The knocking stopped.
Silence crept through the apartment corridor, the kind that feels like a breath held too long. Arel stood frozen, fingers cold, eyes locked on the door that suddenly felt… alive.
Mira raised her small blade slowly, her whole body tense.
"Arel… listen to me. Whatever that is, don't open the door. If we have to, we're jumping out the balcony."
Arel swallowed hard.
"But that voice… it really sounded like my dad."
Mira shot him a look that was almost pity.
"That's exactly why it's dangerous. Powerful entities don't copy voices for fun. They choose the one that can break you."
Arel opened his mouth to reply
But the voice spoke again.
This time deeper, raspier, like someone talking from inside a slab of stone.
"Arel Jian Tang… your blood is stirring. You cannot run from Edenveil."
Mira grabbed Arel's arm, gripping hard.
"If you open that thing… I'm out of your life. No joke."
Arel stared at the door.
Something had changed.
The surface of the wood was shifting ever so slightly… like breathing. And from the narrow gap under the door, a draft rolled in cold, carrying the same scent of damp earth as the tremor the night before.
Arel backed away.
"Okay… yeah. That's not my dad."
Mira pulled him further.
"Balcony. Down to the next floor. We need a safe spot."
But before they moved, the knocking changed.
GRARAK. GRAK. KRAAAK.
Claws.
Something was dragging its nails across the door from the outside.
Both of them froze.
The scratching stopped.
Then came a whisper far too close, far too intimate right against Arel's ear.
"Tang heir… I can smell the fruit… inside your blood…"
Arel trembled.
Then
BRUUUSSSSHHHH.
Every light on the floor died.
Total darkness.
Arel almost screamed. Mira covered his mouth.
And then… nothing.
Silence so heavy it felt like a weight.
And the presence outside the door vanished.
Minutes later, Arel and Mira managed to climb down from the balcony to the 71st floor. They ran into the emergency stairwell, lungs burning.
"You know what that thing was?" Arel stammered.
Mira didn't look back.
"I have a guess… but I hope I'm wrong."
"What?"
Her voice dropped to a sharp whisper.
"The Fruit Keeper. A creature that appears every time the Life Fruit nears maturity."
Her eyes went distant for a moment.
"The Demon Cult calls it the 'Gate Opener.' Shaolin believed it's a parasite from Eden's dimension."
Arel hesitated on the next step.
"If it's after me… why?"
Mira turned to face him something heavy in her gaze.
"Arel… the Fruit isn't just an object. It's pure energy, primordial spiritual force. And the Tree chooses its vessel thousands of years before the Fruit matures."
She scanned him from head to toe.
"That's why you were born from the Tang line. Your father wasn't just a sect leader… he was the keeper of the inheritance."
Arel's breath hitched.
"You're talking like you knew him."
Mira went silent long enough for anger to rise in Arel's chest.
"You did know something. You knew he wasn't dead."
Mira bit her lip, frustrated.
"I… I only know rumors. Not facts."
"What rumors?!"
Finally, she answered:
"Rumors that Tang Khaiel didn't die. He… vanished. Into Edenveil."
Arel felt the floor drop from under him.
His father…
Into Edenveil?
The gate even the great sects won't touch?
Before he could say another word, a new sound echoed from the stairwell above.
Footsteps.
Slow. Steady. Measured.
Mira gripped her blade with both hands.
"This isn't the entity from before," she whispered. "These are human footsteps."
The steps descended closer.
And then a figure appeared around the corner.
Not a monster.
Not a creature.
A man in a black robe with red carvings.
A demon-carved mask covering his face.
A thin roning blade in his left hand.
And in his right… a dark crimson scroll.
Mira cursed.
"The Demon Cult."
The masked man stopped three steps above them.
His voice was heavy and distorted.
"Arel Jian Tang… we have searched for you for twenty-two years."
He raised the scroll.
"We bring the decree. When the Fruit ripens, your blood will open Edenveil. And you… will free us."
Arel whispered,
"Me? Free you? Hell no."
The man chuckled softly.
"You have no choice, Tang heir. The Tree chose you. Just as it chose your father."
Arel froze.
His father… chosen too?
Mira stepped forward, blocking Arel with her body.
"You'll have to go through me first, bastard."
The masked man bowed slightly.
"With pleasure."
He lifted his hand.
From the scroll, black smoke poured forth
Screaming faces, writhing forms, the smoke itself moving like a starving creature.
Arel stumbled back.
Mira braced herself.
The masked man spoke three quiet words:
"Shake the Eden."
And the smoke lunged.
Elsewhere, far from Arel's apartment…
Dr. Lynette Varro stared at a new surge of energy spiking across her screen far stronger than the last two tremors. A blinking point appeared on the city map:
Ravel Tower Floors 70–75.
Lynette covered her mouth, horrified.
"The third sign," she whispered.
"The Fruit… is almost waking."
On the monitor, the energy pattern was no longer just a Tree.
It was a door.