Invasion [Sentinel/Guide] - Section 59

Or simply enroll in the Sentinel Academy, study there for a few years, and graduate to become a captain, or settle down near the White Tower...

As if under a spell, his thoughts drifted further and further, and his fingers instinctively reached out toward that glistening object.

I'll just take a little. I must take some of it away.

[Do not touch it!] A voice suddenly exploded in his mind.

Little Mu blinked in a daze.

[You are not allowed to touch it!]

[Do not take it!]

[Open your eyes!]

[Wake up!]

It was an order.

A series of stern commands flooded into his mind.

Little Mu snapped out of it with a start. His round, seal-like eyes regained their clarity.

Looking before him, there were no brilliant Imperial coins in the drawer at all.

That small wooden box lay quietly inside the drawer, surrounded by a writhing mass of tiny, long-furred, multicolored sea worms.

For some inexplicable reason, he had just mistaken these vibrantly colored, obviously highly venomous worms for Imperial coins, and had even wanted to reach out and grab a few.

He hadn't even paused to consider how Imperial coins of the current era could possibly exist inside a vessel from the ancient past.

He shuddered to think what would have befallen him had he actually been bitten by those multicolored worms.

How many people had explored this ship before? Yet, no one had ever discovered such mind-altering creatures.

Thank goodness Sister Lin Yuan woke me in time. Cold sweat drenched Little Mu's back.

Using an iron rod, he pushed aside the worms writhing and crawling in the murky seawater, and wrapped the small wooden box in a piece of rag.

"I've got it," he said in his mind.

[Return immediately.] The voice echoed in his mind.

Having completed his mission, the little seal was very happy, flicking its tail as it swam out of the cabin.

On the sea surface, a sentinel with exceptionally acute senses reported the situation from beneath the depths: "He has completed his mission and is surfacing now."

Everything went smoothly, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

At that moment, Lin Yuan, who had been sitting with her eyes closed upon the water's surface, stirred.

It was as if she had heard something.

It sounded like a fish.

Enormous and ferocious.

Prowling through the deep sea, swimming steadily toward this place.

A whale.

A killer whale.

"Another sentinel is approaching," Little Bird stood up from the boat. "A group of them, friend or foe unknown. Everyone, be on guard."

Sentinels possessed extraordinary vision and hearing; even though the intruders approached in total silence, they detected them instantly.

In the distance, along the shoreline, a group of powerful sentinels had stealthily ambushed their position.

By the time they were discovered, those figures were already standing far off, cutting off their retreat path.

Deep beneath the water, an even more formidable entity had somehow drifted dangerously close to the sentinels.

Shanan Bay was crescent-shaped, and those figures stood at the innermost curve of the bay, facing the open sea.

Radiating immense pressure, they were all high-level sentinels. Standing or crouching, their eyes gleamed with the cold, luminous glow of combat readiness.

The dark and silent silhouettes of the sentinels' spiritual beasts were reflected in the seawater.

Veterans stationed at the outposts all knew that wandering through a contaminated zone often meant the deadliest threats were not the monsters, but potentially creatures of one's own kind.

Especially when you had discovered a treasure and accidentally let others find out about it.

This was a dark forest, a place where gods had perished. In a realm devoid of law and oversight, human life appeared overwhelmingly cheap.

"They're all seasoned fighters with powerful equipment," Tiger lowered his voice to tell Little Bird. "Unlike us, they look like they're straight from the White Tower."

"Especially the one coming from underwater," Tiger took off his outer garment. "You keep watch up here; I'm heading down to check things out."

The sentinel, transformed into a magnificent tiger, slipped into the water.

Little Bird pressed a hand against the gun at her waist, fixing her gaze intently on the figures by the shoreline.

We are no match for them.

This was not merely due to the crushing pressure of their superior spiritual power, but also because of the weaponry they carried.

Those individuals were equipped exclusively with electronic pulse rifles, belonging to an entirely different era from the firearms requiring physical bullets that they themselves carried.

It was common knowledge that White Tower sentinels vastly outperformed local troops. Supported by the Empire's immense economic backing, they were equipped with the most powerful ancient weapons harvested from across the various regions.

The figures standing by the shore still looked distant, but at a sentinel's speed, it was a distance that could hardly be shaken off by fleeing.

From Little Bird's vantage point, she could clearly see the relaxed and indifferent expressions of those people by the water, the mocking curves of their lips.

Doubtless, they could likewise see her strained posture as if facing an impending catastrophe, and perhaps even the cold sweat trickling down her temple.

Deep in the ocean, Little Mu was in absolute panic.

Underwater, his perceptual abilities were abnormally heightened.

He knew he was being tracked; deep within the ocean depths, a colossal entity was closing in on him.

Silent and startlingly swift.

Within just a few breaths, it had cornered him, moving with the terrifying speed of a phantom in the abyss.