Chapter 124: Tonight, we drink

Eastern Sector Sentinel Tower — Observation Tower 1

Tonight’s moon appeared unusually round, as even the habitually heavy cloud layer thinned into a delicate, translucent veil.

The earth had shed the searing heat of the daytime. A sharp night wind roared through the high observation tower, sweeping past mounted artillery posts and infrared detection radar arrays.

A resonant, powerful dragon roar echoed from above, descending rapidly from the clouds. The small dragon, having awakened from its deep slumber within the mental landscape, darted through the cloud cover with boundless thrill and energy.

It was no longer trapped within that suffocating, dead wasteland—it had reclaimed the vast sky and its true freedom.

Flapping its wings, the dragon glided back toward the tower deck, shrinking its size automatically before settling comfortably onto Kai’s shoulder. Kai stood with his arms crossed, his deep violet eyes silently taking in the velvety expanse of the night.

Compared to his old official photographs, his dark hair had grown significantly longer, trailing into a layered wolf cut. Yet Kai held no fondness for long hair.

He kept only a single thin braid, letting it dance freely in the night breeze.

Kai wanted to reclaim his lost memories.

Returning to the familiar Sector 616 after more than half a year away, the agonizing months of wandering and running felt like an inescapable nightmare. Worse still was the lingering shadow of being cocooned inside that Aberration nest—having his blood drained and his vital nutrients harvested layer by layer.

Far more terrifying than death itself was witnessing one’s own life force drain away second by second.

Was every encounter between people mere coincidence, or was it destiny?

In truth, Kai had genuinely believed he would never see the light of day again.

The heavy doors of the observation tower creaked open. Astin stepped out wearing a black tactical training suit. He was rigorously self-disciplined; even on a night when everyone else chose to rest, he refused to skip his training routine.

"I knew I’d find you here."

Astin knew full well that Kai loved coming up to this tower to exercise his dragon. He tossed a bottle of liquor toward Kai before popping open his own and gulping down half of it.

"How long was I gone?"

The question came from Kai.

Leaning his back against the stone parapet with his hands resting behind him on the ledge, Astin cast a brief glance over at Kai.

"256 days."

Astin’s razor-sharp precision caught Kai off guard. He turned his head; Astin’s vibrant green pupils gleamed with extraordinary brightness against the dark night.

Humans often claimed that crocodile tears were hypocritical and heartless, yet few knew that crocodiles were among the rare cold-blooded creatures that actively undertook the duty of nurturing and protecting their young.

Every living creature in the world possessed a soul and a spark.

Astin added another quiet detail. "During the first few months after you vanished, we swept through the radiation zones countless times."

It wasn’t until their spiritual domains could no longer tolerate further toxic degradation that they finally halted the search—and even then, they never reported Kai’s disappearance to the Military Command.

The squad had good reason to stand by Kai so fiercely. Unlike Nyl, who was selfish and ice-cold to his core, Kai treated every teammate with genuine respect. That perfectly calibrated sense of distance and boundaries was more than enough for these volatile Sentinels.

That much was clear just from reading his personal journal entries.

"Your quarters... they’re still kept exactly as you left them."

Astin took another heavy swig from the bottle. "Once you’re fully healed, we’re going back to the training grounds to spar."

No matter the era, human beings remained creatures that craved belonging above all else.

On a wasteland planet as merciless as this, that hunger for a sanctuary to shelter one’s wandering soul burned infinitely brighter.

The tightly set line of Kai’s lips finally relaxed into a soft smile directed at Astin. "Tonight, we drink first."

Perched on the high observation deck, the two talked at length, tracing memories from the past to the present—yet neither dared to map out the future.

To Sentinels, "the future" was a word far too luxurious to utter.

As the alcohol took hold, a faint, rosy flush crept across Astin’s cheeks. He suddenly murmured in a quiet voice:

"Being trapped down in that place... it must have been pure despair, right?"

"Despair?"

Kai lowered his long lashes slightly. "It’s all behind us now. Painful memories carry zero need for revisiting."

He knew Astin wasn’t merely speaking about him—Astin carried his own history of captivity and confinement.

Perhaps the old Kai couldn’t have fully visualized that exact brand of suffering, but now he understood all too well just how deep Astin’s despair must have run.

When your freedom and willpower no longer belong to you, you become nothing more than a kite with a snapped string or a bird with broken wings—destined either to fade into the endless sky or rot into the dirt below.

Astin sat hunkered against the base of the wall, his wrist resting casually over a raised knee. Under the pale moonlight, the hard, sculpted lines of his brow bone and bridge of his nose sharpened into razor-like contours.

He was troubled—carrying a deep, unspoken anxiety he didn’t dare confess to anyone else.

"If a Guide binds a Sentinel not out of genuine affection, but purely for the sake of saving a life... Then what is that Sentinel supposed to do?"

Astin didn’t explicitly say the Sentinel in question was himself.

Kai froze slightly, almost finding the premise absurd.

"Guides don’t just bind Sentinels out of charity to save lives. And even if they did, if there’s no genuine attraction, they’d simply break the bond later."

Why force oneself to accept someone they didn’t care for? That held especially true for Sentinels.

A sharp prick of pain pierced Astin’s chest. After a long pause, he rasped in a low, heavy voice. "What if... what if that Sentinel refuses to break the bond?"