Chapter 124: Sentinel & Guide (I)

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Chapter 124: Sentinel & Guide (I)

Shang Ke and Tylor stayed together for one hundred and twenty years, watching Pupu grow into adulthood and eventually marry Kaiser and Ticia’s son. Although there was a ten-year age difference between them, they were very happy together.

This time, Tylor was the first to pass away. Shang Ke waited until he closed his eyes without regrets before returning to the System Space, carrying his love for Tylor with him.

After two worlds filled with happy lives together, Shang Ke felt as though his heart were about to melt.

【Host, please begin learning skills and prepare to face your next challenge.】 As always, the System had impeccable timing when it came to ruining the mood.

Shang Ke casually chose two skills, planning to study happily while thinking about his man.

【Host, the next world is a difficult world. Please do not let down your guard.】

“Got it.” Shang Ke waved dismissively and plunged headfirst into the Hundred Training Space.

When he emerged from the Hundred Training Space, the door to a new world opened before him once again.

Before Shang Ke even opened his eyes, chaotic noise filled his ears. He could feel himself lying facedown on a cold floor. The air itself was clean and well circulated, yet an unpleasant odor kept drifting through it.

When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was a round, plump… ass. Shang Ke hurriedly shifted his gaze and finally got a rough idea of his situation. He was inside the magnificent atrium of a shopping mall packed with people. Some lay prone while others crouched on the floor, all of them frightened and restless. Heavily armed men stood guard at the first- and second-floor windows, emergency passages, entrances, exits, and other key positions.

Outside the mall, hundreds of security personnel and soldiers stood ready for action, while the sound of aircraft could occasionally be heard overhead.

Even without receiving the System’s information yet, Shang Ke could make the obvious judgment: this entire mall, including its employees, shoppers, and everyone else inside, had been taken hostage by a group of terrorists.

At that moment, the System transmitted the relevant information.

Just as Shang Ke had guessed, this mall in the heart of Biya City, the capital of Ta, had been seized three hours earlier by a group of terrorists of unknown origin. They claimed to have planted fifty high-explosive bombs throughout the mall and taken more than six thousand civilians hostage, including the staff.

The government had repeatedly sent people to negotiate, but the terrorists gave no response whatsoever. The two sides remained deadlocked, live news coverage spread rapidly, and public panic began to spiral out of control. The situation was far from optimistic.

What the outside world did not know was that these terrorists all belonged to an underground, religious Anti-Government Alliance. Their purpose was to create terror and retaliate against the government through every cruel method available to them.

They had never intended to negotiate at all. They were only stalling for time so that more people could witness the spectacular performance they had planned next.

Within the next several dozen minutes, the country’s elite Sentinels would arrive and launch an assault against the terrorists. Sentinels and Guides were two special groups in Ta. Sentinels possessed extraordinarily heightened senses and awakened supernatural abilities, making them the nation’s most powerful combat force. However, because their senses were too acute, their mental states were often unstable, and they needed Guides to calm them and protect their senses from overload.

Sentinels and Guides could bond either psychically or physically. The higher their compatibility, the greater the strength they could draw from the bond, and once bonded, neither could betray the other for the rest of their lives. Every Sentinel and Guide possessed a spirit animal, usually taking an animal form shaped by the individual’s innate traits. Before bonding, only Sentinel–Guide pairs with at least ninety-five percent compatibility could see one another’s spirit animals.

Sentinels and Guides were rare and generally assigned only to important missions. Their social status stood far above that of ordinary civilians. After initially awakening, they were required to register with the state and take on the responsibility of defending the nation, while receiving the highest level of state benefits in return. Guides, as both assistants and partners to Sentinels, occupied the comparatively weaker position because the state did not permit them to bond with ordinary civilians. When deemed necessary, Guides could even be forcibly matched and bonded with Sentinels according to compatibility.

For this hostage crisis, the state dispatched more than thirty elite Sentinels.

The Sentinels lived up to expectations and subdued every terrorist before they could detonate the bombs. What no one realized was that this was merely the prelude to tragedy. Just as everyone relaxed and the Sentinels began evacuating the hostages, the mall suddenly exploded.

A mushroom cloud soared into the sky as lightning-laced flames swept across an area several kilometers wide, causing Ta’s greatest loss of life and economic damage in a century. Nearly twenty thousand people died in the disaster, including forty-five elite Sentinels, seven Guides, and several military officers.

Only during the investigation afterward did everyone learn that they had overlooked one crucial figure: a highly intelligent, antisocial psychiatric patient who had hidden among the hostages disguised as an ordinary civilian. He was the true mastermind behind the entire operation.

There were two sets of detonators. One was held by the terrorists, while the other was in the mastermind’s possession. If all the terrorists were captured by the Sentinels, responsibility for detonating the bombs would fall to the mastermind.

At the time, everyone believed the crisis had already passed. Security forces, soldiers, and medical personnel lowered their highest-level defenses and rapidly approached the mall. No one expected the true killing blow to reveal its hideous face at the exact moment they relaxed their guard.

【Main Mission: Survive three assassination attempts by the Anti-Government Alliance.】

【Danger ahead. Wishing Host a good death all the way.】

Holy fuck!

Shang Ke mentally raised his middle finger. He knew exactly why the System had issued this mission, because that “highly intelligent, antisocial” psycho who would ultimately detonate the bombs was none other than the person whose body Shang Ke now occupied.

If he chose not to detonate the bombs, he would be betraying the Anti-Government Alliance. If he detonated them, he himself would undoubtedly die. No matter how he looked at it, betrayal was therefore his only reasonable choice. Saving these innocent civilians also meant saving himself.

As expected of a difficult world. Even the setup was this twisted.

Shang Ke checked the time. The elite Sentinels dispatched by the state should have arrived by now.

No matter how unwilling he was, the body he occupied was still the mastermind behind this incident. Even if he refused to detonate the bombs, the subsequent investigation might still expose his identity. He therefore couldn’t simply sit back and do nothing. At the very least, before the Sentinels resolved the crisis, he needed to seize an opportunity to wash some of the red off his “red name.”

Shang Ke tried to mobilize his psychic power and unexpectedly discovered that he seemed to be a Guide. Although he had no idea how such an oddball could have ended up awakening as one, it was undoubtedly something he could use. What Shang Ke didn’t know was that the original owner had actually been an ordinary person; the Guide abilities and spirit animal came from Shang Ke himself.

Shang Ke looked up at his “accomplices” standing guard around the mall, silently drew a cross for them in his heart, then quietly condensed his spirit animal.

When the spirit animal fully took shape, Shang Ke could hardly believe his eyes. Why was his spirit animal a… dolphin? Its translucent body shimmered with pale blue light, a cute smile on its face as it happily swam circles around him through the air.

A dolphin is fine, I guess. Since it looked a little like an ocean wave, Shang Ke decided to call it “Wave.”

Wave flipped and leaped through the air, apparently very pleased with its new name.

Shang Ke released Wave and sent it flying out of the mall. Before bonding, a Guide’s spirit animal could only be seen by a Sentinel whose compatibility with that Guide reached at least ninety-five percent; Sentinel–Guide pairs who had already bonded were not subject to this restriction.

Shang Ke’s goal was to find a Sentinel capable of seeing Wave, then use their spirit animals to transmit intelligence about the terrorists so the rescue forces could bring the situation under control more quickly.

A Sentinel with ninety-five-percent compatibility was extremely difficult to find, and both sides’ spirit animals also needed to be powerful enough for information to be communicated accurately. Shang Ke could only try his luck. This was the only method he could currently think of to clean up his “red name.”

Five hundred meters from the mall, a cold-faced man dressed in black sat inside an armored command vehicle, studying a three-dimensional projection of the mall’s interior. Several solemn Sentinels sat ready beside him.

Suddenly, he raised his head and shot a razor-sharp gaze toward the window, only to freeze. A strange spirit animal was pressed against the glass outside. It looked like some kind of fish. (Dolphins did not exist in this world.)

Yonis had never seen a fish-type spirit animal before. Fish were generally fragile and not particularly intelligent, making them poorly suited to human psychic power. This spirit animal, however, had an expressive face and an innocent, endearing appearance that clearly distinguished it from ordinary fish.

More importantly, he could actually see it.

Yonis instinctively released his own spirit animal—a golden lion.

Wave showed no fear at the sight of the lion. Instead, it slipped straight into the vehicle, swam up to the lion, and greeted it amiably. The lion curiously sniffed at Wave, then narrowed its eyes with an expression of extraordinary contentment.

Yonis felt the same overwhelming comfort, as though a clear spring had flowed through his heart and instantly soothed the agitation that had been building inside him for far too long.

Yonis stared intently at the little “fish,” a sharp gleam flashing through his eyes.

【Yonis, its owner is inside that mall.】 The lion suddenly transmitted a message to him.

【What’s the situation?】 Yonis’s expression immediately turned grave.

【Its owner knows what’s happening inside the mall and wants to pass the information to the rescue team.】

Yonis immediately ordered the Sentinel beside him, “Genna, get ready to record.”

“There are twenty-five terrorists in total. Fifteen are on the second floor, positioned at… ten are on the first floor… each of them is carrying two firearms and several grenades…”

If only we knew which one of them has the detonator. The thought had barely crossed Yonis’s mind when the lion transmitted another message: 【The detonator is being carried by the terrorist in the southeastern section of the first floor. He has a bow-and-arrow tattoo on his arm…】

Yonis’s eyes flickered. He relayed the information to the Sentinels beside him, though he could not yet be completely certain of its accuracy.

One of the Sentinels asked, “Sir, is this information reliable?”

Yonis looked toward Wave. The dolphin immediately raised its tail and flapped its fins, emphatically declaring that the information was absolutely reliable!

“Whether it’s reliable or not, we’ll know as soon as we verify it,” Yonis said. “We’re short on time. Prepare to move.”

Sentinels possessed superhuman senses and, within a certain range, could perceive what lay beyond physical obstacles. Using the information Shang Ke had provided, Yonis focused his psychic power and locked onto the terrorist carrying the detonator.

A moment later, he opened his eyes. “That’s right. The detonator is on him.”

At the same time, Yonis was deeply puzzled. The detonator was concealed beneath the terrorist’s clothing, so how had that Guide discovered it? Guides did not possess the superhuman senses of Sentinels.

It didn’t matter. Once this crisis was resolved, he would finally meet the Guide who shared more than ninety-five-percent compatibility with him, possessed exceptionally strong psychic power, and had such a strange spirit animal…

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