The Red-robed BOSS Says I Killed Him - Chapter 9

Chapter 9

The B1 Level was a literal hell.

As soon as the elevator doors opened, a blast of cold air hit me, carrying the sharp scent of rust and blood.

Glass chambers lined every wall.

In some, the occupants no longer looked human, reduced to nothing more than twisted shadows.

Others still had their eyes open, yet they couldn’t even manage a cry for help.

I stood frozen, my throat tightening with every breath.

Beside me, Jiang Yichuan muttered a low curse.

“What the hell…”

“This is the Deep Well,” I said.

“It was never a game.”

“It’s a man-eating machine.”

At the far end, the door to the Control Room stood open.

Ji Qingyan was tied up next to the console, unconscious.

Lin Xizhe stood before the Main Screen, idly playing with a silver Authority Key in his hand.

“You got here fast.”

“Let her go,” Jiang Yichuan’s voice was low and dangerous.

“I can do that.”

Lin Xizhe looked at me, his smile never wavering.

“I’ll release her the moment you agree to reset 0719.”

“You really think you’re that important,” Li Shuheng spoke up, his voice flat.

“I’m at least more lucid than you are.”

Lin Xizhe stared at him, his tone finally betraying a hint of genuine disgust.

“You’re nothing more than a leftover monster from a successful experiment.”

Li Shuheng laughed.

“You turn people into this, and then you have the nerve to call them monsters.”

“Lin Xizhe, people like you truly deserve to rot in hell.”

“What do a few insults matter as long as the System remains stable?”

“I don’t have it as easy as you think.”

Lin Xizhe stared at the Main Screen, his voice cracking for the first time.

“I’ve seen too many people fall in. All that’s left of them is a scrap of audio, a single movement, a flickering shadow.”

“If I don’t preserve even those small fragments for them, who will?”

As he spoke, the Main Screen flickered.

Images of the real world were projected: hospital wards, streets, schools, subway stations.

Black fissures were slowly tearing open in these places.

“Do you see?”

“The Deep Well has begun to overflow.”

“Luo Tinglan, you have two choices.”

“Kill him, reset the Core, and temporarily mitigate the damage.”

“Or watch all these people be buried with him.”

I stared at the screen for a few seconds, then suddenly let out a short laugh.

Lin Xizhe frowned.

“What are you laughing at?”

“At how stupid you are.”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you really think the only authority I obtained back then was the power to reset?”

“Lin Xizhe, it’s not that you can’t bear to let those people go.”

“You just can’t bear to admit that after all these years of guarding this place, what you’ve actually been guarding is a man-eating graveyard.”

Lin Xizhe’s expression shifted.

I walked into the Control Room step by step, my voice steady.

“I can kill him.”

“But I can also perform a separation to pull him out of the Instance.”

“The reason you people never used the latter wasn’t because you couldn’t.”

“It was because you didn’t want to.”

“You couldn’t bear to lose such a useful Core.”

The air went deathly silent.

The last shred of certainty in Lin Xizhe’s eyes finally shattered.

“You’re insane.”

“Separation requires a dual-core resonance. You’ll be dragged down with him.”

“Even that’s better than continuing to serve as your battery.”

As soon as I finished speaking, I reached out and bypassed the Main Control’s outer layer.

With a sharp click, the silver authority lock popped open.

Lin Xizhe’s face paled as he lunged forward to seize it.

Jiang Yichuan, having anticipated this moment, intercepted him with his blade.

“I think you’d better worry about yourself first.”