Chapter 6: The Voice-Activated Light
The battle, in the end, still happened.
For a Guide, fighting in a spiritual world was undoubtedly more advantageous, but advantageous didn’t mean victory was guaranteed. The most elite Guides demanded that they emerge from a battle completely unscathed.
Xu Xunyue seized the initiative, choosing to restrain his target first.
When Zhu Hui appeared, he was too close, already past the safe distance for a Guide and Sentinel, even if he was just standing there.
The situation in the real world was unique; the bonding heat had affected Zhu Hui’s body, and Xu Xunyue himself seemed to be influenced by his own instincts.
But in Zhu Hui’s spiritual world, Xu Xunyue would not allow him to enter that range again.
Even if the atmosphere between them wasn’t as tense as he had imagined, a Sentinel’s memories, emotions, and senses were their most fiercely protected territory.
Safety was something one had to win for oneself, not something gained by hoping the other party wouldn’t make a move.
Shadows split from the Sentinel’s own shadow, coiling around his military boots with a deft and unsettling agility. It had the same air as when they had snuck over to trip him earlier, but this was far more than that.
They dragged him backward and pressed him down, as if Zhu Hui were not in the snowfield he commanded, but in a sea controlled by another.
Indeed, a hole composed of dense, dark shadows appeared at Zhu Hui’s feet. They pulsed with a subtle and strange rhythm, like a vortex appearing out of thin air, capable of sending its chosen prey wherever they wished.
There will always be shadows, because there will always be light. Even in the darkest, deepest night of a cataclysm zone, there would be moonlight from a thousand miles away, and the faint glow from the bodies of mysterious creatures.
Light, and shadow.
Both were difficult to perceive, and equally difficult to destroy.
Zzzt. The sound of a laser.
Guns appeared in the Sentinel’s previously empty hands. One was aimed at the snow, the other raised forward, both glowing with red light, poised to fire.
The snow wolf, which had vanished only seconds before, leaped from mid-air, tracing a graceful arc, but it was no longer the waist-high creature from before. It was like a moving mountain, the muscles under its white fur fluid and violent.
It twisted its head, its beastly eyes fierce, its hind legs tensed. It was about to pounce like a predator tearing into its prey—this was not a playful pounce with friendly social signals, but an attack with murderous intent.
This should have been an extremely brief moment, everything happening in a flash, but in Xu Xunyue’s eyes, it was infinitely slowed down.
He saw the snow wolf pause in surprise as it turned to look at him, a multitude of question marks almost materializing above its head; he saw the black vortex on the snow spread, quickly enveloping the wolf’s hind legs, which were delayed by surprise; he saw the two unfired guns slowly shift their aim, targeting his vital points…
He saw Zhu Hui’s pupils contract, reflecting the image of a Guide.
That reflection was dressed in formal wear that was somewhere between casual and exquisite, with a low ponytail that accentuated a certain laziness. His face bore no protective gear or dried bloodstains, and his gloves were so immaculately white they screamed of a pampered life.
And yet, his spiritual body was so powerful, so impossible to escape, that it made one imagine what he might have once been like.
The red-glowing muzzles of the guns, halfway raised, suddenly vanished.
The shadows paused for a moment, then tightened their grip on their prey. The Sentinel was even pulled off-balance, stumbling half a step.
He made no further moves. The snow wolf, which had only appeared for a few seconds, once again vanished into thin air.
Vanished.
This was not Xu Xunyue’s doing.
Only the master of a spiritual world could create and erase at will in their own domain.
Xu Xunyue hadn’t launched a true attack, and he knew better than anyone what it would look like if he did.
It would be nothing more than the Sentinel’s spiritual landscape being shrouded in shadows, all things rapidly aging like pixels, everything becoming pale, faded, and blurry… but it wouldn’t be like what just happened.
The presence of life was heavy. Even the most terrifying cataclysmic creatures couldn’t make things simply disappear without a trace.
This was Zhu Hui’s spiritual landscape.
Just as Xu Xunyue had not launched a direct mental attack, Zhu Hui had also abandoned the counterattack that was ingrained in his very bones as a conditioned reflex.
A battle, suddenly begun and suddenly ended, as if it had never been fought at all.
But it was still beyond Xu Xunyue’s expectations, because whether one was harmed and whether one held the upper hand were two different things.
Just because he didn’t harm Zhu Hui didn’t mean he wouldn’t do anything to him.
But what kind of information could possibly give the youngest Chief Sentinel in the Empire’s history enough leverage to adopt such a strategy after a stress response?
Without a doubt, Zhu Hui was now under his control. His high-top military boots were stuck to the snow as if glued there, his hands were bound behind his back by an invisible force, and even his entire body was veiled in a layer of darkness, as if some behemoth were casting a shadow over him from above. Yet, there was nothing in the sky.
How passive.
Xu Xunyue stared into his eyes, still seeing only his own reflection in a field of amber.
So unfamiliar, yet so familiar.
Xu Xunyue remembered that in the years before the Cataclysm, during the deep autumn in his hometown, amber-colored resin of a similar shade would seep from the cracks in the bark of sweetgum trees, preserving the sunlight of that moment, the humidity of that moment, the air of that moment, existing forever from then on, yet forever belonging to the past.
He subtly manipulated the spiritual energy around them, attempting to guide, deconstruct, and read, actively capturing Zhu Hui’s emotions.
He had indeed found a good opportunity. This time, he heard the young Sentinel’s still-trembling thoughts.
They flashed by in an instant.
[…Could it be him, my brother?]
…Brother?
The wisp of emotion came and went so quickly that Xu Xunyue almost thought he had misheard.
He confirmed it with a longer gaze and got the expected answer: he truly had not known Zhu Hui before.
Seeing each other occasionally didn’t count as knowing someone, not to the point of using such a term.
Zhu Hui was probably looking for someone, and in a certain moment just now, due to the similarity of some elements, he had mistaken him for that person.
Above the snowfield, gray-white dust mixed with snow-foam rose rapidly.
A leaf, so green it was almost out of place, floated from Zhu Hui’s palm, miraculously flying upward until it was level with Xu Xunyue’s eyes, blocking his discerning gaze.
The young Sentinel didn’t seem to realize he had revealed any secrets, nor did he know what Xu Xunyue had heard. Perhaps, at this moment, his inner state was not as calm and composed as his expression suggested, which was why he couldn’t attend to every detail.
He was bound, yet he maintained a steady tone that matched his expression, speaking in the first second after the battle ended, uttering the third sentence that had passed between them tonight:
“Let’s make a deal.”
Xu Xunyue caught the leaf, which his spiritual power had confirmed was harmless, and glanced at the rapidly changing scenes on its surface.
Snowfields, ice sheets, the bottom of the sea.
Conversations, hard liquor, a syringe filled with Guide pheromones.
Eager faces, cautious faces, dead faces.
The perspective of the images was fixed. Zhu Hui’s face was not in them, but four other young figures flashed by.
Xu Xunyue didn’t recognize these four people, but he had looked up Zhu Hui’s file and had some impression of the photos of those who had died in that mission.
He recognized it. This was Zhu Hui’s memory.
Zhu Hui’s memories were stored in these green leaves. The distant mountain was his main repository, and this leaf in his hand held the memories of that mysterious mission—the very thing Xu Xunyue wanted to see most.
In Xu Xunyue’s original plan, he would have crossed the snowfield, climbed that mountain himself, and searched through the millions of leaves, skimming and carefully selecting until he found the answer.
He would have inevitably succeeded, but as an Offensive Guide, Xu Xunyue was better at destruction than this kind of gentle-breeze-and-fine-rain approach that presupposed not harming the other party. It would have required extra effort.
But the reality was that Zhu Hui had walked right into his trap. Or rather, Zhu Hui had stopped him on the snowfield in a more tactful manner.
Knowing that there had to be an outcome, he had proactively handed over what Xu Xunyue wanted and started talking about a so-called “deal.”
This move was completely logical. After all, no one wanted a stranger to freely browse their memory palace.
Zhu Hui wanted to trade the memory leaf in Xu Xunyue’s hand for something yet unspoken.
Xu Xunyue did not refuse. He used a tone similar to the young Sentinel’s—that businesslike, cold, and restrained tone.
“Tell me.”
“Eight years ago, were you in the Fengshan A2 Zone?”
After the Cataclysm, the Empire’s land was divided into four zones based on safety levels, from the inside out: the Imperial Capital, the Central Districts, the Undeveloped Zones, and the Cataclysm Zones. The Imperial Capital was where the White Tower was located. The Central Districts were the largest of the four. The Undeveloped Zones were a winding and rather narrow buffer zone. Further out was the dreaded Cataclysm Zone.
Scholars would name each Cataclysm Zone based on its characteristics, and the names of the nearby Undeveloped Zones were the Cataclysm Zone’s name plus a letter and a number. The letter indicated which border survey had established that Undeveloped Zone, and the number was a smaller sub-zone for easier administration.
The Fengshan A2 Zone was a geographical name from the past. Now, the Undeveloped Zones around Fengshan all bore the letter C, indicating that the border had shifted twice in the past eight years.
The air was quiet for a moment.
Zhu Hui’s question came almost immediately after Xu Xunyue’s words, as if he had prepared it long ago, just waiting for Xu Xunyue’s affirmation.
But it was a question, and a ridiculously simple one at that. A simple yes or no would suffice.
…Eight years ago.
Xu Xunyue thought back and remembered that it had been the busiest year of his twenty-eight years of life. He had been to many, many places.
There were already quite a few Undeveloped Zones, and the smaller sub-zones were even more dizzying. For a military officer rushing around to conduct rescues during that chaotic period, it was truly difficult to remember them all clearly.
In the end, he said, “No.”
The young Sentinel’s eyes seemed to dim a little.
Xu Xunyue actually quite liked those amber eyes. Perhaps it was because of the snow wolf; he found the way the wolf’s eyes lit up as it nuzzled its head into his palm particularly cute.
The color of Zhu Hui’s eyes was a little deeper than his spiritual body’s. When they dimmed like that, he looked even more pitiful, as if he had let him down in some way.
Xu Xunyue casually probed with his spiritual power and found that Zhu Hui’s emotional fluctuations had vanished.
He had reined them in again.
He found it both funny and exasperating. He thought for a moment longer, confirming that his memory was not mistaken, before saying, “I only went to the Fengshan A1 Zone.”
The amber eyes brightened a little again.
Xu Xunyue was sure he hadn’t seen wrong—a high-level Guide had that much observational skill. He even came up with a possibly impolite metaphor because of it. Those eyes—
They were like a voice-activated light. A warm-colored one, at that.
