Invasion - Chapter 74
Chapter 74
No one expected a selection match to reach such a fierce level.
The black unicorn galloped in mid-air, its body like lightning, chasing the wind.
Its black hooves and mane transformed into smoke, leaving billowing dust trails.
Above the arena, mist surged and clouds billowed. The orca and the unicorn's eyes burned with fluorescent light, their enormous figures appearing and disappearing in the thick smoke.
Turquoise tides surged with the whale's cry, overwhelming and earth-shattering, the churning waves overturning the dome.
Looking up from the ground, the giant turquoise waves pressed overhead, making one feel as if they were under the deep sea.
Many sentinels couldn't even bear the pressure released during the two's battle and had to stop watching, leaving the area early.
The red glow of Ni Ji's demon blade was blocked by Yun Luo's alloy arm. The high-tech metal alloy was cut open with a deep crack by the blood-red blade.
The blade sawing against the metal emitted a harsh, unpleasant sound. The red blade was embedded too deeply to be easily withdrawn.
At that moment, the distance between the two was very close, and they could clearly see each other's eyes, the fluorescent light ignited in the depths of each other's eyes due to the battle.
Yun Luo's robotic arm automatically exploded from the wrist. The metal-boned fist, with the impact of an explosion, rushed towards Ni Ji's forehead.
He was willing to sacrifice this mechanical arm to force Ni Ji to abandon his blade and retreat.
Ni Ji didn't retreat, gripping his blade embedded in the metal arm, his long leg carrying a strong wind as he kicked towards Yun Luo's chest.
Ni Ji was hit by the iron fist and, dragging his long blade, flew backward, crashing to the ground.
Yun Luo was hit squarely in the chest, also flying back several steps, unable to stand up for a moment.
The two looked at each other, each spitting out a mouthful of blood, struggling to slowly crawl up from the ground.
Yun Luo's robotic arm was useless, the electric arcs at the broken end constantly jumping and crackling.
Opposite him, Ni Ji slowly stood up, blood flowing down from his forehead, staining half his face red.
But he didn't care. His eyes under the curtain of blood burned with purple fluorescent light, and there was even a hint of excitement at the corner of his mouth.
He won't back down, Yun Luo realized. He, like himself, has a life-threatening obsession with this matter.
Yun Luo remembered the words this man had just said with a curled lip, "Have you seen what she looks like on the battlefield? I have."
That look was infuriatingly arrogant.
It had been a while since he struggled out of that nightmarish hell.
He put on his clothes, reconnected his severed arm, returned to the familiar station, and returned to his former life.
It seemed that he had become the calm, self-possessed, and respected royal guard he once was.
Only he knew that he was still stuck in that mire, unable to pull himself out, unable to escape.
Every night, he always felt like he was still lying in that narrow cage, posed in a humiliating position, force-fed like poultry, enduring maddening pain.
He didn't want to recall those unbearable experiences. But every night, those images entered his dreams.
Even if he kept his eyes open, those terrible memories remained vivid in his mindscape.
The flames of hell burned in his mindscape, endlessly eroding him, and one day they would dry him up, burn him to ashes, and turn him into a monster.
He didn't know who to confide this pain to, and he urgently felt that he should do something.
Go to the battlefield, fight those twisted monsters, do something anyway, and stop him from recalling those terrible things day and night.
The Guide Lin wanted to find a sentinel to go to the Land of No Eyes with her. He was happy when he heard the news.
It should be him who goes.
When that girl appeared at the farm and opened the cage, he swore in his heart to repay her for saving his life.
He knew what a terrifying place the depths of the Land of No Eyes were. He thought he should risk his life to protect her. Even if it meant giving his life back to her.
Yun Luo stood up. He tore off his broken robotic arm from his arm and smashed it on the ground.
With one hand, he drew his saber, a long, completely black blade.
"Only the strong are qualified to stand by her side?"
"I'll show you who's qualified."
The red blade and the black blade clashed.
Both sentinels were injured, each wounded, but their offensive did not diminish. They fought faster and faster, the sound of their blades clashing as dense as raindrops.
Every move drew blood, showing a desperate posture.
"They're fighting too hard. What are these two doing?"
"This is a fight to the death."
"Someone give way, there's no need for this."
"Isn't Commander Luther going to call a stop to this?"
"Her Majesty's orders, the Commander always carries them out resolutely."
The sentinels in the audience were talking.
Next to Ji Xuan, one of his subordinates leaned over.
"This Ni Ji is top-notch," he said in a very low voice, accompanied by subtle sign language. "So, do you think he's reliable?"
"I've tested him. I feel he'll become one of us." Ji Xuan pushed his glasses up. "Just be careful, don't let 'that one' summon him."
The gaze behind the lenses fell on the high platform.
Standing there was his superior, his brother, the commander of the Royal Guard, Luther.
A tall, imposing figure, with a prominent scar on his face.
The guide standing beside him had already proposed to end the fight. But his expression was cold.
"Her Majesty's order is to select the most suitable sentinel for you. It must be carried out to the end."
Luther was Ji Xuan's childhood friend. The two had known each other for many years, supporting each other and working their way up from the cold and harsh border regions.
Ji Xuan used to know Luther, a man who deeply loathed the decay and deformity of the upper levels of the White Tower.
When the brothers chatted privately, he would always be furious, slamming his fist on the table.
"Such a deformed society shouldn't exist." The young Luther gritted his teeth and said to his best friend, "One day…one day I will make this tower collapse."
Such a loyal and righteous man, after meeting the Queen a few times, suddenly changed completely.
He became a cold and ruthless machine, knowing only to be loyal to Her Majesty the Queen, who resided high atop the tower.
He seemed to have forgotten all the words he had said before. In order to fully execute the Queen's orders, he could even do anything.
Even the despicable things he used to disdain and resist the most.
He completely became a dog by the Queen's side.
The battle in the arena gradually reached a stalemate.
Yun Luo felt his will beginning to collapse, fighting entirely on instinct.
He was certain that the sword in his hand had pierced the other person's body. The feeling of the blade cutting through flesh and blood was familiar to him; he couldn't be mistaken.
But the opponent's attack didn't stop at all. His calf was hit hard, and he even clearly heard the sound of bones breaking.
It hurt, the pain was intense.
But it was good, the pain made him realize that he was still alive, in his familiar barracks, not in that cage.
He slowly stood up. His vision was blurred, and he vaguely saw the other person also standing up.
He didn't know what that orca had gone through, why it could be like him, gritting its teeth and standing up again and again, refusing to give up at this point.
"These two are crazy. I really didn't expect them to be so persistent." In the stands, Du Yuanyuan shook her head.
"In that case, I'm indeed inferior to them. At least I don't have the consciousness to fight so desperately."
A miniature black and white panda appeared at her feet, rolling around reluctantly.
Du Yuanyuan turned to the nearby Luther and asked, "Commander, it's time to call it a day."
"The battle will continue until one falls. The remaining one is the qualified candidate." Luther's expression remained indifferent.
Outside the White Tower, far away, he might still be a chief with some human touch.
But as long as he was inside the White Tower, near the Queen, his every action was based on resolutely carrying out Her Majesty's orders.
The battle on the field was nearing its end.
Yun Luo gradually lost to Ni Ji.
But every time he fell, he would stagger to his feet, gripping his saber with his remaining arm.
Refusing to give up, unwilling to admit defeat.
"Give me some blood, let me cut him in two, he's so annoying." The hilt of Ni Ji's blade made a strange noise.
The badly wounded sentinel, supporting himself with his saber, still wanted to stand up.
"Admit defeat." Ni Ji looked at him, did not deliver a finishing blow, and sheathed his red blade.
Admit defeat. Countless sentinels watching couldn't help but say in their hearts.
Yun Luo leaned on his saber, refusing to completely collapse. The lines on his broken robotic arm were messy, flickering with intermittent electric arcs.
He raised his head and looked at the guide on the high platform with a very sad expression.
The guide stood on the high platform, watching him.
He remembered when this girl had asked him if he still wanted to live.
He wanted to live very much.
But it was too hard to live in this world.
His hand was broken, his mindscape was almost ruined, and he probably wouldn't last much longer.
In the end, he just wanted to repay the favor he owed, but he couldn't even do that.
The young guide, dressed in a white dress, stood on the high ground, looking down at the battlefield expressionlessly.
Everyone saw it. Behind her, a pair of giant golden pupils appeared in the shadows.
Many people had inquired about Lin Yuan's spiritual form. What could the spiritual form of a powerful guide be? A cute rabbit, a kitten, or a lovely elk?
At this moment, it materialized part of its body, appearing in front of all the sentinels.
Giant, mysterious, full of powerful oppression.
The giant golden pupils looked down at the whole scene, making people's skin crawl, almost daring not to look up.
Countless soft tentacles surged in the shadows behind her.
One of the tentacles appeared in everyone's sight. It was a huge arm with large and small suckers. It emerged from the ground of the arena, and its soft tip lightly touched Yun Luo's forehead.
The stubborn sentinel who refused to admit defeat froze for a moment, as if hypnotized, and finally closed his eyes, fainting in the arena.
Then, the tentacle, in front of everyone, happily wrapped around Ni Ji's hand and gently hooked the back of his hand.
…
When Yun Luo woke up, he found himself lying in the green solution of a treatment cabin.
His spiritual form, the black unicorn, had not returned to his mindscape.
It was half-lying beside the treatment cabin, its long horn drooping, allowing a guide to gently stroke its black mane, occasionally flicking its tail.
With her back to the treatment cabin, the guide squatting beside the unicorn and petting it was Lin Yuan, the one who had taken him away from the farm.
"Sorry, I lost rather disgracefully." He said in his mind, "I originally just wanted to accompany you to the Land of No Eyes."
【It's okay, it wasn't disgraceful.】
A voice sounded in his mind.
Yun Luo suddenly realized that he was in a treatment cabin, and a tentacle was swimming around him, swimming in the green solution.
The treatment cabin had good sound insulation, so it should have been difficult for them to communicate.
But that voice was connected to his consciousness, directly resounding in his mind.
【Your mindscape is in serious trouble. Haven't you gone to a guide for sorting since you came back?】
This kind of mental communication seemed to make it very easy to communicate, and some things that were usually difficult to say seemed to be easily spoken.
"I… I don't want others to see it. To see those images."
His mindscape was filled with filth, dirty and messy, burning with fire.
The thick smoke was hazy, and countless terrible memories rose and fell in the dirty black smoke, with nowhere to hide.
It was about to be destroyed.
He had also tried to ask for help from the guides in the White Tower, and had gone to the door of the Empire's Guidance Room several times.
But he was also unwilling to let outsiders see such embarrassing memory images.
Thinking about the mocking looks others would give him when they saw him lying in the iron cage like that, he couldn't accept it no matter what. He couldn't reach out and knock for help.
Forget it, no guide could extinguish such a vast forest fire.
【I'll help you with your mental guidance, okay?】
Lin Yuan's usual voice was concise and indifferent.
But in mental communication, consciousness was directly exchanged without the organization of language, which made her words sound much gentler.
She had seen his most unbearable and embarrassed appearance, cried in front of her, and said that he still wanted to live.
At this point, she was willing to do mental grooming for him, so what else could he say?
The unicorn gently rubbed its horn against Lin Yuan's palm.
The sentinel in the treatment cabin closed his eyes, opening his mental barrier.
In the green healing solution, a tentacle gently covered his eyes.
Yun Luo's mindscape was a vast forest.
At this moment, a fire was burning in the forest.
The forest fire had been burning here for a long time. Thick smoke billowed, covering the sky and blocking out the sun. The flames scorched the earth, licking the large gardens, dense forests, and luminous grass, burning down the homes of the elves.
Yun Luo heard a faint sigh.
Thunderclouds gathered in the sky of his mindscape, and soon it began to rain.
The rain wasn't violent, but gentle and calm. The fine rain continued endlessly, slowly extinguishing the vast flames.
The rain fell for a long time. The sound of the dripping rain kept knocking in the vast forest. White smoke diffused in the dark forest, and trickles of water carried away the filthy and dark garbage.
The things that he used to be obsessed with and take very seriously seemed to become lighter and thinner in this weaving rain, becoming bearable.
A voice said in the rain,
【You're sick and need a guide's help.】
【It may take many times, continuous long-term treatment.】
【I'm going to the contaminated area, can you find other guides to help?】
Yun Luo didn't answer.
The broken forest began to breathe again, and greenery was reviving in the soil.
This was his reply.
"Sorry, I originally wanted to accompany you to the Land of No Eyes. But it seems there's someone more suitable than me."
"That person is very strong, more persistent than me."
【It's okay, as long as you're still alive, there will be many opportunities to fight together.】
"He's right, I was narrow-minded. You don't need protection. You need a true comrade-in-arms. I'm also looking forward to seeing you fight."
"That place is very dangerous. Please, both of you, come back alive."
【Last time, we agreed to meet alive.】
【We can make another agreement.】
"When you come out of the contaminated area…"
【When you have fully recovered…】
"We'll meet again."
That’s so wholesome 🥹😗
ReplyDeleteAwww that's so sweet 🥺🥺
ReplyDelete