Every Sentinel I Dreamed of Came Looking for Me

Yun Sheng subconsciously touched her face.

Indeed, the feeling of those two forces churning inside her spiritual landscape was more draining than any physical injury.

"I guess I’m a little tired," she said vaguely. "I’ll be fine after some rest."

Li Wen glanced at her, her eyes filled with a hint of worry, but in the end, she just nodded.

"Then you should go inside and rest. We’ll keep watch out here."

Cheng Nian quickly chimed in, "Right, right! You go on in. We’ll call you if anything happens!"

Yun Sheng nodded, lifted the door flap, and slipped inside.

It was quiet in the tent, with only the faint sounds of voices and the wind drifting in from outside.

She sat on the bed furthest from the entrance, closed her eyes, and sank her consciousness into her spiritual landscape.

The two forces were still there, but they were no longer churning.

Si Jin’s cold, violent energy was now coiled quietly in a corner, like a beast that had finally exhausted itself. Bai Ye’s warm, solid power flowed slowly, like a silent guardian.

Yun Sheng carefully reached out to them with her spiritual power, feeling their pulses.

There was no resistance, no tearing, only a delicate, temporary balance.

She let out a long breath.

’Finally... it’s completely stable.’

But before she could fully relax, another thought surfaced.

’My terminal...’

’If it fell into Qi Yao’s hands, has he already seen what’s on it? The files White Tiger sent me, our chat logs...’

Yun Sheng’s heart leaped into her throat again.

’I have to get it back.’

’Should I ask for it directly and say I dropped it by accident? Or should I sneak in and get it when he’s not around?’

Just as Yun Sheng’s mind was racing, weighing her options, the tent flap was suddenly thrown open.

Cheng Nian poked her head in. "Yun Sheng, you’re not asleep, are you?"

Yun Sheng’s heart tightened, but she kept her expression calm. "What’s wrong?"

"Major General Qi sent someone to return your terminal," Cheng Nian said, slipping all the way inside. "They said you left it in the command tent."

She held it out.

It was Yun Sheng’s terminal.

Yun Sheng took it, feigning nonchalance. "Oh, I must have dropped it earlier. Thanks."

Cheng Nian waved her hand. "The person who brought it is waiting outside. Just check it and if there are no problems, I’ll go tell them."

Yun Sheng nodded, and Cheng Nian turned and left.

The moment the flap fell shut, Yun Sheng immediately looked down at the terminal in her hand.

There was nothing unusual about its appearance. She lightly pressed the button on the side, and the screen lit up, requiring identity verification.

She entered her verification code and accessed the main interface.

The message history was still there, as were the files from White Tiger. Even the access logs showed no changes.

She carefully checked every place that could have been accessed: communication logs, file access times, system logs...

Everything was normal.

It was as if the terminal had never been touched.

Yun Sheng stared at the screen, but her brow furrowed.

’Did Qi Yao really not look, or... did he look, but covered his tracks so well that I can’t find any trace?’

She didn’t know.

But she did know one thing: from this moment on, she could never let this terminal out of her sight again.

...

Bai Ye’s figure moved silently across a field of rubble, his combat boots making almost no sound as they touched the ground.

He had been tracking along the edge of Buffer Zone 10 for nearly two hours, and the residual fluctuations of the Dark Sentinel’s power were growing clearer.

It was coming from the depths of the collapsed mine pit just ahead.

The sun blazed overhead, making the outline of the abandoned mine pit harsh and blinding.

The collapsed mine entrance looked like a gaping maw, its pitch-black interior a stark contrast to the bright light outside.

Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks.

A subtle tremor ran through the air—not through the ground, but on a spiritual level.

He tilted his head slightly, his gaze sweeping over his surroundings.

Behind piles of rubble, beside abandoned mine carts, and even on the rock face above, countless pairs of dark eyes glinted in the shadows.

Split Sound Beasts.

Not just one.

An entire pack!

"HISS..."

The first hiss tore through the air, followed by a second, then a third... The rising and falling shrieks were like invisible blades, surging toward him wrapped in a spiritual attack.

Bai Ye stood his ground, utterly motionless.

The spiritual attacks, powerful enough to instantly incapacitate any Sentinel below B-level, were like a tide crashing against an iron wall before him—they shattered and dissipated in vain.

He didn’t even deploy a barrier, deflecting all the attacks with nothing but his own Spiritual Force Field.

The pack of Split Sound Beasts grew agitated.

They had never encountered prey like this.

Bai Ye raised his hand.

With no warning, no gathering of power, he simply clenched his fist.

Three silver Spiritual Blades materialized out of thin air and, like lightning tearing across the sky, simultaneously pierced the skulls of the three Split Sound Beasts charging at the front.

Their hissing stopped abruptly as their massive bodies crashed to the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.

The remaining Split Sound Beasts began to retreat.

But Bai Ye gave them no such chance.

He took a step forward.

As his foot landed, the spiritual power around him erupted like a volcano that had been dormant for a thousand years.

The absolute suppressive force belonging to an SSS-level Sentinel exploded outward from him, instantly blanketing the entire mine entrance!

All the contaminated creatures—the Split Sound Beasts, the Bone-piercing Vines lurking in the dark, even the low-intelligence corrosive worms—froze in the same instant.

It was the pressure of a natural predator.

A fear etched into their very genes.

Bai Ye’s gaze swept over the trembling creatures, finally settling on the deeper darkness within the mine pit.

"Move."

He spoke softly, his voice quiet but carrying a terrifying pressure.

The pack of Split Sound Beasts grew visibly restless. A few instinctively shrank back, but several still blocked the path, baring their teeth and letting out threatening growls.

Bai Ye said nothing more.

He simply glanced at them.

In that instant, the Spiritual Force Field of an SSS-level Sentinel silently unfolded. Simultaneously, several Spiritual Blades, condensed to their absolute limit, materialized like the Grim Reaper’s scythe and precisely slashed toward the beasts blocking his path.

The beasts didn’t even have time to react before their heads were cleanly severed. Their massive bodies crashed to the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.

The remaining contaminated creatures fell completely silent, cowering in the shadows, not daring to make another move.

Ignoring them, Bai Ye walked slowly through the pack of creatures and stepped into the depths of the mine.

Behind him, the creatures he had stunned finally seemed to snap out of a trance and scattered in all directions.

The depths of the mine were even colder than the outside, the air thick with the smell of decay and something scorching.

Bai Ye followed the collapsed tunnel downward. The surrounding rock walls were covered in deep claw marks and scorches—the marks left behind by out-of-control spiritual power.

The deeper he went, the clearer the fluctuations of the Dark Sentinel’s power became, and the more... violent.

Bai Ye’s brow furrowed slightly.

’This power... I’m familiar with it.’

He rounded a bend, and the space ahead suddenly opened into a massive cavern formed by the collapse.

Sunlight streamed down from a fissure overhead, forming beams of light in the swirling dust.

And in the center of those light beams was a dark figure.

His back was to Bai Ye. He was half-kneeling amidst a pile of rubble, wreathed in Dark Spiritual Power so violent it was almost tangible.

The power surged around him like an out-of-control flame, leaving scorched black cracks on the rocks it touched.

As if sensing the gaze on his back, the figure slowly stood up and turned around.

A pair of crimson eyes, from a dozen meters away, locked directly onto Bai Ye’s.