The Underground City appeared to consist of countless concentric circles radiating outward from its center, which was also her destination.
After walking for an hour, Daisy realized that even someone with no sense of direction probably wouldn’t get lost here.
As long as she followed the main passage, she would eventually reach the center.
Even so, she remained cautious.
Remembering what she had seen in movies, she marked every intersection where a straight corridor met a curved one by drawing an arrow on the ground to indicate the direction she had traveled.
The empty passage echoed only with the sound of her footsteps.
To stay focused, Daisy stopped every two hours to rest, drink water, and recover her strength.
She had been walking continuously since noon.
When she checked her mechanical watch, it was already eight o’clock in the evening, yet it felt as though she had done nothing except walk.
Sitting on the ground, she unwrapped a compressed ration bar.
After only two bites, she stuffed it back into her backpack.
It was simply too dry to eat.
She didn’t want to waste too much of her water supply.
Every drop had to be rationed carefully.
After all, Quake wasn’t Superman.
Once she obtained her superpowers, she would still have to make the entire journey back.
Closing her eyes for a moment to calm her nerves, she discovered something unexpected.
Whenever she held the obelisk, a small amount of her stamina gradually returned.
The effect was slight, but in this godforsaken place, even a little recovery was invaluable.
Gritting her teeth, she got back to her feet and continued deeper into the city.
Although she hadn’t encountered a single living creature, she kept her pistol firmly in hand.
For the moment, it was her only means of protecting herself.
By midnight, she still had enough physical strength to continue, but mentally she was exhausted.
Reluctantly, Daisy decided to stop for the night.
After taking care of her personal needs some distance away, she returned, leaned against the wall, rested her backpack on her chest, held the obelisk close to preserve what warmth she could, and gradually drifted off to sleep.
The silent Underground City had likely remained untouched for thousands of years.
It was hardly an ideal place to spend the night.
There was no bed.
No pillow.
No blanket.
She curled herself into a tight ball like a weary refugee.
Her consciousness drifted in and out.
Half asleep, she dreamed that her newest novel had been a complete failure.
Then the dream shifted.
Thanos knocked her to the ground, and blood spread everywhere.
She slept fitfully for about three hours.
When she finally awoke, she realized she really was bleeding.
Fortunately, it had nothing to do with Thanos.
It was simply her menstrual cycle.
Feeling both embarrassed and groggy, she cleaned herself up using the memories inherited from the original Daisy.
Unable to fall asleep again, she resumed her journey toward the city’s center.
…
“Oh my God…
I’m finally here!” Daisy looked utterly disheveled.
Forget looking beautiful.
Without her long hair, it would have been difficult to tell she was a woman at all.
After struggling through the Underground City for three days, she had finally reached its very center.
Six enormous stone doors stood in a perfect circle, each separated by roughly two meters, enclosing the central chamber.
At its center stood a stone platform approximately one meter high.
Looking upward, Daisy couldn’t determine how the structure had been designed, but a faint beam of light reflected through several unseen channels before landing precisely on the platform.
Massaging her stiff cheeks, she carefully examined her surroundings.
According to her memories, once the ritual began, the surrounding stone doors would automatically seal shut.
The obelisk would shed its metallic shell, revealing the Terrigen Crystal within and releasing a mysterious mist.
What worried her now was something else.
After the transformation finished…
Would the stone doors reopen on their own?
Or would they remain sealed forever?
She spent a long time searching for clues.
The result was…
Nothing.
There were no visible gears.
No mechanical systems.
No power source.
She simply couldn’t understand how the massive doors could move by themselves once the ritual began.
She took a deep breath.
Sometimes you simply had to be decisive.
If she couldn’t figure it out, worrying about it served no purpose.
Once her superpowers awakened, even completely sealed stone doors wouldn’t trap Quake for long.
People who awakened useless abilities had reason to worry.
She did not.
Taking out her last two bottles of water, she poured a little into her palm and splashed it across her face.
The cool sensation refreshed her slightly.
Carrying the obelisk, Daisy stepped onto the platform and carefully placed it in the center.
She then retreated two steps and waited.
A deep rumbling echoed throughout the chamber.
The six stone doors slowly began moving along predetermined tracks.
Three minutes later, they locked together seamlessly.
The chamber’s usable space had been cut in half.
The room was completely sealed.
The obelisk gathered the beam of light from above and slowly began rotating together with the stone platform.
A sharp metallic click echoed through the chamber.
Its outer shell shattered apart, exposing the pale blue crystal hidden inside.
The crystal seemed almost alive.
Branch after branch rapidly sprouted from its surface.
In less than ten seconds, it transformed from a single crystal into an enormous crystalline cluster.
Daisy stared without blinking.
Every muscle in her body was tense.
The veins on the backs of her hands bulged, and even her breathing became shallow.
According to the original timeline, another Inhuman had absorbed nearly half of the crystal’s energy before someone later destroyed it.
Because of that, Quake had never truly reached the potential she should have possessed.
This time would be different.
She alone would receive the crystal’s full power.
Silently, Daisy waited.
Before long, the stone platform stopped rotating.
The crystal’s explosive growth ceased.
Silence filled the chamber.
Nothing happened.
“That’s it?” She frowned in disbelief.
Tentatively, she stepped forward.
Immediately, everything changed.
The chamber’s dim lighting made it difficult to see clearly.
She vaguely noticed a cloud of gas emerging from within the crystal.
Inside the sealed room, the gas rapidly spread, carrying an unpleasant sour odor.
The air quickly became foul.
Daisy couldn’t help thinking that the air quality here would make any pollution monitor give up.
She had no idea whether breathing it was dangerous.
Before she could dwell on it further, her body suddenly went numb.
Looking down, she watched in shock as her fingers—and then her wrists—began turning to stone.
Had she not known the truth beforehand, she would have panicked completely.
Even now, she wasn’t much calmer.
Her entire body stiffened.
Dark gray stone rapidly spread upward over her skin.
“Stay calm…
it’s fine…
this is part of the process…” She desperately repeated those words to herself.
Her mind became completely blank.
The petrification spread with terrifying speed.
Within moments, she lost all sensation of the outside world.
She became a stone statue.
The ritual continued uninterrupted.
The crystal kept releasing its mist.
With nowhere else to escape inside the sealed chamber, most of it was gradually absorbed into Daisy’s body.
Only after exhausting all of its energy did the crystal dissolve into the air in a thoroughly unscientific manner.
Silence returned.
Thump…
Thump…
After an unknown amount of time, an almost imperceptible heartbeat echoed from within the stone statue.
It gradually grew stronger.
Crack…
Crack…
Fine fractures spread across the stone shell.
The first cracks appeared on her fingers.
After days of dirt and exhaustion, her newly revealed skin looked fair once more, with a healthy, radiant glow.
The cracks widened.
From her fingers…
To her palms…
To her arms…
Finally reaching her face.
Daisy instinctively sensed that the entire world now felt different.
Something inside her had fundamentally changed.
A new power surged through every part of her body.
Only the rigid stone shell still restrained it.
“Ahhh!” She cried out.
An overwhelming force erupted from deep within her cells.
It was like a flood that had been dammed for countless years.
The moment it was unleashed, nothing could contain it.
Like thunder splitting the sky, the petrified shell exploded violently from the inside out.