Chapter 102: I would rather die

He didn’t want to remain for even a single extra second inside this tent saturated with those dense Guide pheromones.

Even though Bunny’s pheromones naturally eased the tension in his mind, Astin’s deep-seated aversion and dread toward Guide pheromones triggered an instinctive wave of sickening panic and discomfort whenever he came into contact with them.

It was a textbook case of untreated Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Bunny assumed he was still harboring a grudge because she had accidentally walked into his tent earlier. Isn’t this guy being a little too narrow-minded? she thought. It’s not like I haven’t seen a guy’s chest or abs before. Is it really worth clinging to like this?

The diagnostic scanner chimed, displaying a breakdown risk level at 90%—dangerously high.

After securing the restraint gear, Bunny submerged her consciousness into Astin’s spiritual sea without bothering to hold his hand.

She materialized beside a secluded forest lake.

The water was a murky, stagnant green, enclosed by ancient, looming trees whose interlocking branches formed a dense canopy overhead. Faint rays of sunlight filtered through the foliage, scattering fractured specks of light across the surface.

Rotting leaves and dry snapped twigs drifted on the water, obscuring the lake bed beneath thick layers of sticky, dark-purple pollutant sludge.

Astin’s spiritual sea was in appalling condition—clearly lacking proper calming calibration or maintenance for a very long time.

Once Bunny waded into the murky water, her suspicion was confirmed.

The lake was almost completely corroded by pollutants. She wove her spiritual strands into a fine mesh net and began dredging the sludge—a tedious, physically demanding process.

Gurgle—gurgle—!

Big bubbles broke the water’s surface behind her. Deep beneath the lake, a massive green creature glided past silently.

A cold tail swept against Bunny’s ankle, its sharp spikes brushing her tender skin.

Bunny recoiled instantly, startled. "What on earth is that?!"

A scene from the movie Anacondas flashed through her mind—specifically how the first sacrificial victim met his doom.

Moments later, a fearsome-looking Deinosuchus broke the surface, locking eyes with her.

Only... it was miniature.

Bunny grabbed it by the scruff of its neck and tossed it aside. "Where did this little alligator come from? Don’t interrupt my work, kid!"

The Deinosuchus: @@%#... (I’m not an alligator, I’m a prehistoric Cretaceous Deinosuchus! Deinosuchus!)

It quickly paddled back over, floating quietly on the surface to watch Bunny scoop out the pollutants.

As the sludge was cleared away, the lake gradually reclaimed its pristine, crystal-emerald hue, reflecting the sky like a polished mirror.

The Deinosuchus wagged its tail with delight; it was thrilled not to have to sleep in a foul-smelling dump anymore.

Swimming over, it began circling Bunny playfully. Crocodilians were actually rather simple-minded creatures: while their bite force was immense, holding their snouts shut prevented them from opening their jaws at all.

Bunny’s sharp eyes caught a series of jagged, crisscrossing scars running down the young crocodile’s back—deep injuries that had healed into severe deformities.

Strange... how can a spirit guide carry physical scars?

When she reached out to touch them, the Deinosuchus jerked back reflexively, its body trembling with stress.

The abnormal reaction from Astin’s spirit guide immediately raised red flags for Bunny. She deployed her spiritual strands to conduct a thorough sweep across his entire mental realm.

Sure enough, spun across one section of his spiritual network, she discovered a fatal cluster of tears and gaping voids!

No wonder the young crocodile bore those scars.

Bunny’s brow furrowed tightly. This wasn’t the result of slow pollutant erosion—it was the aftermath of brutal, intentional tearing and physical destruction.

Who could be this cruel?

A Sentinel’s spiritual network was vital; if too much of it dissolved or corroded, they faced a drop in rank at best, or complete, violent breakdown at worst.

Furthermore, a damaged mental network severely restricted their combat performance, triggering headaches far more excruciating than those felt by other Sentinels.

Bunny tried using her own spiritual strands to repair the voids, but because the corrosion had lingered for so long, the restoration process was painfully slow.

She decided to patch up what she could for today.

The little crocodile paddled back over, this time willingly lowering its head to let Bunny stroke its snout.

Through spiritual resonance, memories belonging to the spirit guide flooded directly into Bunny’s mind.

"They say crocodiles have the highest pain tolerance in the world. Today, I’m going to see just how much you can endure."

A woman’s shrill, grating voice pierced her ears. Bunny couldn’t make out her face, but she could clearly see Astin locked inside a steel cage.

An iron chain bound his neck, and his tightly fitted muzzle was caked in dried blood. His entire body was covered in horrific injuries—festering flesh and dark scabs everywhere—leaving him slumped on the cold floor like a dying fish.

Only the faint, ragged rise and fall of his chest proved he was still breathing.

A whip cracked sharply in the air, each brutal lash accompanied by a stifled, agonizing groan.

After torturing Astin to the brink of death, the woman tilted her chin up with arrogant contempt. "Look at you now. What a pathetic state. All you had to do was call me ’Master’."

Astin spat out a mouthful of metallic blood. Beneath his sharp brow, his eyes remained piercingly, bone-chillingly cold.

"I would rather die... than be your dog."

The woman let out a sinister, cruel laugh. "Then you can rot in that dog cage for the rest of your life."

She ordered her bodyguards to inject Astin with a lethal dose of radiation serum to tear apart and shatter his spiritual network, recording his writhing, self-mutilating agony as he slammed himself against the walls for her own twisted entertainment.

Astin’s rank plummeted from SSS+ down to SSS.

Above S-rank, even the smallest sub-tier represented a monumental gap in power.

This horror continued until military authorities intervened—deciding that such a formidable killing machine ought to be deployed to District 616 to extract greater value from his existence.