Mechanical Planet.
Beast Arena.
Heart Exchange Competition.
An unnamed wind rose, sweeping up the blood-red soil within the arena.
Little Bottle Cap stood in the center, her soft hair and floral dress swaying gently.
This little girl from the garbage dump had endured the darkest childhood, been bullied, humiliated, and stripped of everything. Her heart had once known boundless despair.
Yet she had still survived with strength.
Perhaps somewhere in her heart, there was still a bright sun, only it had sunk a little too deep.
She walked through endless darkness, believing that one day, that sun would break through the horizon and cast down sunlight enough for all things to grow.
She did not know whether that day a year ago had been a sign of the sun rising.
In any case.
She had obtained an electronic creature.
Named SDERS.
Little Bottle Cap raised her chin slightly and looked calmly at Flower Bud across from her. "Stop pretending."
At that moment, the trembling Flower Bud sensed a different sort of presence.
The other party's perception seemed capable of covering the earth.
All disguises were meaningless.
The mist in Flower Bud's eyes dispersed.
Her clear, watery eyes turned dark green—not the green of vitality, but one filled with eerie strangeness.
In that instant.
Snow-white roots grew beneath Flower Bud at a speed visible to the naked eye, tangling together. They did not burrow into the soil, but condensed in midair.
Those roots gradually formed a torso, their vitality immensely vigorous as their mass grew ever larger.
Flower Bud's original body was also carried high into the air along with the growing torso.
The snow-white roots became thicker and more numerous.
Its massive body gradually blocked Shaowei Zengba, the distant star radiating light.
With every breath.
This unknown creature's body grew