Like a drop of colored ink spreading out in the desolate lake.
Color appeared in the dead and pale things around.
Lin Yuan looked back and around.
The objects around me that were frozen in time were dyed with vivid colors.
The entire institute gradually became lively and active, centered around her position.
"Make way, make way." Three or five researchers in white coats pushed a metal bed past her.
Lin Yuan dodged to the side and saw an unconscious man chained to the iron bed.
The man's eyes were dull, his mouth was open, and tears and saliva flowed uncontrollably all over his face.
Yellow and black circular markings appeared on his skin, his abdomen and legs became deformed and melted, and fine hair grew on his face. He no longer looked like a human being.
A violent scream was heard behind me.
Lin Yuan looked back and saw a half-human monster struggling frantically on a bloody bed.
Blood-red eyes grew on his body, and huge red bone tumors bulged out on his skin.
The chain broke under the heavy weight during the struggle, and the monster with eyes pounced down and swallowed up a researcher in a white coat next to him in one gulp.
The crowd nearby screamed and scattered, and three high-energy electromagnetic guns descended from the roof.
Three heavy weapons fired in a triangular shape. The dazzling white light flashed violently, and powerful firepower covered the area.
After a moment, the scene fell silent.
The monster covered with eyes and the devoured researcher turned into a pile of charred remains on the iron bed.
Lin Yuan stood there, staring at the charred skeleton.
I realized that this was once an underground city, and humans still lived here.
Everything before my eyes was what actually happened in this research institute.
The sounds around became noisy.
Many people walked hurriedly to and fro without even raising their heads, as if they were accustomed to these tragic changes.
"Another sentinel has gone berserk. The mental state of the sentinels on the battlefield is too unstable." Those people said.
"We need more guides to join the fight."
"The birth rate of guides has always been very low, and there is no solution. Should we make the original form more mature?"
"Choose a few more sacrifices."
Lin Yuan's body floated up, and someone held her hand and led her all the way upwards.
The field of vision moves upwards, looking around the scene like a camera.
Take in all the details of this earth.
The hurried researchers and the human experiment subjects chained to the bed,
A large number of high-tech equipment are in operation, and security weapons are ready to fire at any time.
There is a huge hole on the ground in the very center, and the entrance of the hole is sealed by an electric fence.
Dark red tentacles were wriggling under the electric fence. There was a pure white altar and high steps.
The staff members who come and go call the underground cave in the institute a temple.
In humanity’s most advanced scientific research center, there is a basement called the Temple.
Researchers who are exploring science and technology are pursuing theories of sacrificing to evil gods.
Lin Yuan’s vision rises higher and the space is infinitely enlarged.
She saw the entire underground city.
This is a huge shelter built underground by humans, which was once home to countless people.
Countless human beings live busily in underground caves like ants.
There were soldiers running hurriedly with battle reports in hand, a mother in the delivery room enduring the pain of childbirth, a group of students sitting in the classroom listening to the teacher's lecture on the latest theory of the birth of mutants, and a veteran with a broken hand and a broken foot standing silently in front of the densely packed tombstones...
Finally, Lin Yuan's consciousness fell into a narrow and dim room.
Outside the door was a long corridor with countless such narrow compartments lined up on both sides.
The cold iron door and railings, the simple bed and table, it is hard to tell whether it is a prison cell or a military barracks.
In front of Lin Yuan, on a small hard bed, sat a blind girl.
"Hi. Nice to meet you again." The girl who lived in another time and space suddenly raised her face towards Lin Yuan.
"My name is Zero. Everything you see here is my only memory left in this world," she said.
"zero?"
"Isn't it a coincidence? You, who meet me hundreds of years later, unexpectedly have a name similar to mine."
Ling was sitting facing Lin Yuan. Her eyes were open, but her pupils were dark, without light and focus. She was blind.
Lin Yuan realized that she was the one who occupied Fujilu's body, held her hand and communicated with her consciously.
Everything I see and hear at this moment are the memories of this girl named Zero.
There were footsteps in the corridor and two people walked outside.
Two men in research institute uniforms stopped in the corridor, and one of them reached out to light up the electronic screen on the wall.
The man's finger slid across the photos on the screen, finally stopping on Zero's photo.
"I have no eyesight and am weak, so I am a useless guide who cannot go to the battlefield. But the value of the mental strength test is quite high." He said to another person beside him.
The other person reached out and swiped through Zero's data, then nodded after browsing it.
His finger brought up a row of options, paused on the sacrifice column, and ticked it.
The footsteps outside the corridor left and the lights dimmed.
The man holding Lin Yuan's hand said, "At that time, I didn't know my fate. I didn't know that I would become a sacrifice to her."
In the room, Zero, who was living at that moment, had no idea of his fate of being chosen as a sacrifice.
She fumbled with the sheets, lay down on the bed, and closed her eyes calmly.
Ling is a girl who has been blind since childhood. She has never seen the light or the colors of this world since she was born.
For a little bit of money, her impoverished family sent her to a research institute for human experiments.
She was injected with some kind of drug. Fortunately, she did not die, but "evolved" into a guide.
After becoming a guide, Ling felt very happy. Although she still couldn't see anything, she had a pair of special eyes, which allowed her to see countless magnificent and colorful spiritual worlds.
Although life locked in the house was monotonous and barren, she didn't feel bored.
Every day, when she is not taking tests, she travels in the vast spiritual universe.
She "saw" pain, anxiety, excitement and happiness... sometimes she saw pure malice, selfless love, and those primitive desires.
Her greatest pleasure every day is to close her eyes and explore the spiritual world in the darkness until she falls asleep and has equally magnificent and colorful dreams.
Until that day, she was put into a metal cage and lowered from a high altitude into the ground.
There was a palace with high steps and scarlet carpets.
The blind girl was placed alone on a jade platform.
She became a victim, a sacrifice to the monster.
"You've been here. Remember? This altar." Ling said to Lin Yuan.
They held hands, their wills floating in the void, and both looked at the girl on the altar in front of them.
This is Zero's memory, something she experienced personally hundreds of years ago.
Lin Yuan had seen this altar many times, both in his dreams and in reality.
Countless lives have been sacrificed on the bloody altar. Those so-called scientific researchers used human spiritual power to nourish the insect jade so that it could hatch.
"This is where the original body was born. After tasting the sweetness, humans hatched more insect jades. They mass-produced sentinels and guides with various powerful abilities."
"At that time, people felt that they had obtained powerful weapons and could finally fight against those strange and powerful mutants on the ground."
Ling said to Lin Yuan with regret, "Hundreds of years later, you still haven't realized that it was humans themselves who opened the door to destruction."
The blind girl on the altar heard the sound of dripping water, and something wet was crawling up the steps and approaching her.
The girl is blind, and she encounters a powerful and pure "person" in the spiritual world.
"Who are you?" Her mental power swam out and gently touched the soft will.
"Me?" The man seemed to be stunned for a moment, and replied, "I don't know either. I just woke up not long ago."
"They call me the Prime. You can also call me the Prime."
I don't know why. Maybe it's because Zero didn't show any fear, or maybe it's because Zero was willing to communicate with it.
The tentacles that climbed onto the altar did not tear apart its sacrifice as usual.
They curiously rolled up the blind girl and took her deep into the palace.
"Chu was very innocent at that time. She was a very innocent life." Ling said to Lin Yuan.
"I even felt that the days I spent with Chu Sheng were very happy. We stayed together and there was nothing else to do. I told her all kinds of stories every day, about human beings and the dreams I had. No matter what I said, she listened happily and seriously."
"She also takes good care of me and finds me lots of strange foods, just like you did to the sentry."
"Me? What did I say to that sentry?" Lin Yuan thought puzzledly when he heard this.
What sentinel? Who? Ni Ji
When did she ever find strange food for Ni Ji? Why didn't she remember doing that
"Oh, right, you don't remember." The girl next to him said, "You look a lot like Chu Zhen. After all, you have her blood flowing in your body."
It took the researchers a long time to realize that the sacrifices they had thrown into the temple were not dead.
Not only was the weak and blind guide not devoured by the monster, he even survived in the temple.
She was beside the Prime, being fed by the tentacles and living in harmony with the Prime. She was neither dead nor contaminated.
The people in the research institute were almost in an uproar over this news.
They were extremely excited, thinking they had discovered a new direction to explore, so they paid a huge price to severely damage the original body and retrieved Zero from the temple.
After that, the poor girl was treated as a rare experimental subject and subjected to endless monitoring experiments that were almost abusive.
She was locked on the experimental table, and for the ambitions of some humans, she endured the unwarranted torture of her own kind day after day.
Ling, who had been lying on the laboratory table for a long time, never had the chance to see "Chu" again, to see the friend who was leaning on her spirit in the darkness.
There would no longer be soft tentacles holding her fingers and listening to her tell her dreams and stories over and over again.
Sometimes when I am in pain, I wish I were not a human, but a monster like Chu.
After a long time, Zero, who was fixed on the experimental bed, finally heard a familiar voice. That voice was no longer as pure and childish as before. It became powerful and full of anger.
At that time, the earth shook and some powerful creature broke out of the ground, destroying this indestructible human fortress from the inside.
Cold, powerful tentacles emerged from the ground and hooked around her ankles.
"I promised her in the beginning. To abandon my human body and become a part of her."
"Her mental power is terrifyingly strong. I received endless power from her. I used that power to infinitely expand my dreams and my mental vision, supporting an independent space isolated from the human world."
"That is what you later called the contaminated area."
"I lost myself and became the pillar of the pollution zone, and she is the pollution zone itself."
"She and I are no longer distinguishable. My withering death means the end of this world."
"I am the first guide to become a pillar. Perhaps, I can also be considered a sinner of mankind."
After listening to Zero's calm narration,
Lin Yuan didn't say anything to comfort her.
The scenes of Zero's life flowed before his eyes. But even if he saw it with his own eyes, it was difficult to truly understand the despair and pain she endured at that time.
Lin Yuan simply used his tentacles to gently hook her fingers. The thoughts in his mind were transmitted in the communication of consciousness.
It's not her fault, it's those people who are too twisted and greedy, and it's this wrong era.
Lin Yuan thought of the pillars he had seen in many pollutants, of Xun Hua, and of the White King in Area 5.
It turns out that every pillar in the polluted area is a guide, and the spiritual will of the powerful guides was eaten away by the insect jade, resulting in such a tragedy.
"It's okay." Ling said to her, "No matter how long the nightmare is, there will be a day when you wake up. Now I have finally reached the end of my life and will soon have eternal sleep."
Ling gradually let go of Lin Yuan's hand, and her face and those images collapsed in front of Lin Yuan's eyes.
"But they sent you over there, wanting you to take my place and become the pillar here. You have to be careful... Chu is completely different from what she was back then. She is very strong, violent, and unwilling to accept the end."
"You have to be careful. Be careful... about everything in that white tower."
Ling's body disintegrated, and the hand holding Lin Yuan turned into ashes in the dark world.
The dreamlike mental picture disappeared.
Lin Yuan found himself standing under the research institute, in the temple that had been abandoned for hundreds of years.
The pure white altar was still placed on top of the scarlet steps. The air seemed to be filled with countless innocent souls who had died tragically here, silently accusing them of their tragic fate back then.
Lin Yuan saw Chu.
The original form that survived for hundreds and thousands of years.
Now that it has lost its pillar and the source of its spiritual power, its body has become extremely decayed.
Like dead branches, huge and endless, it stretched out from the darkness and coiled around the base of the entire temple.
At the moment when Zero's spiritual power completely disappeared and dissipated, a terrifying sound came from the depths of the temple.
As if in its death throes, the huge, dry and decayed body of the god twisted and trembled.
The entire temple shook violently with her twisting and screaming.
Ni Ji shook off the hand that was holding him. The cold and pale hand shrank back.
The person who appeared before him was Fujilu, who was wearing a white skirt.
Half of Fujilu's face was hidden in the shadows, and the other half exposed in the light was as white as a dead person.
The tentacle under the skirt was no longer a single small one, but countless old and gray tentacles crawling out from under the snow-white skirt.
"You have completely turned into a monster." Ni Ji slowly pulled out his knife, "No, you have always been a twisted monster."
"So what if I'm a monster? It's better than being a weak human being who is bullied." Fujilu, with half of her face exposed, slowly climbed up the wall in the dark. "For someone as powerful as you, you have never experienced the pain of being a weak person, right? That's why you don't understand."
"No matter what, even if I have to sacrifice my entire being to Him, I will never become the powerless and pathetic creature I was before."
The scene around Ni Ji changed.
He saw a sentinel... lots and lots of sentins.
Some people are deceived by the girl's delicate appearance, while others are seduced by her beautiful face.
In this dark world, those powerful warriors were like prey trapped in a spider web, falling one by one under the white skirt.
They struggled, revealing pitiful, helpless, and even ugly and embarrassing looks. They were tortured repeatedly until their spirits completely collapsed. In the end, even their bodies were not spared, and they became puppets that could be manipulated at will.
Until total destruction, there is no way out of the dark hell, ever and ever.
Ni Ji even saw himself, seeing himself being wrapped up by the tentacles and dragged into the depths of the nest without any resistance.
The picture began to become distorted and dim.
A suggestive cry was heard in the darkness.
"Hehehe, you've experienced this too." Fujilu's voice was infinitely amplified in the darkness, "Your guide is so powerful, he must have done this and that to you from time to time. I've always wanted to see you begging for mercy in weakness."
Half of her face appeared from the darkness, and she was satisfied to see the sentry's face full of shame and anger.
"In fact, the sentinels are the most vulnerable and pitiful creatures." Teng Lu laughed and quietly extended her borrowed spiritual tentacles in the direction of Ni Ji.
"You are sensitive and fragile, without any resistance, and you are all afraid of my mental control... ah!"
Fujilu screamed while crawling, she covered her arm that was cut off by the sentry and stepped back in disbelief.
The sentry in front of him had a knife in his hand and a fire in his eyes. He was a murderous desperado.
She was completely different from the one she had seen before, who was weak and delicate and easily surrendered under Lin Yuan's tentacles.
“Why!” the completely distorted monster shouted, “I know what you are afraid of. You should be afraid of it. You can’t resist mind control. You Sentinels are completely defenseless.”
"Did you make a mistake?" The sentry in front of her stared at her with mockery in his eyes.
"I am a little afraid of this. I am afraid of that person who is incomparably strong and unique in the world. How could it be a monster like you who is weak and pathetic from the inside out."
The blood-red sword was slowly pulled out, and the blade reflected Ni Ji's cold eyes. Deep in his eyes resided a powerful soul.
"I feel sorry for the sentinels you tricked. If I show even a little bit of weakness in front of you, I will lose."
The blood-red blade light is the flame of the sentinel's revenge.
The distorted and false picture was shattered into pieces under the knife light.
The deformed creature's twisted and strange body that was cut off by the demon sword was covered with cracks.
The man who deceived countless Sentinels eventually died as a weakling in this dark world.
Ni Ji saw Lin Yuan,
In the cave at his feet, his guide stood beside the altar, confronting an endlessly huge monster.
He rushed towards Lin Yuan.
Lin Yuan looked up and saw the sentry running towards her.
Their eyes met for a moment, staring at each other.
There was a smear of blood on Ni Ji's face, and Lin Yuan was not much better, covered in dust.
They lost each other again - even though they were holding hands all the way.
But this time, neither side panicked, and they firmly believed that they would be reunited soon.
Lin Yuan felt that Ni Ji, who was running towards him, was a little strange, not as patient and reserved as before.
At this moment, the anger in his heart seemed to be ignited, shining like a knife.
As he rushed down, his handsome face was tinged with a layer of wildness, which was very charming and he looked more handsome than ever.
He smiled at himself.
Facing a powerful enemy, his smile was cold, sharp and unstoppable.
After landing, there was a little distance between the two people, but they did not reach out to hold each other's hands.
At this moment, the ends of their spiritual power were connected to each other, which was more stable than physical contact, so they no longer had to worry about losing each other.
(End of this chapter)