Invasion - Chapter 82
Chapter 82
They entered the deep underground.
Here, darkness was the norm, any light seemed out of place.
All the underground creatures here had no eyes, grotesque and twisted. Some had eight arms, some had bare tails, like a patchwork of humans and various other subterranean beings.
At this depth, there were very few other explorers. Lin Yuan felt like she hadn't seen a living person for a long time, the surroundings terrifyingly quiet.
Dark and silent, only the whistling wind from the depths of the earth echoed in her ears.
Sometimes, when she listened carefully, it felt like something deep down there was calling out to her.
Lin Yuan felt a strange sensation, but she wasn't afraid, her blood seemed to be boiling, she inexplicably felt a little excited.
"Something's there," Ni Ji, holding Lin Yuan’s hand, led her in one direction.
Turning past several walls blocking the path, they saw a recessed platform.
The reason Lin Yuan could see was because in that damp corner, clusters of crystal-like, glowing stones grew.
It was Nether Stone, a large cluster, incredibly valuable.
The Nether Stone crystals had mottled patterns, unusually beautiful, their spherical tops faintly glowing.
A little like a sentinel's eyes, shining with multicolored light during battles. Those stones, clustered together, were like countless eyes open in the darkness.
The faint light illuminated the outlines of the surrounding scenery.
Lin Yuan saw four Deviants from the Land of No Eyes. Perhaps three. The monsters' bodies were mixed together, still able to move independently even when severed, making it hard to tell how many there were just by looking.
They huddled together, surrounding a sentinel. That sentinel, covered in blood, his eyes burning with fluorescent light, beast-like, desperate roars coming from his throat, was frantically resisting.
Amidst the sounds of battle and roars, Lin Yuan heard another, unclear chewing sound. Like the sound of sharp teeth crushing bones and flesh.
In an even darker corner, there was another monster with a long tail, wriggling, greedily chewing on something.
Dark red blood slowly flowed from under its tail, Lin Yuan didn't detect any living person's emotions there, the monster was devouring a corpse.
Ni Ji took off his gloves, let the long blade taste blood, and joined the battle.
The battle quickly ended, it wasn't too difficult.
Although there were many monsters, they had clearly already been through a fierce battle, each one seriously injured, on the verge of death.
There had been two sentinels here. They had been surrounded by the monsters, one already dead, the other covered in wounds.
The rescued sentinel, without a word, dragging a broken saber, limped inwards. He dragged the monster with the long tail out, furiously smashing its head with his broken blade.
Then he looked up towards the bloody corner.
Lin Yuan saw the look in his eyes, grief filling them like a tide. The cold sadness was palpable, overwhelming, and even affected Lin Yuan, the chill making her shiver.
In that small corner, there was a small cluster of beautiful Nether Stones, and human blood, bright red, flowed from between the stones.
A female arm lay on the bloodstained crystals, illuminated by the stones' faint light.
Her body hidden in the shadows, motionless, only that hand reaching forward, her fingertips stained with blood, as if trying to grab something.
The seriously injured sentinel stared at the arm in the faint light for a long time, then, supporting his battered body, he struggled to crawl over.
He picked up a broken body from the pool of blood.
It was a woman, many parts of her body had been devoured, her original appearance no longer discernible, a horrifying sight.
The sentinel tightly held her, his head lowered, his arms trembling.
He sat amidst the invaluable gemstones, covered in blood, not even glancing at those precious stones, only staring at the broken body in his arms.
They were perhaps the closest of companions, comrades-in-arms, perhaps even lovers.
Now, they had to part in this dark abyss, for these cold stones.
"You can take them, leave this place, I don't need them anymore," the sentinel finally said.
His voice was very hoarse, as if he had been crying hard. But his face was dry, not a single tear, only dried bloodstains.
His heart was dead, so empty it couldn't even shed tears.
"Was she your lover?" Ni Ji asked.
It was rare for sentinels to become partners, it wasn’t accepted by the world, often mocked. Even those who were together mostly kept it a secret.
"No, we didn’t have time," the sentinel didn’t look up at Ni Ji, his gaze fixed on the dead body in his arms, "I always thought there was still a lot of time, that we could take it slow."
"Do you know? I regret it very much now, regret not letting her know my true feelings while she was still alive."
"How could I be so stupid? I really am stupid…"
His voice trailed off.
Lin Yuan took a step back.
She noticed a strange change, the hand of the dead female sentinel in the pool of blood seemed to move slightly.
A new, thin, white arm was growing out of her body, slowly rising from the pool of blood.
She was mutating.
She would soon become a monster, completely inhuman.
"She’s mutating," Ni Ji quickly said, his voice calm, with a hint of persuasion. "Leave, put her down."
He reached out and pulled on the sentinel sitting in the pool of blood.
The sentinel’s arms tightened, holding the slowly changing body.
"You guys go," he buried his head deep in the bloody shoulder, "I'm not leaving, I’m staying here."
"She's no longer the person she used to be," Lin Yuan said. "If you stay here, you will also become a Deviant of the darkness, and you'll never be able to return to the surface, never see the sunlight again."
Lin Yuan stood in the shadows, the tentacles surging out from the ground. Her voice was gentle, carrying the powerful force of a Guide adjusting another’s emotions, she was a Guide, she could greatly influence the people around her. Make the grieving cheer up, make those in pain forget everything.
But the sentinel just shook his head, burying his head deeper.
"It doesn’t matter if I can’t see the sunlight, it doesn't matter if I become a monster."
His voice was very low, but the tentacles heard the words in his heart.
I just want to be with her, I hope that even after I become a monster, I can still remember her, remember the words I didn't have time to say when I was still human.
The emotions transmitted by the tentacles were clear and resolute, filled with deep despair, an unshakeable persistence.
He was determined to stay, to go to the underworld with his dead lover.
Even Lin Yuan couldn't change such a firm resolve.
Lin Yuan looked at Ni Ji and shook her head.
Ni Ji stared at the couple embracing each other. His soft brown eyes looked at the sentinel holding his lover in the pool of blood, the faint light of the Nether Stone reflected in them.
Finally, Ni Ji used his blade to scoop up a small piece of intact Nether Stone, pulled Lin Yuan's hand, turned around, and left.
Leaving the sentinel alone in the darkness.
Ni Ji only took one piece of stone, to bring back and complete the mission, Nether Stones were valuable, but very heavy, he still had to travel a long way with Lin Yuan, he didn’t want to carry too much at this point.
He knew Lin Yuan’s ultimate goal was to explore the deepest parts of the Land of No Eyes, not just to take back a few pieces of stone.
So, no matter how valuable those things were, in his eyes, they were nothing.
The two left, sliding down the long pipe.
Arriving at the next floor, Lin Yuan looked up, just in time to see the dead body in that faintly lit corner reach out with three or four strange, pale arms.
The soft, slender arms reached up, wrapping around the sentinel’s neck.
The sentinel’s hunched back trembled, he tightly hugged "her" back.
Ni Ji silently held Lin Yuan's hand, pulling her forward, not letting her look.
They had walked quite a distance, yet Lin Yuan still felt like she could hear the sound from behind.
That thin, sharp sound, like weeping, following them, entering her ears.
She clearly shouldn't be able to hear sounds from so far away.
That sound, like someone crying, yet also like laughter, seemingly very painful, yet also mixed with some inexplicable joy.
She knew that the sentinel was already dead, the tentacles could no longer sense any stable human emotions.
But the image of that person, in his last moments, tightly hugging the monster, kept appearing in her mind.
Those faint, indistinct voices coming from somewhere were still there.
Echoing in her mind, constantly.
Lin Yuan felt a slight pain in her head, as if something was calling out to her in the depths, affecting her.
"I feel very uncomfortable here," Lin Yuan pointed at her chest, "like something’s stuck there, a heavy feeling, very uncomfortable."
"I won't let that happen to you," Ni Ji's voice came from the darkness.
"We came in here together, we’ll find what you want, and we’ll go back together," his voice was calm, like glaciers beneath the blue sea, pure and clear, with an unshakeable firmness, hearing this voice, Lin Yuan felt a little better, she felt that Little Fish was a very contradictory person. He looked rational and mature on the outside, the decisions he made on the battlefield, the things he did, methodical, wise, and cautious.
Yet sometimes, his heart was particularly sentimental, and he would firmly believe in some unrealistic things.
For example, in this dark, lightless Land of No Eyes, no one could guarantee they would leave alive.
In this dark abyss, an individual's life was like a firefly, perhaps a hurricane would come, and it would suddenly be extinguished.
Yet he tightly held her fingers, firmly assuring her, saying that they came together, and would leave together.
Lin Yuan, probing his mind, found not a trace of hesitation there, he stubbornly believed in this illogical thing.
Facing powerful death, the stubborn whale had blinded the eyes of reason, a small, blind persistence in its heart, it reminded Lin Yuan of a human word — romantic.
Yes, this must be what romance was.
Lin Yuan felt that Ni Ji was a very romantic person.
She liked this feeling, so she said to Ni Ji,
"This kind of thinking isn’t practical. I think we should say the things we want to say as soon as possible, and not leave any regrets behind."
She didn’t want to be like that sentinel by the Nether Stone, at the moment of his death, regretting the words he hadn’t spoken.
Leaving this world with a heart full of regret, tragically.
Perhaps it was that emotion affecting Lin Yuan, making her inexplicably irritated, a sudden urge to tell the person next to her the things in her heart.
The sentinel's fingers in her hand twitched slightly, a very subtle movement, his steps stopping.
"I want to say, I like you very much, as a friend, thank you for liking my mental guidance, thank you for being willing to be my dedicated sentinel," Lin Yuan's voice was very clear, like the clear water of a lake, echoing in the quiet darkness.
These were her sincere, heartfelt words. She didn't think there was anything she couldn't say, so clearly and frankly, she told them to the person before her.
After saying this, she felt happy in her heart, and those buzzing sounds in her ears, the strange and chaotic emotions, seemed to have been soothed and suppressed.
She felt that she truly liked Ni Ji, a compatible comrade-in-arms, a friend who had gone through life and death with her.
This sentinel could already be considered one of her best friends.
The sentinel in front turned around to look at her, his back to the light.
A light shone on his shoulder, Lin Yuan couldn’t see his expression clearly, only a blurry dark silhouette, his nose straight, his eyelashes slightly trembling.
She saw Ni Ji’s lips part slightly, as if also having something to tell her.
In the end, he swallowed the words, not saying anything, just held Lin Yuan's hand, and slowly walked forward.
He seemed to have a huge secret in his heart, but he kept those emotions tightly sealed, like a treasure chest buried deep in the sea.
Not letting her see it.
【Little Fish seems ripe.】
【Yes, his body temperature has sharply risen.】
【He’s incredibly delicious right now. I only hate that the main body is blind.】
【It can’t be helped, she sees with her eyes, many things she can’t see.】
【This is the first time I’ve seen a fish like this.】
【Like a ripe fruit, sweet and tempting.】
【I kind of… want to do some bad things to him.】
【Me too, can't control myself.】
Ni Ji jumped down from a high platform, turning around and extending a hand. Lin Yuan jumped down from above, and he steadily caught her.
The faint light flickered, and in the darkness, the girl’s eyes shone, her palm warm, warmer than ever before on the surface.
She seemed a little different from usual, Ni Ji thought, her emotions a little unstable.
But then he thought, he himself was also in turmoil. Just now, when Lin Yuan had said those words, he had almost not been able to control his emotions.
She had said that she liked him, that he was her best friend.
Secretly delighted, and yet with a hint of inexplicable sadness, his emotions were incredibly complex, his heart beating faster, he had been unable to suppress it several times.
Ni Ji felt that he didn't seem like a qualified warrior. On a battlefield like this, no matter what others said, no matter what they did, he should be able to maintain his composure, always be calm and alert.
They were clearly in such a dangerous place.
A cold wind blew, the wind coming from the deepest depths, as if carrying countless faint, unclear sounds, whistling like ghosts crying.
When he listened carefully, he couldn’t hear anything. Only the whistling wind remained in the air.
This place was very strange. Ni Ji thought, the environment oppressive, even Lin Yuan seemed a little affected, her emotions fluctuating.
I should concentrate more and not think about anything else.
【Did you notice that something's different?】
【I don’t know why, but since entering this place, I feel my blood stirring.】
【I like this place, something in the darkness is calling.】
【It feels familiar.】
【Exciting.】
【Makes me want to destroy something.】
【Yeah, makes me want to bully my favorite things.】
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