Chapter 24
Noah sighed softly, then simply picked her up and carried her to the bedroom. As he put her down, he breathed into her ear, his long, slender fingers playfully unbuttoning one of her buttons: "Claire, I've created a 'Deep Physical Contact Purification Method' that can double the efficiency. Want to give it a try?"
Claire blushed to the roots of her neck and desperately pressed his hand down: "No, I can't concentrate."
“I’ve been working out lately, and my bust size seems to have increased again,” Noah said with a businesslike seriousness, but his eyes were full of mischief. “Is it 8 centimeters or 10 centimeters more? You measure it yourself; your hand is my ruler…”
"Knoa! Focus!" Claire said, both annoyed and amused.
"Then give me a kiss, just one."
To stop this endless "interference," Claire had no choice but to compromise. As their lips met, Noah let out a satisfied sigh. He had waited for her for thirty years, spent fifteen years with her, and the longing he had accumulated during those long, lonely years seemed forever insatiable.
As dusk approached, the last wisp of black mist finally dissipated. Claire breathed a sigh of relief and was about to take off her headphones when Noah suddenly rolled over and pinned her down, his eyes terrifyingly deep, like a ravenous beast.
"The purification is complete!" she exclaimed.
"But my fire isn't out yet, you have to take responsibility."
However, the "punishment" game wasn't over yet, and the warning light flashed again. Snow's assistant sent a notification: there would be another 5.5 magnitude aftershock in area B5 in the early morning.
“Magnitude 5.5?” Noah buried his face in Claire’s neck, refusing to get up. “Those minor aftershocks could be blocked with a ten-meter energy bubble. Even that freak Lin Snow didn’t show up, so it’s obviously nothing to worry about. Let’s sleep a little longer…”
Claire broke free from his grasp and hurriedly dressed, saying, "You rest first, I'll go warm up the anti-collision device for you." With that, she fled in a panic, leaving Noah alone, clutching the still-warm blanket in frustration.
The second underground level is the center of the device.
Claire skillfully initiated the preheating procedures for the inner and middle layers of the system. This routine operation was something she knew by heart.
However, a glaring red warning suddenly popped up on the screen: [Anomalous Changes in Earth's Magnetic Field]. It was an energy ripple caused by the merger of two unstable neutron stars deep in the universe, which happened to sweep across Earth at that very moment.
Claire was unaware of the deadly nature of the ripple.
The next second, the preheating program, which should have been running smoothly, suddenly experienced a bizarre overload. The screen flickered, and the mechanical gears emitted a teeth-grinding grinding sound.
[Warning: Preheating has been forcibly ended; the 'generation' process has begun.]
"No!" Claire exclaimed. The heavy metal doors on either side slammed shut with a dull thud, and the special lead-layered partitions crashed down. This meant that the room was about to become a furnace for antimatter annihilation energy.
"Claire! What are you doing?! Stop!!"
On the other side of the screen, Noah, shirtless, was frantically rushing towards the elevator. His eyes burned with blinding golden fire as he forcibly took over the building's network. He saw Claire locked in that dead end, and his heart nearly stopped.
"Holy shit! Why are you in the middle level?!"
Noah was so anxious in the elevator that his eyes were cracking, but the tears were evaporated by the intense heat of his supernatural power before they could even well up. He spurred the elevator to plummet at three times its maximum speed.
On the screen, Claire stood in that golden wasteland, her expression strangely calm. The destructive annihilation energy had begun to distort the air, filling the screen with static. She looked at Noah on the other side of the screen and forced a poignant smile:
"It's okay, Noah... Take care of yourself from now on. I love you..."
"boom--!"
The screen went completely black. The elevator, overloaded, had smashed through its base, and the door seams were warped. Noah pried open the twisted steel plate with his bare hands, blood trickling down his fingertips. Unaware of anything, he rushed to the control room and forcibly shut down the subsequent programs.
But it was too slow after all.
As the sealed door slowly opened, only a desolate emptiness remained in the room that was capable of swallowing up all non-metallic matter.
There was no blood, no remains, not even a speck of ash. Under the baptism of extremely high energy, Claire was completely vaporized into the atmosphere.
On the golden floor lay a wedding ring gleaming with a cold light, and a metal badge that read "Pat Claire".
Noah's knees buckled, and he knelt heavily before the ring.
The subsequent investigation report was detailed yet chilling: it was an accident with a one in a trillion probability. Cosmic rays triggered a logical error in precision components, exceeding the highest authorization level in the control room.
The management team updated the manual and upgraded the parts. But Noah knew that his world was completely extinguished. That one and only guide, the one who was 99% a perfect match, the girl who would use her hand as a ruler to measure his chest, would never come back.
As dawn broke, Su Yue emerged from the basement, sporting heavy dark circles under his eyes.
That entire night, though he was nestled in that large, comfortable sofa, his soul wandered through the barren wasteland of insomnia, tossing and turning.
The wolf king was quite sensible. When Noah was around and the two were being intimate, it disappeared without a trace; as soon as Noah left, the big guy wagged its tail and crawled out, lying on its back next to the sofa to keep him company.
Su Yue sighed and groaned beside him, his thoughts racing, while the Wolf King slept soundly, snoring loudly.
Just before dawn, Su Yue's taut nerves finally snapped from exhaustion. But only two hours later, the wolf king, with its terrifyingly precise biological clock, jumped up and licked Su Yue's palm with its wet tongue, forcibly pulling him back to reality with a soft bark.
Su Yue yawned as he came downstairs. The chilly morning air made him momentarily dazed, and the scenes from last night flooded back into his mind like a tidal wave.
Recalling those details in broad daylight always sent a shiver of shame through him. He felt as if he were poisoned by some incurable drug, his intellect eroded by his emotions. He shook his head violently, forcing himself back to reason: it was merely a "need for purification," not pornography.
To repay Noah for his meticulous care during this time, he decided to make a decent breakfast for the cold-faced sentry before leaving.
This time, Noah woke up later than him, which was unusual.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com