Chapter 55: They won’t help us

Unfortunately, what Cyrus cared about was clearly not whether faces had been kissed.

The moment those words left Bunny’s mouth, his goal had already been achieved.

A low, hoarse laugh drifted through the air. An eerie chill slid down her spine like the scales of a venomous snake.

"Anything else besides kissing?"

His gaze was far too penetrating. It felt like a lock from a higher dimension, like a hawk circling high above. No matter which direction the prey on the ground tried to flee, it could never escape the restraint of those talons.

No secret could remain hidden.

A woman’s intuition told her not to answer Cyrus’s question.

"Why should I tell you? Are you my father or my mother?"

She strained with every ounce of strength and discovered she still could not move. It was definitely this dog of a man’s doing.

Being a pervert himself was one thing—even the ability that came with his spirit form was equally twisted.

She had only recently learned that high-ranking sentinels had a certain probability of awakening additional abilities upon breakthrough. Liam possessed transparent perception; Xander had illusion hypnosis.

The others had not yet awakened anything.

"Let me go right now!"

Cyrus lowered his lids, showing not the slightest intention of releasing her. In a thoroughly rogue-like tone he threatened:

"Tell me, and I’ll let you go."

Bunny was so angry she felt a cerebral thrombosis coming on. If she had known the District 616 contained such an absolute asshole of a specimen, she would have rolled up her bedding and run as far as humanly possible!

She gave a cold laugh. "What else can a woman and a man do when they’re alone in a room together? Executive Officer Cyrus, do I need to teach you even that?"

She had thoroughly enjoyed the verbal satisfaction, yet she clearly had no idea what she was about to face next.

She had assumed the man would be left speechless and leave. What she did not expect was that Cyrus’s eyes instead lit up with an even stranger excitement.

Because he had already obtained the answer that satisfied him.

He extended a fingertip and gently brushed a loose strand of hair from her cheek back behind her ear. In an almost pleasant tone, he murmured:

"I now know what kind of teaching style Guide Bunny prefers."

The next second, Cyrus vanished from the corridor just as silently as he had appeared.

The restraint on her limbs dissolved instantly. She looked down at her slightly reddened wrists—marks left by Cyrus moments earlier.

Just because he held high authority, did that mean he could do whatever he pleased?

Unable to swallow her anger, she cursed at the empty corridor:

"Fuck you!"

***

District 616 Border – Oil Refinery Nest

This was the long-abandoned ruins of an oil refinery.

Under the baking sun, rust-red steel skeletons stabbed straight into the gray, hazy sky. The entire refinery lay collapsed across the desolate wilderness like a massive industrial beast that had died years ago and long since rotted away.

Beneath the towering distillation columns, a small team of fully armed sentinels was fleeing outward in a frenzy, weaving rapidly between the tilted, collapsed steel frames.

Behind them, countless juvenile aliens poured in from every direction like a swarm of ants—terrifying beyond measure.

The radar had made a critical error. The entire underground of this oil refinery had already been hollowed out by the aliens and transformed into a giant incubation nest of horrifying scale.

"Captain, every path is blocked! We can only charge the drawbridge!"

The crackling current of the communication radar quickly drowned beneath the roar of gunfire and explosions.

A hoarse voice quickly took over the channel:

"First team, intercept and cover the rear. Second team, suppress with firepower. Everyone else withdraw first—rotate cover and fall back in turns."

Alien roars filled the air without pause. Two sentinels immediately leapt left and right behind oil drums, taking responsibility for covering the others’ retreat.

One alien burst up through the sand and savagely brought down a sentinel at the rear of the column. Because he had been trying to free a surrounded teammate, one of his legs was torn clean off. Blood instantly sprayed in thick columns.

The scream was bone-chilling.

Fortunately, his spirit form snatched him up in time, preventing the pursuing alien tide from tearing his immobilized body apart.

On the only drawbridge the aliens had not yet seized, several sentinels in tactical helmets and camouflage combat uniforms fired steel cables and rappelled down in succession from dozens of meters in the air.

"Team Three, evacuate!"

The man addressed as captain stood on a narrow beam less than a meter wide, continuously laying down suppressing fire with his submachine gun to drive back the surging aliens. Corpses tumbled one after another from the heights.

At his feet, spent shell casings had already piled into a small mound.

Once he confirmed the final group of teammates had reached the safe zone, he pulled nano-bombs from his tactical vest and placed them with precision beside the oil drums.

A massive explosion from the oil tanks followed. The mushroom-shaped blast wave swept outward indiscriminately, its power overwhelming.

Every member of the team was thrown several meters away; their eardrums rang with a continuous buzz.

One teammate quickly scrambled out of the sand and injected regenerative serum into the earlier injured and unconscious sentinel to prevent hemorrhagic shock.

"Captain, all members have safely withdrawn. One severe injury, four light injuries. Report complete."

No fatalities was good news, yet none of them could feel any joy. A massive shadow hung over everyone’s heads.

They had come here to rescue their guide.

This squad from the West One had lost their guide during a cleanup operation three days earlier. Tracking data showed the aliens had not eaten her; instead, they had carried her all the way back to this nest.

A guide’s flesh was a great tonic for a queen-type alien. It intended to keep her and consume her before the next mating and egg-laying cycle.

But the difficulty of this nest far exceeded their expectations.

This was already their third attempt to break through.

The purple-haired captain remained silent for a full two minutes before standing up and issuing new orders:

"The entire team will rest and reorganize immediately. We launch the fourth breakout after dark."

The moment the words left his mouth, a red-haired sentinel tore off his helmet and refused outright:

"Fuck this! I almost died three times already. Are you trying to lead everyone to their deaths?!"

A nest of this scale was simply not something they could handle easily—unless they were all prepared to die.

Moreover, the contamination level here severely exceeded the safety threshold. Without a guide constructing a mental barrier, a sentinel’s spiritual sea would suffer serious erosion after more than three hours.

The red-haired sentinel was a relatively new member of the West One and naturally felt little deep attachment to the others.

Besides, it wasn’t even his own guide.

Although the remaining members said nothing, their attitude of simply standing by already said everything.

Only the captain and a few of the older members insisted on continuing the rescue.

Internal conflict within the team had already intensified; two camps had split apart with a clear rift.

The purple-haired captain’s knuckles turned white beneath his tactical gloves. After drawing a deep breath, he said, "Those who don’t want to go—I won’t force you. You may return to the tower at any time."

Even if it cost him his life, he would get her out.

Several members left one after another. On the desolate wasteland, only five people—including the captain—soon remained.

A hand settled on the captain’s shoulder. "Hilan, maybe we can request help from the District 616’s sentinel squad."

Hilan froze for a moment and looked at his friend.

"This place is already the border of the District 616. It falls under their jurisdiction."

Therefore, this nest should also be one of their cleanup targets.

Hilan shook his head. "No. They won’t help us."

He had heard of that particular sentinel squad from the District 616. Every one of them possessed top-tier individual combat ability, yet their temperaments were extremely eccentric.

They never interfered in the affairs of other zones, and each of them was rather mad—difficult to communicate with.

Anything that brought them no benefit was something they would absolutely refuse to do.

His friend looked at him deeply. "Then what about Lily?"

At the mention of his lover’s name, Hilan’s heart twisted sharply with pain.

He was truly a useless piece of trash!

"Let’s go beg them, all right?"

Hilan stared blankly in the direction of the oil refinery for a long time before finally giving a hoarse answer:

"All right."