"I really haven't gone mad." Hatton looked at him pleadingly. "Everything I've said is true. I have to meet that being's demands, or the world really will be destroyed!"
Xia Lun said nothing. He simply kept smiling as he stared into Hatton's eyes.
The silence made the already oppressive room feel even gloomier. Xia Lun's inscrutable smile and unblinking gaze only added to the pressure.
Hatton forced himself to meet Xia Lun's eyes for a while, but eventually lowered his gaze without realizing it.
He let out a long sigh, then gritted his teeth. "Go ahead and kill me. I won't give in. No matter what, I have to perform the sacrifice!"
Xia Lun still said nothing. He watched Hatton while turning the matter over in his mind.
After reading the additional information provided by Wilderness Survival Specialization, he saw Hatton in an entirely new light. He had also more or less figured out the truth behind this Special Memory.
According to that information, only Secret Art Scholars who possessed Knowledge could fall into a state of Permanent Madness. And given Hatton's ability to "rewind time," he was very likely a High-Rank Secret Art Scholar with at least three points of Knowledge!
The so-called world-destroying Evil God did not exist at all. It was merely a delusion born of Hatton's madness.
If that assumption was correct, then the plague that had plunged the entire city into Blockade was no threat from an Evil God. It was a man-made disaster: Hatton had unconsciously used his Secret Art powers in his fear and inflicted it upon the city.
The theory made perfect sense. To ordinary people, a High-Rank Secret Art Scholar was no different from a god. If the expenditure of resources such as lifespan was set aside, one was entirely capable