[Three-City World] Three-City Meeting

At the front of the hall, several elderly men in white ceremonial robes stood solemnly.

Ren Yi glanced at them and guessed they were bishops of the Holy City, core figures in power beneath the pope.

In the center of the hall stood an elderly man wearing a tall crown and magnificent holy robes embroidered with thorns and sword emblems. He was obviously the pope.

What was noteworthy, however, was the strange console covered in buttons before him. The pope stood solemnly at it, saying something into the console.

Ren Yi stepped closer and saw a... LCD screen embedded in the center of the console.

He looked the console up and down again and finally knew for sure.

This thing was essentially a bulky desktop computer, like the ones teachers used at their lecterns in his previous life.

He then looked up at the screen and saw that it was divided into two sections, each displaying a room with a completely different style of decor.

But why did the interface look so familiar?

Good grief, wasn't this a knockoff of Dongdong Meeting? Even this thing had made it to another world to wreak havoc?

Ren Yi almost burst out laughing.

The feeling was so absurd. It was like traveling a thousand years into the future and finding Godzilla and Ultraman carved into a museum mural and revered as national historical relics.

As he silently grumbled, the pope suddenly turned around and fixed his gaze on Ren Yi.

His booming voice carried throughout the hall. "Your Holiness, Divine Son, you have finally returned! Come forward, quickly!"

Ren Yi raised an eyebrow.

The pope's tone made it seem less like he was speaking to the "divine son" and more like he was deliberately addressing a third party, with an obvious intent to "show him off."

Ren Yi chose to play along with the pope and see what he wanted to do.

Once he stood in front of the computer, he could finally see the whole picture on the screen.

Clearly, the Three-City World couldn't have a network. This software that looked like "Dongdong Meeting" was merely a superficial imitation.

After observing it more closely for a moment, Ren Yi confirmed that this "computer" was just a communication device that couldn't connect to a network. Essentially, it was an advanced walkie-talkie with video.

The so-called "meeting interface" was nothing more than a visualized walkie-talkie channel.

The scenes in the two "walkie-talkie windows" on the screen were completely different.

The window on the left showed a splendid tiered lecture hall, its hundreds of seats packed with people.

On a raised platform at the front of the hall stood an elaborately carved high-backed chair, occupied by a child wearing a crown and a smug expression.

The other window looked much cleaner, with only a young man with deep-set eyes sitting in front of the screen.

He wore dark red brocade robes and was idly playing with a jade pendant between his fingers. Only when he sensed the commotion on the Holy City's side did he slowly raise his eyes.

Ren Yi also noticed a small window in the upper right corner of the screen, framing him, the pope, and the bishops behind them.

Clearly, this was the view from the Holy City's "camera."

The people in these three windows were presumably those who stood at the very pinnacle of power in the Three-City World.

Just then, the pope spoke in a deep, solemn, and dignified voice. Rather than looking at Ren Yi, however, he stared at the screen.

"Everyone, the Holy City's divine son has returned from the Divine Selection Trial."

When he finished, he turned toward the crowded window on the left side of the screen, a barely perceptible note of interrogation in his voice.

"People of King City, now that our divine son has appeared, shouldn't the participants on your side who successfully cleared the trial also come out and meet us?"

Hm? King's City had participants who had successfully cleared it?

Ren Yi grew a little more serious.

Unlike a "well-connected" person like him, any participant who could survive and clear an Instance far beyond their own level of difficulty was bound to possess both top-tier strength and a top-tier state of mind. They absolutely couldn't be underestimated.

In the window on the left side of the screen, the crowned child didn't move. Instead, a middle-aged man beside him stood up, dressed in a black suit with his hair meticulously combed.

The man's expression was calm, but his tone held a trace of detachment. "Our heroes from King City have only just returned from the trial. They are exhausted in both body and mind and are resting. I'm afraid they won't be able to meet the two of you for the time being."

He placed emphasis on "heroes," then looked straight through the screen and unceremoniously sized Ren Yi up and down.

"Rather than concern yourself with our side, Your Holiness, why not first ask the 'survivor' beside you what revelation he actually received in the trial?"

"Let's hope he isn't some impostor who muddled through, only to jeopardize the grand plan for the survival of the three cities."

For some reason, King's City's representative was openly hostile toward the Holy City's side.

Ren Yi's heart skipped a beat, though.

King's City's representative had stumbled upon the truth.

He really was an "impostor." He knew nothing at all about any supposed "divine revelation" or "revelation from the trial."

If the Holy City's side really was persuaded and began to suspect him, he could only steel himself and make something up.

Without betraying his feelings, Ren Yi turned to glance at the pope beside him. At the same time, he covertly sensed the Illusion Seeds he had planted in the welcoming party earlier, ready to cause chaos and flee at any moment.

Before the pope could respond, a flippant laugh suddenly came from the window on the right side of the screen, where the young man sat alone.

The young man continued playing with his jade pendant, his tone teasing. "Quite the attempt to get something for nothing, Mr. Prime Minister."

"Are you planning to take advantage of the fact that this divine son of the Holy City hasn't figured out the situation yet and wheedle the so-called 'method of saving the world' out of him first?"

"You're joking, Your Majesty the Ember King," the middle-aged man called the prime minister replied mildly, his expression unchanged.

"It's just that the elites sent by the three cities suffered heavy casualties in this trial, yet this obscure gentleman from the Holy City alone returned completely unharmed. I'm merely expressing reasonable doubt about that."

"Speaking of obscure..." The pope finally spoke.

"Mr. Prime Minister, might I ask which participants returned to your city?"

"Our Holy City has also been paying close attention to this trial and made a point of preserving a recording of the entire livestream. We were hoping to see how your city's heroes figured out the trial's hidden conditions and escaped with their lives, so that we might learn from them."

He paused, the questioning in his tone growing more apparent. "But we checked the livestream recording repeatedly, and it seems we didn't see any of your city's participants show signs of having figured out the core of the trial?"

Ren Yi watched the exchange between the two sides of the screen with interest, quickly sorting through the information revealed in their conversation.

He had more or less figured it out: the power structures of the three cities were worlds apart.

The Holy City was under purely religious rule, with the pope at the center of power and several bishops assisting him in making decisions.

Although King City was called "King City," it was actually a constitutional monarchy. The crowned child was more like a mascot, while the parliament and the prime minister held the real power.

The last city, Ember City, was the one with a true feudal imperial system.

Judging by the fact that only the young King of Embers appeared on screen, he was probably truly above everyone else, with the fate of the entire city resting on his decision alone.

Clearly, although the Three-City World had watched the livestream from inside the Instance, they couldn't see the participants' panels and therefore had no direct way of knowing which participants had successfully cleared it.

Ren Yi recalled the scene at the end of the Instance.

The Instance's final judgment had only been completed after he sensed that feeling of being watched disappear.

In other words, the livestream had been cut off before the settlement.

The three cities could only see who was still alive in the Instance's final moments; they couldn't determine who had truly met the conditions for clearing it.

Only when they subsequently saw how few participants returned did they vaguely realize that the conditions for clearing the Instance were by no means as simple as "surviving for a period of time."

And the livestream from inside the Instance had been broadcast to the entire Pasture World. It wasn't a case of each city being able to see only its own participants' perspectives.

So if there really were people who had cleared it, the three cities should each have had an idea of who they were.

So...

Ren Yi looked again at the prime minister in his suit on the left side of the screen.

Looking at him now, beneath that serious, composed expression, there seemed to be a barely perceptible hint of outward bravado concealing weakness.

Could it be that not a single person really returned to King City?