The skies above Lively Valley remained streaked with clouds like oil paint dragged across a canvas. Shafts of golden sunlight pierced through in places, giving the whole region a heavenly — almost eerie — glow. The group walked slowly now, still shaken from the earlier confrontation with Mahito and the arrival of the Jujutsu sorcerers. Tension clung to the air like humidity.
We walked deeper into the valley, the terrain subtly shifting with every step. Trees with bark the color of copper towered over us, their leaves shimmering with a crystalline hue. Streams snaked across the land, glowing faintly blue, giving off a soft hum like music only the earth could hear.
Sofia was scribbling in her notebook again. "I think this place might be reactive to our presence," she muttered, almost to herself. "Or maybe it's built that way. Engineered. Like a living biome tuned to something bigger than us."
"You're saying the valley is alive?" asked Ethan, cracking a burning ember across his knuckles like it was a stress ball.
"Not alive," Sofia said, tapping her pen. "But... aware."
Lucas sat by a flat stone, eyes on the horizon. "Anyone else feel like we're walking through a fairy tale written by someone with a god complex?"
"You're not wrong," said Ivy, who had her arms crossed, always looking like she was trying to calculate the nearest threat. "This whole place feels curated."
The group stumbled upon ancient ruins not marked on any map, if maps even existed here. The structures were tall — obsidian black — with glowing green lines running through them like veins. It resembled something between ancient architecture and digital design.
"This wasn't made by humans," said Riku, his holographic tablet flickering to life. "At least not from our world. It's got design language from game engines... Unreal? No — older. Custom code."
Ayaka brushed dust off a pillar with her gloved fingers. "It might be a convergence point," she suggested. "Where realities collapse in on one another. It'd explain why we're seeing beings from different universes."
"So what, this is the heart of the Entertainment Multiverse or something?" Jack asked. "Weird that it looks so... pretty."
Mei Ling kneeled by a flower blooming through the cracks of stone. It glowed faintly. She didn't touch it. "Beauty hides a blade sometimes. This place doesn't want us dead. It wants us to stay."
N and Uzi were in the rear, whispering to each other. They scanned the terrain like seasoned scouts. V, hovering nearby, kept one hand on her hip and the other on a massive serrated blade she'd found in a weapon cache earlier.
"We've seen places like this before in the Outer Rings," N said. "Dead colonies. Empty, but echoing."
"Except this place isn't dead yet," Uzi added, her voice unusually serious.
They reached a ridge that overlooked the valley. What lay beyond was staggering — a massive tower in the distance, pulsing like a heartbeat. Light rippled from its peak, sending waves across the land. It was beautiful and terrifying. A beacon, or a warning.
"That," said Rose, her voice low, "is not an accident."
Satoshi tilted his head. "You think Jerry made that?"
"No," Rose said. "But he knows what it is. He's ahead of us. And whatever that tower is... it's part of the game he's playing."
As the group prepared to move again, a soft breeze rolled through the trees. Hidden between rustling branches was the faint sound of music — not natural, but synthetic. Auto-tuned, harmonized. And then a whisper:
"Welcome to Stage 2."