408: Chapter 408 demands an explanation!

That wasn't a Healing Technique.

It was a kind of... more advanced, more primordial power, brimming with the breath of life.

The moment that light brushed over him, not only did he recover all his strength, but he even felt his life level receive a minuscule, imperceptible elevation.

That feeling was something Wen Yan would never forget for the rest of his life.

His thoughts returned to the present.

Wen Yan looked at the bloody slaughterhouse and then at the back of the figure being cursed by ten thousand people.

An utterly insane thought surfaced in his mind.

If it were that level of vitality...

Turning death into life, perhaps...

It might not be impossible.

At this moment, in the hearts of the agitated audience outside the wall, the narrative had already been completely rewritten.

The one hundred and forty-one contestants who had illegally rushed into the arena were no longer rule-breaking opportunists, but tragic heroes attempting to stop the "Female Demon."

They had selectively forgotten the truth, glorifying all the deceased as innocent victims.

And Lin Yao was the pure demon who had intentionally set a trap to cruelly slaughter her own kind.

There's definitely something wrong with her mental state!

Lin Yu is an accomplice!

Lin Yao curled up on the ground, listening to the shouts of "murderer" growing louder outside the wall, her body trembling like a sieve.

Just then, Lin Yu turned around, completely ignoring the hundred thousand pairs of eyes behind him that wanted to cut him into a thousand pieces.

He crouched down in front of Lin Yao once again.

His knee hit a shattered alloy plate; its sharp edge sliced a hole in his pant leg. He didn't care.

He simply gestured for Lin Yao to drink some water.

Lin Yao looked at the bottle of water.

Her hands were shaking. Her ten fingers clenched and opened three times before she finally caught the bottle. The bottle was cold, with a layer of fine water droplets condensed on the plastic shell, wetting her dust-covered fingertips.

She unscrewed the cap and brought the water to her lips.

She couldn't swallow it.

Her throat was blocked; she tried to swallow twice but failed. The water trickled down the corners of her mouth, leaving two clean trails on her chin and washing away the grayish-black stains.

But her body stopped trembling.

That high-frequency, uncontrollable shaking miraculously subsided the moment she took the water.

Lin Yu didn't rush her.

He just crouched there, his right hand resting on his knee, speaking word by word.

"As long as I'm here, you don't have to think about anything else."

Lin Yu didn't know how to comfort people; his words had no inflection, no emphasis, and no attempt at any moving techniques.

"The matters outside, I'll handle them."

Lin Yao gripped the water bottle, her knuckles pressing dents into the plastic. She didn't speak, only nodding heavily.

The venue's public address system hadn't been turned off.

Every word Lin Yu spoke was faithfully reproduced by hundreds of speakers through the arena's remaining audio pickup devices.

That sentence, "As long as I'm here, you don't have to think about anything else," poured clearly into the ears of a hundred thousand people.

Outside the isolation wall, there was a dead silence for half a second.

Then, the burly man standing on a seat raised the microphone again.

"Did you hear that!"

He scanned the surroundings, veins bulging from his neck all the way to his temples.

"Did you all hear that!"

"One hundred and forty-one people are dead! One hundred and forty-one living people were crushed into mincemeat! And inside, he's holding his sister and saying 'don't think about anything else'!"

The burly man suddenly turned toward the left stands and pointed his arm toward the arena.

"In their eyes, what is human life worth? Your brothers, your comrades, your guild mates—they can't even get a single apology from their mouths!"

"He told her not to think! Not to think! Then who will think? Who will think for the dead!"

These words had no logical flaws.

Because they didn't need logic at all.

They only needed emotion.

In the stands, cries and curses were tangled together.

"Beasts!"

"Cold-blooded beasts!"

"The Organization must give an explanation!"

More debris flew out. A broken stool flew over the front row, hit the isolation wall and bounced off, snapping in two. This was followed by a shoe, a coat, and a crushed tin can.

The dense sounds of impact merged into a continuous metallic hammering, creating a dull resonance throughout the enclosed venue.

At the entrance of the backstage tunnel.

Wen Yan stood there with his arms crossed over his chest.

Zhong Huai's fingers were still hovering over the virtual light screen; the code for the "Identity Reset Protocol" was already half-generated. As long as he pressed confirm, every trace of Lin Yu and Lin Yao's existence in this world would be permanently erased—student records, household registration, social relationships, biological information, all reset to zero.

There was no other way; unless Lin Yu could turn back time and bring the dead back to life, they were finished.

While Wen Yan was still thinking hard, Zhong Huai sighed; the application had already been sent.

Given his rank, by tonight at the latest, Lin Yao and Lin Yu would become two dead people on the household register.

Zhong Huai turned his head and looked back at the arena.

In the center of the arena.

Lin Yu stood up.

His movements were slow, and a slight cracking sound came from his knee joints as they straightened. He turned around, facing the direction of the isolation wall.

The roars of a hundred thousand people surged toward him.

Those in the front row pressed against the wall, their fists incessantly pounding the translucent crystalline material. Every strike caused a ripple of light blue energy to appear on the wall's surface, spreading out from the point of impact and quickly dissipating.

More people surged forward from the back rows; the aisles in the stands were already blocked. People were packed tight, shoulder to shoulder; some had their shoes stepped off, others found it hard to breathe from the squeeze, but no one retreated.

Anger had replaced fear.

Lin Yu stood right on this side of the wall.

He was less than three meters away from the nearest distorted face pressed against the wall.

The burly man was still shouting.

"Look! He's standing up! He doesn't care at all!"

"One hundred and forty-one lives are worth less than a dog to him!"

"Organization! Is this how you treat your contestants!"

The burly man's face was flushed red from screaming, and the veins in his neck bulged, looking as if they might burst at any moment. He picked up a war hammer that someone had dropped on the ground—a one-handed war hammer with an iron head; it wasn't large, but it was heavy enough.

He raised the war hammer.

The crowd outside the isolation wall automatically parted to make a path.

The burly man gripped the handle with both hands, his entire body coiling like a bow as he channeled all his strength into his upper body.

Then, the hammerhead slammed down heavily.

“Bang—!”

A dull, heavy thud.

From the point of impact, a dense circle of energy ripples exploded across the surface of the isolation wall. Those ripples vibrated violently, the blue light flickering as it surged within the wall for a full two seconds before gradually subsiding.

The wall didn't budge an inch.

But the sound of that hammer strike echoed back and forth within the enclosed venue, rolling several times.

The burly man stared at the undamaged wall, his chest heaving. He raised the hammer and struck again.

“Bang!”

The ripples spread once more.

“Bang!”

A third time.

The crowd behind him was ignited by this rhythm. More people rushed forward, using bare hands, fists, kicks, daggers, short swords—everything they could find to assault the isolation wall.