side of one truck: "Global Ascendancy Agency – GAA."
A man shouted, "Any returned Climbers, step forward for screening! You'll be compensated!"
SeTa ignored them. Shadow-Step carried him across rooftops. His body had grown too used to silence, to distance. Down below, he spotted crowds being herded. Children crying. A man begging for medicine. No answers. Just orders.
He crouched on the ledge of a ruined shopping mall, eyes tracing the city's shape.
It was like someone had pressed a reset button halfway.
Far in the distance, near the government district, a giant obsidian obelisk pulsed. It hadn't been there before. Not man-made. Tower-born. And dangerous.
Zuvanox's low growl rumbled beside him.
The black-gold Pi Yao had shifted form slightly to blend in, his aura tucked beneath a stealth veil. Even so, his eyes flicked with light when danger moved too close.
"You feel it too," SeTa muttered.
The Tower was leaking. Earth wasn't adapting fast enough.
He landed silently behind a GAA checkpoint just to test their sensors. Nothing. His system suppressed his presence even here.
In six hours, he'd be gone.
But this world... this broken, begging world wasn't going to last that long without intervention.
Not yet. Not openly. But he could start something small.
No announcements. No alignments. No public face.
Just a shadow.
And a seed.
He vanished again, heading west—toward the city's edge.
Toward the silence. Toward something he could build.