Chapter 893: Still So Hot-Tempered

Mr. Duan leaned against the leather seat of the taxi, his posture lazy and casual.

He did not look at the driver in the driver's seat, his gaze merely calmly watching the bustling street scene flashing past outside the car window.

The air conditioner in the carriage blew cold air, and the meter made a rhythmic ticking sound.

"You stayed with me the longest in the past."

Mr. Duan's tone was relaxed, just like chatting idly about daily life with an old friend he hadn't seen for many years.

"Your Soul was carefully selected by me back then from The Seventh World and brought over with my own hands."

"How could I possibly not sense it?"

Mr. Duan turned his head, looking at the kind and amiable middle-aged face in the rearview mirror, a trace of an elusive smile hanging at the corners of his mouth.

In the driver's seat, the driver's hands gripping the steering wheel suddenly tightened.

The veins on the back of his hands bulged one by one, and his knuckles turned a pale white due to excessive force.

He did not turn back, nor did he immediately reply, but simply stared fixedly at the traffic light ahead.

Mr. Duan did not care about his silence, his gaze becoming somewhat profound, as if piercing through the false prosperity before him and returning to that era from long, long ago.

"Do you still remember the first time you met me?"

Mr. Duan gently tapped the bottom plate of the carriage with the tip of his cane, making a muffled sound.

"At that time, you were still a small Professional in a guild in Peter City."

"What was your Professional class grade back then?" Mr. Duan paused as if in thought, then chuckled softly: "Oh right, it was merely C-grade."

In that perilous era, a C-grade Professional couldn't even be considered cannon fodder; they could only struggle to survive in the quagmire at the very bottom.

"Yet you were extraordinarily resolute and calm."

There was a rare trace of genuine appreciation in Mr. Duan's tone.

"I still remember that battle to this day. Facing that Level 30 Calamity BOSS, your guild's master, an A-grade Professional, was so frightened that he even dropped his weapon and fled in panic with his people."

"Only you."

Mr. Duan looked at the rearview mirror, "As a C-grade, you actually had the courage to challenge it head-on. Even if half the bones in your whole body were broken, even if you couldn't even stand steadily, the blade in your hand was never put down."

"It was precisely that persistence that made me decide to take you away."

Hearing this, Bo Ning wore a complex expression.

His breathing became somewhat heavy, and his chest heaved violently a few times.

Ahead happened to be a green light.

Bo Ning took a deep breath and silently restarted the vehicle.

The taxi let out a low roar, once again merging into the endless stream of people.

At the same time, the appearance of the middle-aged driver in the driver's seat began to gradually change.

The disguise on his face faded away like melting ice and snow.

The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes quickly smoothed out, and his gray hair turned a deep black. His originally amiable facial contours became angular.

In just a few seconds, he turned into a young man with sharp eyes and a stern expression.

This was his original appearance.

One of the top powerhouses of The Eighth World in the past, Bo Ning.

"Sir."

Bo Ning's voice was no longer the peaceful disguise from just now, but exuded a hoarseness forged by the vicissitudes of life.

"Starting from The Seventh World, I have followed you since I was eighteen."

He did not look back, but his voice was trembling slightly, suppressing massive emotional fluctuations.

"I have always felt that you are the dawn of all us mankind. It was you who pulled us out of the quagmire of despair and gave us the hope to live on."

"You led us to create The Eighth World, giving us the most glorious moment of the Human Race."

"Yet why?"

"Why would you, who are like a creator god, destroy The Eighth World with your own hands?!"

As his accusation filled with hatred and incomprehension fell,

the bustling scene outside the car instantly began to collapse like a pierced soap bubble.

The surfaces of the towering office buildings peeled off, revealing the rusted steel reinforcement skeletons inside;

the huge electronic advertising screen flickered a few times, then completely went dark and shattered;

the flat asphalt road cracked and collapsed wildly, as if it had suffered a magnitude 10 earthquake.

The crowds walking through the streets and the speeding vehicles all turned to ashes at this moment, scattering with the wind.

Everywhere around were dilapidated buildings.

Everywhere were collapsed roads.

The once vibrant metropolis shed its brilliance in the blink of an eye, turning into a dead and silent apocalyptic scene.

This was the true appearance of The Eighth World, and also the wound in their hearts that could never heal.

Facing the earth-shattering environmental changes around him, there was not the slightest abnormality on Mr. Duan's face.

He still sat upright in the back seat, not changing even half a bit of his breathing rhythm.

He tapped lightly on the car window, looking at the gray and dilapidated world outside.

"The Human Race of The Eighth World in the past, although glorious and powerful—"

"I also once thought back then that I had found the power to fight against the Heavenly Dao."

"But in reality, you of The Eighth World are just like this piece of glass."

He tapped the car window glass with the tip of his cane.

"It looks hard, but as long as a slight crack appears, it will collapse instantly."

"You all think that I betrayed mankind." Mr. Duan withdrew his cane, his gaze turning gloomy: "Actually, back then, someone in our Human Race team had already secretly defected to the Heavenly Dao."

As soon as these words were spoken, Bo Ning's hand gripping the steering wheel suddenly stiffened.

"In order to leave behind the seed of the era, and to prevent the Heavenly Dao from completely obliterating us—"

"I had no choice but to resort to this desperate measure."

Bo Ning was still driving expressionlessly.

The vehicle drove very slowly, and the tires crushed against gravel and scrap steel, making a teeth-gritting friction sound.

"Sir."

Bo Ning's voice was as cold as ice, devoid of a shred of emotion.

"Do you think that things have come to this, I will still believe you?"

Mr. Duan smiled.

Regarding Bo Ning's attitude, he didn't feel surprised at all.

"I know, we now stand on opposite sides."

"This is already irretrievable."

Mr. Duan straightened his cuffs, his gaze looking toward the gray sky outside the car window.

"But the truth of some matters must eventually be made public, right?"

Just at the moment his voice fell,

high above in the sky, an abnormal change suddenly occurred!

The gray clouds were forcibly torn apart by an extremely violent force.

A dazzling red light carrying an earth-shattering Aura, like a burning meteorite, smashed down at a speed invisible to the naked eye!

The target was precisely this slowly driving dilapidated taxi!

"Boom—!!!"

A deafening loud noise resounded through the entire ruin.

The ground shook violently, and the remaining half-buildings around instantly turned into dust under this terrifying shockwave.

The violent energy directly smashed out a terrifying huge pit with a diameter of tens of meters at the location where the car was!

Countless gravel and metal wreckage mixed with smoke and dust soared into the sky, obscuring the line of sight.

The tremor of the earth lasted for a full dozen seconds before gradually subsiding.

The smoke and dust gradually dissipated.

At the edge of the huge pit, a woman with short red hair stood proudly.

Her face was filled with anger, and she was surrounded by violent red energy, making even the surrounding space slightly distorted under this power.

She looked into the deep pit.

Seeing beneath the deep pit, apart from the wreckage of the abandoned car that had been crushed into an iron pancake, there was simply no sign of Mr. Duan.

"Duan!"

The red-haired woman was burning with anger, raising her head and roaring.

"Get out here!"

"See if I don't beat you to death!"

The violent voice wave turned into substantial sound waves, instantly blowing away the remaining smoke and dust around.

On the ruins not far away, a slight commotion came.

Mr. Duan stood intact on a fractured concrete slab, still holding that black cane in his hand, and not even a trace of dust stained the hem of his clothes.

He looked down condescendingly at the enraged red-haired woman and clicked his tongue twice.

"Honglian, your temper is still so hot-tempered."