Infiltration [Guide/Sentinel] Section 41

In this brief instant, he vaguely felt as though he, too, were a warrior, standing shoulder to shoulder with the sentinel upon a battlefield, waiting together to face the onslaught of a fierce and cruel enemy.

The ceiling of the cabin shuddered, showering down a fine veil of dust.

Then once more, a massive section of the roof shattered beneath the despairing gazes of everyone present, collapsing inward into the cabin.

With a resounding crash, it stirred up a scatter of debris and a sky full of dust.

The sunlight poured in, blindingly bright.

The interior of the airship was no longer safe; it was like a opened can, exposing the fresh meat inside for the ravenous taking.

Along the edge of the jagged, gaping roof, a monster's face appeared. It resembled a child of six or seven, grossly overweight, with two flushed red patches on its cheeks, grinning to reveal wide, grotesque incisors.

The sentinel fired the first shot, piercing the child-like head on the spot. Wailing loudly, the head rolled directly down the inner wall of the airship.

The fierce recoil of the gunshot slammed unexpectedly into Shu Jingtong's shoulder.

How painful!

So this was the magnitude of such force. Clenching his teeth, he steadied himself, bracing against the sentinel who had crashed backward into him.

The head-monster dodged the first bullet and dashed forward, only to suddenly slow down halfway.

The tear-stained face began to grin foolishly, wearing a dreamy, dazed expression.

The sentinel's second magazine followed closely, blasting the creature into absolute shreds.

Another head emerged from the edge, followed by a second, and then a third.

The moment those terrifyingly agile creatures exposed their faces, they moved with a sluggish and halting pace, as if completely bewitched.

For a sentinel with exceptional vision and formidable physical prowess, this was practically equivalent to shooting at stationary targets.

Taking down monsters two or three shots at a time, the sentinel eliminated them steadily and ruthlessly. Those creatures that had previously been exceptionally troublesome, darting about chaotically, were now as easy to slaughter as chopping vegetables.

She cast a look of astonishment toward the girl standing beside her.

That young woman, dressed in a deep blue coat, stood amid the swirling dust, her sleeves folded up to her wrists, holding a compact submachine gun in her delicate hands as she gazed up at the sky.

At her feet, amidst the billowing dust, countless arcane entities seemed to surge back and forth.

Head after head emerged from the edge of the breach.

With bizarre expressions and crowding one another, they drooled continuously down at the people inside the hull.

Yet, regardless of whether they were massive or diminutive, every single one of them would invariably experience a momentary, inexplicable freeze in their movements.

Faintly visible were dancing tentacles that suddenly materialized from the shadows.

Those agile tentacles accurately and unerringly invaded the monsters' brains in an instant. The frantically darting creatures would fall into an emotional stupor at a specific fraction of a second.

Seizing this fleeting opportunity with keen precision, the sentinel dispatched the monsters with a few well-placed rounds.

One controlling the field, the other delivering the kills—their coordination was nothing short of seamless.

Even as head-monsters continually emerged, none were able to breach such a massive opening.

Is this what a guide is?

So this is what a true guide is like. The sentinel, who had never interacted with a guide before, thought to herself.

Given her rank and combat capability, she should ordinarily have been entirely incapable of dealing with so many aberrant variants simultaneously.

It was the female guide standing beside her who had unleashed her formidable mental control, firmly dominating the battlefield and allowing the sentinel to multiply her own combat effectiveness tenfold.

She had never experienced such a soul-stirring, exhilarating battle.

Even as her ammunition was nearly exhausted, and her body pushed to the absolute limit.

Yet the mental landscape, which should long ago have plunged into chaos due to excessive wounds and fatigue, remained completely serene at this moment.

Hardly any negative emotions arising from physical agony and the overexertion of mental power surfaced at all.

Such a stable mental state empowered her to hold her ground, giving her all to fight unreservedly until the very end.

That guide, possessing a pure white chinchilla spiritual entity, had been supporting her all along.

It was with that feline's soft, gentle spiritual power that all painful negative emotions had been channeled and purged from her mental landscape.

So this was what a guide truly meant.

No wonder the Empire treasured guides so dearly.

Yet a guide of this caliber truly deserved to be more than just a domestic companion to sentinels. They belonged on the battlefield, standing as the finest partners and comrades-in-arms to the sentinels.

For a fleeting second, a thought unworthy of a low-ranking grunt flashed through the sentinel's mind.

What a pity; I might not be able to protect such a wonderful guide. The sentinel looked up at the hazy yellow sky, thinking with a tinge of regret that, in the end, she probably wouldn't be able to escort them out safely.

Her ammunition was gone. Her body had reached its limit.

And yet, monsters continued to appear one after another.

They were merely ordinary airship guards, with very little exposure to contaminated zones.

Plunged abruptly into such an unfamiliar, completely uncharted contaminated zone with zero intelligence, finding an exit was a Herculean task.

Sentinels fighting the monsters mid-air were stained with blood, and warriors covered in gore fell from thousands of meters in the sky from time to time.

Severely wounded sentinels also struggled back into the airship.

The first sentinel to crash down had broken both legs and was covered in blood. He rolled on the ground a few times, propped himself up, and gritted his teeth to reach for the gun he had dropped, his crawling body dragging two long trails of blood behind him.

"Give me my gun, I can still fight. Damn it, those bastards... those bastards killed the captain."

His eyes were bloodshot, and black feathers flickered in and out of view on his face—the unmistakable sign of berserk frenzy.

Nicole hesitated for a moment, walking over to the blood-soaked man. With trembling hands, she made contact with his skin and cupped his face.

Can I do this? Nicole thought, someone like me who lagged behind in class.

My scores in conditioning classes weren't good. I might not be able to pull this off.

At this moment, she suddenly regretted her slack attitude back at the academy. At the very least, she should have studied the science of mental conditioning properly.

In her palms, the face covered in black feathers stared at her with vertical pupils, letting out a fierce roar that startled her.

Yet very soon, the black feathers faded from that face, transforming back into human features. The sentinel regained a brief moment of clarity.

He froze for a moment, glanced at his broken legs and fluctuating form, and handed the gun he was tightly gripping to Nicole.