The silence that descended upon the Game Hall was not the absence of sound, but a presence in its own right. It was a heavy, suffocating blanket that pressed against the eardrums, turning the vast expanse of the transit hub into something resembling a sterile waiting room for an execution.
[00:59:41]
Lin Yue stood at the window of the upper corridor and watched the Hall below. From this height, the players looked small—dense clusters of humanity spread across a reflective floor, each cluster a small island of stillness in a sea that had gradually stopped moving altogether over the past hour.
