Chapter 27: Step Up
The powerful alliance of an SSS-rank Sentinel and an SSS-rank Guide—one Sentinel, one Guide, one tiger, one cat.
The intense battle lasted for an unknown amount of time.
Until the Sentinels from N9 Base, who had finished evacuating the crowd, also joined in. Until the horizon suddenly brightened, and the few remaining Specters all dissipated.
Under the massive roar of bombing, three combat airships arrived.
This caused the pollution entities, most of whom had already been killed, to flee in panic.
In the morning light, Chi Wan looked at the bomber airships in the sky and said excitedly:
“It’s the people from the base coming to aid us.”
There wasn’t much surprise on Shen Yu’s face. The moment the massive amount of pollution entities broke through the earth’s crust, he had sent a request for reinforcements to the base.
The scattering pollution entities revealed the broken ground completely before their eyes, the smell of blood heavy and pungent.
He sheathed his sword neatly with one hand and looked down at her. She was tilting her head up toward the sky. Under the morning light, the fine pores on her face were visible, and the thin sheen of sweat on the tip of her small nose was crystal clear. Her long, curly eyelashes trembled slightly.
And those unique blue-violet eyes looked as if a galaxy flowed within them under the dawn.
“If you ever meet a girl as wonderful as a deity in the future, you will understand my feelings for your grandmother.”
“Every once in a while you find someone who’s iridescent, and when you do, nothing will ever compare.”
His grandfather’s words seemed to echo in his ears.
Shen Yu was lost in thought for a moment.
Noticing the gaze from above, Chi Wan looked back at him.
“Shen Yu?”
During the battle, her voice was clear and melodious, containing a power that overcame hardness with softness.
But right now, her voice was low and soft, like a freshly steamed sticky rice ball, tickling one’s heart.
Though his thoughts were complicated, Shen Yu didn’t show it on his face.
He was as free and easy as usual, raising his eyebrows slightly as he looked at her:
“It was so dangerous back then. Why did you rush out?”
A simple, casual tone, as if it were just a pure question.
One couldn’t hear any probing in it at all.
“Isn’t assisting Sentinels the duty of a Guide?”
Chi Wan’s tone was puzzled, as if he had asked a nonsensical question.
Being this close, she realized his eyes were in the rare shape of phoenix eyes.
Taking in her clear eyes devoid of any distracting thoughts, Shen Yu hefted his left arm. Chi Wan, unstable on his left arm, pressed almost her entire body against him, her hands around his neck tightening a bit.
Then she heard his light laughter, the mirth making his chest tremble slightly:
“It seems Guide Chi Wan doesn’t want to get down?”
Chi Wan blushed at his words.
She pulled away and wanted to get down.
“Commander, Guide Chi Wan, are you alright!”
Amidst the smoke and ruins, the Sentinels of N9 Base ran over with concerned faces.
The young man stopped teasing her and bent down to put her on the ground.
“I’m fine. How is the evacuation of the crowd in Thorn City?”
“They’ve all been sent away safely. The reinforcement troops have landed. It’s K1 Base.”
K1 Base, the base where Shi Ye belonged.
“Good.”
Shen Yu walked toward the direction where the spaceships landed.
The collapsed buildings formed piles of ruins. Crossing the nearest pile, three Alliance combat airships and four light armored vehicles appeared in everyone’s view.
A large number of Sentinels were checking their gear and weapons. At the very front of the crowd, leaning against a motorcycle, stood a Sentinel in a leather combat uniform, looking cold and sharp-eyed. It was Shi Ye.
He loosened the leather gloves on his wrists and walked toward Shen Yu.
“What’s the situation?”
“Consider it a breakthrough discovery.”
Shen Yu tilted his head toward the large expanse of ruins behind him.
“The situation is even more serious than we imagined.”
Shi Ye walked toward the ruins behind him.
The massive ground fissures had formed huge, potholed basins. A closer look revealed that the underground was riddled with passages as complex as an ant nest, each wide enough to accommodate a Sentinel.
Sentinels from both bases gathered by the fissure to observe.
The scale shocked them all.
It was no secret that high-level pollution entities possessed intelligence and set combat strategies, but such a massive secret underground structure meant the upper limit of the pollution entities had far exceeded their assumptions.
The reporting Sentinels were already using their optical computers to film and upload information.
“Let’s go investigate.”
Shi Ye walked down first.
The Sentinels of K1 Base followed closely behind.
Shen Yu was just about to step forward when he felt a light tug on his sleeve. He turned back to see Chi Wan’s somewhat troubled little face.
“Um, can you do me a favor first?”
…
On a ruined building that had been sliced horizontally, the damaged reinforced concrete was hung full of pollution entity corpses.
Chi Wan tilted her head back to look at the pile of corpses on a concrete slab on the sixth floor.
“It’s right there.”
[Yes, yes, yes.]
After the bombing, the corpses of pollution entities had flown everywhere; many were hung on the ruined building.
Shen Yu looked up in that direction.
A height of six stories exceeded the maximum separation distance between a Mental Entity and its host. Even if she manifested her Mental Entity, it wouldn’t reach.
He didn’t refuse; this wasn’t difficult.
He didn’t ask what she wanted to go up there for either. The massive White Tiger manifested, carrying the two of them as it leaped up.
The load-bearing capacity of the ruined building’s cross-section wasn’t great. As soon as the White Tiger landed, it turned back into a phantom state, floating mid-air.
And just with the two of them standing there, another piece of the fragile stone slab crumbled.
Chi Wan carefully backed away, following the System’s guidance to look upward.
[It’s right on that thickest steel pipe, inside the belly of the pollution entity in the middle!]
Chi Wan released her Mental Entity. The agile, pretty kitten scrambled up. As soon as it landed, it started pawing at the pollution entity corpses.
But after just two scratches, the originally clean cat paws were covered in black blood and rotting flesh.
The kitten’s face fell. Meow, meow. It started licking its paws…
Chi Wan: “…”
Fine, she would go up herself.
But this…
Noticing her troubled look, Shen Yu spoke:
“Step up.”
Chi Wan’s first reaction was to look at the White Tiger.
Noticing Chi Wan’s gaze, the White Tiger lifted its head haughtily.
“Why look at it?”
Only then did Chi Wan realize Shen Yu meant for her to step on him.
“It’s very proud; it doesn’t like being stepped on.”
He said simply, kneeling on one knee to signal her to come up.
Chi Wan couldn’t bring herself to do it, muttering:
“But isn’t the Mental Entity a manifestation of the host…”
If it didn’t like being stepped on, didn’t that mean he didn’t like being stepped on?
“My clothes are dirty. One step won’t make a difference.”
Looking at the young man’s white combat uniform, stained with dust and blood, Chi Wan hesitated no longer and stepped onto his shoulder.
He held her steady as he stood up.
This two-meter-tall human ladder delivered her straight to the steel pipe. She raised her hand and brought the knife down, neatly slicing open the pollution entity’s abdomen.
Sure enough, a milky-white Purification Stone tied with a red string appeared in the black, viscous intestine.
“Got it!”
Shen Yu put her down. His eyes fell immediately on the object in her palm.
The stone’s shape and color were unique. Who wouldn’t recognize it? It was precisely Pei Yuan’s Purification Stone that she had thrown away.
His eyes flickered, and he looked at her with slight surprise:
“You did all this just for that?”
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