Contaminant

Three minutes later, Bai Li abruptly pulled her hand back from the contact window, her face as white as paper.

Cold sweat covered her forehead. She pressed her lips together and said nothing more about "neglecting her duty" or anything of the sort.

Luo Ruzhuo stood where she was, watching her at her leisure.

"Even an SS-rank guide couldn't do it, so how could a little C-rank guide like me manage it?" She turned to the two sentinels who were still at the door, her eyes curving into a smile. "Don't you agree?"

The two sentinels scratched their heads and forced awkward smiles. "Right, right."

The timing was perfect.

Luo Ruzhuo clocked out on her optical computer right as her shift ended and waved to Bai Li. "I'm off work. If you'd still like to try, please help yourself."

With that, she started toward the door. But a pair of trembling hands caught her arm.

Luo Ruzhuo looked back. Bai Li was still shaking all over from the pain, but her fingers showed no sign of letting go.

Bai Li looked her straight in the eye and suddenly said, "Let's do it together."

"His mental barrier is thick, but it can accommodate two guides performing purification at the same time." Her voice was steady; this clearly wasn't a spur-of-the-moment decision. "We'll go in together and stay out of each other's way once we're inside his Mental Domain. No matter how much you purify, I won't report it to the association."

Luo Ruzhuo looked at her for two seconds and narrowed her eyes. "Are you threatening me?"

Bai Li did not deny it.

"No matter how difficult Captain Xianzhu's Mental Domain is to break through, you accepted the commission, so you should carry it out as agreed. The Guide Association has the right to supervise. If you refuse, I'll submit an accurate report of your performance over the past month to the association."

She took a small storage device from her pocket and gave it a shake. "This is what I copied from the surveillance footage."

"If you agree..." Bai Li connected the storage device to the optical computer on her wrist. An option labeled "Format" popped up in large letters on the interface. "The data here will be wiped."

To be honest, Luo Ruzhuo didn't care whether anyone else found out what was on the card.

It contained nothing but footage of her slacking off at work. Bai Li might want to watch it, but that didn't mean anyone else would.

But Bai Li's attitude struck her as strange.

She was insistent on entering Xianzhu's Mental Domain and performing the purification with her-why?

The woman before her remained expressionless. Luo Ruzhuo stared at her for quite a while.

"All right," she finally said. "When do we start?"

Bai Li set the time for the following morning.

Another light rain fell outside that day. Luo Ruzhuo and Bai Li entered the purification room one after the other, and the door closed behind them. Only the sound of the air exchange system remained in the room.

The dragon lay on the other side of the glass. When he saw Bai Li, he edged warily toward Luo Ruzhuo. When she reached out, he nuzzled her hand affectionately.

"Shall we start now?" The corners of Luo Ruzhuo's lips lifted slightly as she turned to look at Bai Li beside her.

Bai Li responded by reaching out at the same time. The instant both women's fingertips touched the dragon's scales, two streams of mental power surged in, quickly passing through the mental barrier. At the same time, thick smoke and flames rushed toward them.

The scene inside was the same as before.

Luo Ruzhuo had barely found her footing when a sharp rush of wind came at her from behind.

Her instincts reacted faster than her body. She leaned back, and a blade of mental power swept past the tip of her nose, severing several strands of hair. Before they hit the ground, the intense heat swept them away.

Bai Li stood not far away, expressionless, her right hand still held in an attacking stance. Her Mental Entity gradually took shape behind her: an enormous scorpion, pitch-black from head to tail, its stinger raised high and its tip gleaming an eerie blue.

The Mental Entity listed in Bai Li's file flashed through Luo Ruzhuo's mind.

A lop-eared rabbit.

...And now you're telling me this is a lop-eared rabbit?

"An attack-type guide." Luo Ruzhuo dodged a strike from the scorpion's stinger and reached her conclusion. "You really are Zhu Rongtian."

Yet Bai Li—or rather, Zhu Rongtian-showed no reaction at all when she heard that.

Like a tireless fighting machine, she unleashed one fierce attack after another straight at Luo Ruzhuo.

The scorpion's stinger missed its target and stabbed into the ground. A deep fissure immediately split the already trembling earth. Dark red magma poured from the crack, and contamination as thick as tar surged in from every direction.

Luo Ruzhuo quickly glanced around.

I can't fight her here.

She had expected her opponent to make a move. She had only thought Zhu Rongtian would at least wait until she was purifying Xianzhu.

Attacking as soon as we got in... Never mind the damage to Xianzhu's Mental Domain-isn't she afraid of suffering backlash from the berserk Mental Domain?

No sooner had the thought crossed her mind than Luo Ruzhuo saw beads of sweat the size of beans roll down Zhu Rongtian's forehead. They ran down her face to her chin and dripped into the magma flowing beneath her feet, turning into wisps of smoke with a hiss.

Even so, Zhu Rongtian's attacks did not stop. Her eyes were bloodshot and stretched wide, and she looked as if something were controlling her, leaving her with nothing but an instinct for savage destruction.

Thanks to Liu Qing's sparring sessions with her on the starship, Luo Ruzhuo's hand-to-hand combat skills had improved dramatically. Now, as she blocked and dodged, she could even slip in a few probing moves.

"Hey!" Luo Ruzhuo shouted. "If you're still conscious, call the scorpion back. It's almost been eroded by the contamination."

She wasn't bluffing.

As the scorpion wreaked havoc on Xianzhu's Mental Domain, the black contamination churning over the magma had long since spread up its stinger, coating its already black body in a dull, murky layer.

A normal guide would have been heartbroken by now and recalled their Mental Entity to their own Mental Domain to soothe it.

They wouldn't have acted as she did now, as though she had no personal will beyond fighting and destruction.

As Luo Ruzhuo expected, Zhu Rongtian did not answer.

Having reached her conclusion, Luo Ruzhuo stopped tangling with her.

The instant the next attack came, she didn't dodge. Instead, she charged straight at it.

Zhu Rongtian's mental attack struck her shoulder, but she ignored the injury. One hand clamped around Zhu Rongtian's wrist, while the other pressed against the back of her head. The instant their bodies touched... Luo Ruzhuo concentrated all her mental power into an extremely fine needle.

The moment their mental powers collided, she drove it into Zhu Rongtian's Mental Domain.

In an instant, the volcanic magma, Zhu Rongtian, and the black scorpion all vanished.

Luo Ruzhuo opened her eyes and found herself standing on a dirt road.

The road beneath her feet looked as though it had been made of hard-packed mud, and its surface was full of potholes. Beside it stood a cluster of low houses with drab gray exterior walls and roofs still covered in tiles. Several crooked utility poles stood along the sides, with loose wires strung between them.

The abrupt change in scenery was so jarring that Luo Ruzhuo almost thought she had returned to the sixties or seventies, before the apocalypse.

Where is this?

Zhu Rongtian's Mental Domain?

She looked down and was surprised to see a pair of very small hands, with short, slender fingers and the little dimples on the knuckles that were characteristic of young children. She lifted a foot and found that it, too, had shrunk proportionally.

Only then did Luo Ruzhuo realize that her entire field of vision was lower as well.

Had I gotten smaller?

Luo Ruzhuo was still standing absentmindedly in the middle of the road when the sound of wheels rolling over dirt suddenly came from behind her.

As if appearing out of thin air, a battered transport vehicle drove past her, kicking up dust that choked her face with very real force.

Luo Ruzhuo narrowed her eyes and looked at the middle-aged man who had suddenly spawned beside her.

"Little one, why are you here all by yourself?" The man bent down. His voice was rough, but his tone was gentle. "Where are your parents?"

His black hair was streaked with white, his work clothes were washed pale, and his hands bore thick calluses. He was short, with a slightly hunched back, and appeared to be around fifty or sixty years old.

Judging by his tone, there should have been a smile in the wrinkles that creased his face. But from where Luo Ruzhuo stood...

The man's entire face was covered in black vapor. The constantly churning black mist mixed into a jumble of black garbled characters, distorting his features.

A fine layer of goosebumps rose involuntarily on Luo Ruzhuo's back.

A talking, humanoid contaminant.