From the inside out, this underground city was composed of numerous concentric circles, with the center being her destination. Daisy had walked for an hour and felt that even a person with no sense of direction wouldn't get lost; she just needed to follow the straight path.
However, she didn't let her guard down. Imitating what she saw on TV, whenever she passed a point where an arc and a straight line intersected, she would draw an arrow on the ground to mark her direction.
In the empty passage, only her footsteps could be heard. To keep herself alert, Daisy would stop every two hours to rest, drink water, and regain her strength.
Thus, from the time she descended the watchtower at noon, her mechanical watch now showed it was 8 PM, and she felt like she had been walking continuously.
Sitting on the ground, she ate a few bites of a compressed biscuit before throwing it back into her backpack. She simply couldn't eat it! It was too dry! She didn't want to consume too much water, as these supplies needed to be carefully managed. After all, Quake wasn't Superman; she still had to return the same way after gaining her powers.
She closed her eyes briefly to ease her somewhat tense nerves. She found that simply holding the obelisk would restore some of her stamina. Although it wasn't much, it was precious in this dreadful place.
Gritting her teeth, she stood up and continued deeper.
Even though she hadn't seen a single soul along the way, she still clutched her pistol tightly; it was her only means of survival at the moment.
By midnight that day, she still had some physical reserves, but her mind was utterly exhausted.
Daisy had no choice but to end her journey for the day.
After taking care of her personal needs from a distance, she sat with her back against the wall, her backpack on her chest, holding the obelisk to keep her body warm, and closed her eyes, falling into a deep sleep.
This silent, dark underground city, untouched by human presence for thousands of years, was hardly a suitable place for sleep. Without a comfortable bed, pillow, or blankets, she huddled pitifully like a refugee.
Her consciousness drifted between clarity and confusion. In a semi-sleep state, she dreamt of her new book failing miserably, then of being knocked down by Thanos, blood pooling on the ground.
She slept intermittently for three hours, and upon waking, she realized she was indeed bleeding, though it had nothing to do with Brother Thanos; it was purely a "personal" issue… With a face full of embarrassment and confusion, she tidied herself up based on her past memories. Unable to sleep further, she decided to continue towards the city center… "Oh my god! I'm finally here!" Daisy was disheveled at this point, far from a sixty-point beauty; if not for her long hair, her gender would be almost indistinguishable. After stumbling for three days, she finally arrived at the very heart of the city.
Six tall stone gates were arranged in a circle, spaced two meters apart, supporting the inner stone chamber. In the center was a one-meter-high stone platform. Daisy looked at the top; she didn't know how the structure here was designed, but a not-too-intense beam of light, after several refractions, landed precisely on the stone platform.
Rubbing her somewhat stiff cheeks, Daisy first observed her surroundings.
She recalled that once the ritual began, the surrounding stone gates would automatically close, forming a sealed environment. The obelisk would then shed its metallic outer shell, revealing the Terrigen crystal inside, and disperse a misty substance.
Her current concern was whether these stone gates would automatically open once the evolution was complete, or if they would remain permanently sealed.
She meticulously observed for a long time, but her research yielded no results. With no mechanical transmission or power supply, she simply couldn't fathom how these stone gates would move on their own once the ritual began!
A woman must be a little ruthless with herself. If she couldn't figure something out, she wouldn't dwell on it. With her powers, even if the stone gates sealed permanently, she wouldn't be afraid. Those who evolved with useless abilities needed to worry, but she, the mighty Quake, had no need to worry!
She took out the last two bottles of water, poured a little into her palm, and wiped it across her face, making herself look a bit more refreshed.
Daisy placed the obelisk in the exact center of the stone platform, stepped back two paces, and waited for the ritual to begin.
Amidst a rumbling tremor,
the six stone gates began to move slowly along a predetermined trajectory. Three minutes later, they were tightly sealed against each other, reducing the interior space by half, and the sealed environment was complete.
The obelisk, now illuminated by the light projected from above, began to rotate with the stone platform, much to her excitement.
With crisp "crack-crack" sounds, the metallic skin of the obelisk peeled away, revealing the pale blue crystal within. The crystal, like a living entity, automatically sprouted numerous branches, transforming from a single crystal into a crystal cluster in just ten seconds.
Daisy watched the crystal grow wildly, veins bulging on the back of her hands, her nostrils subtly flaring, her gaze fixed on the crystal cluster. In the original timeline, half of the crystal energy was shared with another Inhuman, and then the evolving crystal was shattered by some well-meaning person, meaning that Quake never reached her full potential.
Now, with this evolution all to herself, everything would be different.
Daisy waited silently. Before long, the stone platform stopped rotating, and the wild growth of the crystal cluster also subsided. The surroundings fell silent, with no anomalies to be seen.
Was that it? She was a little disbelieving.
She took a step forward, and a sudden change occurred.
The light in the stone chamber was somewhat dim, and Daisy couldn't see very clearly, but she vaguely saw the crystal seemingly Spray a burst of gas from within. The gas quickly fermented in the sealed environment, emitting a somewhat sour smell.
The air was a bit foul. Daisy could guarantee that the PM2.5 levels here were definitely off the charts, and she didn't know if inhaling this stuff was harmful to her lungs.
As she was lost in thought, she felt a tingling sensation in her body. Looking down, she saw herself beginning to petrify from her fingertips to her wrists.
If she hadn't known the truth, she would have been scared senseless… In fact, she wasn't doing much better at the moment. Her body was becoming increasingly rigid, and a dark gray stony substance rapidly climbed over her body.
"Calm down, it's fine, this is all part of the process!" She tried hard to encourage herself, her mind a blank. The petrification was extremely fast, and she lost all sensation of the outside world, completely turning into a stone statue.
The ritual did not stop. The crystal continued to emit mist, and in this sealed environment, the mist had nowhere to go, with most of it eventually being absorbed into Daisy's body.
Until the crystal exhausted its energy, it unscientifically evaporated into the air, and the stone chamber fell into silence.
"Thump… thump…" After an unknown period, a faint, almost imperceptible heartbeat emanated from within the stone statue, growing increasingly clear.
"Crash!" "Crash!" The stone statue began to crack. First, it was her fingers.
After days of toil, her previously stained fingers became fair again, faintly exuding a subtle luster.
The cracks grew larger, from her fingers to her palms, her arms, and all the way to her cheeks.
Daisy felt that the entire world had changed in her perception, though she wasn't yet clear how. Something else had also appeared within her body, but all of this was obstructed by a very uncomfortable layer of stone skin.
"Ah!—" She let out a loud cry. A surge of power erupted from her cells, like a long-accumulated flood. Once mobilized, this power was overwhelmingly abundant, like a sudden clap of thunder on flat ground, and the stone skin exploded outward from within