Acting

She sat quietly beside her, unsure what to say.

The sea angel started making a fuss in her mind. It chattered and fluttered, insisting on coming out. The noise made Luo Ruzhuo's head ache.

She sighed and let it out.

The sea angel fluttered its tiny, translucent wings, tracing a streak of warm orange-yellow light through the night sky before landing steadily on the scorpion's back.

Its wings brushed gently over the scorpion's armor, like an invisible little hand stroking it tenderly.

Sure enough, Zhu Rongtian's attention was drawn to it. She looked at the tiny Mental Entity, the gloom in her eyes fading as wonder took its place.

"Is this your Mental Entity?"

Luo Ruzhuo nodded.

Gathering its courage, the sea angel flew off the scorpion's back and drifted unsteadily toward Zhu Rongtian's hand. She froze for a moment, then cupped the tiny Mental Entity in both hands, not daring to move.

The sensation against her palms was lighter than a feather, so faint she could barely feel it.

"Judging by your Mental Entity alone..." Zhu Rongtian looked down at it, then at Luo Ruzhuo. "You really don't seem like an attack-type guide."

"No one says that something has to be weak just because it looks weak," Luo Ruzhuo said. "And no one says a scorpion has to be weak just because it has no venom."

Zhu Rongtian laughed.

"That's certainly an original way to comfort someone."

She took a deep breath, the oppressive feeling pent up in her chest dispersing with her laughter. When she finished laughing, she composed herself, her expression turning serious again.

"Next, I'm going to tell you why they insist on capturing attack-type guides-"

"Attack-type guides can forcibly implant pollution into a sentinel's Mental Domain."

Luo Ruzhuo's pupils contracted slightly.

A sentinel's mental barrier could resist most external pollution. Even inside a Pollution Domain, the level rose at a fixed rate, and as long as they received regular purification from an ordinary guide, they could return to normal.

But mental pollution from an attack-type guide was different... Since guides could pass through a sentinel's mental barrier, once pollution was implanted inside, the level would practically skyrocket.

Without another guide entering the Mental Domain at the same time to purify it and reinforce the mental barrier, the sentinel was certain to die.

It was terrifying.

"Every Mental Entity growth potion currently on the market..." Zhu Rongtian's voice turned cold. "Has an energy added to it that can make Mental Entities go berserk... making attack-type guides easier to detect."

Once detected, they would be sent straight to prison by the Black Tower and imprisoned for life in the name of "intervention and correction."

Luo Ruzhuo's expression abruptly sharpened.

No wonder. Fang Yingbai had called her as soon as her Mental Entity's hatching was detected. He could be said to have known everything about it.

So that was what had happened.

It was just... perhaps because her Mental Entity hadn't been fully formed when it hatched, and had been nothing more than an orange-yellow point of light, there had naturally been no way to detect any aggressive tendencies.

That was what had temporarily dispelled the Black Tower's suspicions of her. It still hadn't taken action against her.

"Thank you," Luo Ruzhuo said at once. "That information is very useful to me."

"You're welcome."

Zhu Rongtian gazed out over the boundless desert, a trace of melancholy in her voice.

"After I escaped the garbage planet, I met many guides. I thought I'd finally found people like me. But in the end, I realized I was the odd one out."

She had never regretted killing the scum in the town, nor did she think she had done anything wrong.

But when she told the court what had happened to her, she realized that she faced not only enemies, but also rejection from those of her own kind.

The Black Tower had abandoned her simply because she posed a threat to sentinels.

Zhu Rongtian had never imagined that possessing power could itself become a crime.

"Since you're an attack-type too," she said, turning to her with genuine concern in her eyes, "please be careful and protect yourself. Whatever you do, don't let them find out."

Luo Ruzhuo slowly raised her head.

An inscrutable light glimmered in her eyes, cold and bright like the stars above the desert.

"No," she said.

"They'll find out one day."

Luo Ruzhuo knew perfectly well that she couldn't hide it forever. Sooner or later, someone in this unfamiliar interstellar world would notice what made her different.

She had thought she was purely a mental-type ability user, and that her Mental Entity's incomplete development was just an excuse to fob others off.

But something unexpected had happened.

As if sensing her emotions, the sea angel leaped from Zhu Rongtian's palm, its orange-red point of light glowing in the night like a miniature sun.

It fluttered back to Luo Ruzhuo's cheek and nuzzled her gently.

It felt cool and smooth against her skin.

Luo Ruzhuo cherished her mental ability, and she cherished her newborn Mental Entity just as much. Her power was in her own hands, and nothing could take it away.

Not even the Black Tower.

To protect herself and find allies, she needed a force that truly belonged to her.

The Black Tower was a tower for guides, but if the tower willingly laid down its blade for the sake of sentinels' interests, why couldn't that discarded blade pierce the old tower and build a new one that truly stood for the interests of all guides?

"Of course possessing power isn't wrong. Their fear is what's wrong."

Afraid it couldn't control attack-type guides, the Black Tower had stamped them out at the root. An enemy that feared her couldn't be easier to deal with.

"In that case, why not replace it with another tower that possesses power?"

Zhu Rongtian fell silent for a few seconds after hearing that. At last, she smiled in relief.

"I couldn't tell, but you're quite ambitious."

She raised her hands and clapped twice, the sound echoing across the empty desert.

"But you're right." Her eyes lit up again, reflecting the starlight. "I look forward to that day."

After Luo Ruzhuo withdrew from Zhu Rongtian's Mental Domain, new data immediately appeared on the medical room's monitor. Lin Sheng, Liu Sui, and the others stood before the bed, excitedly checking it two or three times.

As soon as she opened her eyes, she met their anxious faces.

Liu Sui stood to Luo Ruzhuo's left. His expression hardly changed, but the relief in his eyes was unmistakable.

Lin Sheng was much more direct. He hurried forward and asked, "Miss Luo, how are you feeling?"

The way the two were acting gave Luo Ruzhuo the inexplicable illusion that she was gravely ill and experiencing a final surge of energy before death. Baffled, she replied, "I feel... okay?"

Lin Sheng let out a long breath. "That's good."

He paused, then carefully added, "May I ask what you encountered in the captain's Mental Domain?"

To be honest, when they saw Bai Li and Luo Ruzhuo both collapse in the purification room on the monitoring room screen, their hearts had nearly stopped.

They hadn't known whether the two had been knocked unconscious by the backlash from the upheaval in the captain's Mental Domain, or whether some conflict had occurred inside it. For three whole days, they had been on edge, and only when Luo Ruzhuo woke up could they finally relax.

Hearing this, the girl's expression changed abruptly as she lay in the hospital bed, indignation appearing on her face.

"I want to request Guide Bai Li's transfer!" Luo Ruzhuo delivered the explanation she and Zhu Rongtian had agreed on in the Mental Domain, every word ringing with conviction. "She took it upon herself to cause damage inside Captain Xianzhu's Mental Domain, making us suffer a severe backlash!"

As she spoke, her cheeks flushed faintly with emotion, and her eyes were full of undisguised resentment. "If you still want me to continue the purification, don't expect to keep her here! Only one of us can stay!"

The anger and grievance on the girl's face blended seamlessly together. Anyone who knew the truth would have praised her acting.