After sending off Tiantian and the other two, only Qi Xia remained standing alone in the corridor.

Although there were still scattered “Participants” walking past, Qi Xia at this moment was just like one of the many “Participants,” with no one paying him any attention.

He turned his head once more to look at Baiyang’s ethereal figure, then retreated back into the room, closed the door, and continued sitting in the center of the room.

The timing wasn’t right yet. He could only continue waiting.

Just as Qi Xia expected, when he raised his head again, Baiyang was already standing there leaning against the doorframe.

He was like a nightmare to Qi Xia—impossible to shake off or dispel.

“What an annoying ghostly thing…”

After hearing this, Baiyang let out a cold laugh and walked step by step to sit down in front of Qi Xia.

“Do you think I want to appear?” Baiyang countered. “I’ve already finished everything I needed to do. It was clearly time for retirement, yet I keep being fantasized into existence over and over. Why don’t you just admit defeat? I’ll handle what comes next.”

After hearing this, Qi Xia reached up to rub his forehead, feeling the situation once again approaching the edge of losing control.

If Baiyang’s phantom was something he had imagined, then every sentence he spoke was a projection of his own subconscious. Didn’t Baiyang’s current words prove that he was having thoughts of retreat?

“My mind is a bit chaotic,” Qi Xia said. “But you should know what I’m thinking…”

“Of course,” Baiyang nodded. “You believe that even if you die, it doesn’t matter, as long as someone can make it to the end.”

“But the situation is wrong now…” Qi Xia said. “Things beyond my expectations are happening.”

After hearing this, Baiyang thought for half a second, then shook his head and said: “A massive tower will inevitably develop tiny cracks.”

“So what if it collapses?” Baiyang stared at Qi Xia and said, “Your goal isn’t to make this tower stand for a thousand years without falling, but only to build it well enough for a single moment.”

“Yes…” Qi Xia murmured with his head lowered. “As long as I build the tower well enough to let me touch the azure sky for one instant, that’s enough…”

“So can you stop summoning me?” Baiyang said with a cold expression. “Am I your trump card?”

“I…”

Qi Xia was momentarily at a loss for words. At this moment, as usual, his mind was processing many things simultaneously, yet his subconscious kept interrupting all his trains of thought with uneasy premonitions.

“Isn’t it just tens of thousands of faceless people…” Baiyang chuckled lightly. “As long as you don’t say anything… who could discover it?”

“Yes…” Qi Xia nodded. “As long as I don’t say anything…”

“Didn’t we personally kill those thousands of people?” Baiyang stood up, then bent down and pressed close to Qi Xia’s face, saying, “Are those things even human in your heart?”

Qi Xia’s brows furrowed slightly, feeling his mind becoming even more chaotic.

“We killed day and night for so many days… before finally killing them all…” Baiyang continued. “Just burying those corpses—how long did that take?”

“Wait a moment…” Qi Xia held his forehead and raised a pair of cold eyes to look at Baiyang. “What are you doing?”

“We buried them… wasn’t it to conceal this monstrous lie?” Baiyang said again. “Why are you starting to be afraid now?”

Qi Xia felt that Baiyang was currently undermining his psychological defenses, yet Baiyang was clearly his own fantasy.

What benefit would his collapse bring to him?

Did he really want to revive during this chaos?

“They’ll be dug up sooner or later… right?” Baiyang asked again. “After you used those faceless people and then killed them, burying them in the shadows of the alley… how could they not be discovered? This place is full of deranged people. How can you predict their actions?”

“Are you actually trying to comfort me…?” Qi Xia said with a frown. “Did I kill those people because of my own selfishness…”

“Wasn’t it…?” Baiyang bent down close to Qi Xia’s ear. “Are you going to tell me those people wanted to die?”

“Those people…” Qi Xia paused. “No, you said it yourself—those things aren’t human.”

“What I’m asking is… do those people count as human in your eyes?” Baiyang straightened up and continued staring at Qi Xia with meaningful eyes. “Killing faceless people to save people with faces… does whether they should be saved depend on whether they have facial features?”

“I…”

“Who spent more time with you?” Baiyang asked again. “How did you get your priorities reversed?”

Qi Xia noticed that Baiyang’s form was gradually changing, but he wasn’t becoming corporeal—rather, wisps of crimson aura were appearing around his body.

This was the intense aura of the “Land of the End.”

Perhaps the person before him had never been Baiyang at all, but rather the “Evil of the End” that he had suppressed deep in his heart.

He was himself, yet not entirely himself.

For this path… just how many people had he killed?

No… there was still a loophole, because some people weren’t killed only by him, but also by Baiyang.

“Baiyang…” After several seconds of silence, Qi Xia spoke. “Back then, after you became a ‘Human-level Game’ referee, even Yan Zhichun couldn’t recognize you… yet here you are mocking me for having my priorities reversed.”

After hearing this, Baiyang chuckled lightly: “Yan Zhichun… if it were you, could you have recognized her? It had been too many years since we’d met… how long was it?”

He reached up to stroke his chin and couldn’t help but produce a word—

“Eternity.”

“Yes, it had already been separated by ‘Eternity’ for so long…” Baiyang smiled. “That I could recognize that face after experiencing ‘Eternity’ shows that Yan Zhichun left a deep enough impression on me. If it were any other person, it would be impossible to remember an old acquaintance in that situation… right?”

“What an ‘Eternity,'” Qi Xia said. “That ‘Eternity’ wasn’t experienced only by you—I experienced it too.”

“This ‘Eternity’ drastically changed our temperaments, turned Baihu into an elder, made us thoroughly familiar with the battle methods for fighting Heavenly-Dragon…” Baiyang continued. “Yet those faceless people who accompanied you… in your eyes, they don’t count as human at all. This makes me feel you’re very cold.”

Qi Xia felt his mind gradually beginning to descend into chaos.

Far away at other positions in the corridor, Yan Zhichun, Chu Tianqiu, and Qin Dingdong also gradually stopped in their tracks.

They felt that the scene before them seemed to be changing, but this subtle change was difficult to perceive. Fortunately, these three were not ordinary people and sensed the abnormality almost instantly.

Perhaps it was just someone’s position that had changed, or perhaps it was certain people’s expressions that had suddenly twisted, but this “train” indeed looked somewhat different from before.