Invasion - Chapter 70

Chapter 70

"No wonder, when I saw the two of you fighting before, I always felt something was a little strange," Xun Hua said. "Clearly a very excellent Sentinel and Guide, but during battle, you were each doing your own thing, your coordination could be said to be very… unfamiliar."

Lin Yuan told him that, actually, she and Ni Ji were already a rare pair of Guide and Sentinel who could fight together.

In this world, there was no such thing as Guides and Sentinels coordinating with each other in battle.

Xun Hua stopped, standing in the rain. After a long silence, he let out a deep sigh.

He walked back with Lin Yuan, closing his wet umbrella at the entrance, shaking off the raindrops.

"If you still want to enter contaminated zones, I suggest you find a fixed partner, preferably a sentinel you’re familiar with, with good coordination."

"I don’t need a sentinel’s protection, I can enter contaminated zones by myself," Lin Yuan said indifferently.

Entering contaminated zones was her own choice, she had no regrets, regardless of life or death. She had never thought of dragging someone else along to protect her.

"It’s not about protection, we Guides…" Xun Hua pointed at himself, then, as if remembering something, put down his white-gloved hand. "I mean, Guides are never sentinels’ accessories, there's no such thing as being protected. Guides and sentinels are different types of soldiers, only when working together can their combat abilities be maximized."

He gave an analogy, "Have you ever played games? Those old combat games?"

Lin Yuan nodded, there was a dedicated game room on the second floor of her house. She sometimes liked to play the various games left behind from the old era there, and would even pull the little crab along to play with her.

"Guides and sentinels, they’re like mages and knights in games, both powerful warriors, but they also have their own weaknesses and strengths," Xun Hua said.

Lin Yuan immediately understood.

Mages had powerful control and range attacks, but they were fragile, easily killed in close combat.

Knights had strong defense, were powerful in close combat, but their attack patterns were simple, and their attack efficiency low.

But if the two classes could coordinate well, complementing each other’s weaknesses, then their combat power would be far greater than the simple sum of their individual strengths.

Lin Yuan thought about the several battles she had experienced, and indeed, when fighting alongside a sentinel, both sides could conserve a lot of energy.

Why hadn’t anyone in this world realized this?

"I really want to see how Sentinels and Guides fought four hundred years ago," Lin Yuan said. She knew that she had the blood of a warrior in her.

She had always felt like an anomaly, a Guide who liked to fight like a sentinel.

This was the first time someone had directly told her that Guides and sentinels were actually the same, that Guides could be gentle and quiet, and Guides could also like to fight.

Hundreds of years ago, countless Guides, just like her, stood side by side with sentinels, powerful warriors with independent personalities.

Perhaps she wasn't a monster, perhaps it was this era that was strange.

Xun Hua stood at the entrance, his back to the rain curtain, silent for a moment. “If you don’t mind, perhaps I can demonstrate for you.”

He held the dripping umbrella, slowly raising its tip. A drop of water slid down from the umbrella’s surface.

Lin Yuan’s gaze couldn’t help but follow the drop of water, the droplet falling to the ground, and the granite floor beneath their feet suddenly disappeared.

The flat floor, the solid wood pillars, the carved doorway, all gone.

A bottomless abyss below, only a thin wire between her and Xun Hua.

Lin Yuan's pupils constricted. Xun Hua’s move was impressive, it aroused her competitive spirit.

The black and white bracelet on her wrist flowed, turning into a thin short blade. Lin Yuan, holding the blade in one hand, stepped onto the thin wire, running straight towards Xun Hua.

The blade clashed against the umbrella’s ribs with a clang. The sturdy ribs were severed in two by the thin blade.

“Your blade skills aren’t bad, did someone teach you?” Xun Hua’s cold voice rang out in the rainy night, his silver half-mask hidden in the dense rain.

The world in the courtyard suddenly turned upside down, the rain flowing upwards.

Lin Yuan's feet were in the water, as if she was walking in the cloudy sky, with the dirty ground above her head.

She knew this was just an illusion, the floor was still the floor, there was no abyss or wire, the world hadn’t turned upside down.

But she had to admit that this kind of interference was very distracting during battle.

A single misstep would cause a disorienting sense of weightlessness, seriously affecting her movements. She had already suffered this in that abyss in the Golden Tree Contaminated Zone.

Lin Yuan closed her eyes for a moment. The tentacles surged and moved underground, they quickly caught a glimpse of the “Golden Tree”, and Lin Yuan focused her mental strength, turning it into sharp needles, and launched a series of attacks towards where the enemy was moving.

This was the attack pattern she had learned from that sentinel who had turned into a mosquito in the Contaminated Zone.

She heard Xun Hua’s muffled groan. His mask, which had been disguised as silver, revealed its original golden color in the battle, the golden mask appearing for a moment under a large tree, then quickly disappearing.

"Your fighting style is quite unique, I’ve never seen a Guide attack like this," Xun Hua’s slightly helpless voice echoed in the courtyard's woods, before quickly disappearing again.

In the courtyard, the trees swayed in the rain, their branches and leaves rustling in unison.

Every parasol tree, rose, and plum blossom emitted the faint emotions of plants.

Xun Hua’s mental body was hidden among them.

His mental body was a tree, and the plants were his best cover.

Wearing his golden mask, he lurked in the woods in the rainy night. Rain fell from the sky, the cold water soaking his hair, flowing down his cheeks, across his body. Although it was very cold, it brought a strange sense of reality.

Xun Hua listened to the rain falling on the leaves, feeling a little dazed. A long, long time ago, he had often been like this, running through the rainy night with his comrades, fighting in the damp forest.

Hundreds of years had passed, he was no longer a Guide, not even a human anymore, why were those feelings from back then still so deeply ingrained in his bones?

The scene before him seemed to shift, the rain stopping at some point, the round moon hidden behind dark clouds in the sky. He wasn't in the woods, but wearing a Guide's combat uniform, standing in the familiar military camp.

Xun Hua instantly realized it was an illusion, Lin Yuan's mental interference — she learned so quickly.

By the time he wanted to retreat, to hide himself again, it was too late. The leaves above rustled, and Lin Yuan jumped down, straddling him, her sharp blade against his neck.

Lin Yuan's face and hair were covered with rainwater and leaves, but her eyes shone brightly. The sharp dagger pressed against Xun Hua's neck. "You lose."

The man she had restrained raised his hands in surrender, raindrops falling on his golden mask, he reached up and took the mask off.

Beneath the mask was a face Lin Yuan was familiar with. Short black hair, handsome features, who else could it be but the sentinel she had just sent off?

The sentinel was lying on the messy, wet grass, his upper body bare, only wearing those black gloves, his hands raised, pinned down by Lin Yuan.

He glanced at Lin Yuan, the corners of his eyes red, a mixture of shame and anger in his expression, just like Ni Ji.

Lin Yuan gasped, subconsciously loosening her grip.

The person on the grass instantly disappeared.

Xun Hua was standing behind her, the broken end of his umbrella pointing at the back of her head.

Lin Yuan froze, she knew she had lost.

Guo Suo’s head appeared at the door, biting her apron, trembling, softly asking what had happened.

The little girl had been frightened by the two powerful, conflicting mental forces in the courtyard, she was almost crying.

Lin Yuan and Xun Hua put away their powers and walked back in. Both were drenched, the courtyard a mess, but they both felt very refreshed, invigorated.

"You’re very strong," Lin Yuan took the towel handed over by Xiao Suo, wiping her hair, and said to Xun Hua, "Your mental control is almost inescapable."

“Your mental strength is very powerful, only, your fighting style…” Xun Hua, standing in the entrance hall, the golden mask on his face fading to its usual silver, said, “Your fighting style doesn’t seem like a Guide’s, more like something you learned from Sentinels, although I have to say, it’s quite… special.”

Lin Yuan had only ever seen sentinels fight, whether it was using blades, guns, or the mental combat methods she had developed herself, weren’t they all learned from sentinels?

Whether it was condensing her mental power into needles or using mental power to violently destroy mental landscapes, it was more like an imitation of physical attacks.

But in her battle with Xun Hua, she seemed to have glimpsed another, more precise and more interesting method of mental combat.

“Could you teach me more in the future?” Lin Yuan humbly asked this senior Guide for advice.

She had initially secretly brought Xun Hua back because of a promise to her friend. She hadn’t expected to be able to learn the things she wanted to learn most from this senior from hundreds of years ago.

“Of course,” Xun Hua bowed slightly, “as long as you don’t mind, I’ll do my best.”

…

Guo Suo had been feeling a little anxious these days.

She used to be the first one to get up in this building, humming as she walked through the empty courtyard every morning, to get the freshly delivered milk from outside the gate.

But recently, miss and the newly arrived gardener got up even earlier than her, constantly fighting in the courtyard.

The two of them probably didn't know how terrifying their mental bodies were.

One a deep-sea monster, its tentacles, whose full form she had never seen, writhing through the courtyard, the other a towering giant tree, his voice echoing, all the plants in the courtyard responding in unison.

Poor her, just a little crab from the seabed, when had she ever seen such monsters fighting?

Although the two restricted their mental fluctuations to the courtyard, she still had to go through that terrifying courtyard every morning to get the milk.

The little maid, biting her handkerchief, hugged the wall, moving sideways bit by bit, towards the outside.

The Golden Tree’s pressure spread, the courtyard sometimes freezing over, sometimes erupting with lava.

The Kraken’s pressure covered everything, thousands of golden needles raining down.

The little crab struggled to reach the door, took the milk, then scurried back.

Getting a bottle of milk was like going through several life-or-death trials.

Miss really was a strange person, not only was her maid a crab like her, but the gardener she hired, instead of properly tending to the plants, was tearing up the courtyard every day, the courtyard seemed even messier than before. Guo Suo felt bitter in her heart.

Xun Hua stopped his combat training, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

At first, he could defeat Lin Yuan, now, the two were evenly matched, no longer so easy to determine a victor.

He even felt that if Lin Yuan seized the weakness in his heart and attacked ruthlessly, he might lose very badly.

This girl seemed cold and indifferent, but in reality, she was very soft-hearted. This kind of personality wasn’t a problem in daily life, but it would be a disadvantage on the battlefield.

"Have you ever invaded a sentinel’s mental landscape?" Xun Hua asked.

"Of course, during channeling.”

"I'm not talking about channeling, I’m talking about forced invasion."

"Yes, once or twice."

"And then? What did you do?”

Lin Yuan thought for a moment, “The first time, it was in an ocean, I rolled around and caused all sorts of damage, the second time, the sentinel’s landscape was too messy, so I used a flood to tear it down and rebuild.”

Xun Hua was speechless.

Four hundred years ago, although there had also been a tendency to suppress Guides in his world, he hadn’t expected that after just a few hundred years, Guides’ living environment would be suppressed to such an extent.

Their wings clipped, their hands and feet tied, many no longer even having independent personalities, willingly becoming accessories to others for their entire lives.

This one before him, could be considered a rare, powerful Guide. But because the passing down of knowledge had been broken, when using her innate Guide abilities, she was so unrestrained, without any rules, completely relying on improvisation.

"If there's a chance in the future, you can try this," Xun Hua said. "On the battlefield, controlling a sentinel's mental landscape is also a way for Guides to fight."

"Like, lowering their pain perception?"

"Yes, that’s it, you actually know this?" Xun Hua was a little surprised that Lin Yuan knew about this. "Powerful Guides can control multiple sentinels, adjusting their sensitivity, or increasing their excitement levels, turning them into powerful weapons on the battlefield who feel no pain, only knowing how to kill.”

He told Lin Yuan that hundreds of years ago, there were a few incredibly powerful Guides who could even completely control a sentinel's emotions, making them feel extreme joy or endless pain at will, and could even make powerful sentinels abnormally sensitive and weak.

Some villains would even repeatedly torture sentinels like this, making those sentinels develop a mental dependence on them, completely turning them into their puppets.

Of course, such powerful and twisted Guides were very rare, they would be rejected by the world, and it was also expressly prohibited by law.

Lin Yuan thought for a moment, “A mental landscape is a very fragile place, this isn’t easy to do.”

“You’re right, a Guide’s abilities, just like a Sentinel’s combat skills, require practice. You can regularly invite some sentinel friends and let them practice with you," Xun Hua said casually. "I think that killer whale is pretty good, he’s very strong, he can handle you, and his compatibility with you should be very high. Yun Ruo, who came last time, is also a good choice, you saved his life, he should be willing to offer his body for you. And there are also other sentinels who came to visit, you can choose one from among them.”

Lin Yuan seriously considered that scene. Thinking of Little Fish becoming extremely sensitive under her control, laughing and crying at the same time, she felt a cold sweat breaking out on her back.

Times had really changed. Sometimes, she could only listen to her senior’s words, it wasn’t very feasible in this world.

Roy came to visit on such a morning, just after a practice session had ended.

"Didn’t you say you hired a gardener? How come this courtyard seems even messier than last time?" Roy complained as he walked, stepping over a broken branch on the ground. "This isn't a garden at all, it's like a battlefield that’s just seen a war."

"How could that be, my friend who came last time said this place is full of wild charm," Lin Yuan said with a straight face.

"Alright, let’s not talk about this, I came here today because I have some great news for you," Roy sat down on the sofa, excitedly rubbing his hands, first taking a sip of the tea Xiao Suo brought to calm his excitement.

"Listen, Her Majesty wants to personally summon you, to commend you for your contributions in opening the Golden Tree Contaminated Zone."

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