Invasion [Sentinel-Guide] — Chapter 45

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【Stop acting spoiled.】

【Be good.】

【I’m exhausted.】

【Hurry and let me touch you.】

The chattering consciousnesses poured into his mind almost simultaneously.

Amid them were several confused, indistinct voices.

At some point, several tentacles whose forms were difficult to make out had crawled onto the enormous killer whale’s tail.

Exhausted and limp with fatigue, the tentacles draped themselves over the whale’s smooth tail, as though trying to draw a little restorative energy from their favorite toy.

And so the killer whale—the spirit form belonging to Ni Ji—once again disregarded its master’s wishes, bashfully turning its head and wagging its tail as it followed the airship.

Ni Ji began to wonder whether he had gone mad.

Perhaps he had already fallen into a state of frenzy and was living in a world of mental disorder without even realizing it.

Otherwise, why would he knowingly do something so irrational, yet secretly feel an emotion he could not quite conceal… happiness?

This was a battlefield. The perilous combat would not ease simply because his emotions had changed.

The first wave of pursuing heads had already transformed their mouths into spear-like weapons. No longer acting independently, they arranged themselves in a neat triangular formation in midair, using the force of their charge to dive down in unison from above.

They surged forward one after another, covering and supporting each other.

They were determined to nail the man and the whale hanging from the rear of the ship to the air and pierce them through.

It was as though someone had begun directing that oppressive swarm of monsters. They, too, understood that if they concentrated their fire and eliminated this newly arrived powerhouse, the battered soldiers aboard the ship would become easy prey.

Ni Ji drew the short blade at his waist.

The flowing blade skimmed across his palm. A red mark appeared, and a long thread of blood streamed from the tip into the wind.

The small white blade, stained with his blood, gave off a strange little laugh from the hilt.

In an instant, the bloodstained short blade transformed, finally solidifying into a long saber of eerie crimson.

Ni Ji raised the blade over his head. Power surged through the arches of his feet as he lunged toward the formation of heads.

At the instant he leaped into the air, he suddenly felt that he had seen the moon.

The sky’s dim, yellow, counterfeit backdrop seemed to vanish in that moment.

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A silvery-white, cold, desolate, mysterious celestial body appeared, hanging quietly in the night sky.

With lowered eyes, it gazed down upon the world, its cool moonlight spilling over the countless living things below.

It was a mental landscape. Someone had unleashed such an immense force of spirit.

There was something wrong with this battle, Ni Ji realized.

His blade had become much faster.

No—the blade was not faster. The enemy’s movements had slowed!

Ni Ji landed back on the whale’s back, holding his blade horizontally before him.

A vast mass of heads was hacked to pieces, scattering and falling like rain.

The tentacles came slithering back from the shadows in a noisy rush, returning with him to the enormous body of the killer whale, limp with exhaustion.

【Hurry up, little fish.】

【I’m fucking exhausted.】

【I need to sit out a round.】

【Move over. Let me stroke you once and recharge my life.】

So it was her.

Was she helping me?

No. She was behind me, watching everything, controlling everything, fighting at my side.

It was as though they were standing on a battlefield that belonged to him. The wind above, the invisible moon, the tentacles stirring faintly in the darkness, and the silent gaze of the person standing behind him—all of them fought shoulder to shoulder with him.

He was clearly alone.

And yet, at that moment, it felt as though he had returned to the past, when he had companions beside him and comrades at his back.

When he had first seen that guide in the chaotic cabin, her pale face streaked with blood and sweat, Ni Ji had felt a faint ache in his heart.

No matter what, I’m already inside. I’ll get her out, one way or another, he had thought.

Save her. That had been his thought at the time.

Save a gentle, kind-hearted guide with no ability to fight.

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But the guide had said to him, “Come back.”

Come back. We’ll fight together.

Ni Ji stood on the whale’s back. Without turning around, he could still clearly feel the person behind him.

Silent, still, and steadfastly at his side.

A trace of warmth stirred in his heart, rising from the place that had long since gone completely cold.

Once, they had been opponents. In the mental sea, she had been a terrifying and tenacious enemy.

A guide—the one who restrained sentinels. Tentacles—the monsters of the ocean, enemies against whom killer whales contended.

Who could have imagined that one day, with their identities changed, when she stood beside him, they would prove to be such perfectly matched comrades?

Ni Ji rose and fought again.

The afterimages of his blood-red blade crossed and interwove, forming in midair a net of execution that shredded every scrap of flesh in its path.

The enormous whale followed tightly before and behind him.

Great swaths of black cloud split apart and fell like rain.

They held fast at the rear of the airship, guarding the lives of everyone aboard.

Lin Yuan clung to the stern, watching intently as the man and the whale fought their way through the swarm of monsters.

The exit was almost within reach. The aberrant creatures had grown especially frenzied, surging forward in wave after wave with no regard for their lives.

But Lin Yuan’s feelings had changed. She no longer felt the stifling frustration and helplessness of before, as though she possessed strength but had no way to use it.

The battle was fraught with danger, like walking barefoot across a blade.

It was perilous, forcing her to concentrate with every ounce of her being.

Perhaps one mistake, the slightest deviation, and that sentinel would die horribly before her eyes.

Then every one of them would be swallowed by the oppressive swarm of monsters, consumed during the final stretch of the journey toward the exit.

But they worked together exceptionally well, didn’t they?