"I'm not laughing because you won. If this continues, you'll die here, and I'll completely disappear too."

The young girl walked over to Lin Ye, pushing aside the corpse behind him so he could lean against her.

"Isn't that fine too?"

Lin Ye turned his head to look at the metal construct. He didn't let his guard down, because even if he cut off the energy supply, that could at most ensure the situation wouldn't worsen. To solve the problem, he still needed to figure out what this metal construct's function was.

"Alright, then let me stay with you a little longer."

The young girl's voice carried a gentleness that would make anyone sink into drowsiness, but Lin Ye felt no sleepiness at all. To maintain true clarity, he used his Special Ability on himself once again.

The young girl behind him disappeared, and those corpses also kept their distance. Now Lin Ye was lying beneath the metal construct, with several electrical wires inserted into his body.

'Knew it wouldn't be that simple.'

Lin Ye didn't rush to pull out the wires embedded in his body. He quickly crawled toward the metal construct and soon found an entrance on it.

The inside of the entrance was densely packed with wires. Mixed in among those wires were some chaotic flesh-and-blood structures.

"This won't do. You can't go any deeper."

The young girl crouched beside Lin Ye, a soulless smile on her face, her eyeballs as dull and lifeless as glass beads.

"Then try to stop me. My brain is already nearing its limit, but I won't stop until it completely collapses."

Lin Ye used his Special Ability on himself again, and the entrance to the metal construct shifted five centimeters to the right in his field of vision.

Before the young girl could appear, Lin Ye forcefully pulled out the wires inserted into his body, then crawled inside the metal construct. The interior was extremely narrow, and he used whatever parts of his body he could still move to inch his way upward bit by bit.

"Why won't you just stop? If you'd only stop, you'd never have to suffer again."

The young girl's head suddenly appeared above Lin Ye. Their eyes met, eyeball to eyeball, with only a few centimeters between them.

"That's because our definitions of suffering are different. To me, suffering isn't physical pain or mental torment. It's the powerlessness of being unable to do what must be done when facing something unavoidable, and the boredom of staying in place, just wasting time. So I will never stop. All you can do is watch me achieve my goal, or completely destroy me. There is no third option."

Lin Ye continued to rub his body upward. The young girl didn't stop him—to be precise, she couldn't stop him at all.

Just as she had always said, she was only Lin Ye's mental illness. At most, all she could do was alter the accuracy of information around him by changing his brain, or use words to induce him to give up moving forward.

Beyond that, she could do nothing.

After that, the young girl didn't try to stop Lin Ye again. She simply stayed by his side, accompanying him as he crawled deeper into the metal construct.

It took about forty minutes before Lin Ye finally climbed to the top of the metal construct. His physical strength had long been exhausted. Reaching this point was only possible through sheer mental fortitude, forcibly commanding his body.

The top of the metal construct was a platform covered in black electrical wires. At the center of the platform sat a very complex-looking instrument.

Standing beside the instrument was a woman in a yellow protective suit. She was currently adjusting the instrument's data.

"You've finally made it up. I've been waiting for you for a long time."

A synthesized electronic voice came from the protective suit's helmet.

Lin Ye immediately used his Special Ability. The young girl beside him vanished, but nothing else changed anywhere.

"Are you the mastermind behind this incident? You could have stopped me from coming up earlier. Why didn't you?"

Lin Ye lay on the ground. His condition was terrible, and the enemy held the advantageous terrain. If she had fired a few shots downward or ordered the young girl to keep affecting him, she could have prevented him from crawling onto the platform.

"According to my calculations, even those monsters from the organization had a near-zero probability of climbing up here. So I have great respect for someone who managed to reach this point. Naturally, I wouldn't stop you.

Besides, even if you made it up here, it wouldn't change anything."

The woman looked at Lin Ye's body, which was on the verge of collapse, and pulled out the Spiritual Energy Pistol holstered at her waist.

Even though Lin Ye looked like he was about to die, she didn't dare take him lightly.

"Bullshit. There should be plenty of spiritual energy users in the organization, right? Those spiritual energy users could easily handle the problem here."

Lin Ye lay on the ground, recovering his strength. His brain was nearly at the point of complete activation, and his body had no movable parts left. This time, he truly was at the end of his rope.

"Heh, you don't think the organization didn't send any spiritual energy users, do you? Those spiritual energy users who ventured deep into this city were all drained of their spiritual energy and became part of this city. You should have seen them earlier."

The woman let out a synthesized electronic laugh.

"Those utility poles?"

Lin Ye had sensed extremely faint traces of spiritual energy in this area before. It was probably the residual energy leaking out from those spiritual energy users as they were being drained.

"That's right. Without them, my plan couldn't have progressed this far.

I answered your question. Now it's your turn to answer mine. How did you get up here? Why didn't the phantom stop you?"

The woman asked curiously.

It was precisely because she wanted to know the answer to this question that she had let Lin Ye climb onto the platform.

"So you can't control her?"

Lin Ye had obtained some unexpected information. He had thought the woman controlled the young girl, which was why she hadn't continued affecting him.

If the young girl had kept interfering with Lin Ye's movements, it would have taken even more energy and time for him to crawl up.

"Of course. She's a part of you, so naturally I can't control her. Otherwise, I would have killed you long ago."

The woman said matter-of-factly.

"...Then I wouldn't know. Maybe compared to an old woman like you, she prefers that I win."

Lin Ye said very casually.

"I'm only twenty-nine... Forget it. Let's say that's the case. It seems there are still some flaws in the mental defense system."

The woman aimed the muzzle of her gun at Lin Ye's head. Since she couldn't get an answer, Lin Ye was useless now.

"You're about to die. It's a shame I can't do anything. At least let me die here with you."

The young girl sat down beside Lin Ye, calmly looking at his profile.

"I'm not dying in some place like this with you in a double suicide."

Lin Ye stared intently at the woman's gun muzzle. His brain was about to activate, and his body was on the brink of collapse, but now was not the time to give up.