The night was deep, and poisonous fog blanketed Centralia Town in deathly silence. Only near the mine could the roar of the Underground Fire be heard.
It was only a few minutes before midnight when Richard appeared in his own home in town.
The two-story house had been charred black by the fire. Its roof had collapsed, its walls were cracked, and the living room still held furniture that had not been completely burned.
Richard stood amid the ruins, unconsciously folding his arms. His face expressionless, he stared in a certain direction, looking as if he were lost in thought.
"Why? Why could that guy find me?!"
Richard muttered in confusion, his voice carrying a tremor he could barely suppress.
Dulu and the other investigators had been hunting Richard for half a century. Many of them had fallen into despair at the endless future stretching out day after day.
And Richard himself had hardly been immune to numbness.
Playing cat and mouse with Dulu and the others might have been fun, but after half a century, even that game had become deeply tiresome.
The arrival of Fang Cheng and Isis had brought a new change to this seemingly endless cycle.
It was a change Richard had no desire to see.
Though deep down he, too, hoped to escape the endless cycle, he did not want the price to be Centralia Town's complete liberation. Otherwise, all those years he had held out would have been meaningless.
He had thought that his ability to travel through space would be enough to make Fang Cheng and Isis give up.
Who could have guessed that after only a few rounds, Fang Cheng would be able to pinpoint his location?
Richard's sense of security shattered in an instant, and he fell into unprecedented panic.
Apart