Chapter 160: Deliberate self-deception

Bunny felt entirely convinced that the vehicle she was riding in wasn’t headed for a tactical field mission—nor was it a wholesome ride meant for polite company!

"All of you, shut up!"

Tightly clamping her tactical headset over her ears, she cut off any further interaction with this hopelessly degenerate pack of Sentinels.

Ahead, the terrain grew increasingly precipitous. The team was currently pressing toward Boundary Line 7 of District 616. The heavy transport plowed straight through the most perilous zone, where dense storm clusters and zero-visibility fog drastically degraded their rate of advance.

As their altitude climbed higher, the air thinned out visibly.

Tyr monitored the telemetry across the vehicle’s diagnostic display: "Front tire temperature holding at 75°C, rear tires at 80°C. Automatic drag-reduction system engaged."

San narrowed his eyes in frustration. "Not enough. The rubber isn’t hot enough. If we get bogged down inside the storm’s vortex, we won’t have the traction to break out."

Dense clusters of crimson radar blips flickered to life across the threat detection array.

To rapidly spike tire temperatures, their only tactical option was to pin the throttle and push maximum speed. As swarms of Aberrations closed in and gave chase, San disengaged the automated driver-assist system, switching over to full manual control.

The engine’s acoustic rumble crested like a tsunami, the twin-turbochargers screaming through the heavy mist as they tore through the encirclement at 380 kilometers per hour.

San used pure, raw upper-body strength to muscle the heavy steering wheel through aggressive turns, while Tyr kept his eyes glued to the holographic terrain map, calling out road hazards and sharp turns in real time.

They were straight-up drag racing and drifting through the mountain passes—a masterclass in high-speed tactical evasion.

Even with her multi-point safety harness cinched down tight, Bunny felt completely nauseated, her balance tossed around endlessly by the violent lateral centrifugal forces.

Save me... I swear I’m never riding a drop tower again for as long as I live.

The heavy transport breached barrier after barrier like a runaway juggernaut. Two grueling hours later, they burst through the storm-choked fog corridor and crossed into the border perimeter.

The tracking beacon indicated that the target’s signal had vanished deep inside an isolated gorge—a sheer canyon completely inaccessible to ground vehicles.

Steep cliff faces and soaring crags towered on all sides, the jagged, layered rock formations rising up like a long-forgotten sanctuary untouched by the modern world.

The land’s present climate had turned volatile and unpredictable; elevated geothermal temperatures had scorched away most plant life, though high-altitude zones offered a slight reprieve, running roughly 1 to 2 degrees Celsius cooler.

Bunny and her squad disembarked from the transport one by one, forced to breach the canyon on foot.

Positioning herself near the center of the tactical formation, Bunny used a pneumatic grappling hook to ascend a steep cliff face. Suddenly, a boulder beneath her boot shifted loose; her balance gave out entirely, but a pair of broad, steady hands caught her before she could drop.

Bunny lifted her head, offering a soft "Thank you" to Tyr.

The man offered no verbal reply; he simply waited until she clambered safely onto the ledge before following up behind her.

Deep within the heart of the ravine, they stumbled upon the collapsed, weathered ruins of an ancient temple. To the Sentinels, such structures held zero historical context—they only recognized them as ruined habitats where ancient humans once dwelled.

"What’s this supposed to be?"

Arden circled a severely eroded stone statue, examining it from all angles. "Why did ancient humans carve their figures with such terrifying faces?"

Bunny shot him a sharp look. "That’s a Buddhist deity—the divine power they worshiped."

Arden scratched his head, thoroughly perplexed. "What’s the point of carving all these stones, anyway?"

How could gods possibly exist in a world like this?

Gazing at the ancient cultural relics embedded into the cliffside—remnants dating back hundreds, if not thousands, of years—Bunny felt an invisible bond bridge the immense gap of time and space between herself and the stone ruins.

A long-dormant ache of melancholic nostalgia welled up quietly in her chest.

Much like her, these ruins had been left forgotten inside cryogenic darkness—perhaps for a time so vast that no living soul would ever remember their existence again.

"Ancient humans needed the divine," she murmured softly.

"Because life will always carry more strength than death, and faith will forever cut deeper than doubt."

"When an individual’s inner resilience can no longer endure the suffering inflicted by this world, they are forced to peel away their own soul, constructing an internal shield to insulate the physical flesh from agony."

Ever since humanity first sparked the capacity for abstract thought, idealism and materialism have stood as fiercely polarized opposites.

To the objective world, my pain is undeniably real; yet shifting perspective, that very same suffering can be reimagined as a divine trial orchestrated by the gods.

Or perhaps, one adopts the concept of a higher power purely as a spiritual pillar to carry oneself through the dark abyss of torment.

Rain knitted his brow. "So, essentially... a form of deliberate self-deception?"

Bunny offered a non-committal shrug. "When mere survival becomes an agonizing struggle, why shouldn’t a person allow themselves a comforting delusion?"

Rain and Arden exchanged a silent glance, grasping the sentiment only half-heartedly. A divine entity—was it simply whatever source of hope an individual clung to for salvation?

Simultaneously, their gazes drifted toward Bunny’s receding figure as she pressed onward along the trail.

Tyr brought up the rear of the formation. Having overheard Bunny’s words, a quiet thought crossed his mind: If one were to pray to the gods, would that wish finally be granted?

Wild canyon gales ruffled his long pink hair as he lingered for a long moment before a weathered, half-crumbled stone of an unknown deity, standing in absolute stillness.

He quietly offered a silent wish.

A wish whose true nature Bunny would only discover long after the dust had settled.