Invasion - Chapter 64

Chapter 64

Outside the Golden Tree Contaminated Zone, in the open space near the red warning sign, quite a few people who hadn't entered were waiting and watching.

Some were waiting for their teammates who had entered the dangerous zone, some were simply here to check out the situation.

The number of people who entered the contaminated zone this time was unprecedentedly large. They didn’t know whether this contaminated zone, unconquered for hundreds of years, would open its “door.”

"It's been several days, not a single person has come out, so many people this time, they can’t all have died in there, right?”

"What use are numbers? For hundreds of years, no one has survived the Golden Tree Contaminated Zone."

"They're all desperate, for money, they’ll even enter hell. Just like the old saying, people die for wealth, just as birds die for food."

Ji Xuan from the Royal Guard sat on the roof of a car, a coat over his shoulders, glasses on his nose, his clean fingers tapping lightly.

A sentinel came to his side, "Vice-captain, it’s been several days, those people who went in…"

Ji Xuan waved his hand. "Wait a little longer."

The image in the sky flickered.

A black, rectangular opening suddenly appeared in mid-air, slowly expanding.

"The door!"

"It’s the door!"

"The door is open."

Amidst a chorus of exclamations, the watching sentinels stood up one after another.

A door had opened in the sky, the escape door.

Countless people watched.

The black door was quietly open in mid-air, but no one came out immediately.

As if someone had opened the door from inside the contaminated zone, but the person who opened the door had disappeared.

After a long time, a sentinel finally emerged from the door, half of his body first, then his entire body falling out.

The sentinel’s face was covered in blood, half of his face seemingly bitten off. But he was still alive, his mind clear, not insane.

He looked around blankly, a look of disbelief on his face. Finally, he realized that he had finally come out, escaped from that nightmarish place, returned to the safe, real world.

The sentinel sat there, covering his face with his hands, trembling.

Many people crowded around, asking about the situation inside, asking how he had opened the door.

"I don't know, I wasn’t the one who opened the door," the sentinel sat on the ground, shaking his head, not wanting to talk about his experience at this time, "It was a killer whale, a sentinel whose mental body is a killer whale."

After him, more sentinels escaped from the door one after another.

Almost all of them were injured, their expressions dazed. One sentinel was covered in spores, half of his body almost completely corroded. After falling out, he was caught by his companions and rushed to a nearby treatment pod.

There was a treatment pod at the nearby base. Sentinels had strong physiques, as long as they could make it to the door alive, and could afford the treatment pod, most had a chance of survival.

As more sentinels came out, they gradually brought back news from inside the contaminated zone.

In this contaminated zone, a new Golden Tree would grow every night, and when dawn arrived, all its branches and leaves would turn to ash and disappear in the daylight.

That tree of dusk and dawn, even if they risked their lives to cut off its branches, the golden branches would immediately turn into ashes, impossible to take out.

The monsters in the contaminated zone were unusually ferocious. They captured sentinels everywhere, not to kill them, but to imprison them in a certain area for prolonged torture.

The one who got the key was a Guide, the lone Guide who had appeared at the Tuomeina Outpost.

At that time, many people who were escaping saw her hand the key to a sentinel, who was sitting on a giant orca, and he opened the door for everyone to escape.

News like this spread among the crowd.

"A Guide? We were actually saved by a Guide? That’s unbelievable."

"Are there such powerful people among Guides? I thought they only knew how to dance."

"There really are such Guides. I heard that a Guide appeared in the Dongbin area, and she even enters contaminated zones with the teams."

"A few months ago, I also heard that Guides came to several other outposts. They didn't just go through the motions, they stayed for a long time, seriously participating in treatments."

"So there are actually such Guides in this world."

By the Royal Guard's convoy,

Ji Xuan heard the collected information.

"Our people haven’t come out yet?"

"So far, none of them have come out alive," the reporting officer said with a grim look, "But someone inside saw Ni Ji, it’s said that he opened the door."

Ji Xuan pushed up his glasses, looking at the dark door.

Ni Ji opened the door but didn’t come out, he didn’t know what the situation inside was like right now.

Whether they could get the thing Her Majesty wanted.

The rectangular black doorway twisted, and the clouds in the sky started to sway slightly.

All the sentinels stood up, jumped into their cars, and the sound of countless car engines starting rang out.

Could it be expanding again? The Golden Tree Contaminated Zone that had just expanded?

Everyone became alert.

A contaminated zone’s expansion was a very dangerous thing. Everyone present stared at the sky in the distance, ready to flee at any moment.

The sky swayed, swayed again, and a piece fell down, leaving a gap.

Like a giant canvas with tiles attached, pieces of the scene began to fall from the sky.

Finally, with a crash, like a giant glass barrier shattering,

The world before them began to crumble, to collapse…

"Is it disintegrating?"

"The Golden Tree Contaminated Zone… is disappearing?"

The fleeing vehicles stopped, brakes screeching. Everyone inside and outside the cars opened their mouths wide, staring in disbelief at the gradually collapsing barrier.

The fake canvas in the sky slowly disintegrated from top to bottom, gradually revealing the world that had been covered for hundreds of years.

The silent wilderness, the empty streets, quietly appearing under the sun.

On the outermost edges were modern houses, further in, were buildings from ten or a hundred years ago.

And in the very distant center, that small town from four hundred years ago reappeared.

The long nightmare finally ended at this moment, the earth swallowed by darkness returning.

The giant barrier slowly peeled away, the sun's rays soothing the long-lost earth, a gentle breeze blowing into the time and space that had been sealed for hundreds of years.

Countless ashes were swept up by the wind, fluttering towards the sky, like thousands of souls escaping from a nightmare, riding the wind, returning to the sky.

In that small town from hundreds of years ago, in the depths of the cavern,

The writhing blood vessels on the ground completely died, quickly becoming stiff, decaying, turning to ash.

The entire world was collapsing, disintegrating.

The crimson blood vessels turned into dust, and everything connected to them, everything they had controlled and manipulated for hundreds of years, also vanished along with them.

The pained masks disappeared one by one, the strange wails gradually subsided.

In the center of the cavern, Ni Ji, holding the Guide in his arms, didn’t know how much time had passed.

Perhaps only a minute, or perhaps a long time, he felt the body in his arms turning cold, he saw her slowly closing her eyes.

He seemed to still hear her telling him to find another Guide. Ni Ji knew that he wouldn’t be looking for another Guide in this life, he would never again let anyone enter the depths of his ocean like that, touch the secrets hidden within.

Even if not having a Guide's mental guidance would eventually turn him into a monster, then so be it.

To be an ignorant monster might even be better than this.

He tightened his arms, hoping the body in his arms wouldn't turn cold so quickly, hoping she could stay a little longer, accompany him in this world for a little while more.

Ashes fell like snow, and the golden tree beside him also decayed and collapsed.

The golden branches, the trunk, the long roots, all disappeared.

A small section of a human body fell from the tree trunk.

He had no hands, no legs, wearing half of a golden mask, a small piece of his body falling into the ash-like dust on the ground, stirring up snow-white flakes.

In those floating flakes, the gentle singing of a girl could faintly be heard.

The mutated creature, only his head and torso remaining, lay on the ground. The golden mask covered his eyes, revealing a pale jawline.

He woke up from a long nightmare, lying on his back, watching the countless white flakes flying towards the sky.

Listening to the faint, farewell song.

"There’s a treatment pod," he softly said.

Ni Ji almost didn't react, he froze, then stiffly turned his head to look at the mutated creature lying nearby.

"There's a treatment pod here," Xun Hua on the ground said again, "It's not far, I can take you there."

Ni Ji instantly understood the meaning behind his words.

This place was once a prosperous town with a large military presence, of course there would be medical equipment like treatment pods.

Now that the contaminated zone had disintegrated, everything here had returned to how it was four hundred years ago.

If the treatment pod was nearby, and they could find it,

If someone here knew its location and knew how to use it,

Then she, there might still be time.

Ni Ji quickly looked at Lin Yuan in his arms, at that moment, his heart panicked, his heart beating so fast it almost jumped out of his chest.

He ripped off his gloves with his teeth and touched Lin Yuan's face.

Afraid that she had already turned cold, become a corpse, beyond saving.

The girl's skin in his arms was still warm, with a little bit of heat. She was still breathing, a faint, soft breath brushing against his fingertips.

Ni Ji desperately wanted to thank Lin Yuan, thank her for still being alive.

She had saved him many times, helped him countless times, but Ni Ji had never felt so intensely grateful to her as he did now.

Grateful that she hadn’t died, that she was still willing to live in this world.

When he was imprisoned by the crimson egg, he had experienced a terrifying illusion. The main characters in that illusion had been Lin Yuan and her tentacles.

The Lin Yuan in that place, had known how to torture people better than a demon. After regaining consciousness, he hadn’t been able to suppress his fear whenever he saw Lin Yuan.

But he now felt that, as long as Lin Yuan could live, as long as she was willing to live, it didn’t matter what she became.

Ni Ji picked up Lin Yuan, carrying the mutated creature, who was only a head and torso now, with one arm, and walked up the collapsing cavern wall.

He didn't understand why this mutated creature would offer to help, when not long ago, they had been fighting each other to the death.

But it didn't matter, as long as there was a sliver of hope, he wouldn't think too much, he was willing to try.

Time was of the essence, racing against death.

Ni Ji summoned his orca.

His mental body, weakened and barely able to maintain a physical form, silently materialized, its giant body appearing. It cried out, steadily carrying them, quickly moving outwards.

Guided by Xun Hua, they quickly found the treatment room.

Everything here was perfectly preserved, time having been frozen, the treatment pod almost exactly the same as it had been four hundred years ago, brand new, able to save a life from the clutches of death.

Ni Ji carefully placed the Guide inside, putting a breathing mask on her.

When pressing the button to close the pod, he found his fingers trembling violently. His fingers, stained with Lin Yuan’s blood, fumbled twice before finally pressing the small button.

The treatment pod’s cover closed, and the green treatment fluid slowly flowed out, submerging the delicate body within.

The instrument panel lit up. The heartbeat data was still faintly there.

"Do you have No. 233 Regenerative Fluid?"

Ni Ji heard the mutated creature lying on the ground say.

He searched the medicine cabinet and found it.

"Yes."

"You’re lucky, that's the most expensive medicine, use it on her, it can save her life."

Ni Ji remembered this medicine. Last time, it was he who was lying in the treatment pod. He had heard her say to the doctor outside the treatment pod,

"Change the U55 to U96, use No. 233 Regenerative Fluid, use the most expensive medicine, cure him.”

The turquoise treatment fluid slowly filled the treatment pod. Guided by Xun Hua, Ni Ji carefully adjusted all the data and injected the necessary medicine.

On the instrument panel monitoring the patient’s vital signs, all the indicators were at extremely dangerous levels.

Her heart rate was very low, her blood pressure and blood oxygen levels terrifyingly low.

But they were slowly improving, gradually pulled back from the brink of death.

The Guide in the treatment pod seemed to be sleeping. Her eyes closed, her face calm, her body floating in the light green solution.

A heart-shaped, golden necklace emerged from her collar, floating in the water.

"Now, you can kill me," the mutated creature lying on the ground said.

He had no hands or legs, only his head and torso remaining.

But from where his limbs had been severed, golden tree roots wriggled, small buds emerging, very slowly growing.

No longer human, but still retaining memories from when he was human. He didn’t want to live anymore, but couldn’t die.

"You saved her," Ni Ji said. "I won’t kill you."

The mutated creature with the golden mask calmly said, "What your Queen wants to find, is me."

"Cut off my head, kill me completely, my body will turn to gold, bring it back, offer it to your Queen, and you'll get the reward you want."

"Reward? How do you know about the Queen's reward?" Ni Ji asked him.

"I’m a Guide, I was once a Guide," the non-human monster lying on the ground said, "When I awoke at night, I heard countless voices of desire."

"So many of you have come, so many lives lost, isn't it all for this?"

"Now I'm giving it to you, take it, use your blade.”

He lay on the ground, his voice very calm, his tone cold.

His heart empty, devoid of any interest in life.

The gaze beneath his mask remained fixed on the treatment pod, on the golden heart floating within.

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