Offensive-Type Guides

Zhu Rongtian's fingers twitched almost imperceptibly.

As if they had heard her, the surrounding vortices of mental power gradually subsided, then gathered and compressed into an invisible blade.

Her hand was cold. Luo Ruzhuo wrapped her palm around the back of it, helping her grip the hilt.

"When the dagger comes down, remember to use your mental power to break the chain on your Mental Entity."

The scorpion writhed in pain behind Zhu Rongtian, the iron chain on its stinger scraping harshly. The chip was embedded in the other end, like a bloodsucking leech.

"I'll count to three," she said.

"Three, two, one!"

The two Guides' mental attacks struck at the same instant as the dagger.

"Crack."

Under the combined force of the two Guides, the iron chain gave a sharp crack. A fracture spread from where the blade struck. At the same time, a crack appeared in the chain on the scorpion's stinger. The two cracks spread like spiderwebs, and in an instant, the entire chain shattered into countless pieces.

The chip fell from the end of the broken chain and landed in the dirt.

Zhu Rongtian's eyes flew open. She gasped for breath, her whole body slick with sweat, as though she had broken free from a bottomless nightmare. But her eyes were bright, startlingly bright.

The scorpion raised its stinger behind her. The gray, hazy contamination on its back began to flake away, revealing the dark blue armor beneath.

Luo Ruzhuo bent down and picked up the chip.

It was about the same size as the TK30085 the mole had planted on the starship to serve as the parent unit. Only the number engraved on it was different.

SA30067.

Another series of chips from Ankang Pharmaceuticals?

She frowned, committing the number to memory. Once she got out, she would check the Star Network for any relevant clues.

She couldn't keep this thing. It could trap a Guide and her Mental Entity; there was no telling what else it might do if she kept it.

Luo Ruzhuo acted without hesitation. She pressed down with her thumb, crushing the chip into several pieces in her palm. With a flick of her mental power, the fragments vanished without a trace.

The ground beneath their feet began to shake.

Everything in the town was melting. The melted food turned into grains of sand, rapidly spreading into a boundless desert.

It was no longer daytime in the town.

Here, it was night, and a starry sky had appeared overhead.

Sand dunes rolled into the distance. The scorpion lay contentedly atop the largest one, its stinger hanging quietly down. Its dark blue sheen glimmered in the starlight.

"Thank you, Luo Ruzhuo."

A slightly hoarse voice came from behind her.

Luo Ruzhuo withdrew her mental power blade and turned to see Zhu Rongtian standing in the very center of the desert.

She was no longer that frail child. She had grown much taller, and the contours of her face had lost their childish roundness. Though her features were identical to Bai Li's, she gave off an entirely different impression.

Her eyes were no longer lifeless. Starlight sparkled in them, as though they reflected the entire sky above.

Zhu Rongtian spread her arms and waved to her, a smile slowly appearing on her face.

"Welcome to my true Mental Domain."

The two sat on a sand dune and talked for a long time.

It was a strange feeling.

That morning, they had been opponents fighting for their lives in Xianzhu's Mental Domain. Now they sat side by side, having made peace.

Zhu Rongtian spoke first, telling her everything she had experienced in the Interstellar Prison.

"I thought it was just a routine physical." Her expression was full of regret and lingering fear as she spoke. "It wasn't until they tied me up and wheeled me into the lab that I realized something was wrong."

Ankang Pharmaceuticals had implanted a chip directly into her brain. She didn't know how they had done it—she could clearly perceive everything around her: the light, the smells, the sounds... but she couldn't control her own body.

She watched herself stand up and put on a uniform. She was presented as a top graduate of the Central District Guide Academy, then sent straight to Planet b-475.

Then she saw the assassination target the chip had assigned her.

A C-rank Guide whose parents were both dead. Simply because she had sought revenge, Ankang Pharmaceuticals regarded her as a thorn in its side.

To be honest, the moment she saw what Luo Ruzhuo looked like, she had been deeply worried for the Guide.

Zhu Rongtian had killed quite a few people. But most of them had deserved to die. If she had really succeeded in assassinating her this time... she thought she would have been tormented by it for the rest of her life.

That was why she had used the last bit of control she had over her body to propose making her move inside Xianzhu's Mental Domain. The backlash from a Sentinel's rampaging Mental Domain could weaken her strength to some extent.

"Fortunately, you're an offensive-type Guide too."

Zhu Rongtian let out a long breath, genuine guilt in her eyes as she looked at Luo Ruzhuo.

"If you hadn't helped me break free of the chip's control, I don't know how much longer I would have been a puppet."

Luo Ruzhuo shook her head gently. "I can't take credit for that."

It was the truth. In the end, the one who had broken free of that lock was Zhu Rongtian herself.

She keenly picked up on Zhu Rongtian's wording. "An offensive-type Guide... aren't you a Dark Guide?"

Zhu Rongtian gave a bitter smile. "That's what they call all of us aggressive Guides in the prison."

She didn't seem to know much about the concept of Dark Guides either. A trace of confusion appeared in her eyes. "What... is a Dark Guide?"

Luo Ruzhuo didn't answer. She deftly avoided the subject and instead asked about the other offensive-type Guides in the prison.

Zhu Rongtian told her that she was not the only Guide imprisoned there. Her awakening had simply caused a bigger commotion, and she had been mistaken for a Sentinel at first. When the junk planet reported it, the news had spread all over the Star Network, which was how word got out.

In fact, most offensive-type Guides were discovered when their Mental Entities first hatched. They were then secretly imprisoned.

"They hadn't done anything. They went in for testing full of joy, only because their Mental Entities were aggressive."

They were forcibly subjected to correction on the grounds that they were "uncontrollable."

If their Mental Entities had sharp claws, their claws were ground down. If they had sharp teeth, their fangs were pulled out... all under the pretext of modifying them to ensure the safety of the purification process. The tissue removed was sent straight to the lab.

But how could a Mental Entity born a beast of prey be turned into a little white rabbit?

They were doomed to fail this adaptation process... after they managed to recover some mental power, the claws and teeth would grow back, only to be removed again... over and over.

Since Zhu Rongtian had been imprisoned, she had seen far too many Guides unable to endure the process and take their own lives. Others came to hate their own Mental Entities completely, hating themselves for being offensive-type Guides, and finally chose to destroy their own Mental Domains, becoming completely crippled.

At the memory, she clenched both hands tightly. Her nails went white, her teeth were clenched, and powerful emotions churned in her eyes. She wanted nothing more than to eat those people's flesh raw.

"On my first day in prison, they removed the venom sac from my scorpion's tail."

She forced the words out through clenched teeth.

Luo Ruzhuo said nothing. She looked at the scorpion's stinger. The swollen bulb at its tip was flat and, sure enough, completely empty.