Chapter 46

"Walk."

Lu Cheng's voice was hoarse, and every word was filled with the pain of flesh and blood being torn apart.

This is not only a reminder, but also the final judgment on the absurd relationship that was carefully woven and cruelly torn apart.

Lu Cheng forced himself not to look at the figure beside him, his eyes fixed on the cracked concrete floor beneath his feet, as if he wanted to burn through it.

He should have left immediately and turned back into the Lin Yao who was at the top of the standings in the old world, the one who was absolutely rational and viewed everything as a chess piece.

His silver hair brushed against his paper-pale cheek in the cool night breeze. The fragility that had been disguised in the depths of his blue eyes had long since faded away, leaving only the silence of the deep sea.

The electric shock burns all over his body looked hideous in the morning light, and every mark told of a month of torture in the D City prison. That was the price Lu Cheng's father, the city lord Lu Tianheng, paid for trying to pry open his mouth, but in return he received only nothing.

But he didn't leave.

Instead, he slowly sat down beside Lu Cheng. His movements affected his wound, and he frowned slightly, then immediately regained his composure.

"I don't belong here." Lin Yao spoke, his voice clear and sharp, like a bomb dropped into the silent lake. "I come from another world."

The moment he said this, even he himself felt it was ridiculous.

He knew better than anyone what would happen to him once the news got to the people in the New World.

The supernatural energy that ranks first in the Old World Standings is enough to ensure that the core of the dome of this city does not need to be refueled for at least ten years.

Faced with such a huge temptation, no one can remain unmoved.

Lu Cheng's body suddenly tensed, like a bow stretched to its limit. He turned his head sharply, his scarlet eyes surging with disbelief as he stared intently at Lin Yao's profile.

The other party remained calm, as if stating a fact that had nothing to do with him.

"In that world... I died in a targeted attack."

Lin Yao's gaze was cast towards the huge dome-shaped protective shield in the center of City D in the distance, which emitted a soft yet cold glow, and his voice was calm.

"More than ten strong men at the top of the leaderboard, each possessing super S-level abilities. I ended everything with a self-destruction, and I thought that was the end."

He paused, and a trace of extremely complex emotions flashed across the depths of his blue eyes, too fast to be grasped, "But I came here."

"Through my understanding, I know that every newborn here has an identity chip implanted when they are one month old. Those without a chip are considered heretics and are targeted for elimination."

He retracted his gaze and finally turned to Lu Cheng. The eyes that had once disguised ignorance, dependence, and deep affection now only contained pure, almost cruel honesty. "That was when I met you."

The morning breeze blew through the broken walls of the ruined park, emitting a low, whimpering sound, bringing a faint, almost inaudible sound to this city that had not yet fully awakened.

"If I had to do it all over again," Lin Yao's voice was soft, but it hit Lu Cheng's heart like a hammer, "I would still make the same choice."

Lu Cheng's breathing grew heavier, his chest rising and falling violently. Hatred coursed through his veins, threatening to burst through the dam of his rationality.

It was this man's mental manipulation that turned his life into a complete joke.

But the attachment was like a maggot in his bones, gnawing at the high wall of hatred he had just built. He wanted to roar, to question, to tear apart the breathtakingly beautiful yet incomparably cold face before him.

But in the end, he just bit his lower lip hard and tasted the rusty taste of blood again.

He didn't say a word, but his eyes, filled with a storm of pain, were the heaviest response.

He didn't know what this meant to Lin Yao himself, but he knew that this was definitely not information that could be told to a second person, especially... him, the son of the city lord who had been deceived and fooled by him, and now that the truth was out, he wished he would die immediately.

The silence between them stretched out, heavy and almost suffocating. Only the increasingly bright light reminded them that time was running out.

Lin Yao didn't wait any longer. He stood up with the help of the handle beside the bench. His movements were slightly slowed down by the pain, but he still had the composure of someone who was in control of everything.

The silver hair drew a cold arc in the wind.

"It's time to go."

He whispered, not knowing whether he was talking to Lu Cheng or to himself.

Without looking back at the figure behind him that was torn apart by hatred and love, he turned around and walked step by step towards the darkness at the edge of the city.

The pace was not fast, even a little staggering, but each step was extremely firm.

He needed to go to City A. Jhin's recruitment might be of use, as there were the resources he needed to restore his full strength and a breathing space away from the pursuit of City D. More importantly, there was a high probability that there were more clues about the Ark Project and the Eye of the Storm hidden there.

The goal is clear: a hub for parking aircraft.

The hub station has an extremely high level of defense, with layers of electronic authentication access control, iris scanning, voiceprint locks, and towering alloy isolation nets... These barriers are strong enough to trap most people with special abilities, but they are useless in front of Lin Yao.

He raised his slender, burn-marked fingers. Invisible threads of his mind, like the most precise probes, spread silently.

They easily penetrate cold metal and complex circuits, capturing the guards' thoughts and the system's operating logic.

The fingertips moved slightly, and it seemed as if invisible strings were being plucked in the air.

In front of an alloy gate that required triple authentication, the guard's eyes were confused for a moment, and his fingers involuntarily pressed the pass command.

On the iris scanner, Lin Yao's image was accurately simulated by mental threads. The voiceprint lock captured a fragment of the voice of a high-level authority in the guard's memory.

Like an elegant and cool pianist, he played silent music on the keyboard of the defense system. Wherever he passed, the red light quietly turned green, the gate slid open silently, and the alarm system fell into a brief sleep.

There was no fierce confrontation, no dazzling burst of energy, only a chilling and effortless calmness.

Those obstacles that could have been fatal to him were like building blocks built by a child, and were easily dismantled and bypassed.

The injuries on his body did not seem to affect his superb control. Although his strength had not been fully recovered, 70% was enough for him to move freely.

Soon, he was standing next to a sleek, silver-gray aircraft, its cold metal hull gleaming dimly under the lights of the hub.

Lin Yao raised his head and looked at the huge dome of City D for the last time, which was emitting a soft but false halo.

It was like a gorgeous cage, built on the wailing of the corpses of the old world's mutants. He took a deep breath, and the air filled with the smell of blood and metal dust rushed into his lungs.

"It's all over," he said to himself.

This whisper was a final farewell to Lu Cheng, to City D, and to a period of hidden years filled with deception and pain. It was also the starting point for his true journey in this new world as the "top of the old world."

He then turned around, placed his finger on the cold door handle of the aircraft, and prepared to start his journey to the unknown and dangerous City A.

“Click.”

The hatch unlocked and slid upwards.

The expected cold cockpit did not fully come into view.

Because a figure, a tall, upright figure with a thunderous oppressive aura, was sitting in the driver's seat.

——It’s Lu Cheng.

He changed out of his bloodstained clothes and donned a dark, easy-to-move-in combat uniform that accentuated his sharp features. His black hair lay a bit messy on his forehead, partially covering his eyebrows but not his deep, pool-like eyes.

There was no hysteria and tearing pain as in the ruins park. Only a kind of almost dead calmness remained, and the complex undercurrents that settled deep in the eyes and could not be dissolved.

He had his back to the light outside the cabin, his outline looking exceptionally cold and hard in the shadows, his jawline taut, as if he was trying hard to suppress something.

The expression on Lin Yao's face froze.

That's no disguise.

The long-built barrier of absolute rationality finally cracked at that moment. The deep sea in his blue eyes stirred up a truly turbulent wave—shock, astonishment, and a fleeting throbbing that even he hadn't anticipated.

This was probably the first time that Lu Cheng saw so clearly the most genuine emotional fluctuations on Lin Yao's face after all the masks were removed.

Their eyes met.

The air seemed to freeze. Time slowly flowed by in the silent confrontation between the two, with only the low hum of the aircraft's engine remaining.

It took a long time, so long that Lin Yao almost thought it was just an illusion caused by his serious injury.

Lu Cheng, sitting in the driver's seat, twitched the corners of his mouth ever so slowly. The smile was faint, devoid of warmth, and carried a kind of almost desolate self-mockery and relief.

"Can you fly a flying machine?"

He spoke, his voice hoarse but unusually steady, as if he was just asking a very ordinary question.

The taut strings seemed to quietly loosen at this plain question. The shock on Lin Yao's face slowly faded, and a sense of control returned to the depths of his blue eyes, but it seemed that something subtle and different had settled in.

He also raised the corners of his lips slightly, revealing his usual smile, which was a little distant but real.

"You know," his voice regained its clarity, with a subtle hint of amusement, "I can tamper with other people's memories and let professionals do the work."

Without warning, a gust of wind swept across the empty tarmac, picking up the dust on the ground and passing between the two people. The cold air brushed against the ends of Lin Yao's silver hair and also across the line of Lu Cheng's tightly pursed lips.

After the wind passed, a corner of some invisible barrier seemed to have melted away.

Lu Cheng did not respond to his joke, but turned around silently, his fingers skillfully tapping on the complex control panel, starting the aircraft's preheating program.

The hum of the engine suddenly increased, and the air flow swirled around the fuselage.