Ye Lingxi’s body stiffened for a split second.
She was certain—she hadn’t made a single sound!
And she was far away!
Those twelve dangerous presences shouldn’t have been able to detect her.
Coincidence. It had to be coincidence.
Maybe they’d just gotten off the spaceship and happened to glance in her direction.
Or maybe they were looking at something else.
Something that happened to be in the direction she was hiding.
Either way, they definitely weren’t looking at her.
Ye Lingxi silently shrank her body, pressing herself deeper into the hollow, doing her best to minimize her presence.
…
A hundred meters away.
Mingzhou stood still, his pitch-black pupils cutting through the wild grass, landing with unerring accuracy on the direction of the sunken pit.
That scent was faint—so faint it was nearly swallowed by the planet’s own desolate atmosphere.
But for an SS-class Sentinel, it was more than enough.
It was the scent of Guide Pheromones.
Pure. Clear. Guide pheromones untouched by any pollution.
Like a spring of clear water suddenly surging forth in a parched desert. Like the scent of life caught by a dying man.
“Commander, you sense it too?” Behind him, Lin Chuan stepped forward. His Pollution Level was 92 points, his facial markings were streaks of white Beast Markings, and his hair was as white as snow.
Mingzhou said nothing, only giving a slight nod.
“A Guide.” Shi Qi’s voice was somewhat hoarse. This usually talkative young man was uncharacteristically silent for a moment before continuing, “How could there be a Guide in a place like this?”
Indeed. How could there be a Guide here?
This was one of the Federation’s most remote desolate star systems—a resting place for Sentinels, a place even drifters wouldn’t set foot in.
And Guides…
Those rare existences so precious that the entire Federation military was needed to protect them—how could one possibly appear here?
Mingzhou lifted his foot and took a step toward the location where Ye Lingxi was hiding.
The next instant, his figure had already appeared dozens of meters away.
A hundred meters out, watching this through gaps in the grass and trees, Ye Lingxi’s pupils contracted sharply!
What had she just seen?
The legendary “shrinking the earth into inches”?
Teleportation?
In that instant, countless thoughts flashed through Ye Lingxi’s mind, along with many speculations about the identity of the man covered in black totems.
Mingzhou took another step, again crossing dozens of meters in an instant.
In just three steps, he stood at the edge of the pit, lowering his gaze to look down into it.
Ye Lingxi almost instinctively crouched down, grabbing a clump of grass to cover herself…
But clearly, she was too late.
Her exposed eyes had already met the newcomer’s gaze.
Black. Deep. Like a night sky without stars.
Those eyes were looking at her—more precisely, looking down at her, from above the pit’s edge.
The man’s face was only two or three meters away from her.
Up close, those black markings were even clearer, crawling up from his neck, climbing over his jaw, spreading across half his face—like some living totem, or like curse inscriptions sealing away something terrifying.
Ye Lingxi’s mind went completely blank.
What had she just seen?
This man had been a hundred meters away just moments ago, hadn’t he? How had he crossed the distance in the blink of an eye?
Three steps? She’d only seen him take three steps?
From a hundred meters away to right in front of her, in only three steps?
Shrinking the earth into inches?
No, no, no, no, no—this wasn’t Daoist magic. She hadn’t felt any fluctuation of spiritual power.
So this man was…
A vampire?
Those two words struck Ye Lingxi’s mind like lightning.
She had read the ancient texts in her master’s collection. They recorded that in the West, there existed a kind of inhuman creature who called themselves vampires—possessing unimaginable speed and strength, feeding on blood, immortal and undying.
Three steps to cross a hundred meters—this was simply not something a human could do!
It could only be a vampire!
Ye Lingxi’s hand quietly reached toward her backpack, feeling for the silver cross dagger she always carried. Silver was said to be the bane of vampires.
She gripped the silver dagger tightly but didn’t dare pull it out.
Because the owner of those eyes had crouched down in front of her.
This movement made Ye Lingxi flinch for a moment.
You can be afraid, but you can’t panic. The more dangerous the situation, the calmer you must remain—this was the lesson her master had drilled into her for twenty years.
In just a moment, she mustered her courage, forced a smile onto her face, and casually waved at the presence above the pit. “Hehe, hi, hello there! Lovely weather we’re having today, isn’t it? What brings you to these parts, brother?”
At the same time, she subtly shuffled backward in small steps until her back hit the pit wall. She planned to use the wall as leverage to climb out.
But she failed. The pit was a bit too deep…
Finally, Mingzhou above spoke: “Guide, do you speak the Federation’s official language?”
He paused, then continued, “How did you end up on such a desolate planet? Did you fall into this pit by accident? Let me pull you up.”
Mingzhou crouched down, revealing what he believed to be his gentlest expression, and extended his hand toward Ye Lingxi.
At the bottom of the pit, Ye Lingxi blinked. She couldn’t understand a single word the man said.
English, Japanese, Korean, Russian—she couldn’t claim to be fluent in all of them, but having watched so many shows in those languages, she could usually pick out the gist from tone and expression.
But this language… she had never heard anything like it in her life.
The language this man spoke was unlike any she was familiar with.
Looking at the hand he extended toward her—the bones clearly defined, the fingers long and slender.
Was this… an offer to pull her up?
After a moment, she shifted her gaze back to the man’s face.
Their eyes met, and she asked, “Are you talking to me? Pulling me up? Can you speak Chinese or English—Could you speak Chinese or English?”
Ye Lingxi was very polite, keeping her posture low and humble, afraid that this vampire bigshot might take a bite out of her on a whim.
Mingzhou crouched by the edge of the pit, gazing down at the small Guide curled up at the bottom.
So thin, so small, dressed in a strange black robe.
The style of the robe was unlike anything he had ever seen—not any uniform of the Federation, nor the tattered rags of refugees.
Her hair was a mess, dirt smudged on her face, her eyes slightly red as if she’d been choked into tears. At this moment, she was staring up at him with wide eyes, filled entirely with wariness and terror.
But the aura emanating from her…
That pure, clear Guide Pheromones were continuously radiating from her body.
Very faint, as if leaking out unconsciously, yet undeniably real.
This Guide’s rank was probably not low.
Because even just catching a whiff of the trace pheromones drifting in the air made the violent Turbid Qi in Mingzhou’s mental landscape quiet down for a moment.
He looked at her.
She looked back at him.
He saw her gently part her lips, producing a soft voice speaking a language completely different from the Federation’s official tongue.
It had a strange rhythm—unintelligible, but pleasant to the ear.
Realizing their languages were mutually unintelligible, Mingzhou said nothing more, only gently extending his hand a little closer to Ye Lingxi.
He couldn’t leave the Guide in the pit. He needed to pull her up first before anything else.
Ye Lingxi understood the man’s intent.
She reached out and grasped his hand with its clearly defined bones.
Warm.
That was her first reaction.
Aren’t vampires supposed to have ice-cold body temperatures? Why was this man’s hand warm?
But that thought only flashed through her mind for an instant before being overtaken by a bolder idea.
Pull him down, ambush him with the silver dagger, then escape?
But she quickly suppressed that thought.
He wasn’t alone—eleven more of them stood not far away.
Without certainty of success, she couldn’t provoke these humanoid killing machines.
She decided to hold her position for now.
But holding her position didn’t mean doing nothing at all.
She could probe lightly—testing both their strength and the temperament of these humanoid killing machines, as well as their tolerance toward her as a reserve food supply.
Yes, she had already automatically cast herself in the role of food.
Ye Lingxi held the man’s hand, smiling faintly, and began to secretly cause trouble.