Invasion - Chapter 22
Chapter 22
Near the exit, many clouds were floating.
The clouds here were all white, as white as whipped cream.
Unlike the outside world, in the real world, the clouds in the sky were green and purple. No one had ever seen white clouds.
The orange-yellow sunlight gilded the clouds, making them look like ice cream topped with golden syrup.
The rectangular doorway was quietly open amidst the syrup-coated clouds.
It was like a fairy tale world, if it weren't for the long and terrifying attack they had just experienced.
The human-headed monsters had been shaken off, only a few were still far behind, and the orca’s huge body swam overhead from time to time. The whale’s calls brought a sense of security.
"Excuse me, could you light my cigarette?"
Nicole heard someone talking to her.
It was the female sentinel with the long braid, the first one who had entered the airship.
The sentinel was leaning against a wall, her hands hanging down. The white bandages on half of her body were stained red with blood. She took out a crumpled pack of cigarettes from somewhere, put one in her mouth. Her only movable wrist trembled violently, she didn't even have the strength to light a match.
Shu Jingtong, whose mental strength had been overused, had fainted beside her, protected between her body and the corner of the wall.
Nicole reluctantly moved closer and took the match from the sentinel.
The "cigarettes" that sentinels smoked were different from the tobacco that ordinary people smoked. They were mental comfort placebos made by soaking dried grass in diluted, artificial Guide pheromones.
Using this could soothe the irritability caused by mental overload. Although the effect was relatively weak, it was convenient and not easy to overdose, so it was very popular among low-level sentinels.
Nicole struck the match several times before it lit. The sentinel moved closer, lighting her cigarette with the flame in Nicole's hand.
"Thank you." The female sentinel, with the cigarette in her mouth, looked up at her.
"Is… is there another cigarette?" A weak voice came from the corner.
It was the sentinel whose legs had been severed.
He was sitting in the shadows of the corner. His legs below the knees were gone, and countless wounds covered his body. He was asking his companions for a cigarette.
The female sentinel gave him one of her cigarettes, lit it with her own, and asked Nicole to bring it to him.
Nicole handed the cigarette to the severely injured man and sat down next to him, leaning against the wall.
He was so severely injured that his face was as pale as a corpse. He didn't even have the strength to lift his hand to take it, he just held the cigarette in his mouth, his head hanging down.
The entire airship was filled with critically injured people like this. Nicole didn't know how many would still be alive by the time they got out.
Only, her mental power was completely exhausted. She couldn't do anything now, her hands would even tremble when she lit a match. She could only sit there, accompanying her severely injured comrades, exchanging a few words from time to time.
"Is this thing good?" Nicole asked them.
"You won't like it." The female sentinel, holding her cigarette, leaned against the wall, looking at the sky above. "For us, it's something that saves our lives."
"When we get back, you can come find me at the empire's guidance room," Nicole said. "I work there for two half-days every week. I can give you mental guidance then."
These Sentinels were not very old, but the negative states within their mental landscapes were mostly very serious.
After the battle, Nicole had entered the mental landscapes of several Sentinels. Everyone's mental world was filled with invalid information and negative emotions that had accumulated for who knew how long and had not been cleared.
That garbage had solidified like stones, eroding the Sentinels' mental worlds bit by bit.
"Thank you. My family is very poor, I've never been to a guidance room," the man with the severed legs, sitting next to Nicole, said softly. "This is the first time I've seen a real Guide. I never knew Guides were all so gentle."
Nicole sat on the floor with him, looking up at the sky outside the broken roof, at the beautiful clouds in the sky, at Lin Yuan, who was still guarding the tail of the ship.
That thin figure stood at the top of the ladder, facing the wind, silhouetted against the flowing clouds, watching the mutated creatures that were sporadically catching up in the distance.
She was still fighting, together with that powerful Sentinel. As if she knew no fatigue.
Guides weren’t completely useless after all, Nicole thought.
She still remembered the year she had differentiated into a Guide, how everyone in the family’s attitude towards her had changed.
Afterwards, no matter how hard she tried, no matter how much she bared her fangs and brandished her claws. Even though her mental body was very beautiful, and its materialized size was even larger than her brothers’.
Her father and her two brothers still treated her like an insignificant kitten or puppy.
Just a Guide, go do your flower arrangements, the family’s matters have nothing to do with you.
They often said that.
"Do you have any siblings?" The Sentinel beside her asked.
"I have two older brothers. They’re annoying."
"That’s pretty good. I have five younger siblings, I'm the eldest." The Sentinel's voice was light and airy, gradually fading. "My youngest sister is only two years old, she can’t even walk properly. If I'm gone, I don't know if she'll starve to death."
"Don't be so pessimistic, hold on a little longer, we’re almost out," Nicole encouraged him. "The exit is right in front of us."
The Sentinel said something afterwards, Nicole didn’t hear it clearly.
Because the airship had already arrived at the giant, rectangular door.
Under everyone’s expectant gazes, the metal goddess statue at the top of the airship entered the dark doorway.
The next moment, the sky suddenly brightened.
It was no longer the orange-red sky, the eerie canvas.
The world was clear and bright. Vast green fields, blue skies, and the bright sun overhead.
It was the same safe and beautiful wilderness they had left.
They were back, they had returned to their normal world.
Having narrowly escaped death, returning from hell, they finally knew how wonderful it was to be alive.
On the airship, everyone who was still alive, anyone who could still speak, cheered loudly, tears of joy streaming down their faces.
They hugged the companions beside them.
"We’re out, we’re out!" Nicole almost jumped up, excitedly calling out to the sentinel beside her.
Only, the sentinel didn’t speak, remaining silent, his head hanging low.
Nicole’s voice became hoarse.
"Hey," she called out again carefully.
The young sentinel’s lowered face was shrouded in shadow, his appearance unclear. Only the cigarette in his mouth was still glowing with a faint red light.
His hand, hanging by his side, opened, and two imperial coins rolled out from his calloused palm.
Only two, enough to buy an apple.
Usually, a young lady like Nicole, who had been born with a silver spoon in her mouth, would never lower herself to pick up two imperial coins that had fallen on the ground.
But at this moment, she bit her lip, bent down, and carefully picked up the two coins that still carried his body heat, tightly clutching them in her palm.
Not letting her tears fall on them.
At this moment, she finally remembered the last words this sentinel had said, at the place where they were just a step away from the escape door. The sentinel, using his last bit of strength, had given his last words,
"They might not return my belongings to my family,"
"Please, bring this little bit of money to my younger sister."
The airship landed unsteadily in the green wilderness.
It was a long time before the rescue team sent by the White Tower finally arrived, fashionably late.
The injured were carried away on stretchers, and there were too many bodies of dead sentinels, they could only be piled onto trucks.
Several Guides, wrapped in blankets, stood by the roadside, crying.
Guides were sentimental creatures by nature, and in the face of such a tragic event, who could hold back their sadness and grief?
Among all the surviving Guides, perhaps only Lin Yuan showed no emotion. Her face was indifferent, as usual, and she even had the mood to take the towel offered by the medical staff and carefully wipe her hands clean.
So cold, she was still that weirdo, indifferent even at a time like this. Did she even have a heart? Some people couldn’t help but think.
Lin Yuan wiped her hands clean and silently walked to the side of a sentinel’s body, bending down to take something from him. It was the body of the sentinel whose legs had been severed, he had already completely lost his life signs.
“What did you take?” Nicole came over and asked her.
Lin Yuan reached out and turned the back of the identification tag to show her. The sentinel’s name and personal information were written there.
Jiang Xiaoher, Blood Type B, Home Address: 19th District, Black Street No. 25. Emergency Contact: Mother Jiang Rong.
“Give it to me.” Nicole choked back a sob, taking the small identification tag from Lin Yuan, putting it together with the two imperial coins she had been clutching in her hand. “I can handle it.”
When she took it, she brushed against the skin of Lin Yuan’s hand.
Her hands were so warm, Nicole thought.
She heard our conversation, she specially took it for me. So that’s where they kept the soldier’s identification information.
Her classmates all said that Lin Yuan was a very cold and unapproachable person.
That wasn’t true, Nicole thought, she was a good person, her heart was warm. She just wasn’t very expressive.
The leader of the rescue team and the airship captain stood far away, talking.
When they counted the number of people and discovered that only a few Guides had died, and that most of the casualties were Sentinels, they visibly relaxed. Tan Shu also joined them, the three exchanging cigarettes. Those weren’t the inferior goods that low-level Sentinels smoked, but high-quality cigarettes with added expensive spices.
Their tone became relaxed. They complimented each other, saying that this incident was just bad luck, and no one’s fault. Someone also said that it was thanks to Tan Shu from the Public Security Bureau for discovering everything in time and sending a sentinel to rescue them. At least there hadn't been any large-scale Guide deaths, it wasn't too great of a loss.
In any case, it wasn’t a big deal. They even chuckled lightly when a certain topic was mentioned.
As if the bodies of the sentinels, bleeding, being carried onto trucks one after another, were just worthless objects that could be casually discarded.
Ni Ji stood far away, coldly watching everything.
This scene was too familiar, he had seen it too many times. No one cared about the young lives that had been lost, the unfulfilled wishes, the lingering attachments, and the families they could no longer return to.
He had seen this too many times, again and again, it stung his eyes.
Making anger surge in his heart, he always felt like he should do something, but he couldn't do anything.
Until he saw her again in the crowd.
That girl, who had just come down from the battlefield, wiped her hands clean, and bent down to take the identification tag from a dead sentinel’s body.
She leaned her head together with her companion, looking at the information on the back of the identification tag.
Ni Ji knew very well the meaning behind that action. Taking the identification tag, fulfilling the deceased’s last wish.
The actions of the two Guide girls were almost the only warmth in this cold aftermath of the battle.
Ni Ji very much wanted to walk over.
He wanted to talk to that girl face to face.
Thank her for helping him, ask her if she had been injured, or perhaps ask her to next time, if they could meet again, not let those tentacles… uh, that topic was better left unsaid.
He now understood why sentinels longed for Guides.
If he missed today, he didn’t know when he would have another opportunity to see her again.
No, actually, for that Guide, it would be best not to have any connection with a person like him.
He saw a girl with an afro wiping her tears next to Lin Yuan. Lin Yuan didn’t move, just a tentacle emerged from the ground and gently patted her crying companion on the shoulder.
She really was gentle. Ni Ji thought.
He clenched his hand at his side and turned to leave.
Vaguely, he heard an orca’s call from somewhere.
That sound, seemingly unwilling, let out a mournful cry before quickly being muffled.
Ni Ji turned around, not looking back, walking toward where Tan Shu was.
Walking into that foul-smelling circle.
Tan Shu saw him, smiled, offered him a cigarette, and praised him for doing a good job. He lowered his head, took the cigarette, and stood there, taking a puff.
The stimulating sensation of the artificial guide pheromones and the thick smell of perfume mixed together in his mouth, rushing into his mind. It was a taste and feeling that many were addicted to.
So disgusting, Ni Ji thought, he didn't even want to take another puff, a real Guide was nothing like this.
A real Guide.
His slender fingers, holding the cigarette, paused.
The skin on the back of his hand seemed to still have that strange feeling.
Like something wet was still stuck there, it would suddenly slap him, making half of his body tingle.
So distinct, and so unforgettable.
He put that feeling away, into the deepest depths of the ocean.
From now on, it would stay there forever.
That's so sad :((
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