Invasion [To the Outpost] Chapter 52

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In the real world, beside the hospital bed, a red alarm symbol flashed on the virtual screen of Lin Yuan’s personal terminal.

“Alert, alert! The patient’s mental landscape is collapsing. Please exit the treatment immediately.”

“Danger, danger! Please exit the treatment at once.”

Outside the observation window, the female sentinel, Little Bird, suddenly jumped up. “What’s happening? Why is there a red exclamation mark?”

Nearby, Big Tiger desperately pulled her down, making a shushing gesture, trying to calm her in a low voice. “Stay calm, Little Bird, stay calm. You said we must trust the guide and guard this gate well.”

They all looked expectantly at Lin Yuan.

Lin Yuan, by the bed, closed her eyes without a flicker of emotion.

The red light from the alarm on the virtual screen flickered across her delicate, serene face.

At this moment, within Rachel’s mental landscape,

Lin Yuan stood at the edge of a shattered house, watching the scattered, overlapping fragments floating below her feet.

Several floors beneath her—about four or five stories down—a young boy peeked out from behind a broken wall, showing half his face as he quietly observed her.

Like Rachel lying in the hospital bed, the boy had golden hair and piercing blue eyes.

“Warning, warning! Termination of treatment is strongly advised.” The alert sounded again in Lin Yuan’s ear from the terminal.

Lin Yuan ignored it, leapt bravely, and jumped downward directly.

The boy, startled by her leap toward him, quickly withdrew his face; his small figure flickered and vanished somewhere unknown.

Lin Yuan landed on the platform where the boy had just appeared, looking around.

The boy was gone, only a golden, furry little creature flickering in the distance.

“What is his mental form?”

“Rachel’s mental form was once a majestic golden lion, very handsome. Sadly, after rescuing him, his mental form never appeared again.”

Lin Yuan recalled her conversation with Shen Fei before entering.

A majestic golden lion? Isn’t that just a kitten?

Thinking this, Lin Yuan pursued the small, juvenile lion.

Every plank she stepped on collapsed immediately, leaving no path to retreat.

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Without looking back, she chased the juvenile mental form as it fled.

Around her, huge chunks of debris fell continuously, thick black liquid cascading like waterfalls from all directions, flowing everywhere.

Tentacles appeared one by one behind Lin Yuan, accompanying her as she drifted through the shadows.

[Some danger detected.]

[Spatial distortion ahead.]

[Too filthy—black mud everywhere.]

[It smells awful—I don’t like this place.]

Lin Yuan missed a step and suddenly fell from midair.

As she plummeted, she vaguely saw a golden-haired sentinel standing on the edge of a void-like platform, hand resting on his sword, blood covering his face, looking at her with sorrow.

She fell countless floors before a tentacle caught a piece of rubble, and she grabbed it, climbing up.

Raising her hand, she saw it was covered in thick, sticky black mud, her feet equally slick and difficult to move. Each step was a struggle.

Looking up, the sky was no longer visible.

The tiny lion appeared on a high platform; its sparse fur stained with that black sludge. It lifted a small leg, trying to shake off the sticky filth.

From the sludge emerged a long, strange black hand that grabbed the lion’s limbs and body, dragging it deeper into the mire.

Lin Yuan ran toward the platform. When she reached it, the frail young lion had vanished. Only a golden-haired, blue-eyed sentinel lay there—the owner of this mental landscape: Rachel.

The sentinel’s limbs were locked by inky black palms. His abdomen was torn open, blood pooling around him, yet he was still alive. Red blood flowed down the sides of the platform.

Surrounding the platform were countless people with unnaturally long necks, all grinning widely as if delighted, twisting their necks to watch the tormented sentinel and whisper among themselves.

Lin Yuan straightened, raised a hand, and said, “Expel.”

Massive tentacles burst forth from beneath the sludge, charging through and instantly clearing the strange onlookers.

One by one, heads fell from their elongated necks, their once-vivid expressions replaced by white, sticky effigies that rolled into the sludge and sank.

Lin Yuan approached the platform. The white effigies and black monstrous hands had disappeared. The sentinel lying on the platform had his eyes open, gaze vacant—he had been dead for some time.

This was the spiritual world; all of this was a hallucination formed from the sentinel’s memories.

Lin Yuan gazed into the distance; countless such platforms floated in the void.

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On each platform, a golden-haired Rachel was repeatedly dragged up, bound, enduring endless torment.

His most trusted family and comrades surrounded him, stretching their necks and wearing joyous smiles as they reveled in his humiliation and suffering.

This was the deepest part of Rachel’s mental landscape.

His body had been rescued from the contaminated zone.

But his spirit remained trapped in extreme agony, endlessly reliving inhumane torture within his own mental landscape, dying over and over.

Was it already too late?

Lin Yuan stood beside the sentinel’s pitiful corpse.

The once cozy castle of the sentinel’s mind lay in ruins; thick layers of sludge accumulated everywhere like a swamp, black waterfalls continuously pouring from the sky.

The sentinel himself was immersed in recurring nightmares of abuse.

How meticulous would the guide have to be, and how much time would it take, to cleanse and restore such a world?

And there was no time left.

The world was beginning to collapse, the mental form’s beast reverting to a juvenile state—an omen of impending demise.

Once the mental form died completely, it would mean the sentinel would fall into eternal darkness, never to awaken.

At this desperate moment, an inexplicable image arose in Lin Yuan’s mind: a vast, blue sea.

She pictured waves gently soothing all things, as if one day they could dissolve all the world’s countless pains.

Lin Yuan focused for a moment, then stretched out her hand.

The crimson sky abruptly vanished, replaced by countless stars sparkling in the firmament. A great bright moon slowly rose, hanging high in the sky.

Moonlight shone down from above, piercing through the dense darkness, illuminating Lin Yuan.

Standing beneath the moonlight, Lin Yuan spoke: “Let the wind rise.”

A breeze stirred around her, softly sweeping away the thick, foul stench in the air.

It brought with it a fragrance that comforted the heart.