Invasion - Chapter 24

Chapter 24

Shen Fei and a group of sentinels led Lin Yuan to the treatment room. It was a room specially prepared for injured sentinels.

To prevent the mentally fragile injured from being affected during treatment, all the walls of the treatment room were made of thick soundproofing materials, ensuring that the injured inside would not be disturbed by outside noise.

Lin Yuan stood in front of the multi-layered laminated glass window outside, looking at the treatment room.

Soft lights were on inside the treatment room, a pile of medical equipment with messy wires. On the only bed, a sentinel was tightly bound.

The sentinel looked very quiet at the moment. He had long golden hair and handsome features, his eyes open blankly, staring at the ceiling silently.

His hands were crossed over his shoulders, tightly bound from top to bottom by thick restraints, with heavy iron shackles additionally fastened around his neck and ankles. A cylindrical gag was tied around his mouth to prevent him from biting his tongue.

It was unclear what kind of violent struggle had occurred here that they had to take such strict precautions with the patient.

"How is it?"

Shen Fei and the sentinels outside nervously looked at Lin Yuan, as if a single glance from Lin Yuan through the glass could determine a person's life or death. As if she could immediately give them a reassurance or a death notice.

"I want to know some details. What's his mental body, and what's his current state? It would be best to know what he encountered in the contaminated zone," Lin Yuan said.

Shen Fei's expression turned grim.

"You know, right? Contaminated zones are like bizarre nightmares, and every contaminated zone is completely different. The mutated creatures inside are also different," he explained. "Some crave human flesh and blood, some like to pollute the human mental world. And some, as long as you don't cross their boundaries, they can even coexist peacefully with humans. The mutated creature that caught Rachel wanted to turn him into one of its own kind."

Lin Yuan indicated that she didn't quite understand. When she was studying at the White Tower, she had seen many promotional videos of humans fighting mutated creatures. The monsters in those videos were uniformly ferocious and bloodthirsty, killing was their instinct, and they fought fiercely with the heroes, without any reason.

In the contaminated zone she had just experienced, the human-headed monsters chased human blood, and their sharp mouthparts took many lives.

Of course, speaking of unique mutated creatures, Lin Yuan did know one. That guy had been secretly hiding in her home.

"Those you’re talking about are the lowest level mutated creatures," Shen Fei said. "They mostly appear in newly formed contaminated zones. In fact, the powerful mutated creatures in contaminated zones are not just simple beasts. They are cunning, have different personalities, and each has its own quirks and habits."

"There's a mutated creature in the No. 5 Contaminated Zone that particularly likes powerful sentinels. It never kills the sentinels it catches, it only imprisons them and repeatedly tortures them, until it breaks through the sentinel's barrier and pollutes their mental world. Until the person completely collapses, goes berserk, and turns into a mutated creature like them, forever trapped in the monster's world."

"I've always had a feeling..." Shen Fei pondered for a moment. "It just likes to keep people inside and turn them into monsters, to live in the contaminated zone forever."

"What he encountered in the contaminated zone…" As if recalling some scene he didn't want to remember, Shen Fei showed a pained expression. He wiped his face, but continued speaking.

"When we arrived, that monster had Xiao Lei displayed on a high platform, torturing him. The most disgusting thing was, its spores created many fake people, those things that look very much like real people. Among those people, there was me, there were these brothers, and some of Xiao Lei’s family members, in short, they were all the closest people in his memories. They made those things wearing our faces surround him, watching him being tortured bit by bit, laughing by his side."

He slammed his fist against the wall. "When I got there, I smashed the thing wearing my face to smithereens. But it was useless, Rachel had been tortured there for three days. When we picked him up, he didn't recognize anyone anymore."

The atmosphere outside the treatment room was very heavy. The sentinels all had red eyes, biting their teeth and not speaking. Clearly, each of them had participated in the rescue, leaving an unforgettable anger in their hearts.

In the entire place, perhaps only Lin Yuan could still maintain her signature expressionless face.

She touched her chin, hummed, and said, "Alright, I'll go in and give it a try."

After saying that, she turned around and pushed the door open, entering.

The sentinels crowded in front of the glass observation window outside, nervously watching the scene inside.

They held their breaths, watching the young female Guide enter the room.

The Guide calmly washed her hands in the sink, folded her sleeves, found a chair by the bed, and sat down.

Rachel, tied to the bed, showed no reaction, staring blankly at the ceiling. He didn't seem to care who sat down next to him, or what they were going to do to him.

The personal terminal on Lin Yuan's left wrist lit up, displaying several virtual screens, connecting to the sentinel's vital signs monitor on the bed.

She looked at the various physical data for a while, reached out her right hand, and firmly pressed it against the sentinel's eyebrows, covering his deep blue eyes.

"She, she, she, she just started like that!" Dahu outside the window almost jumped up, only to be glared at by several people. He quickly covered his mouth with his large hands.

Even though the soundproofing here was excellent, and the inside couldn't hear any noise from the outside, they were still very careful, afraid of disturbing Lin Yuan's treatment.

"It’s started just like that?" He covered his mouth, whispering to the female sentinel with short hair beside him, gesturing with his hands. "Xiao Niao, how come I heard that before channeling, they have to change clothes, burn incense, and even play music?"

The female sentinel nicknamed Xiao Niao nervously stared at the scene inside, shaking her head.

She didn't understand either. This was the first time she had seen a Guide’s mental treatment, and it was really different from the fancy scenes in TV dramas.

"She’s been traveling all this way, she hasn’t even had a sip of water, and she just went in. Regardless of the outcome, we should be grateful to her," Xiao Niao said. "After all, Captain Lei is already…"

She swallowed the rest of her ominous words. "No matter what, once channeling has started, it can't be disturbed. What we need to do now is stay quiet, guard this door, and not let anyone disturb what’s happening inside."

Through the glass, the young woman sitting by the bed closed her eyes. The faint light from the virtual screen shone on her calm and indifferent face, inexplicably bringing a sense of reassurance.

...

Lin Yuan opened her eyes and found herself standing in a half-collapsed room.

So this was Rachel's mental landscape?

She looked up and surveyed her surroundings. The small room should have been a cozy place. Striped wallpaper, beautiful wall lamps, and a small wooden bed. On the bedside table were a potted plant and several photo frames.

Lin Yuan glanced at the photos. Most of them were group photos, the sentinels in the pictures had their arms around each other's shoulders, showing bright smiles.

Looking closely, Lin Yuan recognized several of the faces. Shen Fei, Dahu, Xiao Niao… basically all those now guarding outside the treatment room had appeared in these photos.

This was the warmest and safest place in Rachel’s heart, where the images of the people he valued most resided.

The cozy room was now mostly collapsed, most of the walls and roof had caved in, leaving only this small corner. The broken edges of the floor were uneven, constantly seeping a black, asphalt-like liquid. The thick liquid dripped down drop by drop.

Lin Yuan walked to the edge of the broken floor and looked down. Below were layers of shattered rooms and houses, bottomless.

This place might have originally been a huge and sturdy castle. Now, only countless broken rooms remained, floating in the air.

Looking up, she could see a blood-red sky, with huge eyes hanging in the red dome, eerie and disgusting. Those eyes stared coldly at the collapsing world.

Looking down, she couldn't see the bottom. Broken walls, floors, stairs, and all sorts of furniture floated sporadically, with debris constantly falling. Black liquid flowed everywhere, like endless black blood.

In the real world, by the bed, red warning symbols appeared on the virtual screen of Lin Yuan's personal terminal.

"Warning, warning, the patient's mental landscape is collapsing, please exit treatment immediately."

"Danger, danger, please exit treatment immediately."

Outside the observation window, Xiao Niao jumped up. "What happened? Why is there a red exclamation mark?"

Dahu, shrinking to the side, desperately pulled at her, gesturing for her to be quiet, trying to persuade her in a low voice as much as possible. "Calm down, Xiao Niao, calm down. You said it yourself, we have to trust the Guide, and guard this door."

They all looked at Lin Yuan intently.

Lin Yuan, sitting by the bed, closed her eyes, her expression unchanged.

The red warning light from the virtual screen flickered on her delicate face.

At this moment, in Rachel's mental landscape,

Lin Yuan was standing at the edge of the broken room, looking at the messy debris floating below.

Below, about four or five stories down, a young boy peeked out from behind a broken wall, secretly looking at her.

The boy, like Rachel on the bed, had golden hair and a pair of deep blue eyes.

"Warning, warning, advise immediate termination of treatment," the warning from the terminal rang in Lin Yuan's ear.

Lin Yuan ignored it and jumped down.

The little boy saw Lin Yuan jumping down towards him and panicked slightly. He quickly retracted his face, his small figure flashing, disappearing to who knew where.

Lin Yuan landed on the platform where the boy had just appeared, looking around. The boy was gone, only a golden, fluffy something flashed in the distance.

"What's his mental body?"

"Rachel’s mental body is a majestic golden lion, very handsome. Unfortunately, after we rescued him, his mental body hasn’t appeared again."

Lin Yuan remembered the conversation she had had with Shen Fei before entering.

A majestic golden lion? This was still a kitten.

Lin Yuan chased after the small, fluffy lion.

Every platform beneath her feet collapsed after she stepped on it. There was no turning back.

She didn't look back, running after the small, juvenile mental body.

Beside her, from time to time, huge chunks of debris fell, and thick, black liquid flowed down from all directions like a waterfall, spreading everywhere.

The tentacles appeared behind Lin Yuan one by one, accompanying her, floating in the shadows.

【A little dangerous.】

【Spatial distortion ahead.】

【So dirty, black mud everywhere.】

【So smelly, I don’t like this place.】

Lin Yuan’s foot missed its step, and she suddenly fell from mid-air.

As she fell, she vaguely saw a blonde sentinel. The sentinel stood at the edge of a platform in the void, holding his sword, his face covered in blood, looking at her sadly.

She didn't know how many layers she had fallen. A tentacle touched a piece of debris, and Lin Yuan reached out and climbed onto it.

She looked at her hand, covered in thick, sticky black mud. The soles of her feet were also unusually sticky, making every step difficult.

Looking up, she could no longer see the sky.

The little lion appeared on a high platform. Its sparse fur was stained with black mud, and it raised its small paws, trying to shake it off. From the thick mud, a slender, strange black hand reached out, grabbing the lion's limbs and body, dragging it into the mud.

Lin Yuan ran towards the high platform. When she got closer, the weak little lion on the platform was gone. Only a sentinel with golden hair and deep blue eyes was lying there. It was the owner of this mental landscape, Rachel.

The sentinel's limbs were locked by inky black hands, his abdomen had been cut open, blood flowing everywhere, but he was still alive. The red blood flowed down the sides of the platform.

Around the platform were countless people with unusually long necks, each with a smiling face, as if they were watching something joyful, twisting their necks as they stared at the tortured sentinel, whispering to each other.

Lin Yuan stood up straight, raised a hand, and said: "Expel."

Huge tentacles emerged from the mud, crashing and instantly clearing away the eerie onlookers.

Heads fell from their long necks one by one, losing their human-like expressions, turning into mannequins made of white sticky threads, rolling into the mud and sinking.

Lin Yuan approached the high platform. The white mannequins and the black, strange hands had disappeared. The sentinel lying on the platform, his eyes open blankly, looked like he had been dead for a long time.

This was a mental world, and everything here was an illusion generated by the sentinel's memories.

Lin Yuan looked into the distance, countless such platforms floating in the void.

On each platform, there was a golden-haired Rachel, repeatedly dragged up, tied there, suffering long torture.

His most trusted family members and comrades surrounded him, craning their necks, their faces full of smiles, enjoying his humiliation and pain.

This was the depths of Rachel's mental landscape.

His body had already been rescued from the contaminated zone.

But his mind was still trapped in such extreme pain, still repeatedly suffering inhuman abuse within his own landscape, dying again and again.

Was it too late?

Lin Yuan stood by the sentinel’s mangled body.

The cozy castle in the sentinel’s mental landscape had become ruins, and thick, swamp-like mud was everywhere, black waterfalls of liquid constantly falling from the sky.

The sentinel himself was immersed in the nightmare of repeated abuse.

How meticulous of a Guide, how much time would it take, to clean up such a world and restore it to its original state?

And there was no time.

The world had already started to collapse, the mental body's transformation into a juvenile form was a sign of its demise.

Once the mental body completely died, it meant the sentinel would fall into an eternal sleep, never to awaken.

At this moment of helplessness, Lin Yuan suddenly thought of a vast blue ocean.

Of the waves gently soothing everything, as if they could eventually melt away all the pain in the world.

Lin Yuan focused her mind for a moment, and reached out a hand.

The crimson sky suddenly disappeared, thousands of stars appearing in the dome, and a huge, bright moon slowly rose, hanging high in the sky.

The moonlight shone down from above, piercing through the thick darkness, shining on Lin Yuan.

Lin Yuan, standing in the moonlight, opened her mouth and said, "Let there be wind."

And the wind started to blow. A gentle breeze swept away the thick, foul smell in the air, bringing a soothing fragrance.

Lin Yuan said again: "Let there be rain."

And it began to rain. Torrential rain fell from the sky, washing away the stubborn mud that clung to every corner of the world.

Finally, Lin Yuan closed her eyes, opened them again, with light in them, and said: "Flood."

The sound of waves came from all directions, and water from who knew where surged onto the land.

Wherever the seawater flowed, it submerged and washed away the ubiquitous mud, and the filth and decay.

The gentlest and most powerful water submerged everything.

Ruins, torture platforms, corpses, mannequins… everything was submerged by the overwhelming flood.

The giant castle with its countless platforms, carrying those eerie, painful, unbearable memories, sank beneath the surging waves that swept across the land.

---

In the treatment room in the real world, the sentinel lying quietly on the bed suddenly opened his eyes wide and tensed his body.

Red light appeared in his wide eyes, and a heavy roar came from his gagged throat.

The sentinel’s powerful body struggled violently on the bed, the layers of restraints creaked, and the sound of the iron chains locking his neck and legs clanking was heart-wrenching, making people wonder if even such strong bindings could hold him.

“What happened?”

“Rachel!”

“He's going berserk, Rachel is going berserk.”

“No, impossible.”

“Don't, Captain. Hold on.”

The warriors outside the window stood up one after another.

They pressed themselves against the glass, clenching their fists. Wanting to rush in, but afraid of ruining things at the most critical moment.

They could only clench their teeth, enduring.

Inside the treatment room, the Guide sitting by the bed remained calm. She closed her eyes, her expression peaceful.

No matter how much the person on the bed struggled, the hand she used to cover his eyebrows remained steady, unmoved.

In this tormenting moment, her eternally calm and indifferent face brought a sense of reassurance.

As if no matter what dangerous difficulties they encountered, she had everything under control, and could solve it. Making people subconsciously trust her.

Gradually, in Rachel’s mental landscape, the surging seawater began to recede.

Debris from the ruins floated on the vast surface of the water.

A small wooden bed floated over from afar. Lin Yuan stepped onto the small bed, looking around, occasionally picking up a photo frame, a lamp, or a potted plant from the items floating on the water…

Until she saw that little lion.

The lonely little lion, soaked to the bone, its eyes closed, was clinging to a broken piece of wood, floating on the water.

A tentacle emerged from the water, grabbed it by the scruff of its neck, and handed it to Lin Yuan.

The seawater finally completely receded, and the gentle moonlight shone on the devastated land after the water had retreated.

A small green sprout emerged from the moist soil, unfolding two fresh green leaves under the moonlight.

Lin Yuan, holding the soaked little lion, stood in the middle of a damp wilderness. Everything had been washed away by the flood. Painful memories, and the warm house, now there wasn't even a place to stand.

Lin Yuan thought for a moment, dismantled the wooden bed they had been riding on, and used the wood to build a small wooden house, piece by piece.

Come help me, Lin Yuan said to the tentacles.

【We can't do this kind of thing.】

【So many splinters, it’ll hurt our hands.】

【Such delicate wrist feet, how could you bear to use them for carpentry?】

【Just do it yourself.】

【Why are there no fish in the seawater?】

【Only a dirty little cat, a bit disgusting.】

【I still want that little fish.】

Lin Yuan had no choice but to do it herself, she was, after all, a human being living in the real world, not a freewheeling mental body.

She put the pieces together, building a small wooden house in the imaginary world, barely big enough for a little boy to hide in.

“This is all I can do for now,” Lin Yuan said. “Just make do, later, you can slowly build your own big castle.”

She put the little lion, soaked by the seawater and shivering from the cold, into the dry wooden house.

She left the lamp and the photo frames for him, and planted the potted plant she had fished out by the door.

Lin Yuan stood up, ready to leave.

A hand reached out from the small house.

A human, a young boy's thin arm.

The hand reached out, quietly grabbing the corner of Lin Yuan's clothes, not speaking. He couldn’t speak yet.

Lin Yuan sighed, took off her coat, and handed it to him. In the small house, the boy huddled in the corner, tightly hugging the coat that carried her body heat.

---

Lin Yuan opened her eyes in the treatment room, feeling a wave of fatigue.

Channeling a sentinel’s mental world really wasn't easy. It was even more tiring than fighting monsters.

Lin Yuan retracted the hand she had been pressing on the sentinel's forehead, and looked at Rachel, who was lying on the bed.

The golden-haired sentinel's eyes were closed, a few strands of golden hair stuck to his sweat-soaked cheeks, his long eyelashes occasionally trembling, the corners of his eyes slightly moist.

As if he had fallen into a peaceful sleep.

Even the data on the instruments connected to his body returned to a relatively normal state.

The glaring red exclamation mark on the virtual screen of Lin Yuan’s personal terminal finally disappeared.

A small, wet lion cub appeared at Lin Yuan’s feet.

It was unusually small, like a newborn lion cub, with sparse fur, soaked to the bone, shivering, and tightly curled up.

Lin Yuan picked it up with a slightly disgusted look, thought for a moment, and finally took off her coat, wrapping the little lion, which wasn't much bigger than a kitten, in the warm clothes.

The sentinels who had been anxiously waiting outside the window jumped up when they saw this scene. They cheered and hugged each other tightly.

Several even uncontrollably displayed their half-beast forms.

The appearance of Rachel’s mental body meant that the sentinel had passed the most dangerous moment.

Although his mental body had regressed to a very weak state and had lost its powerful combat ability in the short term, nothing was more important than him being alive, wasn’t it?

When Lin Yuan, wearing only her short undergarments and holding the small lion cub, opened the door and came out, the sentinels outside rushed forward, so excited that they didn't know what to say.

“He’s still very fragile. Take good care of him and his mental body. The white noise in the room can’t be stopped, not even for a moment,” Lin Yuan instructed, then handed over the little lion in her arms. “Give it to…”

Several hands reached out at the same time, some of those hands were already in beast form, with a tiger’s thick claws, a gyrfalcon’s wings, a wolf’s sharp claws…

Shen Fei, standing behind Lin Yuan, coughed loudly, and the sentinels finally came to their senses, hurriedly hiding their furry arms behind their backs.

The previous Guide who had come here had been scared away by the sentinels' half-beast forms.

“It’s okay,” Lin Yuan said, handing the little lion wrapped in her clothes to the female sentinel with a buzz cut. “You take it.”

The female sentinel, nicknamed Xiao Niao, revealed a delighted look. She reached out her arms, covered with wide, pure white feathers, carefully took the lion cub, which was as soft as a kitten, and held it in her arms, carefully protecting it with her white wings.

From its appearance, Xiao Niao’s mental body should have been the bird of prey, the gyrfalcon. A pure white overlord of the sky. But her companions called her Xiao Niao.

Lin Yuan found it a little amusing.

“When Captain Lei wakes up and discovers that his mental body has become so small, he’ll probably die from laughter.” Xiao Niao said that, but tears streamed down her face. Four or five tall sentinels surrounded her, their eyes red.

“Don’t mind them, they're a bunch of rough soldiers, no manners at all.” Shen Fei’s eyes were also red, but his face was full of smiles. He happily invited Lin Yuan to see the room he had prepared for her.

Lin Yuan had no coat, wearing only her short undergarments, her slender neck and fair arms exposed. She had just reached the door when she sneezed.

A sentinel chased after her from inside.

It was the burly sentinel with thick eyebrows.

Dahu was holding a female sentinel’s uniform, scratching his head with one hand, and handing the clothes over with the other, looking rather embarrassed. “Your clothes are wet, this is Xiao Niao’s uniform. Do, do you want to wear it for now?”

Afraid that Lin Yuan might be unhappy, he added, “Don’t dislike it, it's clean, it hasn’t been worn since it was washed.”

Lin Yuan didn’t say anything, just calmly took the clothes, and draped them over her shoulders.

【Actually, this place is pretty good.】

【There’s a big cat, and a little cat.】

【And a little bird or something.】

【They all seem to like us.】

【I like this place.】

【If only that little fish was here too.】

【The world is so big, why are you always thinking about that fish?】

Amidst the tentacles’ chatter, Lin Yuan turned back.

That tall and burly sentinel was still standing at the door. He bowed to Lin Yuan, his waist bent at a perfect 90-degree angle, and hadn't straightened up yet.

Lin Yuan touched the clothes on her shoulders.

She seemed… a little happy.

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