Absurd as it was, it was not that absurd.
This was a possibility we should have considered long ago; we simply had not noticed it while we were trapped inside.
A Witch Domain could persist as long as it had an external energy supply. That also explained why we could not see any researchers, nor that old director...
Because they were all in reality and had never entered at all.
"After you escaped from the research institute, they never evacuated it. They merely activated this Witch Domain. The investigators the Association sent before probably investigated nothing but emptiness within the Witch Domain... Still, a Witch Domain indistinguishable from reality really was difficult to detect."
The boundaries of a Witch Domain could not be broken through brute force. They were barriers as unyielding as laws themselves. We had already experienced their durability in Alpha's castle domain; no matter how strong Rhinoceros Beetle was, he could never break through...
If Locust had not suggested destroying the ceiling, I would never have noticed.
"Miss Miluno, what exactly is a Witch Domain..." Locust Man asked.
"You have never heard of one?"
"Our information is rather limited."
Witch Domains had long ceased to be a secret, but since they had been lab rats captured long ago, it was only natural that they did not know.
"Sorry, let me think of how to explain it."
This involved matters of magic. It really was not easy to explain it clearly to Locust Man and the others in just a few words. Besides, I only knew what it was, not why it worked.
"Mm, you have read those cultivation novels, right? Just think of this as a mystic formation specifically meant to trap enemies. To get out, you have to destroy the formation's core."
The "formation's core" was