Chapter 81: Colors

They always said human lips were red.

Rain felt that sudden, familiar urge to sneak a kiss again.

Having finished soothing his spiritual threads, Bunny waded deeper into his mental sea, the water gradually rising past her ankles and up to her calves.

Rain’s spirit animal—a black-and-white killer whale—was swimming back and forth in the distance, showing only its dorsal fin as it periodically surfaced, watching her every move with its tiny eyes.

A couple of minutes later, it shrank in size and swam over, using its snout to nudge her toes under the water while making squeaky killer-whale noises, as if offering a friendly greeting.

Bunny crouched down and stroked its smooth, rubbery skin. It quickly darted off, churning up wave after wave for her—its personal idea of fun.

Bunny pressed deeper into the domain while the killer whale tagged along behind her. She kept walking until she arrived at the boundary of his mental sea, where a vast, void-like expanse of white stretched across the distance.

She was right at the precipice of Rain’s core mental portrait.

Taking a deep breath, Bunny plunged straight into the blinding white light.

A Sentinel’s mental portrait serves as a direct mirror of their subconscious, much like Tyr’s inner demon memories. Yet she saw nothing at first—just a void world composed entirely of black, white, and gray.

Bunny extended her spiritual threads, attempting to blend them into Rain’s mental portrait. Everything went remarkably smoothly.

Once she reached an 80% fusion rate, she immediately called a halt. Hitting 100% meant triggering a permanent spiritual bond.

Now, all she needed to do was reinforce the connection and back out safely.

However, disaster struck.

The quiet water beneath Bunny’s feet began to ripple violently. Across the mirror-like surface of the lake, a series of distorted, overlapping memories began to surface:

"Why are you doing this?!"

"Rain, I’m just trying to stay alive... Don’t hate me. Out of the two of us today, only one gets to walk away!"

Without a second thought, a man drove a combat knife deep into Rain’s thigh—leaving the already wounded, struggling Sentinel completely robbed of any chance to escape.

Deep inside the pitch-black cavern behind Rain, countless alien organisms were swarming and scuttling along the rocky walls.

Mirrored in the depths of Rain’s pupils was the cold, indifferent back of his brother leaving him behind. Below him, his own blood had pooled into a crimson lake. He could clearly feel his life force ebbing away second by second.

As the shadow of death drew inexorably closer, Rain closed his eyes in pure despair.

The memory snapped to an abrupt halt—because Rain had just realized that Bunny was probing into his darkest secret!

The boundaries of his mental portrait shrank and twisted violently. Losing her balance, Bunny collapsed onto the ground. Rain’s mental threads surged and boiled instantly into a frenzy. She had no choice but to pull out of his mental world immediately to prevent triggering an even more dangerous counter-reaction.

When Bunny snapped her eyes open, Rain was glaring down at her with ferocious, deadly coldness.

In his mind, Bunny had deliberately breached his mental portrait out of malicious curiosity—just like those Guides who pried into a Sentinel’s secrets to satisfy a twisted thrill or derive pleasure from picking at old scars.

This was Rain’s absolute red line.

"Why did you do that?! Why?!"

His voice was rasping and low, entirely stripped of its previous gentleness. Though he exerted every ounce of willpower to prevent his wild, thrashing mental threads from injuring her, the overwhelming psychic storm still threw Bunny back several meters.

A 3S-rank Sentinel in full backlash was nothing short of terrifying.

Bunny had never faced an ordeal like this before; her miscalculation had backfired completely.

She desperately tried to soothe the agitated Sentinel. "Rain, listen to my excuse—I mean, my explanation—"

Rain thrashed violently against his restraint gear, his entire aura locked into a state of extreme aggression.

Sensing the Sentinel slipping out of control, the shock collar discharged an ultra-high voltage of over ten thousand volts to force him into submission. Rain crumpled to the floor in agony, muffled groans tearing from his throat.

Brutal, swollen red and purple welts immediately bruised around his neck. Bunny was horrified—if this kept going, he was going to die.

Overridden by panic, she cut off the electrical discharge. Yet she never anticipated that in that split-second opening, Rain would spring forward like lightning, pinning her firmly to the floor beneath him.

He slammed his forehead against hers, his feral, vicious eyes looking ready to tear her to shreds.

"What did you see?!"

Her wrists were gripped so hard it burned; the crushing pressure felt as though it would shatter her bones to splinters!

Attempting a deep-level connection without first forging a bedrock of mutual trust with a Sentinel was nothing short of a high-stakes gamble.

Liam had succeeded, giving Bunny the false impression that she could pull off the same thing with Rain.

Rain refused to believe Bunny had entered his mental portrait to bind with him. To a Guide who had known him for barely half a month, that idea was absurd.

He knew Bunny wasn’t a reckless or shallow woman. Otherwise, she would have already slept with Xander. Anyone with eyes could see that among all the Sentinels, Xander was the one she liked and felt most comfortable around right now.

Even Liam, who had already bound with her, couldn’t match Xander’s standing.

So was this truly just to satisfy her own malicious, perverse curiosity?

Bunny had given him the nutcracker figurine before, and her previous cleansing was so delicate and gentle—that was what had made Rain believe she was a Guide worth opening up to.

In all her time here, Bunny had never witnessed a Sentinel lose control in such a violent, terrifying manner. Even Astin’s malicious threats paled in comparison to the horror of Rain’s current fury.

She was frightened out of her wits, tears bursting forth uncontrolled.

"I... I just wanted you to see... to see colors..."

Her chest heaved violently from sheer terror as she sobbed uncontrollably, tears and runny nose smearing together like a messy dumpling, her nose and eyes flushed bright red.

"I didn’t mean to pry into that..."

Rain stared down at her icily, waiting to hear what flimsy lie she would construct to deceive him. If she dared to lie, he would ensure she paid the ultimate price.

Yet the fused mental link was already active. Bunny ignited her spiritual threads, instantly synchronizing their deep consciousness.

Rain blinked in shock. The rich colors reflected and dispersed through Bunny’s eyes began to wash into Rain’s world bit by bit.

His stark, monochrome world was being filled and painted over, stroke by stroke, with shades he had never witnessed in his entire life. It was as if a master brush were sketching and coloring a vibrant oil painting crafted exclusively for him.

Beyond the real world, Rain glimpsed things through Bunny’s mind that he had never seen before: A bright blue sky, fluffy white clouds, an emerald green lake, and a vast, azure ocean.

In a flash, the scenery shifted. He found himself standing amidst a sprawling field of swaying lavender. He saw turning windmills, radiant twilight rays, floating flower petals...

And standing in the middle of that sea of purple blossoms—her dress dancing in the breeze, her long hair floating freely, looking breathtakingly beautiful—was her.