"If I'm not mistaken, the Evil God's power is lurking inside these residents. That's why we didn't detect it. And that door should only be a prototype—maybe it's not even more than a crack."
Fang Cheng explained his guess to Isis. It wasn't baseless; it had come to him through an insight from his mother's memories.
In his mother's memories, after she and the Evil God had perished together, her power had split into two parts and entered two different Rifts, where it remained sealed away. Eventually, those two parts became the Lord of Ten Thousand Monsters and the Undead Kingdom.
That was why Fang Cheng suspected there might be a similar Rift in the Mine beneath Centralia Town. The Evil God's power had seeped out through it and affected the town's residents.
The endless cycles in Centralia Town might be meant to prevent the door from opening.
After hearing Fang Cheng's explanation, Isis voiced no further doubts. Instead, she asked, "What are you going to do?"
Fang Cheng hesitated for a moment, but eventually made up his mind. "Open the door, of course."
If the purpose of Centralia Town's endless cycles really was to keep the door shut, then the only way to escape the cycle was to open it.
Isis said coolly, "You're playing with fire."
If the door really opened, things could go terribly wrong if they mishandled it.
Fang Cheng, however, replied with confidence, "It's fine. I'm sure I can handle it."
The door at the Seabed Rift might have opened naturally. No one—not Fang Cheng, his mother, or even the native powers of Earth—could close it.
But doors that had been forced open could also be forcibly shut. Fang Cheng had encountered plenty of them already.
Still, to be safe, he asked Izanae in his