"The Edge of the City" is the sixty-fifth and final chapter of Blame!, and the eighth and final chapter of Volume 10.
Synopsis[]
After an unspecified time, Killy, now missing a leg, ascends from a shaft into an area where the ambient moisture creates torrential rainfall. He fires into the shaft, destroying the Safeguard agents pursuing him.
Another agent follows, discovering the remains of his comrades. The agent ambushes Killy in a tunnel, blasting part of his head open with a small sidearm. Before he collapses, Killy destroys the agent with a graviton beam.
As Killy lays in recovery, the water level in the tunnel rises and sweeps him away. He is pumped into a reservoir, where he floats upwards into an open ocean, passing random structures, a decrepit builder, and layers of plant life. Finally, he approaches the surface, seeing a light beyond.
The core from Cibo’s body senses it has reached an area beyond the reach of the infection. The embryo within activates, and begins to grow. Above the water, stars are visible; Killy has reached the edge (or surface) of the City.
In the final shot, Killy fights to defend a child wearing protective gear.
Character Appearances[]
- Killy
- Safeguard Agents
- Unknown Child
Notes & Trivia[]
- Killy has regained his eye. Presumably, it has repaired itself, like much of his body did in Log 51.
- The agents bear the Safeguard symbol on their heads.
- The agent’s gun is similar to one of the weapons Killy acquired from the Safeguard armory in Log 42 - specifically, the laser pistol with which he killed the observer in Log 57.
- The child is presumably the embryo from Cibo’s core, the offspring of Cibo and Sanakan.
- In Log 60, the Authority claims that Cibo’s core can be used to save the City.
- In the artbook Blame! and So On, Nihei suggests that the Authority smuggled a method of netsphere access within Cibo's Level 9 body. [1]
- This probably means that the child possesses the net terminal gene, and may eventually use it to restore order to the City.
- The resemblance of the ending scene to the scenario at the outset of the manga (Killy escorting a child who may possess the net terminal gene) has been debated. Some readers have claimed there is a time loop involved, or at least some kind of circular symbolism. Killy’s visions of the future in Log 50 may complicate these speculations. Practically, it may be accounted by the loose and experimental content of the early chapters, before the nature of the setting and Killy's quest were more established.