Morning light filtered through the branches of the lime-oak, scattering pale gold over Camp Stymphalian.
The camp gathered under it slowly, one by one, pulled by the same message that had appeared on Phong's menu.
Dominic arrived first, still half asleep and carrying a mug of coffee.
Janet followed with her usual calm face, though the slight crease between her brows gave away her curiosity.
Jake and Jack whispered theories to each other.
Séline and Camille stood together, visibly excited in the way divers always got when the dungeon did something completely insane.
At the center stood Phong.
His menu window hovered in the air for everyone to see.
The message was still there.
Request Received
Please fix this land.
— Sincerely, the entity you call the Sky Emperor
No one spoke for a few seconds.
The silence felt heavy with disbelief.
Finally Dominic scratched his head.
"…That's not a quest."
"No," Janet said quietly. "It isn't."
They all knew what system quests looked like.
Formal.
Structured.
Numbered.
Rewards listed.
Requirements defined.
This was different.
This was a request.
From a floor boss.
And not just any floor boss.
From the Sky Emperor.
Jake let out a long whistle.
"I don't think the Divers Association has anything like this on record."
Jack nodded.
"Floor bosses usually don't send polite messages."
Alex leaned lightly against Phong's shoulder, studying the floating text with narrowed eyes.
Then she poked him in the ribs.
"Told you."
Phong looked down.
"Told me what?"
"That you're way more special than the rest of us."
He groaned softly.
"At this point I've given up arguing."
He waved one hand.
"Call me an anomaly. Call me a glitch. Whatever."
That broke the tension.
The camp burst into laughter.
Even Dominic nearly spilled his coffee.
Once the laughter faded, Phong crossed his arms and thought out loud.
"There's something else."
Everyone turned toward him.
"You remember the first quest I ever got?"
Janet nodded.
"Plant potatoes in the dungeon."
Phong looked back at the message.
"…I'm starting to think that quest also came from the Sky Emperor."
The group blinked.
Dominic slowly lowered his mug.
"That… actually makes sense."
The Sky Emperor represented order.
Balance.
Ecosystem control.
Encouraging a farmer to cultivate sustainable growth instead of reckless slaughter…
That sounded exactly like something an entity of order would do.
Jake exhaled.
"So the Emperor has been nudging you since the start."
Phong shrugged helplessly.
"Looks like it."
Séline suddenly snapped her fingers.
"We need Selena."
Everyone nodded at once.
If anyone could process this properly, it was their resident dungeon theorist.
The call connected a few minutes later.
Selena appeared on screen.
Hair messy.
Glasses crooked.
Vanessa's shoulder visible behind her, clearly listening.
Phong began explaining.
Halfway through, Selena stopped breathing.
By the time he finished describing Em disguised as Emma…
Selena nearly fainted.
Vanessa grabbed the chair before she slid out of it.
"Thirteen…?" Selena whispered weakly.
"Did you say thirteen catastrophe-level entities?"
"Apparently," Dominic said.
Selena stared into the camera like someone whose entire academic framework had just been run over by a truck.
"My whole model…"
"My trinity…"
She rubbed her forehead.
Before this, Selena had been building a theory.
Three fundamental dungeon forces.
Life.
Order.
Death and rebirth.
Represented by:
Horns of the Earth.
Sky Emperor.
Monstrous Phoenix.
Now?
A fourth entity had appeared.
And it was something else entirely.
Selena's eyes slowly lit up.
"Wait."
She sat up so suddenly her glasses slipped.
"What was its personality like?"
Phong thought for a moment.
"Playful."
"Manipulative."
"Enjoying chaos."
Selena's eyes widened even more.
"That's it."
She grabbed a notebook at once.
"Chaos."
"Order versus chaos."
She started writing like her hand might catch fire.
"If the Sky Emperor represents Order…"
"Then Em may represent Chaos itself. That would explain why it seems to hate the Emperor. They're fundamental opposites."
Vanessa leaned into frame.
"Please do not encourage the cosmic horror."
Selena ignored her completely.
"Thirteen Pillars… thirteen floors…"
"Oh my god…"
"I hate how this is terrifying and fascinating at the same time."
While Selena spiraled into theory mode, Little Fireball slept peacefully inside Phong's hood.
Her tiny body rose and fell with soft breaths.
No one suspected anything.
No one knew that only hours earlier she had stood before the Azure Dragon in her true form.
The Monstrous Phoenix Suzaku.
And had been thoroughly scolded.
The Sky Emperor had not been amused.
Fifty square miles of dungeon terrain had been flattened during her fight with Em.
Whole herds erased.
Ecosystems wrecked.
The punishment had been swift.
Most of Suzaku's power had been sealed.
For now.
Em had received a much less subtle punishment.
The Azure Dragon had personally beaten the chaos entity into submission before forcing it to retreat.
At the moment, Em was licking its wounds somewhere deep on the Eighth Floor.
Recovering.
Quietly.
Back at camp, Phong decided it was time to inspect the damage.
He walked to the edge of the newly shifted territory.
The land was a ruin.
Blackened earth stretched across the horizon.
Charred stone.
Cracked ground.
Pockets of molten rock still glowed faintly.
Heat rolled off the soil like an open furnace.
Phong stared at it for a long moment.
Then sighed.
"This is impossible."
Everyone behind him silently agreed.
Nothing could grow here.
Not yet.
So Phong did something no one had ever tried before.
He opened the menu again.
And typed directly under the request.
With his finger.
Reply:
Land is too hot to do anything right now.
I need to wait for it to cool down first.
He closed the menu.
The camp stared at him.
"You can do that?" Dominic asked.
"No idea," Phong admitted.
Five seconds later, the menu blinked again.
A reply appeared.
Response:
Understandable.
Everyone froze.
Then very slowly turned toward Phong.
The Sky Emperor…
Had replied.
Casually.
Politely.
Janet rubbed her temples.
"I think I preferred it when floor bosses just tried to kill us."
Dominic laughed helplessly.
"Same."
None of them realized something important.
The Sky Emperor seemed calm.
Reasonable.
Even polite.
But it had been shaping events long before they understood it existed.
The bamboo ant siege.
The ecosystem balance.
The silent enforcement of dungeon order.
All of it had moved under its gaze.
And now—
It had personally asked the farmer of Camp Stymphalian to repair a battlefield created by two fighting Pillars.