"Why are you telling me this?" Shaw questioned, intrigued. It made no sense for her to share this information—it would be more beneficial to stay silent and let the plans and schemes unfold without anyone truly knowing.
"Haven't you ever wondered why humans have so few cities, why they live underground, and why they have to ally with other races just to ensure their survival?"
Shaw thought: 'I've made some assumptions, but it's not like I have enough information to really know what's going on. There's no proof that, until now, they haven't lied to me or tried to deceive me with half-truths.'—Yet, in this kind of situation, he chose to keep his face impassive and remain silent as the mysterious woman spoke.
"Humans don't live underground out of fear of the monsters out there… Even if there are truly powerful monsters, we could have secured at least one passage to the surface as a way to gather resources—they live underground out of fear of what they themselves became." She continued, "The Cataclysm wasn't just a war—it was a ritual. The first Inventors discovered how to access the Battlefield, how to connect our world to others through this passage. But in doing so, they also exposed the coordinates of their own dimension."
"The Seals were created to keep their world safe. But now, the fanatics, driven by greed, want to break the Seal and establish a permanent passage to the Battlefield, believing it to be a possible path to humanity's liberation and survival." Her smile was bitter: "Naïve. They don't understand that this is a form of protection for them—with the first Seal, as long as their Origin Core remains intact, their home dimension will recreate their bodies. They could still live, but with heavy protection, their growth becomes stagnant. And if the first Seal is destroyed, that same protection will be lifted."
"And you? Are you trying to stop them… or accelerate the process? After all, earlier you said the fanatics thought they were helping you, when in reality, they were just delivering fresh meat." Shaw looked at her, intrigued. "What are you, really? A predator? Or a third party?"
The woman in bone armor laughed, her crimson eyes gleaming behind her cracked mask.
"Stop? Accelerate? Such simplistic thinking, Shaw. I'm merely… an interested observer. Just like you—by the way, you can call me Rose."
She raised a hand, and the air around her distorted, revealing for a moment what looked like a ruined city—not underground, but under an open sky, torn by amber lightning.
"As I said before, humans didn't hide out of fear of the monsters outside. They hid because the monsters were already within. The Cataclysm wasn't a war. It was a purge."
Shaw kept his face expressionless, but his mind raced. If the Battlefield was a place between dimensions, then the Predators were beings who had lost their original world…
"The first Inventors didn't just access the Battlefield. They brought something back."
Her smile widened, confirming his suspicion without words.
"Some call it 'evolution.' Others, 'corruption.' But in the end, it's just a matter of perspective. What would you do, Shaw, if you discovered that the only way to survive a fire… was to burn with it?"
He didn't answer. Instead, his hand closed around the key in his pocket—now hot as an ember.
Rose wasn't telling him all this out of benevolence. She saw him as a piece in her game, but Shaw had already decided: if this was a multidimensional chess match, he wouldn't be a pawn. He would be the player.
"Are the first Inventors really dead?" Shaw asked.
Rose remained silent, but her silence was answer enough.
Suddenly, the air vibrated. A thunderous boom shook the plateau, and cracks split the sky, offering glimpses of the noble city—where the fanatics, in ecstasy, were completing their ritual.
"Seems like you'll have to decide, Shaw." The woman stood, her armor creaking. "Stay here and keep gathering scraps of power… or go back and face what's coming."
He already knew the answer.
The portal opened behind him, pulling him back.
But this time, he wasn't going as a victim.
He was going as the hunter.