Chapter 29: After the Thunder, They Said, “Okay.”…

The rain grew heavier, thunder rumbled, and flashes of lightning illuminated the distant horizon, momentarily turning everything as bright as day.

Beneath a platform along the Kanagawa Defense Chain, a small boat bobbed precariously on the surging waves. Dian Zhu was struggling to row the vessel toward the shore.

Liu Ming had followed the trail of bamboo leaves to the platform. Arriving just in time to see Dian Zhu’s desperate struggle, he quickly tossed down a rope from the side of the platform and hauled her into the windbreak zone.

“Phew… you’re certainly a man of your word. If I hadn’t seen you the moment I got here, I swear I would have let myself and this little boat flip right into the sea.”

Dian Zhu climbed the rope ladder dangling from the edge of the platform with someone strapped to her back. With a final, grueling effort, she swung herself and her passenger onto the deck. “Damn, that was hard to find! Izayoi Ame really knows how to hide people. It took me forever to track her down. This girl wasn’t easy to get to-“

Once she had safely unstrapped the person from her back, Dian Zhu collapsed onto the ground, completely disregarding her image. She was clearly exhausted. Liu Ming remarked, “I’ll give you a bonus for the extra performance. Now stop playing dead; we have business to attend to.”

Dian Zhu’s face instantly lit up with a grin. “Who do you think I am? Even if Izayoi Ame hid her personally, I’d still find her. It was nothing! Don’t worry, she’ll wake up in a bit. I did some basic guiding for her; Izayoi Ame’s little tricks are nothing to me.”

Dian Zhu snapped her fingers. She, too, was a Guide.

This was one of the reasons she and Liu Ming got along so well. Truly excellent Guides were rare, and in a world plagued by frequent Anomalies, Guides tended to cherish their own kind.

Kraken, Yun Zhou, and Ying Huo all crowded around anxiously. Kraken didn’t even care about her dress as she knelt directly on the ground. “Sister-“

Du Shui’s consciousness was still hazy, but she was clearly able to see her surroundings and perform simple thoughts. She opened her eyes, and for a fleeting moment, it felt as if she were looking at another version of herself. But then, hearing that heart-wrenching cry of “Sister” that seemed to bridge the gap of several years, her eyes snapped wide.

Those eyes were not normal; one was blue, the other red. Du Shui’s hands trembled as she covered the eye that had turned blood-red, as if she could feel a vortex of memories tearing and pulling at her mind.

Her blue eye flickered incessantly between blue and crimson. Kraken watched her suffering sister in a daze, unable to understand why a simple reunion was causing her so much pain.

“Sister… take your blade and kill me, okay? If you kill me, the pain will stop…”

Kraken gripped Du Shui’s hand tightly. As she watched her sister’s eyes shifting colors, she realized the reason behind it.

The laboratory hadn’t let Du Shui go without reason. They had installed a worst-case experimental fail-safe: the residual spiritual power of Umizuki no Mikoto within Du Shui’s Mental Landscape. If Kraken and Umizuki no Mikoto were ever to reunite, this fail-safe would ensure everything proceeded according to their plan.

Even though they had failed once before, the Izayoi Family had no intention of letting these two ill-fated sisters go.

This was clearly why Izayoi Ame had taken it upon himself to send Du Shui away-to prevent them from meeting.

“Dian Zhu…”

Liu Ming looked over at Dian Zhu, who was still stretching her tired limbs. He watched her with a touch of softness and uncertainty. The latter let out a long sigh. “Extra guiding costs more. Fine, Master Liu, I’ll help you.”

“But let me be clear,” Dian Zhu said, her expression turning serious as she looked at Liu Ming. “That is the residual spiritual power of Umizuki no Mikoto-a Sentinel on the level of Chairperson Black Swan. You’d better be careful not to get torn to shreds. After all, there can only be one primary Guide; I can only assist you from the outside.”

“Don’t worry. The Liu Family never lets its allies down regarding the profits they’ve earned, let alone themselves. I won’t gamble with my life unless the stakes are high enough.”

Liu Ming smiled. He didn’t give Dian Zhu a direct answer. Instead, he knelt before Du Shui and, just as he had done during her previous spiritual guidance, reached out his hand without hesitation.

Sensing the Guide’s aura, Kraken quickly stepped back to give Liu Ming the space he needed.

Fine, silver-blue threads rapidly spread through the air, fluttering gently in the sea breeze and growing faint as they drifted into the wind.

Dian Zhu sighed again. She had never met someone who made it so unpleasant to take their money. Seeing that Master Liu was too preoccupied to talk and had already begun the guiding process, she quickly summoned her own Spiritual Body.

A charming, cuddly giant panda appeared beside her, accompanied by the fresh scent of bamboo.

Her spiritual power manifested as swirling bamboo leaves, carrying a refreshing aura that made the surrounding Sentinels feel as if they were standing in a clean, invigorating bamboo forest after a rain.

Yun Zhou glanced at Liu Ming, then whispered a secret thought to Ying Huo. “Wow, this Senior’s spiritual power feels way more comfortable than Liu Ming’s.”

At the thought of Liu Ming’s terrifyingly cold spiritual power, Yun Zhou couldn’t help but shiver.

Ying Huo: …As much as I dislike Liu Ming, is this really the time to talk about the ‘user experience’ of spiritual guidance? If Liu Ming hits you later, I honestly won’t have a reason to stop him.

Liu Ming, who had just entered the guiding state: …I told you, I’m a mental type. I can hear you. Can you two stop talking like there’s no one else here?

He shot a fierce glare at Yun Zhou and Ying Huo, who both immediately stood at attention and shut up.

Liu Ming exhaled, immersing himself fully into Du Shui’s spiritual guidance.

Of course, he had his own selfish motives.

Under the control of the Plot Strings, Du Shui would lose her consciousness in the struggle against Umizuki no Mikoto’s spiritual power, becoming nothing more than that powerful, cold-blooded Sentinel of the past. But without the control of the Plot Strings…

Liu Ming took a deep breath. He didn’t believe that Du Shui-who had possessed the willpower to endure until now by relying on the searing heat of Ying Huo’s flames-would be unable to overcome the spiritual power of Umizuki no Mikoto.

Liu Ming faked a couple of coughs, pretending to be struck by Du Shui’s mental energy, and let his body tilt precariously.

“Liu Ming! How are you? Are you alright?”

Yun Zhou and Ying Huo were startled. They rushed over to help, but hesitated, terrified that they might only make things worse.

【Misunderstanding Points: +100】

As the two moved, t231’s notification chimed. Liu Ming had finally gathered the last bit of mental energy required to strip the Plot Strings from a character.

He immediately waved them off, a flash of annoyance deep in his red eyes: Back off. I’ve got the Misunderstanding Points I need; don’t come over here and mess things up.

【Do you wish to use all Misunderstanding Points to remove the Plot Strings from the important character “Du Shui”?】

Liu Ming clicked confirm.

Almost simultaneously, he shouted, “Du Shui! Wake up! Find my threads, follow my lead!”

Silver-blue threads instantly wrapped tightly around Du Shui. Her eyes snapped open, and within that eye that had turned completely blood-red, a faint blue ripple stirred.

Liu Ming gritted his teeth, slowly adjusting the movement of those silver-blue threads. He actually felt like coughing now; the metallic taste of blood was rising in his throat, and his fingertips, entwined with the threads, were trembling. However, he could not afford a single mistake.

The lingering threads were beginning to turn blood-red, eroded by the residual mental energy of Umizuki no Mikoto.

That red hue spread rapidly along the threads. The resulting mental pressure directly overpowered the guidance that Liu Ming and Dian Zhu were struggling to maintain. Dian Zhu could only watch as her bamboo leaves, suspended in mid-air, began to crack and shatter inch by inch.

Liu Ming felt an indescribable, piercing pain surge through the threads composed of his mental energy. It shot through his nerves like an electric current. Seeing the red about to rush along the threads toward Dian Zhu’s bamboo leaves, he had no time to stop it normally. He chose to directly sever several silver-blue threads connected to Dian Zhu’s mental energy.

“Liu Ming!”

No one present expected him to sever his own mental energy threads. They cried out in shock and worry at the sight.

“Cough, cough-“

Liu Ming couldn’t hold it back any longer. He finally coughed, and the blood in his throat spilled uncontrollably from the corner of his mouth. He wiped the stains away with difficulty. Du Shui’s condition required a Guide’s stabilization every second, so he continued to pour his mental energy into the crumbling threads.

Dian Zhu had been knocked back by the sudden surge of Umizuki no Mikoto’s mental energy. She had no doubt that if that blood-red corruption had reached her own mental energy, she would have been instantly backlashed by that frenzied Sentinel power and turned into an idiot.

Aside from a Liu Family Guide, known as the strongest of the mental types, no Guide could emerge unscathed from power that nearly rivaled Chairperson Black Swan.

And Liu Ming had severed his own threads just to save her.

Dian Zhu looked at the swaying Liu Ming, who was clearly holding on through sheer willpower. She bit her lip and pulled out her phone to dial a number she would never normally call.

“…What is it? Have you decided-“

The call connected quickly. The person on the other end seemed to be in a very quiet, specialized location; there was no background noise, only a clear, lazy male voice.

“Master, Master! Teacher! Yuga! Yuga Tesla! What do I do? How do we deal with the residual mental energy left by Umizuki no Mikoto? It’s an absolute emergency!”

Dian Zhu started at full throttle, nearly startling the man on the other end. “What? What’s going on? You’ve made your decision? Also, my name is Yuga Tras…”

“Fine, Master Tesla, just tell me how to solve the residual mental energy of Umizuki no Mikoto that those lunatics from the Izayoi Family cooked up-“

The man on the other end sighed, sounding like he was out of options. “Is it progressing this fast? Fine… in a moment, a ninja following the Great Elder will come to ambush you. Just block him.”

The man paused. “As long as no one interrupts the process, with Liu Ming’s… presence, Du Shui can endure it on her own.”

Dian Zhu was skeptical. “Really?”

Before her voice even faded, she looked up and locked eyes with a dark figure lurking in the surging waves.

The ninja intending to ambush them: …

Dian Zhu: …

“Master, hanging up now! I think I see the ninja you mentioned. Here goes!”

Before the ninja could even climb out of the sea, he was blasted onto the platform by three bursts of mental energy.

Before he could even stand, he was pinned to the ground by Yun Zhou’s golden wind, unable to move.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Ying Huo’s face was cold as he knelt down and tapped the ninja’s neck with a dagger. “Can’t you see someone is performing a mental stabilization?”

“Exactly, exactly!” Yun Zhou shouted from behind Ying Huo, looking very much like a fox flaunting the tiger’s might.

Both were top-tier Sentinels from Tree Tower Academy. The moment Dian Zhu pointed out the ninja’s presence, they had sensed the killing intent. They had worked together to flip the ninja, who thought he was perfectly hidden in the sea, right onto the platform.

The ninja was still in a state of daze. He didn’t know what had happened; he had just opened his eyes to find himself on the platform for some reason. But instinct told him his current task was to stop Liu Ming from completing the mental stabilization on Du Shui.

He lunged forward-

And then collapsed face-first onto the ground due to a sharp pain in his brain.

Dian Zhu smiled like a villain. “Do you really not know… how you were exposed? Did you not see there’s another Guide right here?!”

Yun Zhou stepped on the back of the ninja, who had been knocked unconscious by the Guide’s mental attack, and bound him tightly with Flowing Wind. He didn’t forget to give Dian Zhu a thumbs-up.

“Sister?”

Kraken’s call drew everyone’s attention back to Du Shui and Liu Ming. The threads that had been dyed red snapped inch by inch, dissolving in the air, but Du Shui’s eyes had returned to normal.

They were no longer an abnormal blood-red, but a natural blue, with only a tiny speck of red remaining in the center of her pupils.

She appeared to have fully regained consciousness, though she remained weak for some reason. She was leaning against Kraken, who supported her with a light, steadying arm.

Ying Huo and Yun Zhou breathed a sigh of relief seeing that Du Shui was alright. They quickly turned to look at Liu Ming, who had already stood up on his own. “Liu Ming? What about you?”

Liu Ming took a deep breath. “It was just a simple mental guidance session. How could it possibly affect a top-tier Guide like me—cough, cough—”

Yun Zhou’s lips twitched. He and Ying Huo rushed over, each grabbing one side of the swaying, stubborn Liu Ming to prop him up. “Young Master, I’m begging you, just stop talking.”

Ying Huo keenly spotted traces of blood at the corner of Liu Ming’s mouth. “If you talk less, you’ll spit up less blood. Let me give you some treatment—”

Bright yellow flames flickered at his fingertips. Without waiting for a reaction, he pressed his hand toward Liu Ming’s chest, giving the other man a fright. “Cough—wait! Hey, wait! This is an injury to my Mental Landscape! Physical healing won’t work!”

He hadn’t forgotten Ying Huo’s specialty—while those bright yellow flames could accelerate the recovery of physical wounds, the price was excruciating pain. Even a Sentinel with a powerful physique like Du Shui had been burned to the point of agony by Ying Huo. A physically weak Guide like him would surely die from the shock!

“…Really?”

Ying Huo gave him a suspicious look. Liu Ming, who had seemed drained of strength moments ago, yanked his hand out of Ying Huo’s grasp and hurriedly retreated a few steps to lean against the railing.

Seeing his genuine resistance, and noting that while his face was pale, his spirit seemed decent enough, Ying Huo didn’t press the matter.

“Really.” Liu Ming coughed a few more times, suppressing the metallic taste of blood in his throat. He looked toward the embracing sisters with a complex expression. “Besides, I didn’t actually take much of a mental hit from Umizuki no Mikoto… someone blocked it for me…”

He closed his eyes.

“Kraken—you—”

Du Shui’s panicked voice rang out from the side. She had just managed to sort out her own existence from the fragments of her erased memories and regain consciousness, only to see Kraken’s form beginning to turn transparent as she held her.

Kraken’s body was breaking down—her physical shell had been destroyed in that laboratory accident years ago. Currently, she was operating entirely as a Spiritual Body.

But now… Kraken could no longer even maintain the form of a Spiritual Body.

Du Shui reached out with trembling hands to touch her, only to find her fingertips passing uselessly through Kraken’s body.

The girl’s form was irreversibly shattering into fragments of sea spray. The edges were tinged with a distorted crimson, looking like blood constantly seeping from her body.

“It’s so good… that I could see you one more time… and say a few words to you…”

Kraken was cradled almost entirely in Du Shui’s arms. She leaned her head gently against Du Shui’s collar, just like they had done every night when they relied on each other in that cold, pale laboratory.

“Is it already irreversible? Is there really no way to stop you from fading away?”

Du Shui’s voice shook violently. She forced herself to maintain her composure, trying to use her rational mind to control her soul, to analyze, to find another way—but tears still fell uncontrollably from the corners of her eyes.

Those crystal-clear droplets were just like her powerless fingers; they passed right through Kraken’s dissolving body, leaving behind ripples of blood-red light.

“Y008 has already awakened. As its consciousness, I wasn’t supposed to be here at all…”

Kraken, however, smiled happily. She raised a hand that was on the verge of vanishing and gently brushed at the corner of Du Shui’s eye. But just as Du Shui could not touch her body, she could not touch the tears on Du Shui’s face.

“I’m already very happy. To be able to return to that monster by fading away while helping Sister, rather than being killed by Sister’s own hands twice…”

“But…” Kraken’s voice grew tinged with regret. Every word she spoke trembled, as if the effort itself could change something.

“It really is a shame that I couldn’t wipe away Sister’s tears.”

Just before she vanished completely, Kraken used all her strength to lunge toward Du Shui. The shattering of her body accelerated instantly. Du Shui’s eyes widened, and her arms instinctively wrapped around the empty space. One red and one blue jellyfish circled the two of them, sending ripples of sorrow through the air.

“Sister,”

Kraken held Du Shui tightly, even though she could no longer feel a single inch of her. She leaned in and whispered a final request into her ear.

“Kill Y008 Kraken. Do not show any mercy.”

This was the final testament she could leave behind as herself.

As the words fell, the girl’s Spiritual Body collapsed rapidly, disintegrating into beautiful sprays of sea foam. It looked like festive metallic confetti scattered into the air, drifting away like glass on the sea breeze.

The hem of her clothes broke away first, then her long hair vanished into the wind. Until the very end, all Du Shui could see was her smile.

Brilliant, innocent, and youthful—the same smile from when they first met in the laboratory.

“Sayonara.”

In that moment, countless waves surged and burst in the air. Beautiful fragments of spiritual power followed the wind, gently brushing against the hem of Du Shui’s skirt. One last speck of light slid slowly past with a lingering touch, as if reluctant to leave.

Du Shui reached out and caught that fragment of light and spray. She pressed her hands together over her heart and softly recited a waka poem¹. But when she opened her fingers, there was nothing in her palm.

The girl was gone, returned to the consciousness of the giant monster on the horizon.

Nothing remained. Not even a cluster of sea spray.

“Du Shui…”

Yun Zhou spoke tentatively. Du Shui turned around, no longer staring at the churning seawater. She took a deep breath, as if she had reached a decision.

“Captain, let’s go.”

Unexpectedly, the tears on Du Shui’s face had already dried. She had regained her usual poise and calm. Her gaze fell upon the massive, monstrous shadow at the edge of the sea.

“Let’s go kill Y008.”

She tightened her grip on the umbrella’s handle. The tachi hidden within the frame gave a faint, shimmering glow, reacting to its master’s rising fury.

Ying Huo opened his mouth to say more, but a thunderous boom drowned him out. A massive bolt of lightning tore across the sky like a jagged serpent, followed by an even more violent deluge of rain.

In that fleeting moment when the lightning illuminated the sea, Du Shui turned her head, letting the flash wash over her features.

Those blue eyes, now stripped of their blood-red tint, were filled with an absolute, unwavering resolve that bordered on madness.

“Fine.”

And so they spoke.

Translator’s Notes