Invasion - Chapter 4
Chapter 4
Lin Yuan often saw battle scenes in TV series.
Those battles were brilliant and full of twists and turns.
The two sides traded blows, and at the beginning and during the battle, they had to stop to share their inner feelings.
But on the real battlefield, Lin Yuan found that everything happened very quickly.
Almost the moment Ni Ji's words fell, a stinging pain of being cut by a blade came from her arm.
Lin Yuan covered her hand.
She was injured, it hurt so much.
Even though there was no injury there at all, the feeling of the skin being cut open and blood flowing was so distinct.
The pain felt by the tentacles was transmitted to her without change.
She now knew that Ni Ji's words were not a threat.
If the sentinel swung his knife and cut off a tentacle, she would really feel the pain of her entire arm being cut off by a blade.
The tentacles wrapped around the orca relaxed slightly due to the pain.
The big, slippery fish accurately seized the gap, struggled free, and swam away.
As soon as he was free, he rushed straight at Lin Yuan, moving with incredible speed.
His strong tail fin was raised high, and it slammed toward Lin Yuan with a huge wave.
Even in the sea, the overwhelming power of the wave made one feel terrified.
If she was even slightly grazed by a tail fin with that kind of force, half of her head would be gone on the spot.
Lin Yuan didn't know what would happen to her body if she died here, in Ni Ji's mental sea.
No one had ever taught her this.
But she seemed to naturally belong in this mental world, and in the midst of this extremely dangerous battle, she quickly began to understand everything.
In the dense seawater that surrounded her, there were scattered strands of the sentinel's consciousness.
They were unusually tiny, like specks of dust scattered in the vast sea.
But they were keenly sensed by Lin Yuan.
She captured those specks of dust and used them to peek into the warrior's thoughts.
Therefore, she could predict his attacks in advance and narrowly avoided his overwhelming assaults.
A powerful force grazed her face, and although she barely managed to dodge it, her body was swept far away by the powerful whirlpool that followed.
Lin Yuan tumbled in the sea in a disarrayed manner.
The world was spinning, she couldn't tell up from down, and everywhere were memory bubbles turned into flying fragments.
In every bubble, there were countless unfamiliar faces.
In the midst of the tumbling, Lin Yuan turned around.
In the dim seawater, there was a pair of pale purple eyes, glowing like two icy flames burning in the deep sea.
They were the eyes of the orca. He was closely following her.
Those purple flames were following Lin Yuan, moving so fast they almost left purple afterimages. Ni Ji's massive mental body was quickly closing in.
Lin Yuan was very surprised.
This person was clearly battered and exhausted from torture. His spirit was weak and depleted.
Yet he was still able to possess such a powerful mental body and launch such a powerful attack.
Lin Yuan was not unfamiliar with sentinels.
In the White Tower, there were plenty of sentinels wearing military uniforms, with pulse guns at their waists, strutting back and forth every day.
Every single one was tall and imposing, and they would act like peacocks showing off their feathers when they saw a guide.
But their mental bodies were docile and tamed, and their mental landscapes were so small that one could see the end with just a glance.
Not like this fish.
This was a soldier who had been tempered in the abyss and marshes, a powerful warrior who fought with monsters in the contaminated zone every day.
A fighter who walked out covered in scars and soaked in blood.
He was so decisive and ruthless when fighting. He fought as if his life depended on it.
If they were in the real world, Lin Yuan would not be a match for this sentinel at all.
But here, in the mental world, Lin Yuan felt that she would not lose.
In this mental landscape built from consciousness, the body was a mental entity formed by will. Here, she was never the weak one.
She even felt that with the progress of the battle, she was becoming more and more powerful.
Her dodges became more agile, her vision became sharper, and she gradually learned to control everything.
It seemed as if something was gradually awakening, and her tentacles were all restless.
Those things that Lin Yuan had been restraining in the past became larger.
They surged excitedly in some unknown, hidden space, and constantly materialized as they burst from the soil.
Lin Yuan, who was swiftly retreating with the current, saw that the black and white giant whale was finally entangled by the tentacles again.
They wrapped around his wrists, his tail, and his inky black body, pulling them in different directions.
Then they cheered and worked together to turn the beast over and drag it into the depths of the sea.
The half-human half-orca sentinel struggled desperately in the water, disrupting the soft water grass and crushing countless beautiful corals.
The tentacles wrapped themselves around him one by one. Finally, they pressed him onto the rough rocks on the seabed.
Lin Yuan floated in the sea, looking at the whale whose hands were bound by the tentacles and pressed against the seabed.
The strong body initially struggled a couple of times, but soon gave up, letting the tentacles cover him one by one.
The tentacles seemed to have found a rare treasure and wandered around at will. Several times, they even burrowed into the sentinel's messy black hair to rub against it.
The fish, that is, the sentinel, did not resist.
He gave up, closed his eyes with their burning light, and when he opened them again, the light had faded, and they returned to being ordinary black.
He was entangled in the tentacles.
He looked as if he had tried his best and left the rest to fate.
It seemed that Lin Yuan had won the battle.
Lin Yuan always felt that something was not quite right.
There were a few moments when she was sure the sentinel had the chance to cut off one or two tentacles.
She even bit her teeth in advance, ready to welcome the coming pain.
But nothing happened. The incomparably sharp blade seemed to have stopped at that moment.
There was an emotion hidden inside that Lin Yuan didn't have time to decipher.
This beautiful and mysterious underwater world was a mess from the battle just now.
The beautiful corals had been broken, the soft seaweeds had been crushed, and the uniquely shaped clams had been completely turned over.
This was a world made up of the sentinel's spirit. Those broken, unstable things turned into bubbles of memory.
Countless bubbles of memory rose from the seabed, scattering in all directions, floating and drifting.
Allowing Lin Yuan, the intruder, to read them.
This was just the outer edge of the mental landscape. If she went deeper, there were even more winding reefs and hidden palaces that she could explore.
They contained endless mysterious treasures and had lost their only protector.
They had no choice but to open their doors to the intruder.
Lin Yuan could completely enter it, explore, read, manipulate, and even destroy it at will.
But she knew that there was no need to go any further. The answer she was searching for was already right in front of her.
Lin Yuan floated among the memory bubbles that were scattered around her.
She saw countless scenes stored in the memories.
Grotesque monsters, blood-stained soldiers, countless dead bodies...
She turned her gaze to the bound orca.
That man was also looking up at her from the tangled tentacles.
His gray-black eyes looked at her through the layers of tangled tentacles.
As if waiting for an end.
It turned out that all of this had been his deliberate plan. Lin Yuan suddenly understood everything.
This was Ni Ji's plan, and it was also a gamble for him.
Lin Yuan was a part of his plan.
And the stakes were his own life.
This person was too cruel to himself. Lin Yuan thought.
To get out of his predicament, he just laid his life on the table like this.
Everything Lin Yuan had seen was what he was willing to give up and show to others.
And Lin Yuan, even knowing that everything was this person's plan, could not help but make a choice after seeing it all.
Large and small bubbles rose in front of Lin Yuan.
Lin Yuan saw countless faces of this sentinel in the past.
There were smiles, and there was sadness. There was blood-stained anger, and there was killing intent.
Not like now, pressed on the deepest part of the seabed.
His face was ashen, and he looked as if he was resigned to his fate.
On the training field, more and more idle sentinels were gathering from all directions.
The crowd clustered together, watching as the guide stepped onto the platform and stood in front of the tortured criminal.
She stretched out her delicate, white hand, as soft as a scallion, and pressed it against the bloody forehead of the criminal.
Not long after, the sentinel, who had been tortured for days and had never uttered a sound under any torture, suddenly began to struggle violently.
His body, hanging on the rack, swung wildly, the rough iron pillars started to shake, and the hanging iron chains collided against each other, making a loud noise.
Like a crazed beast.
And the guide, that young and beautiful girl, still stood firmly in place, facing such a ferocious beast.
She closed her eyes, her white palm motionless, pressing against all of the man's face, not allowing him to break free.
But after a while, Ni Ji seemed to collapse and slumped down.
His head dropped, and his struggling body softened, allowing the iron chains to strain and hold up his arms.
“My god, is that a guide? Can a guide do this?”
“That level of sentinel was, was subdued by her?”
“Perhaps Ni Ji was on the verge of a mental breakdown anyway. How many days has he been hanging there?”
“My god, it’s still unbelievable.”
The crowd of onlookers discussed in astonishment.
The guide on the platform opened her eyes, looked around, and stretched out her other arm.
She placed her hand on the brain-in-a-jar system. That was the machine connected to the screen, containing a human brain, and playing the memories of the dead.
The guide had a watch-like device on her wrist.
As her palm made contact with the brain-in-a-jar system, the screen of that watch lit up. Several small virtual screens were projected, quickly scrolling through rows of fluorescent text.
The technology of this thing was too advanced for its time, and it was out of place with the rammed earth walls and the iron frames around the training field.
“What is that thing?”
“Idiot, haven’t you seen the world? That’s a personal electronic terminal that can connect to all electronic devices.”
“A high-end gadget that can only be found in old ruins.”
“Wow, this girl is super rich.”
“Nonsense, how many guides are poor? They are either matched with the royal family or matched with nobles.”
While they were still talking, the large screen beside the rack, which had been playing the video on loop, turned into a screen full of static.
After a moment, the screen flashed a few unstable images and started playing a new video.
The video still seemed to be set in the contaminated zone.
However, the perspective was completely different.
The distorted buildings in the contaminated zone, the black paths covered in snails, and the huge spores towering in the sky were all clear and vivid.
As if they had been carefully observed and firmly remembered.
A small squad of soldiers was resting near a bonfire.
Most of them were sentinels.
They wore tight-fitting uniforms and various weapons.
Among them, there was a man wearing glasses, who looked like a researcher. He was protected in the center of the group.
Even though it only played for a short time, the old soldiers watching the video nodded in their hearts.
They began to acknowledge that this was a well-trained, disciplined, and very rare elite team.
They had chosen their resting place very cleverly.
It was in a ruin with a high vantage point, a large open area in front, and any dangerous creatures would be seen from afar.
Even so, they still placed sentries in the distance, and they had hidden sentinels in the nearby treetops.
The female sentinel responsible for the hidden sentry was motionless against the tree trunk, almost merging with the tree.
If it weren't for the special effects brought by the main perspective of the screen, the audience would hardly have noticed her.
Around the bonfire, the sentinels were chatting softly, drinking water, eating, and replenishing their strength.
The firelight reflected on their faces, which were either young or weathered.
Even at this relaxed moment, they were holding food in one hand, and the other arm was habitually hanging down at their side, pressing on the position where they could reach their weapons at any time.
This was a team that had been tempered and refined, capable of dealing with any sudden situation.
They must have had years of cooperation, and a rigorous and cohesive leader.
“This, isn't this the memory of the dead researcher? Whose memory is this?” Officer Wu, who was by the window, stood up, took a few steps forward blankly, and murmured,
“It can’t be…right?”
The sentinels on the training field were still at a loss, looking up at the new video being played on the screen.
The video being played on the screen connected to the brain-in-a-jar system showed what someone had seen with their own eyes, the memory images left in their brain.
The young guide stood beneath the screen. With one hand, she controlled the criminal’s head, and with the other, she touched the contact screen of the brain-in-a-jar system.
The audience noticed that the researcher they had seen in the picture, who was supposedly dead, was actually in the video, mixing in with the crowd.
How could he be in someone else's line of sight?
Whose memory was this?
In the video, a tall sentinel standing near the bonfire rose up and walked toward the screen.
He smiled, squatted down, and said to the screen,
“Captain Ni Ji.”
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