The Last City in the Sky

Chapter 2

Chapter 2: The Accusation Above the Clouds

The City of Aster stopped its descent for seven seconds.

Seven deceptive seconds—long enough to spawn a sliver of false hope in the minds of the citizens that they had just survived annihilation.

Then, the floor of the engine room slammed into the void once more.

Arka grabbed an iron ring on the wall, bracing his weight as he was about to be thrown. Nara struck the steel floor with her hammer, supporting herself on one trembling knee. Around them, the copper rings of the Gravity Heart roared in an increasingly wild vortex. The red light within the glass conduits surged, pumped thick like blood toward the city's arteries.

"What’s our altitude?" Nara shouted amidst the roar of the machinery.

Arka glanced at the calculation panel beside him. "One thousand six hundred meters."

"We were just above two thousand!"

"I can read the numbers, Nara!"

"Good! Then you understand that we’ll be shrapnel in a moment!"

"Not yet."

The voice from within the crystal hummed again, vibrating violently enough to c***k the air.

R-e-t-u-r-n... m-y... b-r-e-a-t-h...

The black cracks on the gray crystal widened by a hair's breadth. Black fog burst out, circling the copper rings like delicate tentacles. The locking bolts vibrated violently—one of them broke free, cutting through the air like a hollow bullet before embedding itself deep into the steel wall.

In seconds, Arka calculated the distance, the rotation speed, and the pressure surge in the main conduit.

Three possibilities. Two ended in mechanical explosion; one ended in the absolute fall of the city.

He chose the third.

"Help me reach the northern valve!" Arka exclaimed.

Nara straightened her body, bracing herself. "What are you going to do?"

"Cut the flow to the central district."

"There are nearly forty thousand souls there!"

"If it isn't cut, this Heart will suck their life force dry!"

"And if it is cut?"

"Those forty thousand people will still be breathing, even if the city has to wobble for a few minutes."

Nara stared at him sharply. "A few minutes?"

"That’s if the valve still wants to work."

"And if not?"

Arka had already jumped onto the maintenance bridge. "If not, we’ll find another way not to die."

The artificial sun trapped in the core spewed waves of scorching heat as they crossed the narrow bridge. Black fog crawled across the floor's surface, clinging to Arka’s boots and climbing up like phantom fingers searching for a pulse.

THUD!

Nara swung the blunt side of her hammer. The fog bellowed and shrieked sharply.

It wasn't the hiss of steam. It wasn't the grinding of metal. The sound was a pure scream—the scream of an ancient creature that had just been forced to remember the agony of its death.

"Don't hit anything that can scream, Nara!" Arka reprimanded without turning.

"Your advice comes too late!"

They arrived at the northern valve platform. Its locking wheel had crystallized black and cracked. Arka pulled his technical knife from his belt, inserting the steel blade between the wheel and the valve housing.

"Hold this!"

Nara grabbed the knife handle, bracing the weight. Arka gripped his wrench to the main shaft, then exerted his entire body weight to turn it.

The old metal groaned stiffly, reluctant to shift.

Below them, one of the Heart’s rings was struck by a violent tremor, slamming into the support structure. The entire bridge lifted loose, then plummeted suddenly. Nara lost her footing and nearly fell into the red glow below.

Arka’s quick reflexes caught the collar of her armor, holding her at the edge of the abyss.

"Don't fall!"

"Do you think I’m trying to fly?!" Nara gasped for air.

"Good."

Arka went back to bracing himself against the valve. He pulled the remaining melted bolt from his tool kit, forcing it into the gap of the stiff shaft. The connecting metal instantly glowed a burning red.

"Arka..." Nara murmured suddenly.

"Hold on a little longer!"

"That’s not it... Look up!"

Above the core dome, the black fog gathered neatly, binding together to form a structure resembling a giant ribcage. The empty gaps between those ribs pulsed rhythmically, aligning themselves with the roar inside the crystal.

Aster was not correcting its gravity mechanically. Something trapped was trying to breathe using the city's lungs.

Arka took a deep breath. "Turn it when I give the signal!"

"And you?"

"I'm opening the manual lock."

"And if you fail?"

"Just turn it!"

Nara let out a bitter smirk. "Every second I understand more why the Council hates you to death."

Arka slipped both hands into the narrow gap beneath the valve. The heat immediately pierced his leather glove layer. His fingers found the release lever, but it had been clogged by a clump of black crystals.

The clump squirmed. The crystal bloomed, forming finger joints that sought to grip his own.

Arka struck it with the handle of his wrench. Once. Twice. On the third strike, the crystal shattered with a crackle, spraying dense ash into his face.

Behind the thickness of the ash, an illusion flashed briefly across his eyelids—a giant eye, its size exceeding the entire expanse of the core hall. That eye opened wide, glaring from beneath the footing of the dead continent.

A voice crept coldly into his mind:

Y-o-u... a-r-e... u-s-i-n-g... m-y... b-o-n-e-s...

Arka jerked the lever. "Now!"

Nara turned the valve wheel with all her might.

CRACK!

The steel shaft broke in two, but the northern valve successfully opened fully.

The main conduit overflowed with red luminescent fluid. Instantly, the City of Aster tilted extremely to the right. Behind the inspection window, the cylindrical towers shifted aslant. A main suspension bridge snapped, was flung off, and collapsed into the ocean of clouds.

However, the numbers on the altitude indicator stopped dropping.

1,600 meters.

Then it began to crawl up.

1,601 meters... 1,603 meters...

Nara wiped the sweat from her forehead. "It worked..."

"Not yet," Arka pointed toward the flow of fluid in the newly opened conduit.

The thick red fluid was not distributed to the upper districts. The fluid was pushed heavily downward, penetrating the lower hull of the City of Aster and spilling toward the toxic fog that blanketed the dead continent.

Something down there was sucking that life force.

BAM!

The steel door of the core room was suddenly locked tightly from the outside. The echo of iron boots and the clanking of heavy weaponry were heard rushing from behind the corridor.

Nara immediately readied her hammer. "Council troops."

Arka pulled his knife back. "They responded so quickly."

"They didn't come to save us, Arka."

The locking slot was forced open from the outside. Twelve guards in full armor burst in with c****d crossbows, lining the path for a silver-haired man who stepped calmly in a dark silk robe.

Lord Rask. He did not need armor; his presence alone was enough to suppress. In Aster, no room dared to defy his will.

Rask’s cold eyes shifted from the broken valve to Arka’s face.

"Technician Veyr," Rask's voice echoed flatly. "Drop your tools."

Arka calculated the shooting angle of the crossbows, the guards' gaps, and the distance to the secret console behind him. "No."

Nara moved close to Arka’s side. "You heard the Chairman's order."

"I heard," Arka replied without shifting his gaze.

Rask sighed faintly, the gesture of a ruler disappointed in his people. "This city has just lost the power supply of an entire district. Thousands of homes are pitch black. The main anchor engine is threatened with collapse. And you are at the center of this damage."

"Then ask the right question, Lord Rask."

"The question is simple: Who ordered you to open that forbidden valve?"

"No one."

"Meaning you acted on your own volition?"

"Yes."

Rask turned slowly to the guard commander. "Secure him."

Nara raised her hammer, setting up a barricade. "Step over me first."

The guards hesitated for a moment. They weren't fools; they knew that the opening of the valve was what kept Aster from falling and hitting the earth.

Rask caught that hesitation and flashed a thin, cold smile. "Commander Sol, you are not performing protection duties. You are protecting a saboteur who is destroying the city."

"If Arka intended to destroy this city, he would have touched the main panel from the very beginning!" Nara retorted.

"The main panel?" Rask repeated, his voice lowering to a whisper.

Arka froze.

Too late.

In just the span of a breath, Rask had caught the doubt in Arka's eyes. The Council Chairman apparently already knew of the main panel's existence—and he knew exactly what secret was stored behind it.

"Take them both," Rask ordered coldly. "And seal this room tightly."

Arka stepped forward one pace. "If this room is sealed without circulation, the crystal pressure will blow up the entire hull of the city!"

"Then," Rask looked at him without emotion, "you must pray that I am willing to believe you."

"It's not to me you should be praying, Rask," Arka whispered. "You should be praying to this machine."

THUMP.

The gray crystal behind them pulsed hard.

THUMP.

The second pulse shook the steel walls. On the third vibration, the black cracks widened. From its depths, the echo of that ancient voice crawled out again, booming to fill every corner of the room.

The voice was no longer asking. The voice was demanding.

R-E-T-U-R-N... M-Y... B-R-E-A-T-H!

Every crystal light went out instantly. The corridor plunged into pitch darkness.

In the gloom, Arka grabbed Nara’s wrist and pulled her hard toward the niche of the main panel.

"What are you doing?!" Nara whispered in panic.

"Doing what they fear most."

Arka pressed his palm against the steel plate of the panel. Behind the thick wall, the ancient mechanism responded with a pulse identical to Arka’s own heartbeat.

"The Council isn't afraid of a falling city, Nara," Arka whispered while turning the secret key. "They are afraid of what is beneath us."

CLICK.

The steel panel slid open. Behind it, instead of a complicated network of gears and steam pipes, there was an ancient stone staircase, steep and piercing the bottomless darkness.

And from the depths of that underground passage, a muffled echo was heard—the sound of thousands of human breaths exhaling in unison in the dark.