Invasion [Guide and Sentinel] — Section 25

When facing a life-threatening crisis, humans instinctively seek to avoid harm.

The man before him, a Sentinel with an orca as his spirit beast, did not hesitate for even a fraction of a heartbeat when confronted with a lethal danger. He simply summoned his spirit beast and thrust it into the giant crocodile’s guillotine-like jaws as a meat shield.

The trauma inflicted upon a spirit beast brings immense pain to its master and severely hampers the Sentinel’s own mobility. Under the crushing bite force, the orca’s tail was mangled, exposing white fish bone. Yet the Sentinel himself stood steady, a sharp blade pressed against the Count’s throat. The faint glow of energy stones illuminated his icy eyes, revealing not a flicker of agony.

He was a madman.

Genuine cold sweat beaded on James’s forehead. His fingers, which had been mere millimeters from the alarm button, were forced to slowly retreat. He had been a hair’s breadth away from triggering the alarm. Even now, he could not collect his thoughts. He could hardly believe that he, a high-ranking Sentinel, had been defeated in a single exchange.

He knew his rank had been artificially inflated by his family using expensive genetic drugs, and he possessed little real combat experience. Yet, in the performative sparring matches of the past, he had always easily bested his guards, flaunting his A-rank Sentinel qualifications while basking in the servile flattery of his sycophants. He had always believed himself to be a powerhouse.

"What... what are your demands?" the Count lowered his head, hoping to negotiate, to buy time. After all, he possessed such vast wealth; there was nothing he couldn't purchase, his own life included. It was nothing major. It could be resolved.

"I have just returned from Contamination Zone 35," the Sentinel replied.

Contamination Zone 35? That place where the Insect Jade lived?

Before the thought could fully register, the cold blade sliced through the skin of his throat. There was no hesitation, no room for doubt, only the taking of a life. He was left with no room for bargaining.

James tried to scream, but no sound emerged. The thin blade had precisely severed his vocal cords and trachea. He clutched his neck in disbelief and slowly sank to his knees. A massive volume of blood flowed from his severed airway into his lungs. He tasted the extreme agony of drowning. It was a pain so intense it made one long for death, yet he could not die immediately.

The Count, who had never valued the lives of others, crawled on the floor. One hand clutched his bleeding neck, the other reached out, his face twisted as he made small, guttural sounds, begging the assassin for mercy. Facing death, the noble Count stripped away his aristocratic veneer; he was no different from any common man. Equally terrified, equally fragile, equally fearful of death, and desperate to survive.

Ni Ji crouched down, looked at the man in the pool of blood, and placed a sheet of white paper before him.

"I know there is more than one of you. Write down the names of the others. Perhaps you might still make it to a medical pod in time."

His tone was calm, like a straw floating on a sea of blood, tempting the dying man to reach out and grasp it. James, clutching his throat, tears and snot streaming down his face, shook his head frantically. He wanted to say, "Don't do this; those are powerful figures, even I cannot afford to provoke them, it is not something a lone Sentinel like you can handle." But he could not produce a sound.

The death-like Sentinel did not want to hear him; he only crouched there, waiting for him to reach for that singular straw. The dying Count had no choice but to reach out, dip his trembling fingers in blood, and write down a list of names.

He watched as the Sentinel picked up the blood-red list, shook it in the air, and scrutinized the names with earnest focus. Finally, under the Count’s longing gaze, the killer’s eyes ignited once more with a purple glow.

***

Ni Ji felt he had left the scene in a bit of a mess, but he had no other choice. He had to shatter the noble’s brain to prevent anyone from viewing the memories stored within the corpse.

He sat in the blood-splattered luxury bedroom, using the light from the fish tank’s energy stones to access the personal terminal on James’s arm. The irony was that the terminal worn by this corpse held the master control for all electronic devices within the Count’s estate. Once opened with his iris and fingerprints, and with a bit of technical skill, it was easy to wipe away any security records a killer would want to erase.

Human technology had regressed by thousands of years, and productivity had suffered a severe breakdown. Even the products salvaged from the remnants of the old world used to maintain appearances were ultimately nothing more than a patchwork facade. It was very easy to destroy, especially for an honors graduate of the Sentinel Academy who had spent years wandering the contamination zones.

Ni Ji carefully cleared everything, ensured no personal information remained, and stood up.

"I saw it," a voice sounded from the fish tank.

Ni Ji turned his head and saw the strange fish swimming inside.

"I saw everything. I killed."

"Good. I am pleased."

The non-humanoid creature spoke in broken, disjointed human language.

"Kill me."

"I do not want to live anymore."

"End it all for me."