The Beloved Guide Was Forced in a Love-Rival Shura Field - Chapter 18

Huo Ze’s visit was like a stone thrown into a deep pool—on the surface everything seemed calm, but beneath the water, fierce undercurrents surged.

From that day on, Xiao Lin’s protection and possessiveness over Ning Ning rose to a suffocating level. He practically wanted to tie Ning Ning to his belt twenty-four hours a day, cutting him off from every probing gaze, crushing every possible risk—even if it was just one in ten thousand—in its cradle.

The academy soon organized a wilderness survival competition, set on Alpha-7 Simulated Ecological Planet, right next to the capital.

Normally, Ning Ning wasn’t even listed to participate in such high-intensity activities. But he was going stir-crazy in his dorm room, and when he saw his roommate Lin Yuan enthusiastically preparing survival gear, his heart itched with envy.

“I want to go too…” he whispered to Xiao Lin, those beautiful violet eyes brimming with longing.

Xiao Lin looked at that pitiful face, and his heart instantly softened—he simply couldn’t bring himself to say no.

In the end, he allowed Ning Ning to join the safest logistics group, responsible only for guarding and distributing supplies. Even then, Xiao Lin secretly deployed two elite sentinel squads around the field perimeter, and directly connected the command center’s top-level surveillance feed into his personal terminal.

Wherever that slender figure went, Xiao Lin’s eyes followed.

By the second day of the match, disaster struck.

The “Dagger” squad, led by S-rank sentinel Lu Ming, accidentally entered the den of a high-tier star beast—the Shadow Panther—deep within a canyon.

A fierce battle broke out. To cover his teammates’ retreat, Lu Ming forcefully overextended his spiritual power far beyond his body’s limits. Though he eventually killed the Shadow Panther, his own spiritual sea fell into complete disarray, triggering the most terrifying state of all—bonding heat.

Bonding heat was the ultimate form of a sentinel’s loss of control—a spiritual tsunami that instantly devoured rationality.

Now, Lu Ming was no longer a man, but a beast driven by pure instinct.

His eyes blazed red. Violent energy poured off him in visible waves, scorching the ground beneath his feet. His breathing was heavy, ragged, like a broken bellows, every exhale a blast of searing heat. His powerful body bulged with corded muscle, veins rising under his skin. A suffocating aura of destruction poured off him.

“Fall back! All guides, fall back immediately!”

The guides who rushed over barely got within a hundred meters before that berserk S-rank spiritual pressure slammed into them. Their faces went pale, skulls splitting with pain—they couldn’t even form a proper spiritual link, much less soothe him.

They could only watch helplessly as Lu Ming rampaged like a trapped beast, roaring, smashing his fists into the earth with bone-crushing force.

At this rate, within ten minutes his spiritual sea would collapse entirely—at best leaving him a spiritual cripple, at worst killing him on the spot.

The command center’s air was heavy as iron. Every screen locked onto Lu Ming’s location.

“Prepare for forced intervention. Tranquilizer rounds, ready.”

Xiao Lin’s face was ashen, the pressure around him terrifyingly low. Just as he issued the order, his peripheral vision caught a glimpse of a small figure running from the logistics camp toward the canyon.

It was Ning Ning.

Xiao Lin’s heart clenched violently.

Ning Ning had no idea what awaited ahead. He’d just received a message that someone in the Dagger squad was injured and urgently needed advanced repair spray.

Clutching a little first-aid kit, he hurried over, still naively thinking maybe someone had been scratched by a beast’s claws.

But when he rounded a massive boulder, the scene froze him where he stood.

He collided with the eyes of a beast.

They burned with madness and destruction, scarlet through and through—bereft of the slightest shred of human reason.

At the same instant, Lu Ming’s movements halted. His head snapped toward Ning Ning, and his beastly instincts caught a scent.

A scent that made his raging soul tremble with both desire and fear.

It was pure, sweet—like the sole oasis a desert traveler stumbled upon. The only thing that could save him from his infernal blaze.

“ROAR—!!”

Lu Ming unleashed an inhuman bellow, pure beastly fury. His massive body turned into a black lightning bolt, barreling toward the source of that fatal temptation—Ning Ning.

Time seemed to stretch thin.

Distant screams echoed, but Ning Ning heard nothing.

A freezing terror surged from his toes to his crown. He even forgot to run. His violet eyes reflected Lu Ming’s twisted, feral face, his own delicate features drained of blood—like a fragile flower moments from being shredded by a storm.

Clatter.

The first-aid kit fell from his arms, vials scattering across the ground.

Just when everyone thought the next second would be blood and carnage, the unexpected happened.

“…Mnn.”

A soft, almost inaudible whimper—yet carrying a majestic authority born of blood and soul—rose from Ning Ning’s spiritual sea.

A snow-white, fluffy moon rabbit spirit body appeared, standing before him.

This time, it was no longer the trembling little thing cowering before Huo Ze. Its small body seemed to contain infinite strength, bravely facing down the charging S-rank sentinel. Its violet eyes, identical to Ning Ning’s, shone with no fear—only gentle, unshakable resolve.

A pale violet radiance rippled outward from the moon rabbit, spreading like calm waves.

It wasn’t blinding, but carried a soul-deep, absolute power of comfort.

The light enveloped Lu Ming.

His frenzied charge halted midair, as though he had slammed into an invisible, tender wall.

The bloodlust drained from his eyes at visible speed, replaced first by confusion, then pain, and finally—overwhelming exhaustion. That catastrophic storm of energy melted away within the violet glow, like snow before spring sunlight.

Under the glow, Ning Ning’s frightened little face looked even more delicate, his silvery curls haloed in holy light. He seemed less mortal than divine—a savior descended to bring peace.

Thud.

Lu Ming’s huge body collapsed to his knees before Ning Ning, hands bracing on the ground, gasping for breath, sweat soaking his torn uniform.

When he raised his head, clarity had returned to his eyes.

But beyond relief at surviving, there was something more—a reverent devotion, like a fledgling gazing at its mother.

He, an S-rank sentinel, had been dragged back from the brink of spiritual ruin—by this fragile-looking B-rank guide, whose power shone like a god’s.

And the whole academy saw it.

Through the omnipresent broadcast cameras, the scene was transmitted in crystal clarity to every terminal—from the competition field to the dorms, from the command center to the medical stations.

For a moment, silence.

Then, in three seconds, every comm channel erupted like a volcano.

“Holy shit! Holy shit! What did I just see?! Lu Ming—the S-rank berserker—just KNEELED?!”

“It was Ning Ning! That so-called B-rank nepotism case! Anyone who still calls him trash, I’ll fight them! You call THIS B-rank? This is a goddamn miracle!”

“That rabbit… what kind of spirit body is that? I’ve never seen anything like it. And that light—just from watching through a screen, my spiritual sea feels soothed, my headache’s gone!”

“Oh my god… he looked so scared just now, face pale as snow. I just want to scoop him up and hold him…”

Meanwhile, on the far side of the Empire, in an elegant study, Gu Qingfeng sipped his tea as he watched the feed.

When Lu Ming fell to his knees, his smile never wavered, but behind his golden spectacles, his gaze deepened, a glint of possessive hunger flashing.

Setting down his cup, he murmured softly:
“As expected… a walking spiritual lighthouse. Truly… you make me want to hide you away even more, my Ning Ning.”

At the same time, in the command center—

Xiao Lin stared fixedly at the screen.

At the way that S-rank sentinel gazed at Ning Ning with near-religious awe.
At the way Ning Ning’s small shoulders trembled in aftershock.

A storm of pride and dark jealousy detonated in his chest.

Pride, that his Ning Ning was so strong, so unique.

Jealousy, that another sentinel dared to look upon his treasure with such eyes.

A primal, savage hunger surged from the depths of his spiritual sea, ignited by that violet light.

Huo Ze’s theory was right.

Ning Ning was a lighthouse—drawing every beast toward his glow.

And Xiao Lin was the fiercest, hungriest beast of all.

His blood boiled. Every nerve screamed a single command—

Go to him.
Hold him.
Mark him.
Make his scent belong to no one else.

Let the world know: this lighthouse shines only for him.

His own bonding heat erupted.

A flush spread across Xiao Lin’s handsome face. His hands clenched the control desk so hard his knuckles turned white.

Crack—

The hardened metal console bent under his grip, groaning in protest.

His breath grew ragged, Adam’s apple bobbing uncontrollably. His body tensed, like a beast seconds from shattering its chains and leaping upon its one and only prey.

In his eyes, only that slender figure remained.

“My…”

“Ning Ning…”

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