"Ha... ha."

"Where in the world am I?"

"Where exactly am I?"

Oedipus ran through the deserted corridor, dimly lit with flickering red lights. In the deep, indescribable sounds seemed to echo.

On either side of the corridor were endless smooth mirrors reflecting Oedipus's haggard and panicked face back at her.

Once renowned as the Red Rose, Oedipus now seemed on the verge of withering away.

"Rushing into unfamiliar territory, you've been too reckless," a mirrored Oedipus spoke, her eyes gleaming with an eerie blue light, addressing Oedipus hauntingly.

"Quiet! Don't bother me!!"

Oedipus's emotions were on the brink of collapse, feeling extremely unsafe without her powers.

She looked fearfully towards the dark end of the corridor behind her, leaning against the wall, bending down, almost kneeling.

"Wait... wait, let me calm down."

"I probably snuck into the Smoke-Free Zone with Michael and the others."

"When did I lose track of them... at Level β?"

The Smoke-Free Zone was a building where laboratories were divided into four levels - Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta, based on the danger levels of the captured angels. The higher the level, the more dangerous it became, with a deeper blend of illusions and reality.

In the Delta area, the line between illusion and reality visibly blurred. Without a strong will, even seasoned researchers could lose track of themselves, unsure if they were alive or dead.

One after another, deceased researchers wandered about, often unaware of their own deaths, transitioning to the other side.

Here, logic, ethics, and laws of physics lost all meaning, with everyone forced to combat a singular enemy - madness.

Yet, even so, Oedipus had to go there.

Because the culmination of the entire lab's research, the machines for aside and backdrop, lay there. Additionally, it harbored many research materials and memories of the lab personnel.

According to Beezelbub, the secrets buried there could potentially destroy the entire lab.

Before Michael and the others arrived, Oedipus had to reach there first, hide or destroy the data to safeguard the lab's secrets.

And most crucially... Oedipus was pregnant.

Normally, no Acadia individual would willingly conceive, let alone bear a child with a foreigner.

Oedipus couldn't divulge her pregnancy to anyone, not willing to terminate the hard-earned fruition of her and her partner, fearing the birth of a monstrosity.

However, Beezelbub revealed a possible solution just then - ascending to the Delta rooftop of the Smoke-Free Zone to peruse the lab research data.

Surely, there lay a method to prevent her child from becoming a monster.

For her own sake, her unborn child, and the continuity of the lab's research, Oedipus, alone, ventured into the lab, striving with mortal strength to scale the Babel Tower built with the toils and sweat of elite researchers from various nations.

She competed against Michael and the others with confidence, believing that angels were confined and most traps geared towards them. Thus, any normal person overcoming illusions stood a chance to reach the rooftop.

In this regard, magic or not, the difference wasn't significant, bolstering Oedipus's resolve against Michael and the rest.

Yet, she was mistaken, gravely so.

"I think you're still in the Beta area."

"Look at that restroom up ahead."

"Isn't it exactly the same as what we saw when we first entered the Beta area?"

spoke the mirrored Oedipus.

As Oedipus reached the end of the corridor, she beheld the familiar porcelain white door of the restroom, triggering a flood of fear within her.

Trembling, she reached out, pushing open the restroom door once again.

Inside lay... her own corpse.

A gaping wound, from navel to vagina, disfigured the massive scar on the body.

White intestines spilled out, resembling an umbilical cord.