A pond of water lilies, all sounds fall silent here

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Deep within the swamp, the air was saturated with a heavy mist, and eerie, heavy breathing sounds echoed around it.

The rainforest had completely lost its original topography. An Yu crouched low, his eyes slowly scanning the objects caked in sludge.

It was impossible to distinguish flora from fauna; everything resembled a succession of ghostly shadows.

A sudden gust of wind whipped from behind.

His pupils contracted instantly, and in a flash, he appeared several meters away, evading the vicious strike.

The mud whip slammed into the swamp, sending black mire splattering in all directions.

A droplet of swamp mud struck his face, rapidly flattening and spreading as if to completely encase his head.

An Yu remained expressionless.

A moment later, the black mud crumbled silently and vanished from his skin, just like the gluttonous aberrants he had encountered in the past.

Massive wings fanned away the damp fog, and a familiar scent of leather enveloped him.

Qin Zhilu extended his wings, pulling him from the distance into his embrace. He said in a low voice, “Be careful.”

“It can’t swallow me, sir.”

“You will still get hurt if you are hit,” Qin Zhilu replied. “You’ve never used the flight stabilizers properly. Stay inside the wings.”

“Alright.”

An Yu complied, allowing the jet-black wings to curl around him, forming a protective barrier. Gripping the smooth, orderly flight feathers, he looked out at the mud whip that had plunged back into the swamp.

It differed slightly from Lumen’s previous description; some of these mud whips were bristling with sharp thorns, and thick Black Roses were blossoming furiously upon them.

In the blink of an eye, the swamp mud surged to submerge the roses, yet a moment later, the roses broke through the mire once more, only to be covered again.

One waned as the other waxed in a perpetual, cyclical struggle.

A violent cracking sound erupted not far away. One mud whip violently lashed and snapped another. Several rose petals shattered into the air, slowly sinking into the swamp with an arrogance typical of a victor.

Qin Zhilu took in the entire scene, contemplating, “The mud whips are repeatedly shifting forms between sludge and rose branches. When that object struck at us, it was in sludge form. But interestingly, the rose form has been continuously attacking the opposition.”

Though he used the word “interesting,” his dark eyes remained icy and detached.

“Commander Flame is vying for dominance against the Black Goat. The Black Goat wishes to achieve total fusion with Commander Flame, while Commander Flame is frantically executing those sections of the Black Goat,” An Yu said softly, lowering his eyes. “You’re right. This is a complete reenactment of the dilemma Ling Qiu faced in District 53.” 💬

The flight feathers brushed lightly against his palm. Sensing Qin Zhilu’s silent reassurance, An Yu added, “The mist is too thick. I don’t know where Sleep and Lumen are right now.”

It was impossible to establish any signal within the swamp; even the tactical squad channel had ceased to function.

Before deployment, they had located the Black Goat based on energy fluctuations.

Yet the moment they descended into the fog, before they could discern the massive entity in the distance, they were assaulted by a frantic offensive of mud whip and the group had been scattered in the chaos.

Qin Zhilu knit his brows. “Sleep is a highly mature Protector. I am only worried that Lumen will suffer a psychological breakdown.”

“This thing is indeed a fusion of the Commander and the Black Goat.”

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A short distance away, Lumen watched the final rose petal submerge into the slough, murmuring, “Jin Xuyan…”

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They were gradually closing in on the Black Goat. Sleep’s latent aberrant gene was the water lily, and the seeds she dispersed could isolate the sludge. Even so, the journey remained grueling; Lumen’s leopard-form claws were nearly worn flat by the onslaught of mud whips.

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Before Lumen arrived at the spire, Sleep had seen Jin Xuyan browsing through videos of his performances.

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She still recalled her astonishment upon first seeing Lumen’s performance—the superstar clad in red, magnificent and dazzlingly radiant. That was indeed a light impossible to bury.

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“Heh.” Lumen let out a laugh, murmuring, “Otherwise, how would he know I’ve come back?”

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Yet it was this very rebellious nature that drove him to attempt running back to the swamp countless times over the past two months.

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Sleep was an orphan with a mercenary background; she was entirely unversed in deciphering human sincerity.

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“Then don’t eradicate it,” Lumen said flatly.

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The viscous sound of flowing sludge grew piercingly loud. Those cryptic, damp gasps of breath felt as though they were pressed against their ears, making their hair stand on end.

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The further they advanced in the direction he led, the more savage the onslaught of mud whips became, far more troublesome than when they had first descended.

An endless acoustic frequency diffused from beneath Lumen’s raised collar.

The disrupted mud whips flailed erratically in the air, lashing and sending sludge flying across the sky.

He darted rapidly through the array of mud.

The flying mire slashed his garments into tattered shreds, and fresh blood from his wounds mingled with the sludge.

His terminal toggled repeatedly between dual alerts signaling drastic drops in mental stability and survival vitals.

Yet he remained indifferent. Instead, he pulled the terminal from his pocket and threw it downward with a clean, decisive motion.

The device plunged into the swamp, sinking

Sleep remembered Lumen’s terminal. It had been personally customized by Flame on the day Lumen first arrived at the Spire. On the back of the device, a tiny blood sparrow was inlaid with a mosaic of rubies.

All of his equipment came from Flame’s specialized customization, expensive to an outrageous degree.

Yet he had always sneered at it.

Even now, he merely watched coldly as the terminal was swallowed by the sludge, showing no sign of heartache.

Yet, for some reason, Sleep felt as though her own heart had been struck heavily.

The offensive from the mud whips was too frenzied; it was difficult for her to close the distance to Lumen. Otherwise, she truly wanted to tell him: You can actually just say it out loud.

Tell those around you that you are worried about him, that you want him to come back. Speaking it aloud will make you feel much better.

Sleep was watching him when Lumen suddenly turned his gaze toward her, shouting at the top of his lungs, “Look out!”

A frantic torrent of whispering suddenly forced its way into her ears. Sleep’s brain buzzed, falling into a state of muddled confusion for a split second. She instinctively assumed she was being controlled by the Black Goat, but she saw Lumen staring intently in her direction, the lips beneath his collar moving rapidly. Immediately following, a dense pattern of splattering sounds echoed from behind her, resembling boiling volcanic magma on the verge of erupting.

Her mind finally cleared, and she spun around abruptly. Mud whips stood in a dense forest behind her. Though disrupted by Lumen’s frequency, they still maintained a frantic posture, poised to surge forward and swallow her whole.

How could there be so many!

Sleep dodged instantly as a barrage of lotus seeds erupted from her hair and skin, batting away the mud whips. Her body spun mid-air, but from the corner of her eye, she saw a tidal wave of mud whips, far denser than the ones behind her, surging from all directions toward Lumen.

Lumen looked like a sparrow flying into a wildfire; even though he had grown sharp talons, he was utterly helpless beneath the overwhelming waves.

Countless layers of pitch-black whip shadows loomed overhead, yet Lumen lowered his transformed claws.

He was a pragmatist, a man who knew how to read the room, and he knew there was no dodging this blow.

He looked up at the encroaching mud whips, picked out the ones sprouting wild rose briars, and tilted his lips into a smile.

This was the first time Sleep had ever seen Lumen show a genuine smile. Her movements nearly ground to a halt because, for a split second, she suddenly understood Jin Xuyan’s obsession.

The Commander must have seen him smile sincerely like this, even if it was a long time ago, she thought. This man was simply too beautiful; his usual cold detachment made this fleeting, epiphyllum-like smile all the more striking to the heart, unforgettable at first sight.

Several wild rose buds fought their way out of the black mud, violently lashing at the surrounding mud whips as if trying to protect Lumen.

But there were too many whips, and the roses soon withered and plummeted.

Lumen reached out, and a petal swirling in the air fell into his palm.

He closed his hand, and a tear splashed onto his finger without warning.

Even he himself was momentarily dazed.

He had never imagined he would ever shed a tear for Jin Xuyan.