Invasion - Chapter 96

Chapter 96

Like a drop of colored ink blooming in a pale lake.

The dead, white things around her gained color.

Lin Yuan looked around.

The objects frozen in time were dyed with the colors of life.

The entire research institute, with her as the center, gradually came alive, started moving.

"Excuse me, excuse me," three or five researchers in white coats pushed a metal bed past her.

Lin Yuan stepped aside and saw a man, seemingly unconscious, tightly bound to the iron bed with chains.

The man’s eyes were blank, his mouth open, tears and drool uncontrollably flowing down his face.

Yellow and black ring-shaped patterns appeared on his skin, his abdomen and legs deformed and melting, fine hairs growing on his face, his entire being no longer resembling a human.

A sharp scream came from behind.

Lin Yuan turned around and saw a blood-covered bed, a half-human monster struggling frantically.

Blood-red eyes grew all over its body, and huge red tumors bulged from its skin.

The iron chains, no longer able to bear the force, broke in its struggle, the monster covered with eyes lunged down, swallowing a researcher in a white coat.

The surrounding people screamed and scattered, and three high-energy electromagnetic guns descended from the ceiling.

The three heavy weapons fired in a triangular formation, a blinding white light flashing intensely, powerful firepower covering that area.

A moment later, silence returned.

The monster covered with eyes and the devoured researcher were reduced to a pile of charred remains on the iron bed frame.

Lin Yuan stood there, staring at the charred skeleton.

She realized that this was the underground city from the past, the era when humans still lived here.

Everything before her eyes was something that had actually happened in this research institute.

The surrounding noises became louder.

Many people came and went, hurriedly, their heads lowered, seemingly accustomed to these tragic mutations.

"Another sentinel has gone berserk. The sentinels’ mental states on the battlefield are just too unstable," those people said.

"We need to send more guides into battle."

"The birth rate of guides has always been very low, and we can’t find a solution. Should we let the Progenitor mature a little more?”

"Let’s select a few more sacrifices."

Lin Yuan’s body floated up, someone holding her hand, carrying her upwards.

Her field of vision rose, looking around the whole scene, like a camera panning.

Taking in every detail of this land.

Researchers hurrying past, human experiments locked on beds,

Large amounts of operating high-tech equipment, and security weapons, coldly firing at any time.

There was a giant hole in the center of the floor, its opening sealed with an electric net.

Dark red tentacles wriggled beneath the net, there was a pure white altar, high steps leading up to it.

The researchers coming and going referred to the underground cave inside the research institute as “the temple”.

In humanity’s most advanced research center, there was a basement called “the temple”.

Researchers exploring technology, yet practicing the theory of sacrificing to evil gods.

Lin Yuan's vision rose higher, the space infinitely expanding.

She saw the entire underground city.

This was the giant shelter built underground by humans, where countless people had once lived.

Countless humans, like ants in an underground cave, lived their busy lives.

Warriors holding battle reports, running, a mother enduring the pain of childbirth in a delivery room, a group of students sitting in a classroom, listening to their teacher’s lecture on the latest theories about Deviant births, a retired veteran, missing an arm and a leg, silently standing before densely packed tombstones…

Finally, Lin Yuan’s consciousness landed in a small, dark room.

Outside the room was a long corridor, countless such narrow compartments lining both sides.

Cold iron doors and bars, simple beds and tables, it was unclear whether it was a prison or a barracks.

Before Lin Yuan, on the small, hard bed, sat a blind girl.

"Hi, we meet again," the girl, living in another time and space, suddenly looked up at Lin Yuan.

"My name is Zero. Everything you see here, is all that remains of my memories in this world,” she said.

"Zero?"

"Isn't it a little coincidental? You, who I met hundreds of years later, your name is so similar to mine."

Zero, sitting there, her eyes open, her pupils dark, without light, without focus, she was blind.

Lin Yuan realized that she was the one who had possessed Teng Lu's body, holding her hand, communicating with her consciousness.

What she was seeing and hearing right now were all memories of this girl named Zero.

Footsteps came from the corridor, two people walking outside.

Two men in research institute uniforms stopped in the corridor. One reached out and turned on the electronic screen on the wall.

The man's fingers slid over the photos on the screen, one by one, finally stopping on Zero's.

"No vision, physically weak, a useless Guide who can't go on the battlefield," he said to the other person beside him. "But her mental strength test scores are pretty high."

The other person swiped through Zero's data, browsed, and nodded.

His finger brought up a row of options, paused on the "sacrifice" option, and checked the box.

The footsteps outside the corridor moved away, and the light dimmed.

The person holding her hand said, “At that time, I still didn’t know my fate, didn't know that I was about to become a sacrifice to her.”

In the room, Zero, living in that moment, didn't know that she had been chosen as a sacrifice.

She touched the sheets, lay down on the bed, and calmly closed her eyes.

Zero was a girl who had been blind from birth, she had never seen light, never seen the colors of the world.

Her impoverished family, for a meager sum of money, had sent her to the research institute to become a human experiment.

She was injected with some kind of drug. Fortunately, she didn't die, she had “evolved” into a Guide.

Having become a Guide, Zero felt very fortunate, although she still couldn’t see, she gained a special pair of eyes, those eyes allowed her to see countless magnificent and colorful mental worlds.

Although the life of being confined to a room was monotonous, she didn’t feel bored.

Every day, when she didn't need to be tested, she roamed the vast mental universe.

She “saw” pain, anxiety, excitement, happiness… sometimes she would see pure malice, selfless love, and also primal desire.

Her greatest joy every day, was to close her eyes, explore the mental world in the darkness, until she fell asleep, and had equally magnificent and colorful dreams.

Until that day, when she was put into a metal cage, and lowered down from high above, into the deep underground.

There, it was a palace, with high steps, and crimson carpets.

The blind girl was placed alone on a jade altar.

She became a sacrifice, an offering to a monster.

"You’ve been here before. You remember, right? This altar," Zero said to Lin Yuan.

They held hands, their consciousness floating in the void, both watching the girl on the altar.

This was Zero's memory, something she had experienced hundreds of years ago.

Lin Yuan had seen this altar many times, in her dreams, both asleep and awake.

Countless lives had been sacrificed on this bloody altar, those so-called researchers, using human mental power to feed the Worm Jade, allowing it to hatch.

"This is where the Progenitor was born, after tasting the sweetness, humans hatched more Worm Jades, mass-produced sentinels and guides with various powerful abilities."

"The people at that time thought they had obtained powerful weapons, and could finally fight those strange and incredibly resilient Deviants on the surface."

Zero said to Lin Yuan with regret, "You people, hundreds of years later, haven’t even realized that it was humanity itself that opened the door to its own destruction."

The blind girl on the altar heard the rustling of water, something wet and slimy wriggling up the steps towards her.

The girl couldn't see. In the mental world, she encountered a powerful and pure “person”.

"Who are you?" Her mental power extended, gently touching that soft consciousness.

"Me?" The other seemed stunned for a moment. "I don't know either, I just woke up not long ago."

"They call me the Progenitor, you can also call me Chu.”

She didn't know why, perhaps because Zero didn’t show any fear, or perhaps because Zero was willing to communicate with it,

The tentacles that climbed onto the altar didn't tear apart the sacrifice like usual.

They curiously wrapped around the blind girl, carrying her to the deepest part of the palace.

"Chu at that time was very innocent, she was originally a very simple being," Zero said to Lin Yuan.

"I even feel that the time I spent with Chu was very happy, we were together, and there was nothing else to do, so I told her all sorts of stories every day, about humans, about the dreams I had. No matter what I said, she listened happily and attentively.”

"She also took very good care of me, would find all sorts of strange food for me, just like you, with that sentinel."

"Me? What did I do with that sentinel?" Lin Yuan, hearing this, thought, puzzled.

She understood everything up to this point, but not this part.

What sentinel? Who? Ni Ji?

When had she ever found strange food for Ni Ji? She couldn't remember anything like that.

"Oh, right, you don't remember," the girl beside her said, "You’re very much like Chu, after all, her blood flows through you.”

It was a long time before the researchers realized that the sacrifice they had thrown into the temple hadn't died.

That blind, fragile Guide, not only hadn’t been devoured by the monster, but had even survived in the temple.

She lived by the Progenitor's side, fed by the tentacles, getting along harmoniously with the Progenitor. She hadn't died, and hadn't been polluted.

The humans in the research institute went crazy because of this news.

They were incredibly excited, feeling that they had discovered a new direction to explore. So, at great cost, they severely injured the Progenitor, and retrieved Zero from the temple.

After that, the poor girl, as a rare test subject, endured endless testing and experiments, like torture.

She was locked to an operating table, enduring pointless torment from her own kind, day after day, for the ambitions of some humans.

Zero, permanently chained to the experiment table, never had another chance to see "Chu," to see the friend she had mentally depended on in that darkness.

No more soft tentacles would hook her finger, listening to her talk about her dreams and stories over and over again.

Sometimes, in her pain, she would wish she wasn’t human, that she was a monster just like Chu.

A long time passed, and Zero, chained to the experiment table, finally heard a familiar voice. That voice, no longer as pure and innocent as it had once been, but powerful and filled with anger.

At that time, the earth shook, something powerful broke out from the ground, destroying this indestructible human fortress from within.

Cold and powerful tentacles emerged from underground, hooking her ankle.

"I made a promise to her at that time, to give up my human body and become a part of her."

"Her mental power was terrifyingly strong, and I received an endless stream of power from her. I used that power, expanded my dreams, my mindscape infinitely, supporting a separate space, isolated from the human world."

"That is, what you later call, contaminated zones."

"I lost myself, became the Pillar of the contaminated zone, and she, became the contaminated zone itself."

"She and I are no longer separable. My withering and death, means the end of this world."

"I was the first Guide to become a Pillar, perhaps, I could also be considered a sinner of humanity."

After hearing Zero's calm narration,

Lin Yuan didn't say any words of comfort.

Images of Zero's life flashed before her eyes. But even seeing it with her own eyes, it was difficult to truly understand the despair and pain she had endured.

Lin Yuan just gently hooked her finger with a tentacle. Her thoughts transmitted through the mental connection.

It wasn't her fault, it was the fault of those twisted and greedy people, the fault of this wrong era.

Lin Yuan thought of the Pillars she had seen in many contaminated zones. She thought of Xun Hua, thought of the White King in the No. 5 Contaminated Zone.

So every Pillar of a contaminated zone was a Guide, the mental will of powerful guides eroded by Worm Jades, creating such tragedies.

"It's okay," Zero said to her, "Even the longest nightmares have an end. Now, I have finally reached the end of my life, and will soon find eternal peace.”

Zero gradually loosened Lin Yuan's hand, her face and those images dissipating before Lin Yuan's eyes.

"But they’ve sent you here, wanting you to take my place, to become the pillar here, you have to be careful… Chu is completely different from how she was then, she’s powerful, violent, unwilling to accept the end."

"You have to be careful, careful of… everything in that White Tower."

Zero’s body dissipated, the hand holding Lin Yuan turning to ash in the dark world.

The dreamlike mindscape disappeared.

Lin Yuan found herself standing below the research institute, in the temple that had been deserted for hundreds of years.

The pure white altar was still there, at the top of the crimson steps. It seemed countless souls who had tragically died here silently accused the bitter fate of the past.

Lin Yuan saw Chu.

The Progenitor who had lived for hundreds, even thousands, of years.

Now, having lost its Pillar, lost its source of mental energy, its body was in an advanced state of decay.

Like withered, rotten branches, huge and endless, extending all the way from the darkness, covering the bottom of the temple.

The moment Zero's mental power completely disappeared, a terrifying sound came from the depths of the temple.

Like a dying struggle, the enormous withered body twisted and twitched.

The entire temple shook violently with its writhing.

…

Ni Ji shook off the hand holding him. That cold, pale hand retracted.

Appearing before him was Teng Lu in a white dress.

Half of Teng Lu's face was hidden in the shadows, the other half, exposed to the light, as pale as a corpse’s.

Beneath her skirt, it was no longer a single tentacle, but countless old, withered tentacles crawling out from under her white skirt.

"You’ve completely turned into a monster. No, you were always a twisted monster," Ni Ji slowly drew his blade.

"What if I’m a monster? It's better than being a weak human who is constantly bullied." Teng Lu, half of her face visible, slowly climbed up the wall in the darkness. "Someone as strong as you wouldn’t understand the pain of being weak, right? That’s why you’ll never understand."

"No matter what, even if I have to sacrifice myself to ‘It’, I would never want to become that powerless, pitiful creature I once was again."

The scene around Ni Ji changed.

He saw a sentinel... many sentinels.

Some deceived by the girl’s frail appearance, some seduced by her beauty.

In this dark world, those powerful warriors, like prey caught in a spiderweb, collapsed, one after another, under that white skirt.

They struggled, revealing their helpless, even ugly and embarrassing, pathetic side. They were repeatedly tortured until their minds completely collapsed, and in the end, not even their bodies were spared, turned into puppets, manipulated at will.

Unable to leave this dark hell until their complete destruction.

Ni Ji even saw himself, saw himself being captured by tentacles, dragged into the depths of the lair without any resistance.

The scene began to distort, to darken.

Suggestive cries came from the darkness.

"Hee hee, so you've experienced it too," Teng Lu's voice infinitely amplified in the darkness. "Your Guide, so powerful, she must often do such things to you, I've always wanted to see you begging for mercy, your expression filled with shame and anger."

Half of her face emerged from the darkness, satisfied, seeing the humiliated look on that Sentinel’s face.

"Sentinels really are the most pitiful creatures," Teng Lu laughed, stealthily extending the mental tentacle she borrowed towards Ni Ji.

"You are sensitive, fragile, completely defenseless, all afraid of my mental control… ah!"

Teng Lu screamed, clutching the arm severed by the sentinel, and retreated in disbelief.

The sentinel before her, holding his blade, his eyes glowing, a murderous desperado.

Completely different from the image she had seen before, weak and soft, easily disarmed under Lin Yuan’s tentacles.

"Why?!" The completely mutated monster yelled angrily, "I know what you’re afraid of, you should be afraid. You can’t resist mental control, none of you Sentinels can."

"Are you mistaken?” The sentinel before her coldly stared at her, a hint of mockery in his eyes. "I am afraid of this. But what I’m afraid of is that powerful, unique person. How could it be a pathetic, weak monster like you, inside and out?"

He slowly drew his long, blood-red blade, the blade reflecting in his cold eyes, a powerful soul residing deep within them.

"I don’t understand how those sentinels you tricked could fall for your lies, but if I were to show even a hint of weakness before you, then I would have lost."

The blood-red blade light was the sentinel's flames of revenge.

The twisted, fake image shattered under the blade light.

Cracks appeared on the distorted body of the Deviant who had deceived countless sentinels.

The one who had deceived countless sentinels eventually died like a weakling, in this dark world.

Ni Ji saw Lin Yuan.

In the cave below him, his Guide stood by the altar, confronting an infinitely large monster.

He rushed towards Lin Yuan.

Lin Yuan looked up and saw the sentinel running towards her.

Their gazes met for a brief moment, staring at each other.

There was a bloodstain on Ni Ji’s face, and Lin Yuan didn’t look much better, covered in dust and grime.

They had lost each other again — even though they had been holding hands.

But this time, neither panicked, both firmly believing they would reunite soon.

Lin Yuan felt that Ni Ji running towards her seemed a little unfamiliar, not as restrained and reserved as usual.

At this moment, it was as if the anger in his heart had been ignited, burning brightly like a blade.

As he charged down, his handsome face tinged with a wildness, incredibly charismatic, more handsome than ever.

He smiled at her.

Facing a powerful enemy, his smile was cold, sharp, and unstoppable.

After landing, although there was still some distance between them, they didn't reach out to hold each other’s hands.

At this moment, the ends of their mental powers were connected, more firmly than any physical touch, making their hearts no longer afraid of losing each other.

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