The news about Luda's passing somehow lowered the girl's hope of escaping the demonic tower. And also, the vent team girls also realized that they're not alone in the air vent, the armed men also have access to this very maze-like place. That means that they have to escape immediately, before anything bad happens to them.

It's been a few hours since they left their last spot. They decided not to go back and see Luda, but continue their journey of finding the next checkpoint. Meiqi was half conscious, and Eunseo was carrying her on her back.

"Wanna take turns?" Chengxiao asked, offering Eunseo to take turns carrying Meiqi.

"No, I'm fine." Eunseo said, smiling.

They continued walking in silence.

"Eunseo, do you really think that there's someone behind all of this? I mean, this looks like something is very well planned." Chengxiao asked while stating her opinion.

"Well, I guess you're not wrong. I do think there's someone behind all of this. Perhaps, the armed men?" Eunseo replied, not sure of what's happening.

"Hmm, why would the armed men do this to us in the first place? It's not like we knew them personally, how annoying." Chengxiao stated her opinion, again.

"I'm not sure. but whoever it is, I believe it's not one of our members." Eunseo replied.

Before they even had the chance to continue the conversation, suddenly Meiqi is found hyperventilating heavily. She is currently experiencing a terrible shortness of breath. The other girls from the venting team had a bad omen about this.

"Oh my goodness, Meiqi, are you okay?!"

Chengxiao asked as they stopped walking to check Meiqi's condition. Meiqi couldn't answer the question. Eunseo and Chengxiao tried to put Meiqi in a comfortable position and after that, they checked her wound.

Eunseo opened the bandage and gasped. There's a eggy white ooze flowing from her wound, and it looks really bad because the surrounding part of the body started to blacken. Chengxiao immediately tore a little bit of her clothes off and used it to cover the wound.

"We don't have much time! We need to find the next checkpoint!" Chengxiao said, panicked.

"We've been walking for hours and there's nothing! I don't think we will find it anytime soon." Eunseo replied, knowing that they're in trouble.

Meiqi held Eunseo and Chengxiao's hand firmly as she tried to breathe. Tears started flowing from her eyes. She shakes her head, and smiles. A few seconds, her grip started loosening and she stopped breathing.

"No! Meiqi!" Eunseo screamed.

-o-

Dawon's POV

It’s the start of day three, the last day when we can actually escape the tower before the cleansing day comes. Currently, there are a lot of things going inside my mind. I have a hunch that today’s mission will be a lot harder than it is yesterday, there might be a new dumb additional rule implemented, making us even harder to escape. Also another thing that might happen, no one will manage to escape the tower after day three.

I don’t know how it will happen, but I’m positive that there’s a high possibility for it to happen.

I let out a sigh, thinking that today might be the end of everyone, including myself.

Again for today, I’ll be keeping an eye on Jiyeon eonni, after whatever she has done to me for the past two days. I’m about seventy percent sure that she is behind all of these, with the remaining thirty percent is that we are just set up in such scenarios without any contributions from our team.

As I’m deep in thoughts, I noticed something wrong with my left wrist. There is something indented in there without me knowing. It’s a rash-like indentation with the symbol resembling a baby bird. I think I have seen it somewhere, but I can’t remember exactly where it is. I wanted to talk about it to the other girls, but currently no one is on my side, believing my side of the story. Even Yeonjung, I’m not sure that she will actually keep this secret for me.

Soon, I heard Sojung eonni calling all of us. I stood up and went straight to the meeting point. I was right, Sojung eonni is standing there with a parchment scroll in her hands. Everyone seems discouraged, guessing that there might be a new dumber rule being implemented today.

“Rise and Shine Ujus, today is the third day for every one of you to escape Cosmic Tower. First of all, the existing rules are still applied today. Today there will be an additional rule added to your adventure, which is Protect the Keyholder. There is one keyholder among you, you have to guess who she is and she will be the only person allowed to unlock the exit door, where all of you surviving all the missions will escape. Even when you finish all of your missions, you can’t escape without the keyholder. Good luck!”

Right after Sojung eonni read the rules, something struck me. I secretly checked everyone else’s wrists. None of them has that thing I had, even Jiyeon eonni, who will definitely have one if she is i