Chapter Ninety-Seven: Extreme Prison

Luo Hanya gazed at the world before him: a black sky, a black earth, a black expanse. He let out a slow sigh—heavy, sorrowful, perhaps filled with a grief too deep to name. The ink-dark snow drifting down from the heavens seemed to answer the mood in his heart.

The dark world was steeped in mourning. The silent heavens and earth seemed to be keeping vigil: for the madman who had changed this sky, for the wild and unrestrained yet gentle soul he had once been, for the self that was soon to be erased without a trace, for the fading of all that had once been white.

This illusory world, as unreal as the moon in water or flowers in a mirror, had come so abruptly, and in sorrow it would vanish just as quickly. Yet even in its dissolution, one arrogant voice left it unrestful.

“Hahaha! Lucky you, fool. I never expected I’d just hand back a complete you so easily! But remember this—you must protect her for me! Don’t let some filthy beasts defile her purity again!”

Xi Ye still spoke in that distinctive tone of his, carefree, bold, and utterly unrestrained, bidding farewell to his brief life with such casual ease. Yet even now, he still thought of her—the one who had lit his world, the light he would have protected and held back even in death and ruin.

“Cough, cough.”

Luo Hanya flexed the arm that had grown somewhat stiff from the cold, blinking his eyes, which had been open so long they ached. But he could no longer see the white splendor; the black night was dazzlingly harsh.

“That fellow really does make decisions on his own.”

Luo Hanya lowered his eyelids slightly, and Xi Ye’s voice filled his mind—the rude cry of fool, the reckless proclamation of his defiance, the gentle words he had spoken to Snow Reed. Whatever the voice, it stirred in Luo Hanya an indescribable closeness.

He dropped to one knee, striking the ice beside him with both fists, his voice pressed low with fury. “Who gave you permission to decide for yourself? At least say something to me, you bastard! And you still had the nerve to call me a fool! Couldn’t you use your brain for once?”

He muttered for a long while. Had this been before, tears would already have been streaming down his face. But now, not a single drop came. It was as though his tear ducts had dried up; no matter how deeply he felt, no matter how much sorrow he carried, he could not shed a tear. With helpless frustration, he rubbed at his eyes. His mind was calmer than it had ever been.

After Xi Ye returned a complete self to him, memories long buried had surfaced once more.

“So that’s how it was. That’s the real me.”

Luo Hanya smiled bitterly. “I’ve never cried since the day I was born. Not once, even as an infant. Tears only came after that, I suppose.”

“But still, that thing is rather miraculous. Letting a little of it out now and then doesn’t seem so bad.”

“Y-you’re still alive? Weren’t you dead?”

Lance’s shocked and uncertain voice suddenly rang out, cutting through the flood of recollection.

“Of course I’m alive. Why wouldn’t I be? Aren’t you still alive too?” Luo Hanya’s voice seemed stripped of all feeling, leaving only cold stillness behind.

“No way! Impossible! I saw you burn away every shred of your spirit with my own eyes. You couldn’t possibly still be alive!”

“Ha. I see.”

Lance’s tone changed abruptly. He became almost frantic, and the questions spilling from his mouth were bizarre beyond reason. “You! Who exactly are you? How did you get out?”

Luo Hanya silently weighed the situation and thought, This place really is fascinating. Yet his words lost none of their edge as he sneered, “What do you think? You pitiful creature.”

At that answer, Lance seemed struck by a thunderclap. After a moment of stunned silence, he began trembling violently, as though every word had lodged in his throat and no sound could escape.

“Heh.”

Luo Hanya narrowed his eyes and gave a contemptuous laugh, making as if he were about to do something.

He had not expected that this simple motion would frighten Lance so badly. The other man collapsed to the ground in panic and pleaded for mercy. “Great being of the Ultimate Prison, I’m just a minor warden. I bear you no grudge at all. I was rash and offended you just now. Please, please treat me like a dog—spare this dog’s life.”

Luo Hanya stared expressionlessly at Lance, who was prostrate on the ground, wailing miserably and begging for mercy. Yet within his heart, a storm was raging.

Ultimate Prison? What exactly is the Ultimate Prison? Why is Lance, the so-called king of this polar region, so terrified? Could it be—

He thought of the volcano he had stumbled into by accident before, of the terrifying flame demon lurking in the abyss, and of the so-called Volcano King, Harley.

His heartbeat was beginning to feel strangely erratic. A fierce excitement flooded his mind, leaving his mouth dry and his breathing growing unconsciously rapid. It was the reaction of a lecher seeing a peerless beauty stripped bare: restlessness, excitement, tension. He knew that he was now approaching the very core of this island, and he absolutely could not make a mistake. One wrong step would send him tumbling into an abyss with no bottom.

He drew a long breath, his gaze flashing with sharp light. Just as he was about to question Lance further, an unexpected change suddenly occurred.

With a crisp crack, the ice of the polar region trembled inexplicably. Then the entire frozen land began to shake violently. Huge patterns spread across the ice, as if something beneath it were about to break through.

Lance, who had been kneeling on the ice, was like a frightened child, still banging his head and begging for mercy. But then a vast fissure suddenly opened beneath him. He did not even have time to cry out before the once-arrogant king of the polar wastes was swallowed whole by the裂隙 in an instant.

Luo Hanya stared fixedly at the crack that had devoured Lance, his scalp prickling and cold spreading through his body. Beneath the ice was neither solid black frost nor bone-chilling water. It was instead layer upon layer of white bones.

Lance, upon touching those bones, seemed to encounter something unimaginably dreadful. His exquisite face twisted hideously with pain, his eyes bulging as though they would burst from their sockets. In just a moment, he had turned into a pool of pale liquid, which flowed into the snow-white bones.

Whether it was an illusion or not, Luo Hanya seemed to glimpse a milky-white radiance flashing across the bones as the liquid was absorbed.

Looking around, he found that every fissure was the same. Only the bones differed: some were immense and complete, others narrow and broken, as if they belonged to different parts of some vast body.

At the same time that the cold, deathly polar region began to collapse, an icy voice, utterly devoid of feeling, suddenly sounded.

“Player Flash Nightmare has died.”