The world's will

Everything would be fine once I returned to the Alliance.

But now... it seemed I couldn't go back.

Ren Yi reached into his pocket the moment he saw the panel, fumbling for the protective charm that represented his "Mo Ming" skin.

But his fingertips met only empty fabric.

That charm had vanished silently at some unknown point.

Before he could give it more thought, a beam of blinding white light suddenly descended from the sky, locking onto him and enveloping him completely.

This wasn't an Alliance teleportation. Theirs were either abruptly appearing mirrors or rippling waves of water.

After passing through those, one would always reappear before the mirror they had used to enter the Instance.

Yet, this white light was not unfamiliar.

When he had first entered the Three Cities World from the Lu Family Courtyard, he had chosen to enter via the Participant panel. The welcome he received then was exactly this cold, blinding beam of white light.

The situation was now perfectly clear.

"The world's will?" Ren Yi looked up at the white light, his voice tinged with disbelief.

Isn't this a bit of a trap?

This was no longer a case of an adult interfering in a children's fight; it was more like children brawling only for Tiga to suddenly jump out for the other side.

This shouldn't be possible.

In Ren Yi's understanding, the world's will of the Three Cities World should have been firmly suppressed by the Alliance, its lifeblood being drained bit by bit.

Where exactly did things go wrong?

The white light suddenly intensified, so bright it forced eyes shut, but Ren Yi didn't resist.

He had no means to influence spatial abilities like this. Rather than wasting effort struggling, he might as well save his energy and see what kind of tricks the opponent was trying to pull.

His vision blurred. After a bout of world-spinning vertigo, Ren Yi found his location had changed.

This was no longer the peak of the Holy City, though he was still in a very high place.

It looked like the rooftop of an abandoned skyscraper. In the distance, he could see blurred, distorted silhouettes of buildings, tightly wrapped in the gloomy, gray sky.

And in the sky above, a scene of shocking and eerie proportions was unfolding, one that defied description.

Deep gray clouds were like a reversed tsunami, surging and roaring with world-ending momentum as they frantically lunged forward.

But ahead of the clouds, there was no coastline, no land—only a boundless, pitch-black void abyss that seemed capable of swallowing everything.

This sky actually had a boundary. Only a large, remaining patch of clouds above his head was left, and it was being eroded and devoured bit by bit by that void. Even light could not escape.

Ultimately, however, that void had not yet reached this place.

A few drops of rain carried by the wind drifted onto Ren Yi's face.

He instinctively lowered his head and shifted his feet. He didn't feel the hardness of concrete; instead, there was an extremely strange elasticity.

It was like stepping on a balloon filled with water, and he could even faintly feel a subtle pulse.

Ren Yi let out a slow sigh, a trace of helplessness flickering in his eyes.

This is really bad.

Even worse than those countless "pious" eyes in the Holy City.

Beneath his feet was a bright red "flesh tower."

Dark red flesh and blood spread from the base of the skyscraper, densely covering every inch of the walls.

Red and white tissues, resembling thick blood vessels, twisted and wound their way upward, with dark red blood seemingly gurgling and flowing slowly within them.

The entire "flesh tower" pulsated gently to a certain rhythm, like a massive, exposed heart.

Among the flesh, things resembling twisted bones and limbs could be seen, swaying slightly with each pulse.

Ren Yi had seen something similar before.

In the final battle with "Extinction," the mass of newborn mutant beast hatchlings that "Extinction" had been desperate to kill shared a similarly eerie texture with this flesh tower.

"Hello, Mr. Ren Yi."

A gentle voice suddenly came from behind, carrying a familiar hint of a smile that broke the dead silence of the rooftop.

"I did say I hoped we would meet after the end of the world."

"Though the apocalypse hasn't completely ended, it's close enough, isn't it?"

Ren Yi slowly turned around and saw a somewhat familiar face.

Not far behind him stood the Xin King.

But he wasn't simply "standing" there. More accurately, he had "grown" out of that bizarre flesh tower.

His feet were merged with the flesh beneath him, and dark red flesh filaments crept up his robes, seemingly anchoring him firmly—or perhaps existing in symbiosis with him.

Ren Yi raised an eyebrow and spoke another name.

"Azure?"