"My goal?"
Leilin stood on the stage. Despite being the focus of countless eyes, he had drifted into a trance.
"Would I simply live out an ordinary, comfortable life? Yes! With time, money, and a wife who loves me — what was there to hesitate about?"
"But then why... is there still a trace of unwillingness at the bottom of my heart?"
Leilin pressed a hand to his chest. "If everyone lived like this, then so be it. But if there's a path to immortality and I don't even try to pursue it, how could I face myself?"
"Eternity? Eternity! Yes — pursuing the ultimate of all things, obtaining eternity — that is my true goal!"
Leilin's gaze hardened in an instant. He clasped Carol's hand and said softly, "Carol... I'm... I'm sorry—"
BOOM!
At that very moment, a tremendous explosion erupted, and scarlet tongues of flame shot outward in every direction.
The crowd screamed and scattered. A black armored vehicle barreled through the campus grounds and screeched to a halt at the edge of the stage.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Armored figures poured out of the vehicle in droves, their movements drilled to perfection.
"Exo-armor? And elemental-powered laser cannons?"
Leilin stared at the metallic skeletal frames visible beneath their outer shells, then at the bizarrely shaped cannon barrels in their hands. His face went pale, and his pupils contracted sharply.
"Seize her!" The armored figures didn't even glance at the fleeing students — to them, they might as well have been insects. They charged straight toward the center of the stage, their eyes filled with cold indifference.
This was the kind of apathy toward life that only came from enduring countless bloody battles!
"Carol! They're after Carol!" Leilin's blood ran cold.
"Leilin!" the girl cried out, gripping his hand tightly.
As a celebrity, she naturally had a few bodyguards nearby, but before they could even draw their weapons, they were struck head-on by the laser fire and reduced to charred lumps of blackened flesh.
In an instant, the screams of the crowd grew even more frantic. The armored warriors charged toward Leilin like an iron mountain. Everything in their path — tables, chairs, people — was mercilessly destroyed.
"These people... they're definitely not ordinary soldiers or mercenaries..."
Leilin's pupils contracted. Every muscle in his body went rigid. But when he glanced at Carol beside him, her face was contorted with terror, nearly collapsing to the ground, looking all the more pitiful and helpless.
"Move!" He roared, seized Carol's arm, and broke into a sprint.
Using the panicking crowd as cover, he managed to drag Carol off the stage and bolt toward the teaching building.
"Capture her! Kill the man!" someone who appeared to be the leader barked out the order.
Leilin then saw a barrage of laser barrels trained directly on him. "Get down!"
He slammed Carol's head down with his palm, pressing her body flat against the ground.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Blinding light shot past them, and when it faded, the stage behind Leilin had been reduced to a bare white wasteland. A mangled, charred arm dropped right in front of him.
"Leilin!" Carol's eyes rolled back, her fingernails digging into Leilin's hand so hard they were about to draw blood.
"I know! Run!" For some reason, Leilin found himself entirely adapted to scenes of flesh and blood flying everywhere. He felt not the slightest discomfort — he could even think calmly.
"Their target is Carol! If I abandon her at a critical moment, I can definitely draw their attention away and earn a chance to survive!"
He glanced at Carol. "After all, we're neighbors and supposedly boyfriend and girlfriend — I'll carry her along for a bit. But if I still can't shake them after trying, I'll have no choice but to let go..."
Though dark thoughts churned in his mind, Leilin's face wore an expression of firm resolve as he grabbed Carol and ran.
As he turned his head, he shot a glance toward the main gate. A mass of students had piled up there, none of them daring to look in the direction of the black-clad figures, as though they were some kind of monsters.
And Sylvie's distinctive yellow hair was clearly visible, with a little girl trailing behind him.
"Good — Sylvie and Guo'er are both over there. That's not a good place to draw fire toward!"
Leilin's eyes flashed. He abandoned the group of students near the gate and instead led Carol into a different stream of fleeing people.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Bodies and blood flew through the air. Leilin and Carol had drawn the enemy's fire, bringing catastrophic destruction to that cluster of people.
Under the bombardment of the laser cannons, the students fled in even greater panic, creating enormous confusion for the enemy's targeting.
Seizing the cover this provided, Leilin successfully dragged Carol into one of the teaching buildings.
"Stay here! Don't run!" Leilin shoved Carol into a locker in the changing room, then chose a different ventilation shaft and crawled inside on his belly.
"There's an escape route here. If they discover me, I should be able to slip away through the duct while they're busy with Carol..."
A cold gleam flickered in the depths of Leilin's eyes.
Given his relationship with Carol, all he had were some fragments of memory. Though both Guo'er and Sylvie insisted Carol was his girlfriend, Leilin still felt a strong sense of unreality about it.
Whatever feelings he held had largely dissipated during their flight together — or rather, those sentiments were only enough to carry him this far.
What happened next would depend on her own luck. If she was unlucky enough to be caught, Leilin had no intention of going back to save her. He still harbored doubts about the whole situation.
Besides, the enemy clearly intended to capture Carol alive but couldn't care less about anyone else's life. Leilin certainly wasn't going to take that kind of risk.
After all, if Carol fell into their hands, she still had a chance to live. He, on the other hand, was as good as dead. He knew exactly what choice to make.
"Lock down the area! I watched them run into this building — they never came back out!"
A booming voice rang out, accompanied by footsteps — heavy, like the tread of death itself, each step falling on Leilin's heart like a hammer.
"Search room by room! Don't miss a single corner!"
The leader's icy voice carried through once more.
Leilin could only pray and curse bitterly. How could he and a young girl possibly outrun elites? Earlier, he'd only managed to make it here by exploiting a crowd of cannon fodder as cover. If he left the shelter of the building, he'd be nothing more than a living target.
And besides — this was a school! Once something like this happened, it was only a matter of time before the authorities responded.
As the minutes crawled by, the sounds of things being ransacked grew closer and closer, inching toward the changing room until Leilin felt like he was suffocating.
"Damn it! I knew the authorities were worthless — I'm never voting for them again!"
Leilin cursed under his breath.
At that very moment, the changing room door was kicked open with brutal force, and several sets of footsteps stormed in.
After a flurry of ransacking came a girl's shriek. Leilin's heart sank — he knew Carol had been caught.
His body began slowly crawling backward. He was ready to evacuate at a moment's notice.
"There's another student — where did he go?" a thick male voice asked.
"I won't tell!" Carol's voice rang out, stubborn and ethereal — which made Leilin roll his eyes in silence.
Slap! Slap! Two crisp slaps echoed through the room.
"'Won't tell' doesn't mean 'don't know' — that means he's nearby! But we're out of time. Let's move!" The burly man waved his hand and marched Carol out.
Through the slats of the vent, Leilin watched one of their members toss a cylindrical metal object onto the floor as they left. Rings of light flickered to life around it.
"Oh... crap! A high-explosive magnetic grenade!"
Leilin swore and threw himself backward, scrambling with his life on the line.
A wave of blue luminescence surged through the space behind him, followed by a roar of fire and concussive force. Blood streamed from Leilin's ears and nose.
Crash! A vent cover was kicked open, and Leilin tumbled out amid a cascade of dust and debris.
"Finally out!"
He exhaled a long breath and patted his chest — but the moment he took in his surroundings, his expression changed.
A squad of armored soldiers was escorting a girl right toward him. When they spotted Leilin, their faces went blank for a split second.
"Leilin! I knew you'd come back to save me!" The girl in their custody — Carol — cheered.
Leilin rolled his eyes in exasperation, struck by the feeling that human plans were no match for heaven's whims.
"Well, well — we meet again, kid. You sure are hard to kill!" A figure wearing a skull-shaped metal mask stepped forward, eyes glowing with a sinister red light.
"Kill him!" The figure regarded Leilin the way one would look at a piece of garbage.
"No! Let Leilin go! I'll go with you!" Carol, who had been frozen in shock, finally realized what was happening and began pleading desperately.
But it did nothing to change their attitude. A blinding white brilliance once again erupted from the cannon barrels.
Leilin's vision went white — but his eyes held a look of daze.
"Of course I choose—"
Leilin looked at Carol, her face frozen in terror.
"Neither, you idiot!"
A calm clarity surfaced in Leilin's eyes. "So you've finally woken up a piece of my memory — and you thought you could trick me into signing a contract?"
Crack! The freeze on time shattered, and a torrent of laser fire shot toward Leilin.
"Fire!"
Leilin uttered another syllable in the Ancient Byron Language. But this time, the moment the sound left his lips, it seemed to resonate with space itself. Vast quantities of unknown energy gathered, dispersed, and were reconstituted, undergoing a wondrous transformation.