Chapter 159: Way too short

His expression brimmed with the unmistakable satisfaction of a victor, as he muttered with insufferable, roguish amusement:

"So sweet."

It was impossible to tell whether he was referring to the crushed hard candy or something far more indecent.

Bunny clenched her fist until her knuckles turned white.

Rain, who had been completely absorbed in piloting his tactical reconnaissance drone with his noise-canceling headset clamped over his ears, nearly jumped out of his skin when Bunny suddenly scrambled over to sit right beside him. Slipping the headset down around his neck, he instinctively cast a wary glance toward the rear compartment.

Hiss... How on earth did the Commander end up with a fresh, bright-red handprint stamped across his cheek?!

Now squeezed comfortably between Rain and Arden, Bunny reached into her tactical vest pocket and pulled out a cheese-flavored energy bar. The precise second she peeled back the foil wrapping, two distinct creatures automatically materialized at her boots like clockwork.

One was Chopper, the fluffy border collie; the other was Arden’s sleek, void-black jaguar, Kiran.

Both spirit guides stared up at her with big, soulful eyes, tail and tail-tip twitching in unified expectation for a treat.

After a beat of hesitation, Bunny snapped the energy bar cleanly in half, feeding one piece to the pup and the other to the big cat.

Having scarfed down its portion in a single gulp, Kiran deemed the micro-ration entirely insufficient and began aggressively nudging its massive, velvety head against her knees to beg for seconds.

Just as Bunny reached into her pocket for a second bar, Arden raised his voice to interject. "Don’t waste it on him. He’s just being greedy."

Kiran shot its own master a look of pure feline disdain before promptly flopping flat across Bunny’s combat boots, idly swatting and nibbling at her boot laces. How was this giant apex predator any different from a regular domestic kitten?

Bunny gave in to temptation and began aggressively petting the panther’s broad head. The density of that obsidian skull, combined with the sleek, oil-slick sheen of its jet-black fur, offered a sensory experience that was ridiculously addictive to scratch.

It escalated until Kiran completely surrendered its dignity, rolling over onto its back to expose its pale, soft underbelly in an explicit invitation for stomach rubs.

The downy fur protecting a feline’s belly was the finest and densest of all, providing an unmatched tactile luxury. As Bunny fell deeper into the rhythm of massaging the beast’s chest and stomach, she remained entirely oblivious to the fact that Arden’s breathing right next to her was turning ragged and unsteadily sharp.

He was straining every muscle in his torso to suppress the violent, rhythmic waves of heat surging straight up from his lower abdomen, his abdominal wall contracting into a rock-hard, taut line.

Unable to contain it any longer, a low, coarse gasp slipped through his teeth:

"Gui... Guide Bunny..."

Bunny froze mid-rub, blinking up at Arden. "Hmm?"

Arden cleared his throat in a hasty attempt at stoic nonchalance, though a faint, telltale pink flush crept up his sculpted cheeks. "It’s nothing. Please... don’t stop."

It felt agonizingly good. He craved more.

If he were being entirely honest with himself, he wanted even more to test how it would feel if the Guide used her bare foot to press down right there.

Arden harbored a few distinctly unorthodox preferences deep down.

Then again, virtually every Sentinel in this godforsaken tower was a closet pervert to some degree. The only variable was whether they wore their depraved tendencies on their sleeves or kept them hidden under a civilized mask.

Cyrus, as the undisputed ringleader of these rogues, acted completely shamelessly and unbothered. The rest of them, at the very least, made a passing effort to pretend otherwise.

Ever since Bunny first set foot in the Sentinel Tower, the moment Arden caught sight of those delicate, porcelain-white ankles—barely larger than the span of his palm—an utterly perverse desire had taken root in the depths of his mind.

He knew holding such thoughts was reprehensible, but wasn’t it human nature to be inherently driven by such primal baseline urges?

Just as Bunny prepared to resume scratching the panther’s belly, Rain reached out and gently caught her wrist. "Stop rewarding him."

This curly-haired bastard was secretly the most depraved mind among them, fully capable of going toe-to-toe with Cyrus in a competition of sheer filth.

Bored out of her mind, Bunny shifted closer to Rain, leaning over his shoulder to watch the live feed on his drone console. Holding the tactical tablet in his left hand, Rain wrapped his right palm over Bunny’s fingers, patiently instructing her on how to calibrate the optic camera angles and adjust for ambient crosswinds.

"The thermal imaging scope locks onto Aberration heat signatures with absolute precision, but you have to stay sharp—they’re capable of constructing dummy heat decoys to set up ambushes."

Sure enough, a solitary, roaming Aberration drifted straight into their optical field of view. To clear the tactical corridor ahead, Rain tightened his grip over her fingers and pulled the trigger on the remote weapons station.

Bunny continuously adjusted the scope’s angle, pursuing the target across the rugged terrain while laying down bursts of suppression fire. Unfortunately, the drone’s standard battery range proved insufficient, and the strike only managed to cripple one of the creature’s hind limbs.

She let out a frustrated sigh of complaint. "It’s way too short."

Right beside her ear, Rain’s voice dropped into a low, suggestive purr. "Then what kind of length does Bunny prefer?"

Before she could process the remark, his long fingers swept across the glass interface, switching the module to long-range anti-materiel sniper configuration and setting the engagement range past 2,300 meters. With a single crisp tap, the round executed a clean kinetic kill straight through the Aberration’s skull.

"Is 23 enough?"

Bunny harbored severe suspicions that he was dropping shameless double entendres, yet she lacked any concrete proof to call him out.

At that moment, San—who had been concentrating on maneuvering the heavy transport through the dense fog—decided to join the banter. A roguish, carefree smirk curled across his handsome face:

"How could 23 ever be enough? You need at least a 24."

Tyr rested his chin in his hand, gazing out the reinforced window at the gloomy, storm-racked sky in complete silence.

A flicker of arrogant disdain flashed across Arden’s striking, mixed-race features. "If we’re talking about pure operational performance, it all comes down to whether it carries barbs or not."

He cast a pointed, loaded glance toward Bunny. "Wouldn’t you agree, Guide Bunny?"

Bunny initially failed to grasp the anatomical context of Arden’s statement—until her eyes registered the synchronized, amused glints falling onto her from every Sentinel in the cabin, paired with the glint of San’s sharp canine teeth reflecting in the rearview mirror.

The biological reality crashed into her mind in an instant.

Feline species possessed backwards-facing barbs—engineered to prevent the female from escaping mid-copulation, and simultaneously scraping away any seminal remnants left behind by rival males.

Her face ignited into a violent, scorching crimson. "You guys...!"

Right then, as if on cue, every single pair of eyes turned in unison toward the rear seat, where Cyrus had remained broodingly silent.

The air inside the armored compartment plummeted into absolute, dead-silent stasis.

It felt like a silent, invisible contest of masculine dominance and pride unfolding between them.

Why hadn’t the Commander weighed in yet?

Three seconds ticked by.

Cyrus slowly lifted his sculpted face—half-shrouded in the dim cabin shadows, still bearing the vibrant, fresh crimson stamp of Bunny’s palm. The corners of his sensuous lips curled into an insufferably arrogant, wicked smirk.

His delivery was brutally concise: "26."