Lion
Luo Ruzhuo had long wanted to try a mental attack inside a mental domain.
The blade formed from a level-five psychic ability user's mental power was a nearly solid, transparent edge, much like a wind ability user's wind blade.
In the later stages of the apocalypse, she had survived by pretending to be a wind ability user, evading the families who kept healing ability users and hunted down psychic ability users.
Those families' reason for hunting down psychic ability users was surprisingly simple.
Healing ability users could not heal damage caused by mental attacks.
The mental blade swept through silently. The moment it struck its targets, the black shadows split in two like mist, and a transparent shock wave tore through the air. In an instant, all the sinister shadows vanished.
Luo Ruzhuo walked over, picked up the Siamese cat and held it in her arms, then stood still.
She waited to see whether the shadows would reappear.
Sure enough.
The shadows that had just vanished without a trace quickly gathered like thick fog, forming countless human figures once more.
Luo Ruzhuo formed a mental blade and swung it, then formed another after the swing.
She repeated the process.
After about fifteen minutes of this, Luo Ruzhuo waited another half hour. Once she was sure the shadows were no longer forming, the mental attack in her hand dissipated.
She had a guess now, but she would have to wait until she got out to confirm it.
Once the shadows stopped hurting it, the Siamese cat's injuries healed rapidly, as though they had never been inflicted. When the kitten could lie on the ground and roll around affectionately at her again, Luo Ruzhuo carried it out.
Luo Ruzhuo's purification of Luo Xi had been her fastest yet, and also the most unusual so far.
After she came out, she first aimed the scanner at the sentinel on the sofa, and it beeped.
Then she positioned the scanner's projection in Luo Xi's blind spot, making sure he couldn't see it.
Name: Luo Xi Mental Entity: Siamese cat Gender: male sentinel Rank: B Contamination level: 0% Team: District One · Desert Squad
When Luo Ruzhuo saw the contamination level, her eyes widened slightly. Her first guess had been confirmed.
Those shadows were indeed the contamination in the mental domain.
The good news: her mental attacks really were unusually effective against contamination, as though they were its bane. The contamination was powerless to fight back against a mental blade.
The bad news:
They had worked too well. A 0% contamination level had made its grand debut.
However little Luo Ruzhuo knew about sentinels and guides in this world, her training had taught her that guides generally purified between 5% and 50% of contamination, and the greater the difference in rank, the less they purified. Even compatibility affected the degree of purification.
But a drop from 85% to 0% was a little too sensational. It could be said that, from the moment they awakened, sentinels in this world had never had a contamination level of 0%.
Even so, Luo Ruzhuo had never regretted her decision. If she had to do it again, she would still have acted.
But a new question followed.
Heisha Draven was also B-rank. In his mental domain, only the domain itself, which had turned into a desert, had been eroded by contamination.
Her black-footed cat Mental Entity had been perfectly fine and could even catch mice for her in the mental domain.
Yet in Luo Xi's mental domain, the situation had been exactly the opposite-
Why was the training room fine, while the Siamese cat, his Mental Entity, was attacked by the contamination?
Luo Ruzhuo couldn't make sense of it. After thinking about it for a long time and getting nowhere, she stopped.
She had something more important to do now: the 0% contamination level couldn't be exposed. She needed a way to conceal what she had done.
The Siamese cat in her arms seemed even clingier now. Its curling tail had not left her arm since it had draped it there, and its whole body nestled in Luo Ruzhuo's embrace, flattened into a cat pancake.
Luo Ruzhuo stroked the Siamese cat while tapping her fingers on the desk.
Then her gaze shifted to the very bottom of the desk drawer. Inside was a syringe-like object—the very anesthetic Miss Weina had repeatedly stressed was in limited supply.
The sentinel on the sofa had a dazed look in his eyes from the sensory stimulation he had just received through his Mental Entity. His body felt light, and his mind was filled with a relaxation and pleasure he had never experienced before.
He hadn't felt any of the pain of previous purifications, when it was like an electric drill boring through the mental barrier in his head.
Luo Xi felt nothing but ease and happiness, as though he had returned to his mother's amniotic fluid, with only pure goodwill and joy toward the world.
He watched the guide who had given him this experience walk slowly toward him, his eyes full of attachment and admiration for her.
Then everything went black, and the world faded with the smile on the young woman's lips before him.
Luo Ruzhuo opened the purification room door. The members of the Desert Team hadn't left yet.
Faced with four people and eight eyes, she suddenly felt the sense of purpose a doctor must have when walking out of an operating room, taking off her mask and telling the patient's family, "Congratulations, the operation was a success."
But Doctor Luo was capable of lying to sentinels, so what she said was, "Sorry, Luo Xi's contamination level was too high. I was a little worried for my safety, so I gave him an anesthetic."
"Is there anyone among you with a relatively high rank who can come help me?"
The other three all turned to look at the blond sentinel in the middle at once.
Luo Ruzhuo couldn't help sizing him up.
His blond hair was slightly wavy, with a few untidy strands sticking up. His brow bones were high and sharp, and his eyebrows were golden brown, a shade darker than his hair. His brows sat close above his amber eyes. His lips were full, and the corners of his mouth turned down slightly, giving him an imposing air even when he was silent.
"Hello, Guide Luo. I'm the captain of the Desert Team." As he spoke, his golden eyes remained fixed on Luo Ruzhuo, almost making her feel as though a wild beast had locked onto her. "My name is Chiya."
"Captain Chiya." Luo Ruzhuo nodded. "Come in with me."
Chiya entered the purification room and immediately spotted Luo Xi on the sofa.
Before going out, Luo Ruzhuo had removed and put away Luo Xi's shackles and the rest.
So now the young man lying on the sofa had a rosy complexion and a faint smile on his lips, as though he were having a pleasant dream.
Next, he saw the Siamese cat pawing at Luo Ruzhuo's pant leg. It had made itself completely at home in her arms, insisting on being carried wherever she went. Whenever she put it down, it meowed and demanded to be picked up again.
However he looked at it, this didn't resemble what the young guide had described: someone whose contamination level was too high to control, leaving her worried for her safety.
Chiya gave Luo Ruzhuo a searching look.
Her expression unchanged, Luo Ruzhuo scanned Chiya. The following immediately appeared:
Name: Chiya Mental Entity: lion Gender: male sentinel Rank: S Contamination level: 89% Team: District One · Desert Squad
Oh? Luo Ruzhuo was a little surprised. An S-rank sentinel—he was the highest-ranked sentinel she had met so far. His contamination level, unexpectedly, was relatively low.
"Sorry for the trouble, Captain Chiya, but please put these on." Luo Ruzhuo handed him the restraints she had just taken off Luo Xi. Though she suspected these little things would probably be useless against a high-ranking sentinel, she still had to go through the motions.
The guide looked delicate, her brows drawn together slightly. "Thank you for understanding, Captain. Otherwise, I wouldn't feel at ease."
Chiya put them on carefully, and when he came to something he couldn't manage himself, he even asked Luo Ruzhuo to secure it for him.
When he was done, the blond young man fixed his golden, vertically slit eyes on her again. "How can I help you?"