The Beloved Guide Was Forced in a Love-Rival Shura Field - Chapter 78

Ning Ning leaned against the cold metal door, his heart still pounding wildly, his cheeks burning as if on fire.

The absurd and eerie scene in the corridor kept replaying in his mind: a giant wolf whimpering pitifully, a clingy, coquettish nine-tailed fox, and two male leads, expressionless yet whose gazes seemed capable of tearing each other apart…

He felt like his entire social life’s quota for death had already been used up in one go.

【Ding dong! Host, your unconsciously displayed soothing ability may attract the attention of certain… special entities upon entering the upcoming Seventh Star Domain.】

The system 89’s gentle voice sounded at just the right moment—but it was like a bucket of ice water dumped over his head.

Ning Ning’s heart sank.

“Special entities? What does that mean?”

He was about to ask when a sharp, piercing alarm rang out suddenly across the flagship!

“—Warning! Warning! High-intensity alien psychic reaction detected! Starboard side of the flagship under attack! Non-combat personnel, please return to safe positions immediately! Repeating! Non-combat personnel, return to safe positions immediately!”

The cold, mechanical voice echoed frantically through the corridors, and the flashing red warning lights instantly plunged the entire Morninglight into a crimson battle readiness state.

Ning Ning froze.

Bugs? Did they encounter them so soon?

The flagship shuddered slightly, then quickly stabilized. As the empire’s top-tier vessel, its defense systems were nearly impenetrable.

Almost at the same moment the alarm sounded, General Xiao Lin’s calm and authoritative voice came over the public communication channel, concise, efficient, and full of iron-clad command.

“First and second fleets, form up and clear the disturbance. Report enemy numbers and types.”

“Reporting, Marshal. Small scout group, approximately thirty, no new mutations detected. Target locked.”

“Clear them.”

“Yes, sir!”

The battle ended almost as quickly as it began. Within three minutes, the alarms were gone, and the harsh red lights returned to their normal, soft illumination.

Everything returned to peace so quickly it felt as if the previous alarm had been nothing but a drill.

Ning Ning exhaled in relief, his tense shoulders finally dropping.

It seemed it had only been a false alarm.

However, the moment his nerves fully relaxed—

“Hum…”

An extremely strange, indescribable sound exploded deep within his mind.

It was not a sound but a mental “call.”

At first, it was like a faint thread with hooks, tentatively probing his psychic sea with curiosity. But the next moment, that single thread multiplied into thousands of burning steel needles, stabbing mercilessly!

“…Ugh!”

Ning Ning’s pupils shrank to pinpoints, and he couldn’t even utter a muffled groan.

Agonizing pain!

Unbearable pain, as if someone were using a scorching, rusted awl to churn his brain, trying to tear his soul from his skull.

The world instantly lost focus; the room spun. He staggered, trying to grab the wall, but crashed into it and slid to the floor. Cold sweat poured out, soaking the soft silver hair plastered to his pale face.

The “call” grew louder and stronger, conveying no concrete message—only the purest, most primal… desire.

A hunger to the extreme, unmasked and ravenous.

Like a dying traveler in the desert spotting an oasis, like a lost beast in darkness sensing the smell of blood.

And he was that oasis, that pool of fresh blood.

He had been marked.

【Warning! Warning! Host’s psychic sea is under high-intensity alien psychic invasion! Attempting to construct a defensive barrier… Barrier construction failed! Opponent’s psychic power level too high!】

Even the system’s voice carried an unprecedented urgency and panic.

Ning Ning couldn’t hear anything clearly. He clutched his head, curling into a ball in pain, digging his nails into his scalp as if it might relieve some of the torment. He felt as if his soul were being dragged from his body, torn into pieces by that terrifying force.

Fear and helplessness engulfed him like icy water.

For the first time, he realized with excruciating clarity what the system meant by “special entities,” and what Xiao Lin and Gu Qingfeng meant by “the cure.”

He wasn’t a cure—he was a living lure, attracting monsters to feast upon him! A walking beacon in the dark cosmos, shouting “Come eat me!”

“Bang—!”

Just as his consciousness was about to be shredded by the pain, the door was violently thrown open by an unstoppable force. The heavy metal door slammed into the wall with a loud crash.

“Ning Ning!”

A figure, wrapped in cold wind and urgency, stormed in.

Xiao Lin’s uniform buttons were undone by one, his chest rising and falling rapidly—he had rushed over as fast as possible after the battle ended.

Seeing Ning Ning curled up and trembling on the floor, his dark-gold eyes erupted with a storm of emotion, and the strings of his reason “snapped” with a sharp pop.

“What happened?!”

He crossed the gap in a single step, nearly falling in a rush, half-kneeling as he reached out, afraid that a single wrong move could hurt this fragile treasure.

Through blurry, tear-filled eyes, Ning Ning saw that panicked and anxious face.

Like a drowning person grabbing the only piece of driftwood, he pounced into Xiao Lin’s embrace, relying purely on instinct for survival.

“…It hurts…” he gasped, forcing the words from his throat, his voice thick with sobs. “It hurts so much…”

The next second, a solid, warm embrace enveloped him completely.

Xiao Lin’s scent of crisp, icy-scented cedar formed an impenetrable barrier, forcefully and unquestionably driving away everything intruding on his psychic sea.

Miraculously, the excruciating pain that had threatened to tear him apart was suddenly blocked by an invisible wall.

The frenzied “call” in his mind weakened rapidly, retreating into distant, vague noise.

Relief washed over him.

Ning Ning went completely limp, like a small animal drenched in a storm, shivering uncontrollably. He buried his face into Xiao Lin’s sturdy chest, greedily inhaling the scent of cedar that made him feel safe, clutching at the fabric of Xiao Lin’s uniform as if it were his only lifeline.

Holding the trembling little guide, Xiao Lin’s heart felt gripped by an invisible hand, both pained and furious. He could sense Ning Ning’s fear—the shiver from the depths of his soul—and the violent factor of a top-tier sentinel within him almost broke free from the cage of reason.

Who? Who hurt him?!

“It’s okay, Ning Ning, I’m here.” His tall frame trembled slightly as he awkwardly, repeatedly stroked Ning Ning’s sweat-drenched back. His voice, hoarse yet gentle like never before, reassured him. “Don’t be afraid… I’m here. Everything’s fine…”

Gu Qingfeng arrived shortly after. Unlike Xiao Lin, he didn’t burst in; he simply stood quietly at the doorway.

He watched the two clinging to each other, observed the sheer panic and fury on Xiao Lin’s face, and in his golden-threaded glasses, his eyes were as deep and cold as a bottomless pool.

After a moment, he spoke, calm and smooth as always, but with a trace of icy amusement.

“Marshal, it seems your little treasure has attracted the bugs’ attention.”

Xiao Lin’s head shot up, his dark-gold eyes filled with lethal intent, like a wolf whose scales had been touched. He glared at Gu Qingfeng.

But Gu Qingfeng seemed not to notice, his gaze lingering on the still-shivering silver-haired head, his tone stating a cold, undeniable fact:

“The scouts just now weren’t a routine disturbance. Their target was never the flagship—it was him from the start.”

He paused, the lenses reflecting the corridor’s icy light.

“The bugs already know the ‘Moon God’ is here. That wasn’t a welcoming ceremony—it was the hunters issuing a final ultimatum to their prey.”

Gu Qingfeng’s gaze slowly left Ning Ning, turning to Xiao Lin, whose face had darkened like water, his lips curving faintly in self-mockery and cold amusement—a smile that sent chills down the spine.

“Congratulations, Marshal. Escorting the Empire’s only ‘beacon,’ you’ve walked straight into a trap carefully laid out for you.”

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