"I understand."
The young woman's cool voice sounded softly by his ear.
Yet it left Su Wen without the slightest hesitation.
And so, he followed the labyrinthine internal structure of the Leis Angton Institute for a long time, every step seeming to tread upon the dust of history and the mist of the future.
The surrounding walls were built of heavy steel and ancient stone,
their surfaces covered in the marks of time. Every stone, every iron pillar, seemed to be telling stories of the past.
The air was filled with damp steam carrying a faint metallic scent, escaping from countless intricate underground pipes.
They were like the final veins of this shelter city, carrying life and energy.
Within these pipes,
steam gurgled onward, producing a deep, rhythmic roar, like the beating heart of an ancient machine.
From time to time, he could see instrument panels glimmering with dim light and complex mechanical devices. They were the eyes and brain of this world, recording every movement here while controlling the operation of the entire underground world.
The lights were dim and warm,
spilling down from the high dome above Su Wen or the cracks in the walls, forming mottled patterns of light and shadow that lent this underground world a touch of mystery and romance.
Here,
time seemed to slow, every second filled with the weight of history.
However, just as he thought there would be another tightly sealed door or thick wall ahead,
an incomparably enormous atrium abruptly appeared beneath the ground before him without warning, as shocking as a black hole in the cosmos.
Within this vast atrium,
countless energy rings slowly shifted from deep green to dark blue, then gradually blended into deep violet.
They continued to rise through this immense space, flashing with a radiance where