At the center of the explosion.
The enormous Heavenly Pit, over five kilometers in diameter and unfathomably deep, still radiated a heart-stopping aura of destruction.
At the bottom of the Heavenly Pit, the churning, boiling lake of magma had begun to cool and solidify in the cold night air.
Everything seemed deathly still and desolate.
As though this were a forbidden zone for all life.
Yet amid this scene of devastation, enough to drive any living creature to despair-
"Hum-"
A faint spatial fluctuation suddenly stirred.
At the very center of the Heavenly Pit, the ruins and dust still billowing thick smoke slowly parted to either side, as though pushed aside by an invisible hand.
They revealed a patch of untouched ground below.
That patch was only three meters across.
Yet it seemed to form a world of its own, utterly out of place amid the terrifying devastation surrounding it.
And upon that untouched ground.
An imposing figure stood in silence.
It was a man.
He appeared to be in his forties.
Dressed in camouflage, he stood tall and straight, like a javelin piercing the heavens.
A half-face Bronze Mask covered his face.
Beneath the mask, only a pair of fathomless eyes were visible.
Merely standing there, he gave the impression that he was the very world around him, the center of the universe itself.
And cradled quietly in his broad, sturdy arms were two people.
A man and a woman.
They were Yue Xiaofei and Ning Hongye, whom everyone had long since pronounced dead!
Both were deeply unconscious, their breathing faint, their survival uncertain.
The man slowly lowered his head. In his eyes, as deep as a sea of stars, flickered pain, resignation, and a trace of pride.
"You little brat..."
His voice was low and resonant, carrying the