Genome Beta remained sitting motionless on the endless field of grass, her shoulders lowered as though every ounce of determination had been drained from her body. She had spent nearly two days travelling thousands of kilometres, only to discover that she had unknowingly been running in circles while wasting the precious energy of her mech suit.

"...What am I supposed to do now?" Genome Beta muttered quietly, her voice carrying an exhaustion that had nothing to do with physical fatigue. "Is there really no end to this place?"

She slowly lifted her head toward the endless horizon.

The mysterious white light her reconnaissance drone had detected still lingered in her thoughts. According to every calculation performed by her suit, it should have been only a few thousand kilometres away. Instead, no matter how far she travelled, she always found herself returning to the same location.

It was as though the destination existed...

Yet refused to be reached.

Ordinary humans could easily lose their sense of direction while wandering across identical terrain for hours. Without landmarks, even experienced explorers eventually drifted into circles due to subtle differences in their stride length and body balance.

Genome Beta, however, wasn’t relying on instinct.

She was wearing one of the most sophisticated military technologies ever created by the Delta Division.

And yet...

Even it had failed.

Genome Beta simply sat there in silence.

Hours quietly slipped away without the slightest change in the scenery.

The grass continued swaying beneath the same endless blue sky.

The wind maintained exactly the same speed.

The lighting never dimmed.

Nothing moved.

Nothing appeared.

....Nothing happened.

She almost hoped something would attack her.

At least then she would know she wasn’t completely alone.

Instead...

The world remained perfectly silent.

Almost an entire day passed before she finally sighed.

"...Nothing..."

She had expected that perhaps remaining stationary would trigger some kind of environmental reaction.

Nothing came.

Her remaining power continued falling little by little despite every conservation measure she implemented.

For the first time in years...

She genuinely considered giving up.

Then...

A familiar face suddenly appeared within her thoughts.

Genome Beta’s fingers slowly tightened into fists.

"...No. I can’t die here."

The hopelessness in her expression gradually disappeared.

"I still have to bring her back."

She slowly stood up before looking toward the endless horizon once again. Countless possibilities raced through her mind as she analysed everything that had happened since arriving in this impossible world.

"If ordinary navigation doesn’t work...then I’ll create my own reference frame."

"...Activate Tracker Network."

One of the metallic tendrils extending from her back immediately detached itself before its outer shell dissolved into billions of microscopic nanomachines. The swarm flowed through the air like liquid mercury before rapidly assembling into a small triangular beacon roughly the size of her pinky finger.

Its appearance closely resembled a golf Tee!

Tiny pink lights illuminated across its surface.

[Tactical Tracker Node - TTX-01]

Genome Beta gently placed the tracker onto the grass before walking forward in an absolutely straight line.

Exactly ten kilometres later, she stopped immediately before deploying a second tracker.

Sssnnn~

The instant the second beacon activated, a thin pink holographic beam flickered into existence between both devices. The beam floated several centimetres above the ground while streams of positional data continuously flowed across its surface.

Genome Beta carefully examined the results.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Tracker Synchronisation Complete]

Node Separation: 10.000 km

Angular Deviation: 0.001°

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

She nodded with quiet satisfaction.

"So far... everything is normal."

If the world truly forced travellers into circular paths, then leaving behind precisely measured reference points would eventually reveal the distortion.

Without hesitation, she continued forward.

Every ten kilometres...

Another tracker.

Then another.

And another.

Each beacon automatically synchronised with the growing network, extending the holographic guidance line farther across the endless plains. Behind her, dozens of pink markers now formed an almost perfectly straight chain stretching toward the distant horizon.

Hours quietly slipped by.

Twelve hours later...

Genome Beta finally slowed her pace.

Her eyes gradually widened.

Standing directly in front of her...

Was the very first tracker she had placed.

"..."

She remained completely silent.

Her expression showed neither surprise nor panic.

Only disbelief.

"...I really came back."

Despite walking in what every instrument insisted was a perfectly straight line, she had once again returned to her starting point.

Slowly, she walked toward the final tracker still resting in her hand.

"...Connect."

Sssnnng~

The final node synchronised with the network.

Every tracker immediately illuminated simultaneously as countless pink beams linked together into a single holographic projection suspended before her visor.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Tracker Network Complete]

Total Active Nodes: 613

Total Measured Distance: 6,130 km

Processing Spatial Coordinates...

Cross-Referencing Quantum Position Data...

Generating Topological Map...

Analyzing Non-Euclidean Deviations...

Spatial Reconstruction...

14%

37%

62%

89%

100%

Analysis Complete.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

A large holographic map gradually materialised before her eyes.

Genome Beta stared at it without blinking.

"...What?"

According to every positional record collected from more than six hundred synchronised trackers...

The route she had travelled formed a perfect loop.

Yet the reconstructed spatial map generated by the tracker network showed something completely different.

Instead of a circle...

Every recorded waypoint aligned into a single, perfectly straight line extending endlessly toward the horizon.

"How...?"

Genome Beta stared blankly at the holographic map suspended before her visor.

Her eyes repeatedly moved between the endless grassland before her and the reconstructed route generated by the tracker network.

"...No..."

This wasn’t possible.

She had expected the trackers to reveal a massive circle.

Or perhaps an enormous spiral.

Even an irregular shape would have made sense if some unknown force had been subtly altering her direction.

Instead...

The map displayed a single, perfectly straight line.

According to more than six hundred synchronised tracker nodes spread across thousands of kilometres, she had never deviated from her course by more than a thousandth of a degree.

Genome Beta slowly shook her head.

"That’s impossible..."

She had physically returned to the place where she had deployed the first tracker.

She had seen it.

She had touched it.

The broken remains of the reconnaissance drone were still lying nearby.

Reality itself proved she had walked in a complete circle.

Yet every tracker insisted she had travelled in a perfectly straight line.

The contradiction made no sense.

"Arrghhh!!"

She shouted in frustration as her armoured fist slammed into the ground, sending dirt and grass flying several meters into the air.

"There has to be something I’m missing..."

Her breathing gradually became heavier.

"No... think."

"If the tracker map is truly a straight line..."

"...then the first and last tracker shouldn’t occupy the same position."

Her eyes suddenly narrowed.

"...Zoom in."

The holographic map rapidly expanded until individual tracker nodes became clearly distinguishable.

Genome Beta immediately highlighted the first tracker before selecting the final one she had just deployed.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Node TTX-001

Coordinates:

X: 0.000

Y: 0.000

Z: 0.000

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Node TTX-613

Coordinates:

X: 6,130.000 km

Y: 0.000

Z: 0.000

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"...Connect both endpoints."

[Command Accepted]

Processing...

A thin pink holographic line immediately connected the first tracker with the final tracker.

Genome Beta watched silently.

Her expression gradually changed from confusion...

To disbelief.

"...What?"

The endpoints connected perfectly.

And yet...

They didn’t.

Although the holographic projection showed both nodes physically touching one another, the coordinate data insisted they remained separated by exactly 6,130 kilometres.

Both locations occupied the same physical position...

While simultaneously existing at completely different coordinates.

"What the fuck is going on here?!"

A chill slowly crept down her spine.

That thought terrified her more than any monster ever could.

She slowly collapsed onto the grass before wrapping both arms around her knees.

"...W-What am I supposed to do now...?"

Her voice had become noticeably weaker.

Almost instinctively, she requested another supplement.

The microscopic injectors extended from inside the suit before delivering another carefully measured dose into her bloodstream.

****

Three more days quietly passed.

Genome Beta continued walking despite knowing she was getting nowhere.

Every step felt heavier than the last.

The combat supplements successfully suppressed her hunger, but they couldn’t replace actual water. Her throat had become painfully dry, her muscles ached beneath the armour, and even her thoughts felt increasingly sluggish.

The mech suit wasn’t in much better condition.

Its once brilliant pink energy lines had gradually dimmed into a faint glow.

She staggered forward while breathing heavily.

"Huff... huff..."

Her lips had become cracked from dehydration.

Even swallowing had become difficult.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[WARNING]

Remaining Power: 0.98%

Emergency Reserve Activated

All Non-Essential Systems: Offline

Estimated Operational Time Remaining: 00:08:37

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"...Damn it..."

She continued walking.

One step.

Then another.

The armour no longer amplified her movements.

Every kilogram of the mech suit now rested entirely upon her exhausted body.

Six days.

No water.

No food.

No rest capable of truly restoring her strength.

Only artificial nutrients barely keeping her alive.

Her vision gradually blurred.

She resembled a lost traveller wandering through an endless desert in search of an oasis that didn’t exist.

Then...

Everything went dark.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[CRITICAL FAILURE]

Primary Reactor: Offline

Power Reserve: 0.0011%

Emergency Battery:

System Shutdown Initiated...

10%

34%

68%

100%

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Genome Beta Offline]

The mech suit instantly lost power.

Every pink energy circuit running across its surface slowly faded until only dull black metal remained.

Even the metallic tendrils extending from her back lost all strength before collapsing lifelessly onto the grass with heavy metallic thuds.

Thud!

Genome Beta collapsed face-first onto the grass.

She didn’t have enough strength left to stand.

Her dry, cracked lips parted slightly as she struggled to breathe.

"..."

She remained completely motionless.

Not because she wanted to...

But because she no longer could.

At that exact moment, far away in another part of this strange world, the young Aether was quietly speaking with Maiuri when his expression suddenly froze.

His eyes shifted toward the distant horizon.