Chapter 62

Leaving the high-risk area went more smoothly than expected. Although Lin Yao was still weak, the confusion and vulnerability that came from the depths of his soul were forced back under the ice after his embrace and vows with Lu Cheng.

He put on the calm mask again, but there was a lingering heaviness in the depths of his eyes.

When meeting up with Jin's team, facing Jin's worried questions and the team members' surprised looks, Lin Yao gave a prepared explanation: it took a long time to find the way up after falling off the cliff, and encountered a powerful mutated contaminated beast on the way. The two of them worked together to kill it with great difficulty, and were injured as a result, which delayed the meeting time.

His tone was flat, and he glossed over the core exploration of the narrow escape.

Jin looked at the unhealed wounds on Lin Yao's body, which clearly carried the aura of a high-risk area, and then looked at Lu Cheng, who was silent and looked equally unhappy. Although there were doubts in his red eyes, he did not delve into it.

In the high-risk area of ​​the A-level copy, any "accident" may happen, and it is a blessing to be able to come back alive.

He nodded and told the team to return.

On the way back, the atmosphere was even more silent than on the way in. Lin Yao sat by the window, watching the outline of City A speeding past below, enveloped in the soft glow of the dome.

The halo that once represented protection now looked like a huge, gorgeous cage in his eyes.

"Jin." Lin Yao suddenly spoke, breaking the silence.

Jin turned his head: "Huh?"

"After returning to City A," Lin Yao's gaze was still fixed on the window, his voice calm, "Can I meet the City Lord?"

Jin was visibly stunned for a moment, a hint of surprise flashing in his red eyes: "You want to see the city lord?"

Lin Yao finally withdrew his gaze and turned to Jin. His azure eyes were bottomless, but the corners of his lips curved into an extremely complex arc, carrying an indescribable meaning. "I think there's no reason not to go and see him."

There seemed to be a storm hidden in that smile.

Jin frowned and looked at Lin Yao.

The new mayor of City A is extremely mysterious and almost never shows his true face. Even core senior executives like him only communicate through encrypted communication screens.

Lin Yao's request was... very abrupt and dangerous. But he thought of Lin Yao's unfathomable strength and the "favor" of helping him control his power. After pondering for a long time, he finally nodded.

"Okay. I can try to ask. But I can't guarantee that the other party will agree."

Lin Yao nodded slightly: "Thank you."

He looked out the window again, sneering in his heart.

I guess he has no reason not to see me either.

After returning to City A, Lin Yao rested for three days in a suite on the top floor of the Starry Sky Crown. His wounds healed quickly thanks to his powerful self-healing ability and top-tier medical resources, but the gloom in his heart grew even heavier.

The figure of "Otto" in the "Ark Project" document and videotape haunted him like a nightmare.

On the third day, Jin brought news—the city lord agreed to a meeting. Location: "Elysium Ark."

Paradise Ark - the most luxurious den in City A, where luxury is paramount.

Floating high in the city's sky, it resembles a magnificent ship bathed in neon lights. Only the most distinguished and wealthy are qualified to step inside, enjoying the ultimate experience of luxury and forgetting the worries of the world.

Time: That evening.

Lin Yao changed into a perfectly tailored black suit, his silver hair neatly tied back, his azure eyes like a cold pond. He refused Lu Cheng's offer of company and stepped onto this floating boat of desire alone.

The expected noise, music and clinking of glasses did not appear.

Stepping into the magnificent main hall of the "Paradise Ark" with dazzling crystal chandeliers, Lin Yao was greeted by a heart-wrenching silence.

The huge space was eerily empty, the expensive velvet carpet absorbing every footstep.

The air was filled with the scent of premium perfume and alcohol, yet it was icy and devoid of any human presence. All the entertainment facilities were silent, and the waiters, guests... seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth.

Only in the center of the hall, next to the huge, jewel-inlaid gambling table, was there a person sitting.

The man had his back to the entrance, leaning back in a luxurious chair in a leisurely manner, playing with a few crystal dice in his hands.

The dice rolled and jumped between his slender fingers, making a crisp and pleasant collision sound, which seemed particularly abrupt in the dead silence.

Lin Yao stopped at the entrance of the hall, his eyes fixed on the figure.

Even though they were so far away, even though it was just a figure from behind... the familiar feeling that was engraved into his bones, like the coldest poisonous snake, instantly wrapped around his heart.

He walked closer, his footsteps echoing in the empty hall.

When he finally walked across to the gambling table, the man playing with the dice slowly raised his head.

Time...seemed to have frozen at this moment.

That face! That elegant, handsome face, with the wisdom accumulated over the years and a hint of compassion.

Otto!

It was exactly as he remembered it! It was exactly the same as the image on the videotape from three hundred years ago!

Time seemed to have stopped for him. He was wearing a well-tailored dark gray suit, with a gentle smile on his lips that seemed to be able to tolerate everything. His eyes, as deep as the starry sky, were looking at Lin Yao calmly, with a hint of emotion as if they were reunited after a long separation.

"Good evening, Lin Yao."

Otto spoke first, his voice low and pleasant, carrying a strange soothing power, just like when he reached out his hand to him in the orphanage, "How is City A? Do you still like it?"

The tone was so familiar as if they had just parted yesterday, rather than having experienced a fatal betrayal and a reunion across time and space.

Lin Yao's breathing stopped in an instant, and all the blood in his body seemed to rush to his heart, and then froze into ice in the next second.

The huge shock made it almost impossible for him to maintain his composure. He forced himself to pull out the chair opposite the gambling table and sit down.

His azure eyes were like poisoned ice blades, fixed on the sickeningly familiar face opposite him, without uttering a single word.

Otto looked at Lin Yao's cold and defensive attitude and his refusal to communicate. Instead of being displeased, he smiled knowingly and with a bit of helplessness, as if he had expected it.

He knew his most outstanding "work" too well. Lin Yao didn't like being passive. He was waiting, waiting for him to take the initiative to speak, to explain, to uncover the fog that shrouded everything.

"You're still the same." Otto sighed softly and threw the crystal dice in his hand casually on the gambling table.

The dice spun, reflecting the bright light of the chandelier. "Okay, I know what you want to ask."

He leaned forward slightly, crossed his hands on the table, and looked directly at Lin Yao with his deep eyes. His gentle smile remained, but a kind of...almost fanatical pride began to surge in the depths of his eyes.

"Have you seen the dome core?" Otto's voice was strangely excited. "How was it? Isn't it... perfect?"

He paused slightly, as if admiring the storm that suddenly gathered in Lin Yao's eyes, and then, in an understated yet extremely cruel tone, as if announcing a great achievement, he spoke the truth that was enough to overturn everything.

“I designed that.”

Boom——!!!

Lin Yao felt as if his brain was hit hard by an invisible hammer, and the frozen barrier of rationality was instantly covered with cracks.

"Do you know how difficult it is to channel the energy of one world to another and maintain such a large and stable protective shield?" Otto's voice suddenly rose, filled with indescribable pride and excitement.

His eyes became extremely fanatical, as if he was admiring his most proud masterpiece.

"But I did it!"

He stood up suddenly, put his hands on the gambling table, and looked down at Lin Yao, who was still sitting there, his face as pale as paper. The smile on his face was so bright that it was almost twisted, with the innocence and cruelty of a child showing off a perfect test paper.

"Do you know how hard it is to get a perfect score?"

"But I did it!"

"Perfect! Flawless! Using the energy from the corpses of those powerful, unwillingly dead superpowers in the Garden of Eden to power the dome and protect Gaia's survivors! What a brilliant idea! What a magnificent balance!"

He reveled in his own "masterpiece", as if the souls of the old world who were thrown into the dome furnace and burned in endless pain were just sets of cold data in his great experiment.

Lin Yao sat there, his body as stiff as an ice sculpture. The crystal dice on the gambling table had stopped spinning, lying there quietly, reflecting his bloodless face and those... empty, azure eyes that had completely lost all light.

Faith? Reason? The truth of the world?

At this moment, Otto's complacent "100 points" completely collapsed.

Reduced to powder.