The sudden surge of fatherly love left Yin Chao feeling a little suffocated.
He struggled to wriggle free of Yin Rui's embrace and mumbled, "So the magnolia flowers were responsible for trapping the players in the Instance World?"
Yin Rui released him, but her gaze turned toward the window.
Ash drifted down and piled up on the buildings, like the world buried in falling snow all those years ago.
"They sacrificed the extraordinarily gifted child to a demon. A fairy born of slaughter believed in nothing but slaughter.
And, of course, it brought slaughter to its faithful followers as well.
After the volcano erupted, the Small Town fell silent and lifeless.
Only the parallel world created by that gifted child remained. She came back to life amid that deathly silence and became the prison that trapped everyone."
Yin Chao tilted his head. "So Elena was the one who trapped the players."
Yin Rui nodded, a faint smile on her lips. It was hard to tell whether it held pity or regret.
"Do you remember what I said? A world without living beings has no meaning."
So, to preserve the meaning of this world's existence, Elena had chosen to trap the players.
Yet this was the very world that had brought her endless suffering. She had died under the torment of others, and even her parents had been killed by someone else.
Yin Chao could not understand what made it worth preserving.
A strong gust swept past, and he thought he saw Elena outside the window, her hair black.
Her pitch-black eyes were like a pool of stagnant water, long undisturbed, absorbing the light around her.
Yin Rui seemed to sense something too. She patted Yin Chao's shoulder, bringing him back to his senses.
"Shang Yi and I can deal with