In the academy on the upper levels of the White Tower, the classrooms for young children were beautiful and cozy.

The teachers were kind and loving, and the children in guide uniforms played carefree.

A boy, not playing with his companions, sat alone in a corner, drawing. The teacher came over, bent down beside him, and said with a smile,

“Chun, drawing again? Can I see it?”

The drawing was of a colorful flower sea under a starry sky. A long, colorful corridor snaked through the sea of flowers, towards a pavilion built of gems.

Brilliant brushstrokes, a dreamlike composition, a world only found in fairy tales.

“Wow, it’s a flower sea! Xiao Chun, it’s so beautiful,” the teacher praised him with exaggerated enthusiasm, her finger pointing to a row of small, red scribbles by the edge of the flower sea, “What are these red railings? They seem a little… out of place.”

Those red scribbles were like blood, a disturbing sight.

“Those are stakes. There are sentinels hanging on them. The red is their blood,” the boy extended his small finger, pointing at the red marks, explaining seriously, as if stating a fact.

The teacher’s face instantly changed. She forced a stiff smile, stood up, and quickly walked away.

“You’re so silly, you know the teacher wouldn’t like it, why would you tell the truth?” It was a girl of the same age who said this, the girl, like him, wasn’t playing with the other children. She was sitting nearby, reading a book. She looked thinner and darker than the boy, but her eyes were bright, and her young face held a hint of indifference.

“But, Xiao Jiu, I saw it in my dream,” the boy’s finger touched the beautiful flower sea in his drawing, lowering his head, “This must be what the world outside the Tower looks like, I’ve lived inside the Tower since I was little, I’ve never seen the outside world, I just wanted to draw the world in my dream completely.”

“Outside the Tower?” The girl named Xiao Jiu said, “The world outside the Tower isn’t like this at all.”

“Oh, right. Xiao Jiu, you came in when you were older. You’ve seen the real sky outside, right? What’s it like?” The boy became excited. “I really want to go outside and see one day.”

“The outside world,” the girl whispered.

In her memory, the world outside the Tower was a sky full of coal dust, endless briquettes, and disgusting people.

Grandpa was very old, his body filled with ailments, but he was the only one in this world who truly loved her. Unlike the teachers here, whose smiles were only on their faces. The emotions in their hearts, so ugly she didn’t even want to read them.

It was a pity Grandpa had died, died in the dark night.

At night, Xiao Jiu, lying in her small bedroom, heard the repeated brushing sounds of a paintbrush coming from next door.

The strokes rapid, continuing until late at night.

“Are you not sleeping yet?” Xiao Jiu turned over, a little annoyed.

“Ah, sorry,” the sound of drawing stopped, and the boy’s voice came, “Since it might be the last time I draw, I was a little… hurried.”

There was a small window between the two rooms, a sturdy iron grille.

After a while, the boy pushed his sketchbook through the bars.

“Xiao Jiu, I want to give you my sketchbook,” the boy’s childish face appeared behind the prison-like bars, a slightly ingratiating smile. “I have a feeling that one day, you’ll be able to take it outside for me,” his face was pale, with a hint of panic, as if he knew what was about to happen.

Xiao Jiu knew that he was the one with the strongest mental power among their group.

This classmate could sometimes even sense the distant world, so perceptive that he could even predict some things about the future.

But in this school, being too powerful wasn’t a good thing.

Late at night, in the student dormitory, hurried footsteps came from the corridor outside.

That sound, echoing in the hearts of the two young children. The two, looking at each other through the window, their faces pale.

Xiao Jiu hesitated for a moment, then quickly reached out and took the sketchbook.

She held the sketchbook, lay down against the cold wall, and immediately heard the door next door open.

Then, some soft thuds, the sound of military boots, the muffled groans of a boy whose mouth was covered.

Xiao Jiu lay there, motionless, curling herself into a small ball, tightly hugging the sketchbook, trying to keep her breathing even, pretending to be asleep.

She knew that the boy who liked to draw, in the room next door, had been taken away.

This kind of thing happened often in this completely enclosed academy.

The classmates around her would disappear every now and then.

The teachers wouldn’t mention it, wouldn’t let them ask, it was as if that child, that young Guide, had never existed.

Soon, new children, wearing pure white guide uniforms, would be brought in, some very young, some about her age.

The academy would once again be filled with happy laughter, a seemingly carefree place.

The door next door closed again, the footsteps quickly moving away, gradually disappearing.

Silence returned.

After a long time, Xiao Jiu, who had curled herself into a tight ball, slowly relaxed.

She opened the sketchbook she had been hugging, under the dim light of the nightlight, flipping through the pages one by one.

The boy’s drawings were very beautiful, with brilliant colors, strange and magnificent.

A pale pillar with countless hands reaching towards the sky.

A golden tree with branches and leaves reaching towards the heavens, golden tears falling from its trunk.

A crimson cave filling the entire page, a pulsing, crimson egg at its center.

Countless wounded eyes in a magnificent temple.

And many towers, towers of all kinds, dyed black, dyed red, no longer pure white, twisted and deformed, about to collapse…

The last one was what he had drawn today. After a night of refinement, the image was incredibly vivid, almost real.

Bright flowers, a brilliant starry sky, a gemstone pavilion standing in the distance in the flower sea.

At the entrance to the flower sea, a row of sharp wooden stakes, the dead sentinels with pained expressions, their crimson blood watering the flower-covered land.

Xiao Jiu’s finger touched the edge of the canvas. A small corner of a white skirt was faintly visible. It looked a bit like a Guide’s uniform.

If she had to imagine, it was as if a Guide, just like her, was entering this colorful and bloody scene.

…

Yun Luo stood in the vast flower sea, looking at the blood-red wooden stakes.

The sharp stakes stood in a row at the edge of the flower sea. The tortured sentinels, the blood staining the earth, the giant mantis slowly approaching.

Everything was just like the photo he had kept since he was young.

He vaguely knew in his heart that this was an illusion, the events in the photograph had happened ten years ago, and Teacher had already died back then.

He knew he had been captured by a powerful mental force, that he was experiencing a mental invasion from the enemy.

But the teacher he had respected since childhood was right before his eyes, covered in blood, struggling in pain, calling his name.

“Xiao Luo, help me, save me.”

Yun Luo couldn’t help but take a step forward.

Just one step, one foot down, and the world before him collapsed.

He waved his arms, trying to steady himself, only to realize that his right hand was gone.

Where’s my hand? When did my hand disappear?

Yun Luo’s heart lurched, his mind a mess, his body falling.

Countless chaotic voices echoed in his mind.

“Xiao Luo, Teacher is going on a mission, I might have to leave you for a while. You be a good boy and wait for Teacher to come back.” His teacher, who had taught him since he was a child, crouched down, smiled, and patted his head.

His father’s stern voice rang out, “Your teacher has been sacrificed. Why? Of course, it’s for the glory of the empire.”

“A sentinel dying in a contaminated zone is a common occurrence. Wipe away your tears, maintain your composure, your teacher was just a commoner, not worth your tears.”

“Yun Luo, I don’t know what you’re thinking! You’re a noble, that filthy and dangerous front line is not a place for you. I forbid you from leading any more teams.”

His comrades’ voices intermingled, “Captain Yun, Captain Yun, you’re so amazing, we never imagined there was a warrior as powerful as you among the nobles.”

“Captain Yun, don’t go any further. Let’s retreat. We can’t save those children anymore, that’s the Golden Tree Contaminated Zone, a place of no return.”

…

Countless voices echoed in his ear.

Whether pain, kindness, slander, or ridicule, those voices from his memory, noisy and chaotic, made his head pound.

The falling stopped.

His back hit something cold and metallic. Sentinel Yun Luo abruptly opened his eyes.

He had been pressed down in a cold metal cage.

A few giant poultry strode towards him, the monsters restraining his body and arms. No matter how he struggled, he couldn’t move.

He could only roll his eyes, watching as a cold saw blade slowly cut through his flesh, severing bone. Amidst his screams, his right arm was cut off.

This was his deepest nightmare.

The nightmare returned, fear gripping his heart.

His arm severed, himself locked in a cage, from the corner of his eye, he saw a monster lifting a paintbrush. The cold tip of the brush drew a strange rune on his abdomen.

He knew what that was.

They were modifying his body, about to turn him from a human into livestock imprisoned on a farm.

Had he not woken up? Yun Luo thought in a daze.

Perhaps he had never been rescued, never truly escaped, and had always been in this hell, living miserably.

Only, he had gone mad and dreamt of returning to the world of humans, of meeting his best companion.

The sentinel opened his eyes in despair, looking at the endlessly dark sky above.

A small tentacle emerged from somewhere, incredibly thin, without much strength, and lightly touched his forehead, a slightly cold sensation.

【Yun Luo, wake up.】 A familiar voice called his name.

Yun Luo was in a daze.

The restraining force disappeared, he seemed to be lying on a haystack in a warehouse, and a Guide, her face blurred, was saying to him,

“Wait here, I’ll go open the door.”

When he was little, his teacher had touched his head, and said to him, “Xiao Luo, you wait here, Teacher’s going to the contaminated zone.”

After he grew up, Guide Lin had said to him, “You wait here, I’ll go open the escape door for you.”

He was so weak, always powerless, he could only wait in the rear.

The black unicorn neighed, smoke rising from its hooves, as it stepped out from the void, and carried Yun Luo on its back, sprinting outwards.

Yun Luo opened his eyes and found himself riding the unicorn, he had left that dark nightmare, and returned to the flower sea.

On the stake, his teacher, who had taught him for so many years, blood streaming from his eyes, a sad look on his face, watched him.

“Teacher, since the day you died, I’ve sworn that I’ll find out the truth about your death, the truth about this world.”

Yun Luo, lifting his only arm, closed the eyes of his long-dead teacher.

“Leave the rest to me, you can rest in peace now.”

His teacher, who had passed away many years ago, finally closed his eyes, a hint of a relieved smile on his bloodied lips.

Yun Luo looked around, and on the other side of the flower sea, he saw a giant Kraken.

Countless tentacles emerged from the void, about to step into a deeper layer of the mental realm.

The red tentacles wriggled, its cold, golden pupils staring at him.

It was the mental body of his respected and familiar companion, Guide Lin Yuan.

The giant Kraken, across the sea of flowers, from within the long, colorful corridor, its golden eyes glancing over.

This was inside the enemy’s mindscape. He had woken up, but Lin Yuan, at great risk, was preparing to go deeper.

She didn’t speak, yet Yun Luo could hear her voice.

【Sentinel Yun Luo, I’ll leave the battle outside to you.】

Yun Luo opened his eyes on the sofa.

He pulled himself from the layers of mindscapes, finally awakening in the real world.

Before his eyes, Du Yuanyuan had just opened her eyes, struggling to stand up, her giant panda had already appeared, getting ready to join the battle.

Rachel got up from the ground, his long hair loose, walking forward. Nicole, her brows furrowed, was about to wake up.

And Lin Yuan, their Guide, her eyes closed, a hand on the armrest of the sofa, stood behind them.

Ni Ji, his red blade stained with blood, had already been guarding them for a long time.

It’s time to fight, Yun Luo thought, this time, I’ll no longer just stay in the rear.

His mechanical prosthetic was broken, but he still had one hand, he still had his body.

The handsome, black unicorn, smoke billowing from its hooves, a cold light shining from the tip of its horn, charged towards the battlefield before them.

In the real world, the sentinels awakened one after another, fighting intensely with the emerging Deviants.

In the mindscape, Lin Yuan took a step into the multicolored corridor.

It was a long, winding tunnel, bizarre and grotesque, and the moment she entered, her footing became unstable, space distorted.

Lin Yuan floated in the brilliant torrent, she saw, in the distance, that colorful pavilion, standing amidst the flowing, multicolored light, the powerful Queen of Mantis there, a knowing smile on her face, waiting for her.

Lin Yuan extended her tentacles and swam forward.

First, a sea of fire ignited around her. The snow-covered villa, engulfed in flames.

This was originally her biggest inner demon, but this time, she didn’t hesitate, stepping out from the sea of flames.

The magnificent light of the mental universe flowed around her like a river, with moving corridors on all sides, connected to the thoughts and memories of countless people.

She saw Du Yuanyuan.

The powerful female warrior, who had personally cut off her beloved’s head, Lin Yuan extended a thin tentacle, connecting to her mental world, empathizing with her sadness, her pain.

Lin Yuan held her hand and called her name.

【Yuanyuan, wake up.】

Du Yuanyuan regained consciousness, nodded at her, and disappeared from her mindscape.

In the long river, Lin Yuan saw Rachel.

The Golden Lion was submerged in a flood of memories, struggling in pain and suffocation.

A tentacle swam over,

Pushing a piece of driftwood towards him, and the powerful warrior quickly woke up, surfacing, grabbing the driftwood, nodding at her, and disappearing from the mindscape, back to reality.

She saw Yun Luo.

She awakened Yun Luo.

She saw the suffering Nicole and soothed her friend and companion.

Lin Yuan moved forward. In this chaotic mindscape, she didn’t shy away, she rescued every one of her companions.

The immense pain and heavy suffering of each person were clearly transmitted to Lin Yuan’s mind.

Traveling through this mental torrent, constantly enduring interference from the Queen of Mantis, while simultaneously being connected to several sentinels, made her head pound, the pain unbearable.

But no matter the stabbing pain and suffering, she never lost herself, never wavered.

It was as if someone was holding her tentacle.

That hand, stained with blood, was firm and strong, like an anchor in the sea, firmly holding onto her as she sailed through the vast ocean, preventing her from drifting away.

Keeping her conscious, preventing her from losing herself.

She knew that she wasn’t fighting alone, Ni Ji was outside, also fighting a bloody battle, protecting her and everyone.

She could feel the Sentinel’s hand holding her tentacle.

That was her Sentinel. Giving her sweetness, lending her strength, so she could steadily sail through the wind and waves, cross the vast ocean,

Towards that colorful pavilion in the flower sea, towards the Queen of Mantis standing at the center of the torrent.