The road leading to Jinzhou City was a rugged dirt path beaten out of the wilderness by travelers’ boots.
Mohai walked silently behind the three girls.
His mind was racing.
*I hope Jinhsi doesn’t remember me…* *Or rather, it’s complicated.
Part of me wants her to remember, but another part really hopes she doesn’t.* He was stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Ultimately, Mohai had failed that girl’s love, even if it had never been his intention to do so.
The thought that similar situations might arise in the future—along with the distinct yandere tendencies starting to show—sent a wave of unease through his chest.
Watching the energetic figure with a red ponytail walking ahead, beside the gentle profile of the black-haired girl whose every step breathed softness, a tangle of mixed emotions surged within him.
The Rover, surprisingly, hadn’t stayed behind the leading pair, choosing instead to walk alongside Mohai.
“You haven’t said a word since you woke up.
What are you thinking about?” Mohai was somewhat surprised that the Rover had initiated a conversation with him.
He lowered his head slightly, pretending to be lost in thought.
“I’m thinking about the future.” “Me too…” The Rover lowered her head and murmured.
“Though I’m not just thinking about the future.
I want to find my memories of the past.” Mohai offered a faint smile upon hearing this, then resumed his inner musings.
Walking at the very front, Chixia suddenly halted and turned around, hands on her hips.
Her face bore a look of youthful alertness and scrutiny.
“You don’t look like a local, and collapsing out in the wild like that…
You owe us an explanation, don’t you?
What’s your name?” He was prepared for this question.
Mohai raised his head, meeting her bright, inquisitive eyes, and answered calmly.
“My name is Mohai.” He chose neither to lie nor to conceal it.
He knew full well that with the abilities bestowed by the system, he had enough confidence to handle whatever situation might arise.
*Probably?* “Mohai?” Chixia repeated the name.
It sounded vaguely familiar, but she didn’t overthink it and simply nodded.
“Alright then, Mohai.
I’m Chixia of the Midnight Rangers, and this is my companion, Yangyang.” “Hello,” Mohai replied politely, though his gaze drifted toward the distant outline of the city.
*Jinzhou…* He wondered if this real Jinzhou matched the one in his memories.
…
As they pressed onward, strange phenomena suddenly erupted across the sky.
Yangyang felt a wave of unease.
Sensing the air closely, she spoke up: “The wind carries warnings of danger, and the sky above is converging.
It seems a new Tacet Field is forming.” Chixia offered a helpful explanation.
“Meaning things could get dangerous around here real soon.” She picked up the Gourd in her hand, stared at it for a moment, and shook her head.
“Figures.
Affected by the Sky Sea, the Gourd’s lost signal.
Can’t send or receive messages, can’t reach anyone.
We need to meet up with Baizhi at our rendezvous point and get out of here as fast as possible.” The group picked up their pace.
Along the way, they casually struck up a conversation.
“You heard Chixia mention ‘Tacet Discords’ earlier,” Yangyang said, walking beside him patient as ever, explaining the basic lore of this world.
“They are byproducts of the Lament, mindlessly attacking all living beings.
And we, the Resonators, are the ones tasked with purging them.” *The Lament, Tacet Discords, Resonators…* Every term matched the memories from his life simulation perfectly.
Suddenly, Chixia stopped, her ears twitching.
Her sharp gaze swept over a patch of bushes not far ahead.
“Incoming!
Get ready to fight!” Before the words even finished leaving her lips, several dark shapes burst out from the bushes!
They were Tacet Discords resembling vicious wolves, their bodies composed of flowing black mist.
Growling in low, guttural tones, their crimson eyes fixed hungrily on the group as they lunged with bloodthirsty malice.
“Just in time!” Chixia shouted, drawing the dual guns from her back in a fluid motion.
Blazing like a flame, she opened fire, each bullet bursting with immense power.
Yangyang’s expression turned serious.
Swirling gusts of cyan wind materialized around her, shaping into razor-sharp blades that slashed with deadly precision at another Tacet Discord’s flank.
One particularly cunning Tacet Discord bypassed their front line, lunging straight toward Mohai, who was standing in the rear and looking like an ordinary bystander!
“Watch out!” Yangyang cried in alarm.
Yet at the exact moment the creature’s lethal claws approached his throat, Mohai’s eyes remained completely calm, devoid of the slightest ripple of panic.
Years of rigorous training, combined with the battle memories ingrained in him, left him far from flustered in the face of danger.
His awkwardness when facing that Echo earlier had merely been a matter of readjusting.
*Now, here’s my chance.
A perfect opportunity to test the power rewarded by the system.* Instead of stepping back, he took a firm step forward.
Visualizing the techniques stored in his memory, he channeled the fresh, surging power within his body.
*Buzz—!* A deep, heavy resonance echoed as if rising from the depths of the earth!
Mohai slammed a fist forward.
*BANG!* The lunging Tacet Discord slammed into an invisible force like a ram hitting a solid wall.
With a muffled thud, the sheer counterforce sent it flying backward.
It tumbled several times across the dirt, unable to get back up immediately.
A brief, dead silence fell over the battlefield.
Chixia, the Rover, and Yangyang all stared dumbfounded—first at the barrier that had abruptly materialized before dissolving into points of light, and then at Mohai, who stood completely unscathed, his expression barely shifting.
“You…
you’re a Resonator too?!” Chixia’s voice was thick with disbelief.
Mohai didn’t answer right away.
He merely glanced down at his palm.
*So this is…
the “Echo of War”?
Powerful and reliable, indeed.
Nothing beats strength forged in real combat.* “Why are you staring?
Finish them off!” Mohai’s calm voice shattered the silence.
“Oh…
right!” Snapping back to reality, Chixia and Yangyang made quick work of the remaining Tacet Discords.
The Rover didn’t slack off either.
With a graceful sweep of her long blade, she dispatched two of the creatures effortlessly.
As soon as the battle ended, Chixia rushed over to Mohai in three quick steps, circling him like he was some kind of strange creature.
“Nice one, Mohai!
Hiding your light under a bushel, huh?
You’re actually this strong?” “I never said I was an ordinary person,” Mohai replied with a casual shrug.
“Just a casual swing.” Chixia was now utterly convinced that this man named Mohai, despite his composed demeanor, was a master hiding in plain sight.
After this little episode, the atmosphere within the group became significantly warmer.
…
Soon, they arrived before a massive dragon-shaped statue.
The Rover clutched her head, feeling as though she had suddenly stumbled into a vision.
Before her eyes, a genuine dragon-like entity seemed to manifest.
The same thing happened to Mohai.
Only, for some reason, the dragon entity looked at Mohai with a faint hint of resentment and sorrow.
*No way…
What’s Jue trying to say with that look?* Mohai grumbled inwardly.
Yangyang turned to the recovering Rover and explained, “This is the statue of Jinzhou’s Sentinel, Jue.
It takes the form of a dragon.” “Just now,” the Rover said in confusion, stroking her long hair, “I felt like I was standing face-to-face with the actual Sentinel.” Yangyang blinked in surprise.
“Face-to-face with the actual Sentinel?
It is extremely rare to behold the Sentinel’s true body…
One usually gets a glimpse only during the Inauguration Ceremony.” Mohai had no intention of revealing his own observations.
Less trouble was always better than more.
During a brief rest, Chixia gazed at the towering silhouette of Jinzhou City in the distance and sighed wistfully.
“Come to think of it, we really owe the current size and prosperity of Jinzhou to Magistrate Jinhsi.” Mohai’s heart leaped, but his expression remained composure itself.
He merely feigned curiosity.
“How so?” A proud smile spread across Chixia’s face.
“My grandfather told me that back then, the Tacet Discords poured out of the wilderness in an endless tide.
The Midnight Rangers were almost wiped out, and Jinzhou was on the verge of being completely overrun.
Then, out of nowhere, a mysterious unsung hero appeared.
Nobody knows how he did it, but he slaughtered his way across the battlefield, saved the Midnight Rangers, and held the line until reinforcements arrived!
The peace we enjoy today is all thanks to that battle.
“Even though nobody knows who that hero was, ever since then, our new Magistrate seemed like a changed person.
She pushed through bold, sweeping reforms.
She adopted a strategy called ‘garrison farming,’ putting refugees and veterans to work reclaiming land.
That solved the food shortage!
Today’s Jinzhou is incomparably stronger than it was three years ago!” *Garrison farming…
Wasn’t that…
wasn’t that the advice I gave her back in the storage room?* Everything he had done had altered the course of history.
And she…
she had actually listened to him, growing into a true Magistrate far greater than he could have ever imagined.
The moment they mentioned Jinhsi, an extremely faint yet piercingly clear pang of sorrow—as if spanning endless time and space—pricked at Mohai’s heart.
Mohai snapped his head up, gazing toward Jinzhou City, grand and majestic in the golden glow of the setting sun.
*She’s there.
And…
she is hurting.* Before long, the group stood above a valley looking down, where a massive cross-star Tacet Mark was stamped into the ground.
The Sky Sea spread ominously overhead.
Anxiety crept over the party; a phenomenon like this meant a Tacet Field had formed in an unnaturally short span of time.
And right inside the Tacet Field stood a person.
“It’s Baizhi!
Let me hurry down and meet up with her!” Spotting her figure clearly, Chixia called out for everyone to move.
Once they regrouped below, Baizhi immediately expressed concern for the Rover’s and Mohai’s physical condition.
Suddenly, a violent mutation occurred.
The latency period dissolved instantly, and a formidable Tacet Discord materialized right before them.
*Holy crap!
The Crownless!* After a fierce battle, the group managed to defeat it.
The Rover performed exceptionally well throughout the clash.
Mohai was content to hide his light and keep a low profile, which suited his intentions perfectly.
When the Crownless fell, it left behind a phantom echo.
Chixia beckoned to the Rover, who had contributed the most to the fight.
“Come look!
Wow, an Echo of this tier?!
What kind of insane luck is this?” Chixia sounded thoroughly impressed.
Echoes could be captured by a Gourd and summoned later to assist in battle.
However, when the Rover took out her Gourd to check, it seemed her device was too low-tier to process it properly.
She turned to Mohai and asked, “Mohai…
do you think you can absorb it?” For reasons she couldn’t quite explain, the Rover instinctively felt like giving good things to Mohai.
Mohai shook his head; he didn’t even have a Gourd yet.
“Thanks for the thought, but I can’t absorb it.” Just as they prepared to leave, a faint voice whimpering “So hungry…” echoed from the Tacet Mark on the Rover’s hand.
Then, as if possessed by an unseen force, her hand lurched forward directly toward the Echo, absorbing it directly into her physical body!
Yangyang, Chixia, and Baizhi stood paralyzed in shock.
Baizhi spoke up, her tone solemn.
“Absorbing an Echo directly into a living body is not entirely without precedent.
Long ago, someone just like the Rover did the same, using the absorbed power to reshape the world, defining the longitudes and latitudes of the world, laying the foundation for the history of Huanglong.” *I wonder who that could be?
So hard to guess.* Soon, a projection of Jinhsi appeared before them.
Her tone was remarkably gentle and approachable.
She essentially extended an invitation to the Rover to enter the city and discuss matters with her, promising to answer her questions to the best of her ability.
Mohai froze for a second before remembering that this was merely a recorded message, relieving his sudden tension.
Gazing at her face on the projection, Mohai couldn’t help but feel nostalgia and longing well up inside him.
Afterward, the party resumed their journey together toward Jinzhou City.