Dead silence.
Only the echo of a clock swayed through the hollow room.
Under Minerva's gaze from above, Zhou Cheng had long been drenched in sweat. Several times, he tried to open his mouth, yet no words came out. No matter how hard he tried to summon his Spiritual Substance and steel his mind, all he could feel was wave after wave of ever clearer, ever greater fear.
It was not just Minerva.
It was as though something even more violent, even more savage, had cast a contemptuous glance from behind that drifting phantom.
What White Deer rejected most about Celestial Origin was that Celestial Origin was like a lock. Everyone within it had their own place and chains. The meaning of the individual was endlessly diluted by the collective, unable to exist beyond their assigned position.
Chains and authority came from the same source; order and shackles existed together.
Even those who were not followers of Celestial Origin would be subtly assimilated while within it, becoming mass-produced products stripped of faces and character.
But now, from the instant Wen Wen cast those chains aside and merely made as if to tear the damned things apart, what he felt was the iron-and-stone nature of the Wasteland Ruins Path.
The majesty and terror of something merciless!
Even though they were both Chosen Ones, the gap between them could not be measured by the slightest margin. It was like the distance between heaven and an abyss.
What level was this...? Rebirth, or... Transcendence?
As his thoughts gradually descended into chaos, his consciousness fell into a void. His expression stiffened, and he could not pull himself free, as though he himself were about to become part of that iron and stone.
Until a low sound arose.
Footsteps.
So soft.
They sounded amid one