"Forget it, I feel like pulling it out would bring a lot of trouble."
Lin Ye moved away from the Cube and the white branch, beginning to observe the surrounding platforms.
This platform connected to three pathways—upper, middle, and lower. The platform below contained a swimming pool filled with some kind of white liquid.
The middle platform had numerous holes of varying sizes, each pitch black, with no way to see what was inside them.
"The upper level should be better," Little Guardian suddenly spoke up.
"Then let's go up."
They walked along a pathway angled at nearly sixty degrees and soon climbed onto the platform.
On the platform stood a structure that looked like a subway station.
Lin Ye stared at the staircase leading underground, recalling past experiences.
"Should we go down? Maybe we could leave this place through the underground train," Mia said, remembering some rumors about the subway.
"No, this station should be sealed off. The train probably can't reach this stop. If we go in, we might attract something unpleasant," Alice paused briefly before responding.
"I think so too. This is probably a fairly targeted trap," Lin Ye didn't believe the Master of this place would leave a passage here that allowed them to ride out.
Of course, there was another possibility—that below was connected to somewhere even more dangerous than here.
"Then we have no choice but to keep moving forward," Mia began observing the surrounding platforms.
The subway station platform only connected to two others. One platform was below, where a silver-haired old man stood smiling at them. The other was above, where a white building seemed to be visible.
Before they could make a choice, the grinning old man walked onto the pathway, heading straight for them.
As he moved, the old man kept staring at them, his unchanging smile plastered on his face.
"Well, looks like we have to go up," Lin Ye had no desire to make contact with a humanoid creature that stayed in a place like this.
The fact that it was so proactive meant dealing with it would definitely be a huge hassle.
The four of them climbed the nearly forty-five-degree pathway toward the upper platform. Below, the old man continued approaching them. He wasn't fast, but he showed no sign of stopping.
On the platform stood a building resembling an observatory. On one side of the structure was a large astronomical telescope that looked like a cannon barrel.
"Can we take a look inside?" Lin Ye glanced at Alice and asked.
"It should be fine in here, but that thing behind us might follow," Alice looked back. The old man had already stepped onto the subway entrance platform.
"Can you guys deal with it? We can't just keep running from it forever, right?"
If this weren't a mental world, Lin Ye would have already made a move.
"Let me try," Mia threw a water-blue potion bottle at the old man.
The bottle smashed perfectly against the old man's face, shattering and drenching him in the liquid.
The old man wasn't knocked down, but after contact with the potion, he clearly froze for a moment before turning back to the subway platform and descending the stairs into the depths of the entrance.
"I was trying to knock him down, but he just ran away..." The old man's reaction surprised Mia.
"Not chasing us is already pretty good," Lin Ye walked toward the two-story white observatory. The main door was unlocked, and inside there was nothing extra—just a single seat and an astronomically complex telescope.
The entire second floor was packed with auxiliary structures for the telescope. Apart from that, the interior was spotless, without a single piece of clutter.
"Can I sit down and take a look?" Lin Ye had never been to a planetarium, and he had no idea what he might see here.
"Probably," Little Guardian glanced at the intricate mechanical structures on the second floor. She felt this place was safer than the previous ones.
The moment Lin Ye sat in the chair that could fully envelop his body, the telescope automatically moved in front of him.
Without needing to focus, Lin Ye could see what the telescope was pointing at—a platform only a few square meters in size. In the center of the platform was a white door.
A label was stuck to the door, bearing its name:
【Exit】
"...That's too straightforward."
Because the door's name was so blunt, Lin Ye couldn't tell whether it was a trap or a real exit.
"It's definitely a trap," Mia asserted after looking through the telescope.
"Even if it's not a trap, reaching it would be extremely difficult. It's way too far," Little Guardian also took a look. Without the telescope, that platform wasn't even within their field of vision.
"I actually think that is the exit—maybe even the only exit here. But getting there will be very hard. There might be impassable platforms in between," Alice reached a conclusion completely opposite to Mia's.
"Taking a risk to go there is worse than just breaking out. I can already tear through the barrier here. If you guys can buy me some time, I can try to tear open a second temporary barrier and bring you all out," Mia only wanted to leave as soon as possible. If they really attracted the Master of this place, they might not get out at all.
"Don't rush. Since we're already here, we should at least take some memorabilia back. We can head toward the exit first. If it really doesn't work, then we can try forcing our way out," Lin Ye felt that forcing an escape wasn't a good idea. It would be better to find the exit.
"...Fine. But if we run into something really troublesome, you need to cooperate with me to tear open the barrier," if it were possible, Mia also wanted to collect some loot to take back.
"I found this upstairs," Alice handed a white card to Lin Ye.
The front of the card was printed with this observatory, while the back was completely blank.
"How did you get up there? There doesn't seem to be a staircase to the second floor," Lin Ye took the card and put it in his pocket.
"I created an illusion upstairs," Alice turned to look at the observatory entrance. The old man was standing there, grinning at them.
"No end to this, huh?" Mia glared at the old man in annoyance, but before she could act, an illusion of Mia appeared in front of her, charging at the approaching old man.
The illusion-Mia's attack landed on the old man but failed to harm him.
The old man easily tore the illusion-Mia's body apart, as if ripping a piece of paper.
Bang!
Alice suddenly drew a pistol and fired a shot at the old man's head.
The shredded remnants of the illusion entangled the old man's body, preventing him from dodging the bullet.
The bullet blew the old man's head apart. The headless corpse fell to the ground, completely motionless.
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