The girl tilted her head and smiled helplessly.
"Sure enough, it was you, mister. Do you remember what I said before I came in?"
Lu Yuan remembered. She had said, "So it was you calling out to me all along."
"I could hear it from a very young age, even before I entered the Tower of Erudition."
The girl said it casually.
"I always thought there was something wrong with my head. But after entering the Tower of Erudition and breaking into this sea, I could hear it even more clearly."
She smiled—the exact same smile she had worn in the vortex—her head tilted, a hint of her front teeth showing.
"I wasn't brought here. I walked in myself. You saw that too, didn't you?"
Lu Yuan knew. When the heart had split open, she had reached out her hand herself.
"So you should leave first. That barrier outside won't hold for much longer."
The Worm of Knowledge drifted over to Lu Yuan's side.
For the first time since it had ruptured, the Symbiotic Link gave a faint pulse. The Worm of Knowledge's body was still frozen, but after leaving the range of the palace inscriptions, the ice was beginning to loosen.
Lu Yuan looked at the girl standing within the blood-red ring.
A crimson Dome thousands of meters high. Inhuman remains scattered across the ground.
Lu Yuan clenched his teeth.
"I can take you with me."
"No need." The girl shook her head, that smile still on her face. "There's nothing back there worth missing anymore. I'll stay here."
The five heads suddenly spun faster for an instant. It was almost imperceptible, but Lu Yuan noticed.
Having received its answer, it was preparing to see its guest out.
Lu Yuan's left eye stirred.
At the very last moment, the