"No! Everything I’ve done is right. It’s all for the Qingkong Poetry Room, and for Olao as well!"
She truly did not want to see a look of disappointment on Olao’s face. But she also did not want to change the status quo, and even less did she want... to be separated from Olao.
Adanis closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them again, the hesitation in her eyes had vanished, replaced once more by cool indifference.
Only, that indifference did not last long before it was replaced by shock.
She suddenly looked back. Her gaze shot toward the direction of the entrance to the Qingkong Poetry Room...
...
After Angel and the others confirmed that the smell came from the Maneater Flower, they continued on.
Perhaps because they knew a "great battle" was imminent, everyone was very quiet along the way, with only Dox looking eager to try his hand. Nonetheless, even Dox did not break the heavy silence.
It wasn’t until they passed a corner and saw a small collapsed plaza that Angel suddenly stopped.
"What’s wrong?" The Black Earl’s nostrils "looked" toward Angel.
Angel shook his head. "It’s nothing. Let’s go."
Angel gave no explanation. He simply caught up with the group again and walked toward the southeast side of the small plaza, where the only passage lay.
As he walked, Angel observed the plaza. When he passed its center, he looked up.
The ceiling above was pitted and uneven, clearly the marks left by a collapse.
Looking at that rough, jagged top, Angel silently sighed in his heart.
—To revisit an old place, only to find it utterly changed.
Back then, when he was not yet a Transcendent but just an ordinary Talented One, the first time he came to the Nightmare Realm, the very first place he arrived at was here.
At that time, all around him were intact corridor rest areas.
When he looked up, he could see the sewer leading directly to the pitch-black sky of the outside world.
Beside him floated two Flying Head Demons.
In a distant alley, a road of blazing red flowers was hidden.
Even though the Nightmare Realm back then was filled with eerie aura everywhere and Angel’s mood was anxious and uneasy... at least at that time, Angel saw the vibrant, thriving side of this place.
But now, everything was both familiar and strange.
No passageways remained, only Ruins. No vitality, only a heavy twilight air.
Faced with such a scene, even if Angel had not been there personally, he would still feel a sense of dislocation—that sense of things remaining while people have changed.