"Where did you hide the true god? What is the purpose of this machine? Speak!" Zhang Wenwen questioned sharply.
However, facing a轮回者 (reincarnator) who completely outmatched him in strength, Tang Houde, his face still pale, silently repeated his earlier words: "Why did you lie to me... Why did you lie to me..."
Xiaobai frowned and said, "I think this guy's plot has been exposed, so he's pretending to be crazy here!"
"Let me tear off one of his arms and see if he dares to continue playing dumb!"
As she spoke, she directly grabbed one of Tang Houde's arms and prepared to wrench it backward.
However, at this critical moment, Tang Houde's eyes were glazed over as he repeatedly uttered the same two sentences.
"Wait, City Lord Xiaobai, it's not time for that yet. The priority now is to extract information and find the true god!" Zhang Wenwen quickly intervened.
Even if they were to resort to torture, it should be a gradual escalation, focusing on breaking down the opponent's psychological defenses through pressure. If, like Xiaobai, they were to cripple him from the start, Tang Houde might just give up completely, adopting a "scorched earth" mentality, which would be disastrous.
Xiaobai had also grown considerably over the past year, no longer as impatient as when she was first born. She nodded, released his arm, and then slammed her fist violently towards the nearby wall.
As her fist neared the edge of the wall, she stopped it. For Zhang Chen, everything here had to be preserved. If she accidentally broke something and caused her father to never return, that would be terrible!
"Daddy, Daddy!" An anxious cry echoed from the laboratory entrance. It was Mo Ran.
She swiftly moved along the wall and landed steadily on the ground.
"Where's Daddy? Where did Daddy go?!" Mo Ran asked anxiously. It turned out that when her little spiders were weaving webs in the vicinity, they had seen Zhang Wenwen bringing Xiao Ruan and Chen Xiao, so she had rushed to inform her.
"Daddy is gone, and it's all this guy's doing!" Xiaobai pointed at Tang Houde, her voice laced with tears.
"City Lord Mo Ran, please don't worry. We will find a way to make him talk!" Zhang Wenwen quickly explained the situation.
"What about you? Don't you know what happened?" Mo Ran placed her hands on her hips and questioned Chen Xiao.
"This... Because there are fragments of the time meteor core here, my precognitive abilities are also affected. So, I'm not sure what exactly happened!" Chen Xiao shrugged helplessly.
In reality, he knew a little. But he could foresee that if he admitted to knowing anything, he would be the next one to be interrogated. Furthermore, the knowledge he possessed pertained to the stability of the entire world's timeline, which he absolutely could not reveal. Therefore, he could only choose to play dumb.
"So, it seems we can only focus on this guy?"
"It's easy. I will possess him, and then you can ask me as many questions as you want, and get all the answers you need!"
"With my current strength, I should be able to completely access his memories and control his body for over five hours."
"You must find a way to make him exert his maximum value," Mo Ran stated.
"Alright, let's begin!" Zhang Wenwen nodded and then sent people to guard the laboratory door to prevent any leaks. Who knew what impact the disappearance of the true god would have on the轮回者 above if word got out?
Currently, everyone was united due to a common enemy and the suppression of Zhang Chen's formidable strength and supreme prestige. Now that the enemy was defeated and Zhang Chen had disappeared. Any misstep could lead to a power struggle immediately after the apocalyptic final battle. In the apocalypse, human nature is the most untrustworthy. Zhang Wenwen had to prepare for the worst-case scenario.
With all preparations complete, Mo Ran's body instantly transformed into a mass of black slime and entered through Tang Houde's mouth.
A moment later, Tang Houde's eyes opened again, his expression completely calm.
"Come on, start asking questions!"
"Although I can actively access memories, this isn't my brain, so I'm not entirely familiar with it. Let's begin!" Mo Ran said.
"Okay, where did the true god... no, Zhang Chen go?" Zhang Wenwen got straight to the point.
"Disappeared. He vanished along with the time meteor core fragments. My plan has completely failed..." Tang Houde replied slowly.
"Disappeared? You mean Zhang Chen opened a portal and left?" Zhang Wenwen, unsure of Tang Houde's meaning, quickly pressed for clarification.
"Not a portal. In the instant he was about to be drawn into the machine, he vanished along with the time meteor core fragments," Tang Houde continued.
"Vanished together? So, Zhang Chen isn't dead? Was it caused by your machine?" Zhang Wenwen pressed.
"I don't know. He just disappeared like that. We've conducted numerous experiments with the machine, and it has never caused anyone to disappear. Its working principle is simply to absorb the energy of living organisms; that's all. Its structure dictates its function; it has no ability to make people vanish or travel," Tang Houde said, frowning.
It was clear that answering this question required not only accessing memories but also engaging in a certain degree of analysis. Thus, Mo Ran appeared to be slightly strained.
Zhang Wenwen felt that her questions had led to a dead end, so she quickly changed the subject.
"You just said Zhang Chen vanished with the time meteor core fragments, so... your machine originally contained time meteor core fragments?"
Tang Houde nodded and replied, "That's right. Xu Linna told me to place the time meteor core fragments in the machine because Zhang Chen could sense the fluctuations of meteor energy."
"Only by doing so could he be lured into the trap. Otherwise, if he couldn't sense the energy of the time meteor core fragments, all the designs would have been in vain!"
Hearing this, Zhang Wenwen's eyes lit up. She felt as if she was vaguely grasping something, yet she wasn't entirely sure. So, she continued to ask:
"When we entered, you were talking to yourself, saying 'Why did you lie to me?' What did that mean?"
Hearing this, Tang Houde's brow furrowed again, as if the question stirred a series of memories and emotions. After a long pause, he sighed and said, "Xu Linna lied to me. I only realized something was wrong when the machine was activated."
"Originally, I thought I could absorb the energy of the time meteor core fragments along with the energy of the creation and destruction meteor cores within Zhang Chen's body."
"But I now know that these two energies are actually mutually repellent?!"
"And Xu Linna always told me that these two energies were not repellent, and that Zhang Chen couldn't absorb the meteor energy because his body's capacity had reached its limit..."
"Moreover, the world control center indeed operates using the energy of the two meteors, so I believed her... I never expected her to have lied to me in the end..."